Three More Sleeps...

Days are passing quickly with lots of company and lots of details.

You know you are loved when offers of help come by the bucketload every day via phone, email and text.  In mourning and in celebration, people really truly step up to the plate.  I hope I can remember to be as kind to others as others have been to me.

I hope I am there for them when they need me most.
Thank you, all the people.

Our darling bride.  She glows and is gracious.
Tomorrow is Rehearsal Day.

Our nails look pretty.

I'd sure like to show them to my mom.

Four Days

It's four days until Mary and Francis' wedding.  Things are remarkably chill around here.
Lots of little errands, but certainly not frantic.
All the major and unbelievable life changes and shifting of the universe and things taken into consideration.
A massive Costco shop stocked the fridges for the incoming bridal party and out of towners.

The bride and I will have a little mom and daughter spa time tomorrow after coffee.
I will be getting wedding flowers and my mom's lovely garden, even this early in the year, yields some beautiful fruits of her labours over the years.  It will be delightful to have her flowers at the wedding.

The countdown continues.

Tears

So many times in the last couple of months, people have said something to the effect of it being so stressful as we approach our daughter's wedding.

No.  I do not find it stressful.

In a previous post, I said that the only thing that really stresses me is crying at the wedding and reception.  I cry openly.  I am not overly concerned about others seeing my emotion.

I (oh vanity of vanities),  just didn't want to have to re-do my makeup.

Now that I have lost my mom, beyond a shadow of a doubt I know their will be tears at Mary's wedding.  Joyful tears and tears of grief.

I'm not worried about the tears anymore.  I've cried more in the last few days than I have in my life.
And I noticed something.

Tears of anger or despair or frustation leave us looking tired, haggard, hardened.  These tears are battle scars.  Our muscles tighten.

Tears of joy and tears of grief leave us looking revived, purged, softened.  They are tears of love and acceptance.  The tension in our hands unfolds.

"To weep is to make less the depth of grief."
William Shakespeare

I love you, mom.

In the last six days, my family and I have nurtured and cherished the woman who gave us life and who nurtured and cherished us.

I lost my mom today.  

She was my mom first, but my mentor and my friend.

We shared so much.

She had a beautiful death, surrounded by her children and grandchildren, peaceful and comfortable.

We've laughed and cried many times today, stunned by the sudden loss of mom, and overwhelmed at who she was and what she gave.  

I wish you could have met my mom.  You would love her. 

What does this have to do with weddings?  I'll tell you what.  Fifty five years of marriage.  A marriage that we should all be striving for.  

A love story.

A love story that doesn't end today.  A love story that transcends mortality.  A love story, like any good story - has its low points and high points and, today, its deep and painful ache.  

I am part of their love story.  Today is part of the love story.

Our children are part of their love story. 

Next week, we have a wedding, the next step in the eternal love story. 

Joy and grief often play out together.  

For us, right now, in a crescendo.

"Did e'er such love and sorrow meet, or thorns compose so rich a crown?"

The Best Laid Schemes

Of mice and men gang aft agley.

Yesterday morning I received a call that my mom had a heart attack.  Last night I arrived back here in B.C. to be with her and my dad and brothers.

Who wonders what this will be like?

I passed emcee notes off to a kind and capable soul.

Our lovely September bride took over the bridal flowers without hesitation.

The wedding was beautiful my family texts to me.

And I'm with my mom and that's beautiful too.  She won't be at Mary's wedding, I think.

She awaits open heart surgery in the next  couple of days.

Lift her up in prayer my friends.

Fast Food with Benefits

We are on our way back from Arnprior to prepare for Saturday's wedding.  So far we have had non-stop socializing and exceptional hospitality in Ottawa and Barry's Bay.  It is fun and energizing for the family extroverts.  It is fun and tiring for the family introverts  and they need a nap soon.  So first priority in Arnprior is nap-time.

But anyway.  After all the home cooked meals and conviviality, some fast food seemed in order.  We stopped in the town of Renfrew, ON for said fast food.  We were in Renfrew for approximately eight minutes, but in that short time, we experienced and extraordinary level of cordiality.  A fast food server who bent over backwards to be patient and helpful, a gentleman opening doors, and three  compliments on our lovely family, including a comment with the youngest two that we had the "million dollar" family:  two of each...bwahahahaha!  I thanked the man and told him that we actually had seven children and these were the youngest two.  He smiled and laughed heartily, telling me to enjoy ALL of them!

