Decade

In previous blog posts I allude to struggles in my faith life such as my inability, yet desire, to hear God speaking to me. The Old Testament has dozens of stories of prophets who audibly heard the voice of God. Just last week the first reading in the mass was 1 Samuel 3, the story of God calling Samuel in a voice as if he was standing in the next room waiting on an answer. I’ve also heard stories of some people in this current time who see the physical body of Christ on the altar during the consecration. And let’s not forget the stigmatic Saint Padre Pio, who bore the physical wounds of Christ’s crucifixion. I have experienced none of these things, but I am learning, very slowly and a bit begrudgingly, that I do hear God’s voice in a more subtle way. It usually comes in the form of being awakened in the earliest morning hours asking me to take dictation. Earlier this week it was in the midnight hour that my eyes popped open in a full body sweat from a steroid shot I had the day before. It was 25 degrees outside and I was experiencing the heat wave from July. After extricating myself from my blanket cocoon the words started flowing in my mind. I know these experience must be the voice of the Holy Spirit because the words are given to me in a way I would never speak with my own voice. I wanted to block it and go back to sleep, but in an attempt to be obedient I trudged out of bed and tried to recall every word He told me to tell about St. Fabian Catholic Church.

 

Ten years ago today I wrote a blog post where I mention attending the inaugural mass at a brand new parish formed in my community. You can read it here if you can bear to muddle through my other odd musings of the day. Ironically, I also mention some dental work, not realizing at the time that the parish only exists because of a generous donation of land from my childhood dentist, Dr. Richard Fabian McCarthy.  That man did so much dental work on me I feel like I am truly invested financially in the church as well as spiritually.  It was Dr. McCarthy’s wish that a church be built on the land and it be named St. Fabian as a tribute to his namesake, Sister Fabian whose namesake was St. Fabian, a third century pope with an interesting story I don’t have room to tell.

Ten years ago I was in a difficult place spiritually. Life and familial circumstances generated lies that I allowed to become my truths. Leading us off path is Satan’s greatest talent, so tread carefully when doubt begins to trouble your soul. I knew I needed and wanted to return to mass, so I stepped out of my comfort zone and attended the first St. Fabian mass that was held in the Lake Serene community’s club house. The priest/pastor was and still is Fr. Tommy Conway, a charismatic Irishman who can lead the proverbial horse to water and make it drink. I’ve known Fr. Tommy since his first years in the priesthood at Sacred Heart when he officiated my wedding. Where Fr. Tommy goes people follow, which is why there were no empty seats and I had to stand for the entire mass in front of the kitchen serving area of the community center. I was reminded of my earlier years getting to mass at St. Thomas five minutes late and having to stand in the back next to the restrooms that had the loudest doors on the planet.

It wasn’t long into the mass when I began to feel something different in the air. The lies that had become my truths began to fade and a new hope sparked in me. The real Way, Truth, and Life was present to me that night giving me a sense of belonging I have never felt in a church before. I knew it was up to me to make the feeling a reality. Jesus will show you the path but if you refuse to follow it you will never get to where He is leading you to go.

St. Fabian Way is more than just the address of the property left to the church by Dr. McCarthy. It is a feeling. I’ve never known Catholics who speak so confidently of their faith like they do at St. Fabian. But then again, I’ve never allowed myself to meet many people in a church. Those first years of one mass a week in a borrowed school gymnasium lent an air of closeness that bound you to get to know the people who sat around you. 

Ten years later we have our own building and although we have more space and have grown into two weekend masses I still get that feeling of home when I walk through the doors. This would not be the case had I not stepped out of my comfort zone and attended mass on a random Monday night. 

Congratulations, St. Fabian parish, for ten years of service to God and to the community as a whole.  I pray you are still here and standing strong in ten times ten years.

