An Altar to St.Medard
/A Cajun Tale, a praise to St.Medard, and the power of a woman to sway her husband, a woman who believed in the power of the saints.
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Norman Taylor lived atop the only hill on L’anse Gaieté. There he planted himself years ago. His wife Thérèse, lived there with him. Norman’s wife was petrified of high water flooding. She kept a boat at the ready tethered to the back porch in the bayou. If the bayou rose to new heights, evenly leveled, with the back porch, she would strap herself into the boat with a bright orange life jacket.
Norman was flummoxed, he thought that his wife was insane with drowning. This was Louisiana, they lived atop the only hill on this area of the prairie, and it had never, ever flooded, but Thérèse imagined there was always a first.
And then one day during the St. Medard festival, June eighth, it rained torrentially. Thérèse knew what that meant; it would continue to rain for forty days and forty nights. She said, “Norman, batten down the hatches, secure the house, we’re in flood mode. Re-anchor the boat so that we can be tethered to the house in a three hundred degree circle.”
She made Norman build a chain link around the house with a chain tethered to the boat. That way the boat could sort of float around the house.
Thérèse thinking fearfully, erratically, suggested, “Norman, create a buoy to move the chain up and down, in the event the water level would rise and fall.” He realized her panicky fear, tried to allay it, but she was spent, spiraling down without any sense of reality. It frightened Norman.
Thérèse was a devout Catholic. St. Medard’s rain was a warning of what would be falling from the skies for forty days and nights, perpetual rain for forty days and nights; similar to the flood during Noah’s days.
Tornade, mes chiens, Norman said, “ Next she’ll have me bringing in all the Cajun prairie animals two by two! he exclaimed.
And it rained until the tethered boat was at the same level of the porch bordering the bayou. Thérèse got in the boat, strapped herself in and put on her orange life jacket. Her husband wasn’t ready to abandon the house yet but shortly he would be forced into joining Thérèse in the boat. She had her rosary and was praying to St. Medard. “Please dear St. Medard, close the gates of this watery death, we will all drown, surely that’s not in your plan for our lives.” As she prayed the tethered boat moved around the perimeter of the house hanging on loosely by the chain link. As a woman of great faith Thérèse knew the rains would subside, and they did.
Thérèse vowed to go to mass for forty days as a thank you to St. Medard and to the Almighty God who had saved them from a watery grave. In blessed gratefulness she said, “ Norman, you must make an altar to our loving St. Medard. And as always Norman did what Thérèse directed him to do.
Norman, not a hen-pecked husband, just a loving one.
By Barefoot Cajun
From: United States