Archive for the 'Faith' Category

The Persistence Of Memory

July 7, 2007 | Faith

A Sunday or two ago, I sat at the back of the church, where people with rambunctious and unpredictable toddlers tend to sit. I doled out Goldfish one by one as I waited for services to begin, occasionally looking up for familiar faces in the undulation of swarming believers.

A mother chased a runaway toddler. One row ahead, an old man leaned over the back of his seat and shouted a greeting to another old man who was less than a foot away. One little boy chased another in a flurry of Sunday school papers. The cacophony of human noise that precedes worship service reminds me of an orchestra warming up, a swelling of movement and sound that sets the stage, opens the senses and ripens anticipation.

It was in the midst of this jumble of activity that I caught sight of her bubble gum pink suit out of the corner of my eye.

She shuffled unsteadily towards me, taking tiny careful steps, watching her feet as she went. White soft-soled shoes scraped against the carpet. She clutched her white purse tightly to her chest with both hands. About every three steps, she stopped completely and looked around, bewildered. Her middle-aged daughter walked behind her, patiently and gently guiding her towards a seat.

When she was within hand shaking distance, she stopped and looked into me. Not at me, not beyond me, but into me. It felt oddly disconcerting to be the object of such an intense gaze at such close proximity. I gave her a smile. Her face remained expressionless. I could tell she was mentally flipping through page after page of blank Rolodex cards looking for my face. Nothing. Her daughter nudged her elbow and encouraged her towards a seat across from us and she turned away.

I stole glances at her over the head of my three-year-old as worship services began. She sat erect and still, here but not. A shell of human being, robbed of that which makes life meaningful.   

For some reason, I thought of the empty locust shells that I used to find in the summer time when I was growing up. I wondered about her, her life, the memories she had treasured up in her heart over a lifetime, faces and names and events that had evaporated and vanished as morning dew does in the bright light of day.

As the congregation began to sing “When I Survey The Wondrous Cross” I heard her trembling sweet soprano voice rise above the others — distinct and clear, word for word, note for note. I looked over at her, eyes closed, face turned upward. Not a locust shell. Her heart had not forgotten.

The magic of music had unlocked the dark prison of dementia if only for a few glorious minutes on a Sunday morning. 

I will sing to the Lord all my life; I will sing praise to my God as long as I live.
Psalm 104:33

God Bless America

July 4, 2007 | Faith

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Land that I love.

Stand beside her, and guide her
Thru the night with a light from above.
From the mountains, to the prairies,
To the oceans, white with foam.
God bless America,

My home sweet home!

 

Irving Berlin

1938

 

 

 

 

 

 

This post was scheduled to go up on July 4th.  Apparently when you convert CST into Greenwich mean time into military time by a factor of blonde, you get 38 hours later than whatever time you hoped for.  Happy belated 4th y’all. And FYI, we had a rain-free starry starry night by which to watch the fireworks. Yay!  Now back to our regularly scheduled rain.

It Made Sense At The Time

June 24, 2007 | Antique Childhood, Faith, Mildly Amusing

Whenever I’ve talked about how that at Our Lady in Perpetual Need of Help, where I attended Catholic grade school, our 4th grade class saved up to buy a pagan baby, I’ve gotten one of two responses.  People who did not attend Catholic school in the 1960s will look at me in stunned silence as though I were from Mars.  People who did attend Catholic school will nod their head knowingly and sigh at the utter absurdity of the notion. 

How does a fourth grader go about buying a pagan baby you might wonder?  Well, we brought our scavenged pennies and nickels into school and put them in a jar until we finally had enough to send off for a pagan baby, I guess from the pagan baby store which was probably somewhere in California.  That’s where everything cool was, or at least that’s what mid-western Catholic school kids thought.  If you could get your parents to move to California, then you could automatically be cool.  Anyway, $4 and some box tops later, or something like that, and we were the proud owners of a heathen.  I have no idea how much a pagan baby cost, no one ever told us, and being good Catholic children, we didn’t ask.

