True Joy

               This morning I saw true joy on the face of an acquaintance from my parish.  I first met this young man at a party in December for members of the Men’s Group at church along with their spouses or significant others.  He came alone, perhaps desiring to have the Christian companionship.  As I spoke with him, he seemed rather reticent and quiet.  We talked about faith, and I spoke of my vocation as a lay Dominican. He was seeking meaning and direction for his life. In the following weeks, I would see him occasionally around the parish.

               In mid-Winter, I saw him at the Dominican House of Studies.  He was attending a vocation event for men who are considering the priesthood.  I certainly gave him credit for seeking God’s will, but he looked out of place to me.  I was not surprised to see that he was not among the Dominican novice candidates for the coming year, but wondered about his journey.

               I had not seen him in the parish for months and just last week wondered what had happened to him.  The Washington DC area is so transient, many times young men and women are here for a year or three and then they disappear, some going back home and others onto another adventure. 

               I was sitting in the church parking lot this morning after mass, waiting for the torrential rain to end so I could exchange something with a friend.  I saw this young man greet another man outside the church with a hug and then he introduced a young women.  From a distance, I had to look twice to recognize him.  His smile made his face glow, his posture was straighter than I remembered and he had a confidence that was new to me.

               As the rain let up, I ran to the church and exchanged the item with my friend.  On the way out, the young woman was extending her left had to someone.  I didn’t want to interrupt, and just waved and was delighted to see true joy on his face.  My acquaintance is newly engaged.  He and his faithful Catholic fiancé had come to church to meet with the priest to begin preparation for marriage.

               It is my prayer that their preparation will not be for the day they exchange their vows, but for a lifetime relationship lived in communion with our Lord.  I had been married for more than a decade before I truly understood the peace and beauty of a sacramental marriage.  It is my hope that this man and woman have a sacrament marriage from the very beginning.

               It is how it is meant to be from Matthew 19:5, 'That is why a man will leave his father and mother and be united with his wife, and the two will become one flesh'.  May today’s joy be present throughout their life time together!

The Lost Wedding Ring

               A few weeks ago, my husband sat down next to me on the couch and said those words that can strike fear in the heart of a spouse.  He said, “I need to talk to you about something.”  When either of us has had something important, intimate or controversial to discuss, we have used a similar phrase.  My reaction to the phrase most likely goes back to my dating days, when it was followed by words to the effect of “you are a very nice girl, but . . .” and the relationship was over.

              

               This time the phrase was followed by, “I can’t find my wedding ring.”  I could tell how awful he felt about it.  He remembered being in church and knocking the ring against the pew on a Thursday night and then when he was driving on Friday; the ring wasn’t on his finger. So the timeframe when he lost it and the places he traveled led both of us to believe it was somewhere in the house.  I let him know that the ring is only a symbol and that it would turn up. 

               

                 Quiet frankly, in the business of the fall activities, I forgot about our conversation, only to be reminded when I ran across my husband dumping the paper recycling out on the garage floor to go through it before it went to the curb for pickup, or when he spent an entire day cleaning out his closet to, unsuccessfully, look for it.

               

                 For me, it is not the ring that binds us together as husband and wife, but our vows before God, that covenant that makes us one.  And after 18 years of marriage, it is certainly not the ring that keeps us together, but the willingness to love each other by giving out entire selves.  At one point when we were in conversation, I let him know that if the ring was not found, we would pick out another one and have it blessed by our Pastor.  In the whole realm of the stresses of life, I didn’t want him to worry about a piece of gold.  Especially since one of the reasons he lost the ring is that he has lost 40 pounds in the past few months and his finger is now thinner.

              

                 Last Friday, I received an email that said that the ring was found.  My son was going through his Scouting backpack, preparing for another camping trip and at the bottom of the bag, he found my husband’s ring (and $16 in cash that he didn’t know he had)!  I could feel the elation and relief that my husband was experiencing as I read the message.

               

               And so the ring is found!  But even better is the knowledge that our marriage is built on solid ground, not on all of the trimmings of our wedding day.  I am thankful for this experience and asked him to go get the ring sized this week, so we wouldn’t have to experience it again!

