When I was a child not yet in school, I woke up one very bright summer morning and went to jump out of bed. My eyes shot to the floor so I could see and not step on my brother’s toys (habit) when in the farthest part of that spot I saw something filmy, blue and transparent. I froze and my eyes went up slowly-it seemed but probably was faster than I thought, to the face of the see-through woman who was standing in my room. I was up on one elbow frozen in position, astounded at the way I was able to see the room behind her all the way up through her robe. She had long brown hair and a heart shaped face with a small, little smile that broadened when our eyes met and took on a loving quality, which made me feel very warm and happy. Then she faded away.

My room faced east and on those bright summer mornings the sun poured in through that window so this wasn't an apparition in the dark. I had been lying there looking at the blood vessels in my eyelids because the bright light made this possible. I had been awake for a while before this happened. The reason I was getting up now was I could hear my mother in the kitchen and smelled the breakfast she was cooking and also I really had to pee!

I didn't leave the room immediately; I hoped she would fade back in. Finally I scooted to the foot of my bed because I didn't want to step in the spot she had occupied because I wasn't completely sure she wasn't still there. I hurried to the bathroom and then down the hall to tell my mother what had happened. She scoffed badly and it really seemed to irritate her that I insisted it really happened.

You see my mother and family were/are Atheists. I never even thought of The Virgin Mary because I didn't know she existed. Today some one would say, "Well you saw it on TV." This would have been around 1957 or 1958. Television was so horrible back then, especially in the western United States. It was black and white and so grainy. Everything was broadcast from New York and relay towers didn't exist or weren't as we know them today. Most of the time you could barely make out what was on the screen. It wouldn't be from anything I saw there.

Since then I have had other things happen-many years apart-and I am now a Christian. My question is if this was Mary why would she have had no head covering? Did women always wear these things? even just to visit a little Atheist girl in her bedroom?

-- Robyn Cain (adaire@aros.net), January 20, 2004

Answers

How fascinating!

I do believe that most women of that time wore head coverings, but I suppose we don't really KNOW if Mary did, because there are no portraits by anyone who actually knew her.

-- AVC (littleflower1976@yahoo.com), January 20, 2004.

"Decent" women of that time (in the Jewish culture) were expected to wear a veil in public, to cover their hair.

"Every man who has something on his head while praying or prophesying disgraces his head. But every woman who has her head uncovered while praying or prophesying disgraces her head, for she is one and the same as the woman whose head is shaved. For if a woman does not cover her head, let her also have her hair cut off; but if it is disgraceful for a woman to have her hair cut off or her head shaved, let her cover her head. (1 Corinthians 11:4-6)

-- Paul M. (PaulCyp@cox.net), January 20, 2004.

Well, just a theory, but...maybe she just didnt want to wear a head covering. Besides, it wasnt in public.

-- ZAROVE (ZAROFF3@JUNO.COM), January 25, 2004.

Even though a Jewish woman is, by the law, allowed to remove her headcovering in private it is not considered to be proper. A G'd fearing married woman keeps herself always covered, even in front of her own husband and children. Some keep the cover on at night as well. It is said of Kimchit that she deserved to see all her sons as High Priests because even the walls of her house never saw her hair uncovered.

-- Tamar Gordon (gordonyt@yahoo.co.uk), February 12, 2004.