Delight

My mother-in-law, Dora Minnie Watson Shoemake Pugh, passed to her new life earlier this week. The family wanted to write something more than the standard preceded and survived jargon, so my niece took on the task. I tried to help her come up with a few words to define Dora’s legacy, but too much and not enough came to mind.  As usual, it finally came to me last night in the time between awake and sleep, too late to contribute to the eulogy that was prepared to be delivered today. So here’s my version.

 

Dora’s legacy in a single word is Delight. 

 

I’ve never known anyone else like her who could find Delight in the mundane. She would never let me pick up after my children’s playtime at her house because she said she enjoyed picking up the toys later and remembering the moments the children played with them. She was at every grandchild’s special event, encouraging and congratulating them on their performance but truly enjoying every moment. 

 

She taught me to find Delight in birds.  She loved them, especially indigo buntings. They were ours. I could give her a chair and a bag of stale bread to feed the chickens and she would delicately sprinkle the crumbs to call them to her, crooning to them like they were children.

 

“Yes, yes,” she would say with fervor to anything that was good or beautiful. I often wondered where she went in her mind during those Delightful times because it must have been the most magical place. Yes, yes! It was Delight.

 

As far as mothers-in-law go, I hit the jackpot. No treasure on earth compares in value to her acceptance of me. She welcomed me to her family from the very beginning. She knew me before I knew her, after all. She uplifted and blessed our marriage in all ways, never intruding. Many times, when she was at my house she would slowly look around and take in everything and then tell me what a wonderful home we had and how comfortable she was there. I think my house could be a tent in a parking lot and she would have felt the same way. She found Delight where she wanted to find it.  She sought it out. 

 

Dora was the epitome of Psalms 37:4, “Delight yourself also in the LORD, And He shall give you the desires of your heart.”  Her physical body will be placed in its final place of rest today, but her spirit soared even before she took her last breath. She’s finally free to find true Delight in heaven. 

 

If her life has impressed anything upon me, it is to seek out Delight in my own. I cannot let that gift go unopened. To do so would be such a disservice to her legacy. 

 

Dora, if you are reading this over my shoulder, and I hope you are, pray for me and your family that we can seek Delight in our own lives. It must be such a magical place because you are there.

 

 

 

 

 

Kangaroo and Coyote

A few weeks ago, my husband told me his young coworker was getting married and really wanted him to come to the wedding.  He did not want to buy a suit, but the young coworker assured him it was not a dressy wedding, so he relented.  I also do not have many dress clothes because, well, I don’t need them, but luckily, I recently bought a little black dress quite cheap, and it looked decent on me.  So, I agreed to go as well.

 

The wedding was last night.  I gave a true effort to spruce up for the event.  I rolled the thickest part my hair with hot rollers the right way by portioning it out and mixing the large and small rollers in a way to get the most wave.  I took the top, thinner layer and used a curling iron so that the hair closest to my face would fall in wispy coils. 

 

On the daily I use minimal make-up, but last night I went full face - moisturizer, primer, foundation, blush and bronzer.  I filled in my brows so you could see I have some, and I used not one, not two, but three shades of eye shadow and two shades of eye liner!  Not to mention the lip liner and lipstick.  I participated. I had it going on.

 

When it came to my clothing, I wore the new sleeveless, eyelet LBD.  This is a huge step-out for me because I abide by the no Public Display of Upper Arms rule.  But I wore it anyway because I had it going on.  I was going to wear my black, Kohls, fake Birkenstock slide sandals, but no, I opted for my blush-colored perforated leather shootie wedges to harken back to the eyelet in my dress.  To top it off I wore my inheritance diamond earrings and my favorite moon and star gold necklace, and carried a black velvet clutch with colorful embroidery and green tassel zipper pull a Chinese student gifted me years ago. 

 

I was ready.  I prepped the car with my “If I Get Sick” kit, my “If I Get Cold” shawl. Husband added his “If We Get Thirsty or Need a Snack” cooler and we were off on the one hour and 29-minute ride to the venue.  I snapped a fun picture for Facebook and the comments were, “effervescent”, “sparkly”, and the like.  I would take a more serious selfie of us at the wedding to prove we really had it going on.