A well lived life!

               My husband and I had planned to go on a date on Saturday.  With his travel schedule for work and our son’s baseball schedule, I felt like I hadn’t spent any significant time with him in weeks.  We planned to go out to dinner while our son spent time with friends.

                Providence had other plans.  Rather than going to dinner, we spent several hours driving to Richmond to attend the memorial service and wake of a friend.  My husband Dave worked with Cecil for several years in the 1990’s. Cecil was a mentor for my husband.  I became friend with Cecil and his wife Mary though various family-work functions and they came to our wedding.  When they retired, we visited their Richmond home a few times.  In mid-April it was apparent that he didn’t have much time left and Dave drove on a Sunday afternoon to Richmond to see him one last time.

                Much to the surprise of Mary, Cecil’s wife, he was lucid and in great spirits.  He was delighted to see my husband and they had a great visit.  Hours later he slipped into a coma and he left this world on Wednesday.  He was husband, father, Methodist minister, Navy chaplain, Goodwill executive and spent the last years of “retirement” as the Executive Director of the Chaplain Service Prison Ministry in Virginia.  His alter ego was “Mac the Great”, a magician that would entertain the young and old alike. 

                Cecil’s Methodist memorial service, which he planned, was nearly two hours long! Family, friends and colleagues paid tribute to him.  Many of them ended their comments with one of his favorite jokes.

                He and Mary lived modestly.  Their marriage of 58 years was truly a love story. They travelled some, mainly to see family or former colleagues.  Their retirement of 17 years was in service to others. (She was his unpaid secretary-partner with the prison ministry.)  He was well loved because he loved others so well.  Who knows how many lives he touched for the better?

                As I sat at the memorial service, my thought was, “What a well lived life!”  I am a better person for having known him.  Sharing this experience with my husband was far better than just going out to dinner.  It gave us a chance to reminisce about Cecil and to think out loud about what we envision for our retirement.  God Bless you Cecil!

                I wonder if Cecil greeted St. Peter with one of his favorite jokes, or a magic trick!

For Better or For Worse

Three weeks ago today, my husband walked me down the hall from his father’s hospice room to the elevator.  I had brought his mom to the hospital in the morning and spent a good part of the day with the two of them.  His dad was in renal failure and we knew his time on earth was short.  My husband was spending the night in his dad’s room and then I would take the early shift on Friday morning.

We walked the hushed hall as we watched health care professionals moving quietly from room to room taking care of their patients, sometimes speaking quietly to family members.  We whispered about what the afternoon and evening would bring. Would our 14-year-old son want to come visit his grandfather again, or would he want to remember his last handshake and smile from his granddad two days ago?  We needed to know if his mom wanted to see his dad before his body was taken to the funeral home if he died without her in the hospital.  Who did we need to call to give an update on his father’s condition? The list seemed to go on and on.

We reached the elevator and my husband gave me a huge hug and kiss.  He thanked me for all that I have done for his family as he hugged me tightly. I kissed him again and he headed down the hallway.  Before he took his third step, I called his name, shrugged and said, “For better or worse, right?”

How those words have echoed in my mind in the past three weeks.  The quiet of waiting for dad to pass was like a restful respite that turned into a flurry of activity after his father died less than a day after that conversation.  Calling friends and relatives to let them know that this great man had passed into his eternal rest, making final funeral arrangements, confirming with family and friends their travel arrangements,   cleaning house and finding time to grieve filled ours days immediately after his death.

My husband and I seemed to spend little time together, we divided the duties, and each helped to take care of his mom, brothers, uncles and our son.  The funeral mass was a needed time to pray and heal. The wake was a great time of celebration of a well-lived life.

Since that day, I had a serious fall and thought I might have broken a rib, we hosted Dave’s niece and children and showed them the great sites of Washington, Baltimore and Philadelphia, experienced a 5.8 earthquake and sent our son off to high school.

Last night, we finally took some time to sit and talk about all that has happened this month.  As I crawled into bed, I thought, “for better or for worse”, that is what makes our marriage so strong.  Certainly, I did not fully understand those words when I spoke them nearly 17 years ago. I am thankful that we are able to live them each day.