Worried? Put it in the God Box at the Limetree, Limerick

One mum’s way of coping with what life threw at her led her daughter on a voyage of discovery, says Áilín Quinlan

After her mother’s death, Mary Lou Quinlan discovered a treasure trove in her wardrobe. Stacked on a top shelf, the little containers of all shapes and sizes were stuffed with tightly-folded scraps of paper. These were the God Boxes. A devout Catholic, Mary Finlayson had started to fill her first God Box in the 1980’s, after retiring with her husband Ray to Florida. While the move was a dream come true for the couple, the immense distance which now lay between them and their adult children – Mary Lou in New York and her son Jack in Philadelphia – left Finlayson anxious.

One day, after hearing Finlayson worry aloud about her kids, a friend suggested that she make a God Box. “It was a very simple idea. When she had a worry, a wish or a prayer she’d grab a pen and a scrap of paper,” Mary Lou explains. The notes were scribbled everywhere; in supermarket queues, restaurants, hotels, on anything from till-receipts to paper towels. She’d date it and begin the note with “Dear God,” and then explain her concern and make a very simple request. After Mary Finlayson died at the age of 82 in May 2006, a few days after suffering a devastating stroke, Mary Lou found around 10 little boxes in her mother’s closet. Inside the boxes were hundreds of tiny folded-up scraps of paper. “ Each scrap carried a simple prayer : ‘Dear God please help Mary Lou sell her house’ or ‘Dear God, please help Mary Lou not to be so stressed.’”