Shortly after her death, Mother Teresa appeared
in a cinnamon bun in Nashville, Tennessee.
She looked serious, perturbed even, as though
this epiphany were an inconvenience.

Once, in the nineties, when statues of the Virgin
were crying all over Ireland, one in Donegal
did not get the memo. A sign hung around
its neck announcing: This Holy Mother Out of Order.

I found myself, two years after Mom died,
in the second pew from the front in a dark,
empty chapel. I looked up at the six-foot-tall
wooden Jesus, votive candles at his feet,

and I could see a tear falling over and over
down his right cheek, a trick of light and
shadow — but somehow, in that moment,
I knew they were for me, those tears.