Thanks, Renfrew, for your eight minutes of joy.  It will keep me smiling all day.

Ottawa

Made it to Ottawa.  Didn't sleep at all.  Was it the coffee at four in the afternoon?

Who knows for sure?

At any rate, we are here.  All my people are sleeping and I am not.  Looking forward to meeting up with Lucy and future in-law family here in The Capital.

We arrive bearing gifts of Rubbermaid container.

These are some of my people doing yard work and burning the day before we leave:

These are floral supplies so you know I'm not kidding.  Also, hair scissors, because you should be prepared for anything. 

The Calendar Edition

Thought you all would like to have a look at the next week.  For fun.

We leave Monday for Ontario.  Meet one fiance's parents in Ottawa on Tuesday.

Meet another fiance's parents in Barry's Bay on Wednesday.

Pick up flowers on Thursday in Arnprior.

Make wedding bouquets, corsages, boutannieres on Friday.

Do some emceeing on Saturday.

Fly home on Sunday.  

I know you can't read my writing (click here for some previously published thoughts on the state of my penmanship), but just look at all the words! Surely anyone with that much stuff on the calendar shouldn't have to worry about legibility... that's a lot of stuff!

Twenty Five Years Later...

This year, the same year our two daughters get married, Albert and I will celebrate our twenty-fifth wedding anniversary.  I wish I could have known something of the vows I took twenty-five years ago.  But in my youth and ignorance, I really, truly had no idea what it all meant, except one thing:

committment until the day I die.

Marriages go through periods of closeness and distance, of inability or ability to communicate, of strength and fragility.  But twenty-five years ago, I knew that, no matter what, I would be beside this man and he would be beside me today.

In my ignorance I lacked understanding of theology.  In my youth I lacked understanding of relationships.  But looking back, it didn't matter.

In "committment" inherently, we carry faith, hope and charity.  In "committment" we experience grace.  In "committment" we discover theology, without even knowing what it means.  We open the door and tiny crack for God to work in our lives - for us...through our committment - and He supplies a flood of resources to address the rest of our lives together.

My cup runneth over.

My daughters.  I do not pray that you never have problems, troubles, doubts or misunderstandings.
I pray that you have fortitude and faith.  

God Grant me the Grace to Desire It...

Do you know, do you pray the
The Litany of Humility?

It's a hard one.  God grant me the grace to desire it.  

Passion

The word passion is derived from Latin, meaning to suffer or endure.  Here, on Good Friday as we celebrate the culmination of Christ's suffering and passion we observe the full impact of the meaning of his passion...he suffered.  He endured.

For our sake.

It begs the question, however, what meaning we share with Christ's passion when we use the word passion in the context of married love.  To SUFFER?  To ENDURE?  Not what most of us bargained for.

Passion has come to be understood in common language as strong emotion or feeling.

Both meanings of passion, I think, are fundamental to married love.

Passion towards our spouse, both ardour AND frustration, are daily, healthy, normal and REAL aspects of marriage and family relationships.

And yet, we do...suffer...endure.  No relationship that we value come without suffering and enduring.

It's how we grow.  It's part of the plan.

In Christ's passion he lays down his life for us.  And we, in turn, lay our life down for another.
Our passion.

For their sake.

Grace

When other people get married, I'm not thinking about my part in their lives.
But my daughters are getting married, and mostly I think about my role in their life.

Have I prepared them well enough?
Have I modelled sacrifice and self gift effectively?
Have I encouraged...have I challenged...
Provided enough faith, enough knowledge, enough humility to become wives and mothers who will help their families get to heaven?

All you mothers know...motherhood is one giant guilt trip.

It doesn't go away when they grow up!
Every day I ask myself...Was I enough?
Every day I have to consciously place them in God's hands, and ask Him to fill in all my shortcomings with His grace.
I am not enough.

They will not be enough for their own husbands and families, and their husbands are not ever going to be enough for my daughters.
We are not supposed to be enough.  As individuals and as couples we are supposed return to God daily to request and renew the graces He provides to be enough.

But there is enough grace - more than enough - to get married, be married, raise a family and get to heaven.

The Catholic Encyclopedia defines grace as, "a supernatural help of God for salutary (beneficial, nurturing) acts granted in consideration of the merits of Christ."

Note to self:  "in consideration of the merits of Christ."

Not in consideration of the merits of ME.
Anything I have done well is a gift from Him, through grace.  Anything I have left undone can be be completed or fixed by Him, through grace.