Lest I Forget

"Doctrine is well enough for the wise, Jean; but the miracle is something we can hold in our hands and love." - from Death Comes for the Archbishop by Willa Cather. The priest is speaking of the apparition of Our Lady of Guadalupe to Juan Diego. This simple line spoke to me. I recently joined a Catholic Discussion Group on facebook at a friend's suggestion. It is a lovely group of women who are very knowledgable on doctrine and the discussions are most of the time very informative. But I have felt... lesser. I try to fully live my faith each day. It is a struggle for sure. From my view, it seems that others find it more in their nature to be holy, where for me, I desire it, but it seems against my nature. I struggle mightily to align my heart with the Father's will sometimes. I think that is why I am drawn to Our Lady of Guadalupe. She came to Juan Diego, who was a simple man, trying to live a simple, holy life. He was not a learned scholar, nor did he try to b...

I am just wondering. Take, for instance, the seemingly simple task of booking a doctor's appointment for a child. I called this morning, all cheery, and tried to get Therese in to see the doctor, as she has been having frequent nose bleeds. The one yesterday at the pool, during her swimming lesson, lasted almost half an hour. The also cheery voice on the other end told me there were no appointments available, but she would put in a request to our clinic and they should call back within 2-4 hours. Fine. I really think they should just book appointments and not play this game, but fine. So I waited. Seven hours later, and close to the end of the business day, no call back. I called to see what was going on. They tried directly connecting me to the clinic (why didn't we do that this morning?) and once it began to ring, the line disconnected. We tried again. Same result. Apologetically, she offered that if I really felt she needed to be seen immediately, I could go to the ER. No,...

A few weeks ago, we came back to our car after shopping to see that someone had scraped the door while backing out. A nice, long red scrape down the left side of the car. At the time, I thought it looked terrible. In our village, along the sides of the street are little blue poles that mark the walkway for pedestrians. I have mentioned before that there is not enough room for two cars and when two cars meet, one pulls over to allow the other car to get through. Well, I pulled too close today to one of the poles to put it mildly. Now, to go along with the red paint on the left side, now I have a nice blue dent on the right! And I thought it looked bad before! But to keep it all in perspective, no one was hurt (except my pride) and as Tony always refers to the little scrapes and dings, I have added a little more custom detailing to our vehicle. Oops!!

So I decided to knit something for my firstborn who turns 22 tomorrow. Umm...I don't know how that is possible because I really don't feel like I have been around long enough to be the mother of someone in their 20's! It is true enough though. I will try to give a sneak peek without giving anything away. I think the second picture is truer for the colors. I am looking forward to giving it to her in person in about a month if all goes well with our first space-a flight. We have been reading and listening to audio books. At bedtime, I am reading the third "Mysterious Benedict Society" book. The kids have really enjoyed the other two in the series. In the car, we are currently listening to "Nim's Island". I just finished "Killing Lincoln" by Bill O'Reilly. I am about to start Willa Cather's "Death Comes for the Archbishop". That is a lot more reading than we typically get accomplished. We are not reading in bed every...

I experienced one of those rare times that I am alone in the car today. It was so quiet and therefore my mind could focus on the beauty surrounding me as I neared our village. The distant mountains were veiled by a thin, gray, misty fog. Their deep, dark green was still visible and gave them a mystical appearance. Our village, with the clay colored rooftops breaking up the sea of green of the fields and mountains, felt like home. It was a good feeling. Just as I entered our village, the rain began again. The main street is brick and I could see the raindrops splashing upon the street, while several people tried to seek shelter under the awning of the bakery.  I love the quaintness of the village. When I began my morning trip, there was a break in the rain and one old gentleman in particular caught my eye. He was riding his black bicycle down the center of the street, smiling, clearly enjoying the moment, not a care in the world. All the little shops had their doors wide o...

It has been raining steadily for about 48 hours now. No heavy downpours, just a steady, drizzling, cold rain with the sky varying in shades of white and gray. It is July, and the high temperature yesterday was only 56. It most certainly does not feel like the middle of summer! On days like this, I seem to get to pondering things and so I think I will just let these tumble out onto the screen as they come to me. Tony was gone for five days to Latvia and he returned home on Monday. It seems that he will be taking these short trips fairly frequently. I find it hard to adapt to a different schedule for only a few days and then try to return to our 'normal' life over and over. When he is gone, I find I don't feel like cooking full meals even though there is only one less person. We 'snack' for meals, simple things like apples, crackers, salami, and pickles. I end up with more kids in bed with me during the night, even those that don't normally show up. It is good...

It is coming. The time when he will have been gone longer than he was with us and I am overcome. It is the most ordinary things that catch me off guard and send me into a mess of tears and longing for my son. I need to order the new schoolbooks for the kids. And then I remember. I am sitting there packing up his books to send back because he will not use them. He had looked at them and was excited to begin second grade. Second grade. Those are the books I need to order for Jack. Jack, who was a baby when Ben looked at those books.   I found this picture among my holy articles one day not long after Ben died. The boy in the picture is definitely much younger than Ben was, but it is how I imagined our Lord greeting him as we said good-bye. Those words at the bottom? Oh my goodness.  I keep this picture where I can gaze at it and ponder my own gift of life. Am I truly appreciative of all that that means? I try, and I fail. And I try again.