Eventually we would get a certificate of some kind in the mail.  The class would vote on a name and afterwards we would have a naming ceremony.  For a baby girl, Sister always pushed us to choose Mary something - Mary Beth, Mary Alice, Mary Margaret, Mary Catherine, Mary Jane, whatever.  The Mary list is endless. For a boy we were expected to choose a name like Matthew, Mark, Luke or John.  But in 1969 the names we fourth graders favored were names like Ringo and Twiggy. 

Since it was a class vote with Sister having two votes to our every one, we compromised on Mary Twiggy. We thought it so very funny to exasperate Sister with our zanyness.  As a class, we were supposed to pray for the salvation of little Mary Twiggy throughout the school year. So you see, there was a seed of goodness buried deep deep within such a warped idea.  And somehow?  It made sense at the time.

I wonder what ever became of Mary Twiggy…

Originally published July 2006.

Sandbox Theology

June 21, 2007 | Faith

From a distance, I watched two little boys hunched over in the sandbox. One sported a mop of platinum curls and wore an orange Kool-Aid mustache. In typical little boy fashion, he skidded and careened a plastic truck through the sand, crashing into the other toys in a spectacular display of vehicular manslaughter. The other little boy, taller and thinner, sat off to the side and quietly observed.

After a minute, Curly got bored with the truck and set off on another search and destroy mission. Slim watched Curly saunter off. After he was sure he wasn’t coming back, he claimed the truck for himself and set about road building.

Curly turned to see Slim with the truck. He ran back to sandbox and tried to snatch it away. Slim, fearful yet determined, stood up and clutched the plastic truck to his chest. His father stood off to the side and watched. “Stand your ground,” he quietly encouraged without intervening. They struggled with the toy, back and forth, wrenching, twisting and turning. Although timid by nature, Slim held fast, secure in the knowledge that his father was nearby. For reasons known only to Curly, he gave up the struggle and decided to move along.

Alone in the sandbox again, Slims’ father came over and sat by him. “You were right to stand up for yourself,” he said, “but the next time that happens, why don’t you just give him the truck and say, “Here, if it means that much to you, I want you to have it.”

Slim is my three-year-old son. The lesson in the sandbox that day probably washed over him like the autumn breeze. So for now, for these few years that he is mine, I will continue to try to teach him sandbox theology — to be secure in the knowledge that his heavenly father is always nearby, watching over him, to bravely stand up for who he is in Christ while yielding to the needs and desires of others, because it is Godly to do so.

And maybe in the process, I can learn these things myself.

Explanations

June 13, 2007 | Always Real, Faith, Reruns and Leftovers

I had a girlfriend who decided that she didn’t like driving out to my house to visit after we had moved. Her reasoning was that she didn’t know how to explain to her child as they drove past gated subdivisions filled with big expensive homes (operative word here is past folks, lest you get the wrong idea!) how come some people had so much more than they did.

This baffled me, because my friend was fairly well off by anyone’s standards. She didn’t have to work, she had a nice house, a late model car, a housekeeper and she bought pretty much whatever she wanted. When she brought this up to me, I countered (perhaps a little too defensively) that what I thought would be harder to explain is how come so many more people have so little. I suggested that she take a drive down to south Dallas and then have that discussion.

Needless to say, our girlfriendship was on the rocks and it didn’t require much more than a slight breeze to send it careening into a canyon. Nonetheless, I’ve thought back on that conversation many times since Sean came along, about how to explain the inexplicable condition of the world.

Where Sean takes swimming lessons, there is a boy in an earlier class with no legs from the mid-thigh down. I don’t know what his story is. When we arrive, we find his little plastic legs, complete with shoes and socks and pants parked near the changing table along with his pint-sized walker. Sean has been oblivious to this until recently. Several weeks ago, however, as I was helping him into his swimming suit, he pointed to them and said, “Somebody forgot their legs!” I looked at those little legs and I wondered if the mother of that boy ever considered that she not expose him to a world where people have legs, so that maybe he would never know that he didn’t. See how ridiculous that is, even for a heart that loves as deeply and intensely and ferociously and protectively as a mothers?

