By Michael Patrick O’Brien–
I have many old friends in—and fond memories of—my boyhood hometown of Ogden, Utah. Only one, however, beckons me back there in the dark dead of night. She is a colorful character indeed.
She has a regal but compassionate countenance. Her wardrobe is out of this world. She wears a golden crown and sports a robe of yellow, green, and white, trimmed with various shades of turquoise, purple, and pink.
When I see her she always waves, even while tenderly holding a red-clad child, and deftly restraining a sinister, slithering gray snake coiled under her bare foot. My affection for her is such that branches of red light seem to emanate from her core. To my eyes, multiple shades of soft blue sky surround her, ready to cushion her every movement.
Like me, she was born in the 1960s. When she was young, an artist named George D. Merrill from Los Angeles formed, tended to, and cared for her. Her equally colorful Merrill sisters and cousins grace temples, churches, museums, community centers, and synagogues.
I was a young boy when I first met her, and spent ten years visiting, watching, and studying her, from both far and near. She never said a word, but she spoke to me in so many ways, always in the calming dialect of a mother. She even interceded once and probably saved my life, but that’s a whole ‘nother story.
During our early years together, she resided in nearby Huntsville, in the picturesque Ogden Valley, watching carefully over a group of kind old Trappist monks who sang to her seven or eight times a day. But over time they grew old, and moved away or on to Heaven, and she had to find another residence, a new holy family to nourish.
So she packed up and moved about 15 miles west, to the more urban South Ogden area near where I grew up. Her newly adopted friends built, and then gently tucked her into, a cozy home in a corner of their sanctuary. Her small but much more modern space features a tall and clear picture window.
From there, my old friend can survey the sloping benches and arid valleys of Northern Utah and the marshlands of the Great Salt Lake. She can gaze at the pronghorn, bighorn sheep, American bison, porcupine, badger, coyote, bobcat, mule deer, and waterfowl who make their homes on the lake’s Antelope Island.
She radiates love all day long, but is at her most brilliant when night falls. I often find myself driving north, in darkness, from my Salt Lake City home, on roads that skirt the edge of tall mountains, just so I can see her once more.
As I draw near, and turn the corner onto the street where she now lives, my heart races and then skips a beat or two. I hold my breath until she comes into view, and when I see her, slowly release my pent-up air. The resulting exhalation purges the accumulated stress and anguish of my hectic day.
It is an inexplicable delight to connect again with someone with whom you have good history. I stand, walk, and sit, talk to her, recall our times together, thank her for her past help, ask for guidance, and sometimes take her photo. Then it’s time to go home.
She glows on, undiminished by my departure—a free, simple, and steady beacon of hope and beauty for anyone who cares to bask in it. As I drive away, in the private sanctuary of my car, I start to chant as did her other old friends, the monks. It is a love song, another sweet remnant from my childhood…
Hail, Holy Queen enthroned above, O Maria!
Hail, Mother of mercy and of love, O Maria!
Triumph all ye cherubim!
Sing with us ye seraphim!
Heaven and earth resound the hymn!
Salve, salve, salve, Regina!
*Mike O’Brien is a writer and attorney living in Salt Lake City, Utah. He is writing a book about growing up with the monks at the old Trappist monastery in Huntsville, Utah. This article was first published on May 8, 2020 in the Intermountain Catholic.