 

The ride down was mostly uneventful except for the kangaroo we passed who was sound asleep on his back showing all his business.  I was sure he was dead because why would he be out in the broad daylight flat on his back showing the world his business? A quick Google search confirmed kangaroos do indeed sleep on their back and offered me a slideshow of 87 pictures of specifically male kangaroos sleeping.  I declined, one in person was enough.

 

We reached the barn-style venue in plenty of time to see the end of the first look photo shoot and stand around awkwardly with people we did not know until it was time to take a seat.   The groom came up and thanked us for coming, and my husband got to compliment the bride and shake hands with the groom’s dad and a couple of other co-workers so the “we saw and were seen” obligation was fully met.  

 

The wedding took place outside under an ancient oak with a backdrop of a green sea of a soybean field.  I chose a seat on the back row  towards the shadiest spot under the oak.  A few minutes before the seating music started the people in front of us turned to see what was going on behind us.  Curious, I turned to see one of the grandfathers laying on the paved patio right outside of the barn.  There was a crowd of people standing around him, so I knew he did not need my help.  I turned away in respect and said a little prayer.  A few minutes later he walked down the aisle, so I knew he was fine.  Although it was Mississippi July Hot the slightest spit of rain fell and brought a little cool with it to make it all fine.  It was a peaceful and lovely ceremony.  

 

After the vows we made our way inside the back door of the barn. I took caution in stepping up into the building, remembering Grandpa on the ground.  See, there was a bit of a step up, not even a step really, it’s just that the foundation for the barn was built up just a few inches higher than the foundation of the adjoining patio.  Once inside I made a beeline to the drinks and poured myself a cup ¾ full of water and topped it off with sweet tea.  In the food line I questioned my decision to get my drink first because I had a hard time toggling my drink with my plate and wondering how I was going to make that work.  Spilling a barbeque dinner on my LBD was not in my plans.  With my plate, drink, napkin and golden fork in hand I gave a quick scan of the tastefully decorated dining room and estimated there were not enough seats for the number of people in the room and my social anxieties and dread of small talk were too strong to sit at a cramped table with someone I didn’t know. And then there’s COVID.  So, with my hands full I turned to my husband and said we should go outside.  He asked if there were tables out there and I said yes, there were tables we could stand at, and I had one in my line of sight.

 

Then. Remember Grandpa on the pavement?  Remember that step/not a step?  Remember those Roadrunner cartoons where the Roadrunner would run off a cliff and Wile E. Coyote would follow and then he would sort of hang in the air for a few seconds before he would drop like a rock?  Yep. One second I was carrying a barbecue dinner and a glass of watered-down sweet tea, eyeing an outside table that would save me from COVID and small talk, and the next second I was Wile E. Grandpa saying a cuss word and pulling my LBD down so no one would see the kangaroo lying on its back in the broad daylight.

 

Thankfully, my husband was right behind me and helped me up, but not before a crowd gathered to ask the obligatory “Are you alrights?” and hand me a napkin with lipstick on it to dry my wet, formerly wispy coils, and scrape my barbecue dinner off the pavement and hand it back to me.

 

I said I was fine and smiled with my eyes closed to make it not a lie. I wasn’t fine.  I turned to my husband and said, “You know we are leaving right this minute, don’t you?” and we turned and walked away like we were guilty of setting fire to the place, and forsook our duties to congratulate the bride and groom and compliment her dress and choice of color scheme.