As Sean grows and his awareness of the world around him expands and develops, there will be many occasions that will require difficult explanation. There is a lot of ugliness and unfairness in the world that makes no sense no matter what your religious or political stripe. All I know to do is tell him the truth about the world. And the truth is I don’t know why some have more, some have less, some work hard and have little, some work little and have a lot, some are healthy, some are sickly, some have legs, some don’t.

I’ll tell him that both his father and mother believe that all blessings belong to the Creator and they are His to bestow and rescind as He pleases. I will tell him that both his father and mother have been blessed mightily and cursed tragically in their lives, as most people have, yet we are firm in our belief that our God is present and with us in all circumstances, rain or shine.

As Sean matures, I hope that he will learn that the measure of his life is in his character — not in what he has and most certainly not in comparison with what others may have. I hope he understands that his worth lies not in his legs or lack thereof, but in his heart. If he can learn to be contented with and grateful for whatever worldly blessings come his way, then whatever his lot, all will be well with his soul. And I will have done my job.

This post was originally published in May of 2006.

Overheard On A Sunday

June 3, 2007 | Faith

Younger woman: You know you can’t work your way to heaven.

Older woman (quietly): Yes, I know… but wouldn’t the world be a nicer place if we tried?

As the body without the spirit is dead, so faith without deeds is dead.

~ James 2:26

Thoughts For A Sunday

May 6, 2007 | Faith

Subtlety in conversation is not an area in which I excel. I am the first one to admit that.

Separate from the issues of tact and judgement, I find it excruciatingly difficult to not be plain spoken, direct, forthright. Sometimes I say things even before I think of them.

However. I am learning from my husband that when hoping to win mind share, especially in matters of faith, that it is far, far better to carry someone along than to hit them directly over the head and drag them. Sometimes to stand down is to stand up.

He must increase, but I must decrease.  John 3:30

Far too often, when the message of the Gospel is not well received, we Christians whine about being persecuted and rejected for speaking the truth while taking no responsibility for how badly we have delivered the message.

No heart was ever won with a club, no matter how well intended the club weilder.

The Partnership of Marriage

April 21, 2007 | Antique Daddy, Faith

Last night, a long-time friend dropped by the house for a visit. His wife had recently decided to end their marriage of 20-some years. He was hanging in there, but as we chatted with him, heartache just seemed to fill the room clear up to the ceiling.

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And so today, I find myself thinking about the partnership of marriage.

I think of my own parents who have been married for 52 years — all of their adult lives. I’m sure there have been times on their journey when either could have come up with about 50 ways to kill the other with everyday household appliances. But they persisted for another day leaving small appliances in tact. And sometimes it’s just one more day that can make all the difference. Eventually, all those one more days add up to a lifetime.

As a product of that union, their marriage has been a reassuring thing to behold. It has been an anchor in my life and the security it provided was perhaps the greatest blessing of my childhood.

I hope and pray that our marriage might be a reassuring thing for Sean to behold. That it might anchor and bless him in these tender years. And I also pray that earlier in life, rather than later, he might find a Godly woman to love and who would love him in return for a lifetime — a woman who will hang in there to make the journey with him into forever one day at a time.

Love… It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres. 

1st Corinthians 13:7

Yellow Lab Advice

April 13, 2007 | Always Real, Faith, Sometimes Sweet

As I was driving Sean to school yesterday morning, I spotted a man jogging with his dog.

I didn’t take notice of the man, but the dog caught my eye. It was a Yellow Lab. I took a second look in my rear view mirror as I drove slowly past. In his mouth, the dog had a dirty tennis ball. He had his tail high in the air. He seemed to be smiling. He would occasionally look up at his master, step a little higher and wag his tail. This dog, he was radiating joy. Contentment. Happiness. He had everything he needed. He was with his most favorite person in the world and he had a toy ready in case someone wanted to play.

I think God put Labs on earth to remind us that we don’t really need as much as we think we do to be happy. All we really need is to be with the people we love. And maybe a toy in case someone wants to play.

Living Beyond

April 5, 2007 | Antique Childhood, Faith, Sometimes Sweet

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Since my mother’s sister died in January, my cousins have been dealing with the exhausting task of going through their mother’s belongings. There is a lot of agonizing and sorting and deciding that must be done when trying to dismantle the accumulation of a lifetime.

In a package of things they returned to my mother, there was a picture of me when I was about the same age that Sean is now. When my mother came out to visit recently, she gave the picture to me. I hadn’t seen the picture before and when she handed it to me I was struck by how much of Sean I saw in my own face. Not so much in features, although there is certainly some of that, but something beyond that. Something that can’t be described in words or explained by genetics. Something impish behind the eyes, an almost imperceptible curl of the lip or lift of the brow — something so intimate that it can only be discerned from having looked into a mirror for 47 years.

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As I held the picture in my hand, peering 44 years back into time, it made my knees weak to see the likeness of my son in my own three-year-old face. I could only think about how in the weaving of the great tapestry of life, God himself picks and chooses tiny filament threads to carry over from parent to child, from one generation to the next, binding us all together through the ages with the double helix of DNA or some other invisible something that is not yet known to man.

I thought about how it is through Sean and the miracle that is his life that I might possibly live beyond my own allotted days on this earth and into a future I will not know and can’t anticipate or comprehend, a time that will be attended to by faces that I will never see, whose names I will never know. I will return to the dust from whence I came. No matter how remarkably I live out my life, sooner rather than later, time will erase every trace and memory that I was here….

Except maybe… at some appointed time in a distant future, God will craft another funny face with something impish behind the eyes and an imperceptible curl of the lip or lift of the brow. And then, even though I might have been forgotten, I will not be gone.

Proverbs 23:19

March 22, 2007 | Faith, Photo Essays

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Listen, my son, and be wise,
and keep your heart on the right path.

Sticky Prayers

March 14, 2007 | Faith, Reruns and Leftovers, School, Sometimes Sweet

I remember my mother’s prayers and they have followed me always. They have clung to me all my life. ~ Abraham Lincoln

Sean’s first school year officially ended last night with a little graduation ceremony for the five year olds who will be leaving the pre-school and moving on to kindergarten. The younger kids “sang them out” just as the losers on American Idol do. Well, more accurately, all the other kids sang out the grads. Sean stood on the stage and did an impression of Lot’s wife.

As all the five year olds marched across the stage in their adorable little caps and gowns, I wept. I don’t even have a kid in the graduating class and I cried. I am pathetic. I am normally not that much of a cryer, but lately ceremonies seem to prick that tender part of my heart and remind me that time slips like water through my fingers.

As each child marched across the stage to receive their diploma, the teacher announced where they would be going to school next year and what their career plans were. One boy wanted to drive a dump truck, another wanted to study to be a ninja. One girl wanted to be a princess, another a ballerina. Perhaps Abraham Lincoln wanted to be a ninja too.

The path laid before Sean may lead him to drive a truck or drive him to lead a nation — it is not mine to know or to choose. I know God has a plan for this boy and I’m going to try my best to not get in the way, but rather to walk along side him, holding his hand for as long as he’ll let me.

After that, I’ll just have to hope that my prayers follow him and cling to him always.

This post was published in May of 2006 ~ Antique Mommy

The New Oliver Twist

March 12, 2007 | Faith, Mildly Amusing

Since Sean was an itty bitty guy, we have always kept him with us in church during services rather than put him in the nursery. And it’s hard work. Letting him play in the nursery would be much much easier. Little boys are naturally noisy and busy, but our philosophy is that learning to sit still is a life skill that requires practice and example. And so largely due to the efforts of Antique Daddy, Sean does fairly well on Sunday mornings. Occasionally someone will take the time to compliment us on his good behavior and it reminds us that it’s worth the effort. We’ve never once had to take him out of the service. Until Sunday.