 

At the car I confessed to my bruised and skinned knee and ankle bone and sulked for quite a while.  I finally whined that I was hungry, so he offered to stop at Cracker Barrel.  My favorite aunt, Mary, used to call Cracker Barrel the Cabbage Patch so in her honor I will as well from this point out.  I really didn’t want to go to the Cabbage Patch, but I had a hurt knee and ankle bone and my coils that were once wispy were now crunchy from that ¼ sweet tea and I was hungry.  I really wanted to drive an hour to my favorite restaurant and drink a refreshing drink with gin in it and eat hot, fresh truffle potato chips topped with parmesan cheese and green onions.  But I didn’t want to drive that far with my angry knee, and I didn’t want to limp into a white tablecloth establishment with crunchy hair even if I did have on three shades of eyeshadow and an LBD that miraculously did not get a speck of barbecue dinner on it.

 

We did go to Cabbage Patch and ate a delightful fried chicken dinner, and I didn’t get sick, not even a little.  Husband also treated to me to a side trip to Marshalls where I limped around and partook of some retail therapy that did not ease the pain of my injuries but did help me forget about the indignity of it all.  Until now.  

 

Moral of the story? Don’t let your social anxieties and fear of small talk and COVID rule your life, or you’ll end up on the pavement like a sleeping kangaroo. Oh, and for all that is holy, watch your step!

 

1/11/22

 

My first glimpse on this new year of life was a crystal clear sky speckled with stars.  I stood in the driveway, looking up, and breathed in the cold, crisp air as I watched two satellites glide through the sky and listened to a faraway coyote giving up one last howl before dawn.  Another year, another day to celebrate the day I was born.  

 

I awoke this morning with a thankful heart. Thank you, God, for giving me a chance at life.  I am sorry I have not lived it to its fullest potential, but I try.  I measure it by the day, not by the year. It has had its joyful days, sorrowful days, peaceful days, regretful days, and amazing days.  Each one a lifetime lived.  Each one a new chance to do it better.

 

Thank you Mama and Daddy for accepting me into your already too big family and crowded house.  You had six children, a recent miscarriage, three bedrooms (not counting the mother-in-law rooms), two full-time jobs and one bathroom yet you brought me into this world and made room for me.  That couldn’t have been easy, yet you made sure I never knew any different. 

 

Until about five minutes ago I used to hate having a birthday so soon after Christmas and the new year.  The new year begins and boom, birthday.  There’s nothing to look forward to for the rest of the year.  Today I see it differently.  I’ve always liked the month of January.  I like the way the word looks on paper.  I like the fickle weather and the assortment of birds it brings to feed on the abundant sunflower seeds my husband provides for them daily. I like the look of the sky viewed through leafless trees and how the green that is left is more vivid by contrast.  I like the chore of redecorating my house after the holidays.  It gives me a reason to change things up and bring out old things and display them in a new way. I like the feeling January brings of a new chance to do right, whatever needs to be rightly done. And this year I especially like the rhythm of the numbers 1/11/22. I’ll have it, yes, please and thank you.

 

I had a distant cousin who didn’t believe in getting presents for his birthday.  He believed if there were presents to be shared he should be the one to give them.  So my gift to you is advice. Embrace your age.  Every year that passes is a gift.  Don’t dread the number that changes when the calendar falls on your birthday.  Sure, it gets higher but with every flip of digits you have life.  The wrinkles are going to come, the hair is going gray, glasses happen.  You can fight all you want to preserve the outside package, but it won’t stop the earth from its elliptical orbit around the sun.  It’s what you tend in your heart and in your dreams that keeps you ageless.  Goodness breeds abundance, evil multiplies destruction. (This last sentence doesn’t really go with what I’m saying, but no matter how many times I’ve deleted it I feel compelled to put it back.  It must be important.  You’re welcome.)

 

One more thing as far as birthdays go.  I’ve had my share of disappointments that are no one’s fault but my own. Regardless of what you may think, you are responsible for your own happiness.  If you want your birthday to be a special day then do something that will make it special to you.  For me, I’m going to dress like the 20 year-old I am in my heart.  I’m just happy, and thankful, that I’ve got another one to add to the tally. 

A night not to remember

This past week brought bad news to two friends.  One has a father fighting for his life, and one has a father who succumbed to COVID in a far-away land.  When I hear this kind of news I try to think of something to say to my friend that would be meaningful yet unpretentious.  At the same time I know what I say will not matter as long as it is from the heart.  My sentiment might be remembered, but the words will be lost to the ravages of grief.

 

I’ve written often of my sister, Barbara’s death, probably because of the affect it had on me.  My mind would not allow me to accept the fact that My sister, My family, mother of two small children, could die at the age of 42. It was unfathomable.  A tragedy such as this did not happen in my family. Until it did.

 

Her death was my first experience of losing a close family member.  She had been sick for a few months, but her illness had been sudden and the circumstances unreal.  Whenever I am faced with offering condolences to a friend I am brought back to the night of her wake.  There are some images that stand out amid the blur of the evening. To say the funeral home was crowded is an understatement. Barbara had many friends and coworkers who came out to pay their respects. Our extended family is large and at that time most of the aunts and uncles were still alive so just the family was enough to fill the funeral home to fire code. Then, all my siblings and I had friends and coworkers who came to support us. The place was packed.  It was like being in a ballroom with couples waltzing all around me, bumping into me because I was interrupting the flow. Yes, a swirling, dizzying waltz and anything more than three feet from me was blurred, like bokeh.  Occasionally a face would come into my circle of focus to speak to me or hug my neck.  I remember two people in particular who put their arms around me and spoke the kindest words I ever heard. Words that gave me peace and lifted me from the sinking mire of grief. Their eyes held mine; their hands a gentle touch. What were those words? I have absolutely no idea. I don’t think I could have repeated them five minutes after they were said. What mattered at the moment, and even now, is that they were said, and they were genuine. This is what I pray for my friends who are going through this right now. I pray they are given the same sentiments that will outlast the grief.

 

Then there was the image of my brother, the one who followed her as a child and she watched over always.  In those days he was fighting some private demons, and I wasn’t sure he would even come to the funeral home. I remember seeing him in the doorway, like a timid deer standing there taking note of the exits. I’m sure he was surrounded by other people, but in my mind there was a spotlight shining on his entrance into the ballroom and he was hoping not to be asked to dance.

 

Then there was one more thing I recall with clarity.  With so many people gathered the din of conversation drowned out the piped-in, churchy elevator music the funeral home played on a loop.  At some point the music got louder, or the crowd turned quiet. So quiet. In what felt like slow motion I turned to see why no one was saying a word, barely even breathing. Then I saw her. My tiny, barely seven-year-old niece, oblivious to eyes upon her, was leaning as far in the casket as she could muster, tending to her mother. Patting, petting, fixing, loving.  Churchy elevator music played loudly on a loop and all eyes watched as she patted, petted, fixed, and loved.  I don’t know who or what broke the spell, but it signaled the end of the evening. The mourners left the floor. The waltz was over.  Fade to black.

 

 

Change

My home is set on a 30-acre plot surrounded on two sides by hundreds of acres of forest.  The woods are dark and thick with mystery and cool shade.  It’s a place where chickens go and disappear in silence.  In the mornings I can sit at my breakfast table and watch the squirrels commute from the depths of the trees to their daily jobs of pillaging birdseed and chicken feed from my backyard.  The buffer the woods create makes me feel safe from the outside world when the outside world seems to be falling into chaos.  That is, until everything changed.

 

Several weeks ago, I could hear them at a distance. Then one morning the grinding sound was closer, and I could see the trees shaking.  The Langoliers were invading. Actually, these invaders weren’t aliens from another dimension, but professional tree harvesters clear cutting my precious forest.  Well, not my forest in title, but I had claimed it in spirit.  The mystery was disappearing with every felled tree.  I have too much of my daddy in me to take it lightly.  He never wanted a single tree cut or even azalea bush trimmed.  Let it go and grow was his unspoken motto.  The next day I left town for a week and when I returned the deed was done.

 

Now, instead of dark woods with mystery and cool shade there is barren land covered with toppled trees too small to market.  Now, when I open my eyes in the morning I don’t see a thick green canopy, I see light and sky.  The sight of it made me sad and angry.  Does no one care about preserving nature?  Does no one care about the displaced wildlife?  What about my feelings, don't they matter?  I wanted to find the owner and give him a piece of my mind.  But what good would it do me?  It’s not my land.  He didn’t steal anything from me except my peace of mind.

 

It’s been a little over two weeks now and I am adjusting to the change. I’m not thrilled with it, but I am adjusting.  With the trees gone I can see the forest.  There’s an impressive hill I didn’t know was there, and for the first time in 14 years I can see the sun set atop it.  There are still a few hardwood trees dotted here and there displaying their autumn glory to my enjoyment.  If I were a landscape architect I would say the land has good bones.  And next spring, all those nuts that squirrels have buried over the years will germinate and new trees will grow. They will be stronger because they have space and unobstructed sunlight to feed them.  It will only a take a few years for the land to be lush again.

 

My point is change is hard, especially when we feel it is out of our control. The key to accepting change is to make the change be for the good.  Change clears the clutter, or the forest in my case, and allows us to see more clearly.  Upon the barren land we can watch the colors of the sunset and the light will reveal what once was in darkness.  The bones remain for solid structure and new growth makes us stronger.  My forest will never be the same as it was, but it will grow again.  Unless a subdivision goes up, and then I’m screwed.

 

 

 

 

Cross

Have you ever known someone, or known of them, who emit an inner light that shines through even the most adverse conditions?  I have, several in fact.  Sadly, one of those lights faded this past Sunday.  It shon through a young man from my church.  I can’t say I knew Ryan, but I felt I knew him.  I remember him when he was a small child at my former church.  In those days he his muscular dystrophy had not yet settled him in a wheelchair, but you could see it was working on him.  Many years later when I joined my current church, a new parish in the diocese, his family joined as well.  As church habits tend to go, we each had our own sections, and I usually faced him from my seat in my section.  So many times I watched him, not in a creepy way, but in a Guardian Angel way, not that I’m calling myself an angel by any means.  I just watched him to see how he was doing. I felt ready to leap to action if action was needed.  In reality I would probably run at the first sign of trouble, a weakness of my character.  And in reality my help was never needed.  His mom had it covered.  She instinctively knew when to adjust his position, when to move his head to make him more comfortable. So many times in my watch I prayed for him.  You could say I prayed over him from a distance.  I prayed for a miraculous healing and envisioned him rising from his wheelchair and walking to communion.  I prayed for strength and patience for his parents who I know were much stronger than I, but still needed every prayer that headed their way.  

 

A couple of years ago I was watching again at our Good Friday service.  This is the day when we have a Veneration of the Cross observance and those who desire may walk to the altar to touch or kiss the cross in reverence for Christ’s passion.  When it was Ryan’s row’s turn to process to the altar Ryan took off at breakneck speed, or at least as fast as his chair could go, and made a beeline to the cross.  When his mom caught up with him she lifted his hand and placed it on the cool wood.  I lost it.  Here was a young man who couldn’t even lift his own hand, who had such a love for Jesus and his Catholic faith that no disability was going to keep him from that cross!  In contrast, my own perfectly able-bodied sons probably didn’t even know it was Good Friday.  The beauty of Ryan’s faith, and the irony of everything hit me hard that night, and I had to slip off to the restroom to dry the tears and compose myself. 

 

The miraculous healing I prayed for never came to fruition.  My plans were not God’s as so often is the case.  Ryan passed this life on Sunday still unable to walk or lift his own hand.  There are some people in this life that I believe have an inside track to heaven without even having to ask.  I believe Ryan was one of those blessed people.  I’ve seen hundreds of photos of his smiling face on Facebook in the last few days. Those how knew him best will surely remember him that way.  For me, I choose to remember the image of him on that Good Friday night, his hand on the cross, his mother’s hand on his.