I don’t know if it was the time change or the fact that the jasmine was in bloom, but that little boy was as wild as March hare. The usual distraction tactics of coloring and eating Goldfish simply were not working. After several admonitions, he just would not quit squirming or keep his voice down, so Antique Daddy picked him up and carried him out of the assembly hall to threaten have a strong word with him.

Unlike me, Antique Daddy never loses his cool, so Sean knew immediately that he’d gone too far and that being whisked away wasn’t going to be good.

On the way out the door, just as the assembly grew quiet for a prayer, Sean dramatically shouts, “Please Daddy! Don’t spank me! I’m just so very hungry!”

Depending upon which parent you were, this was either highly amusing or highly embarrassing.

…. love one another

February 14, 2007 | Faith

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deeply, from the heart.

1 Peter 1:22

And so you have.

Thank you all for the tremendous outpouring of love and encouragement and prayer support. I am honored. I am humbled. And I gratefully thank you. Happy Valentines Day everyone. ~ Antique Mommy

Glory To God In The Highest!

December 23, 2006 | Faith

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and on earth peace,

good will toward men.

Luke 2:14

Looking For My Box

November 6, 2006 | Faith

Why is it that churches need to put people in boxes? When Jesus spoke to and fed the crowd of 5,000, did he organize them into Youth, Singles, Young Professionals, Young Marrieds, Young Families, Pacesetters and Widowed and Divorced?

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When I was widowed at 34, I eventually (re)turned to church to help me through the grieving process - not so much for spiritual healing, although that too was certainly needed, but merely as a way to force myself to get out and interact with other humans on the longest and loneliest day of the week.

What I found when I finally ventured back to church, now in my mid-30’s, unemployed, widowed and childless, was that I didn’t fit anywhere. I had no box. I didn’t fit into the singles group, where everyone was a good ten years younger than me. And I certainly I didn’t fit into the widowed and divorced group where most everyone was a good 30 years older than me with grown children and grandchildren.

Nothing changed after I remarried at 39. Antique Daddy and I didn’t fit into the Newly Marrieds group. Although we were newly married, we weren’t exactly young. And now even though we have a child, we don’t fit into the Young Families group either, because you know, we’re still not young. So we kind of roam around from church to church, class to class, bugging visiting people who are comfortably snuggled into their demographic box.

And while that may sound like a complaint, it actually isn’t. I don’t really want a box. I like being with people from all seasons in life. It’s more interesting. It’s kind of fun to make people squirm when you invade their box. It’s liberating to be box free! Down with boxes people!

I was appreciating my box-free existence a few Sunday’s ago. We were visiting a church and ended up in a Sunday school class with mostly older folks. When the teacher asked that the guests be introduced, an elderly gentleman stood up and introduced his daughter who was about my age. “Everyone, I’d like you meet Susan, my daughter,” he said proudly. Then he looked at his wife who was glaring up at him through squinted eyes — his cue to quickly correct himself. “I guess I should say this is our daughter.”

“I guess so,” she said dryly in her long-voweled Texas accent, “since you were out eating a hamburger when I had her.”

Gotta love an old gal that speaks her mind. I think I’d like to party with her. And see what I would have missed had I been in the Old People With Toddlers class?

It Takes So Little

October 20, 2006 | Faith, Reruns and Leftovers

Antique Mommy is taking the day off. Here’s something from the archives.

The morning sun was harsh and blinding as we headed east. It bullied its way through my windshield and bounced around on the dashboard. It was not the gentle, renewing sun that greets me through my kitchen window every morning and baptizes me into another day of life. This sun cut through my cheap sunglasses and directly into the center of my skull like a gamma knife. This sun pushed my “GO!” button over and over like someone impatient for an elevator.

Sean sat in the back seat of the car and provided the color commentary as we drove. “Mommeeee! A pick up twuck!” and then “Mommeeee! A school bus!” We were a good ten cars deep as we approached the four way stop. It seemed as though no one had ever encountered a four-way stop before.

Stop. Inch up. Stop. Inch up. Finally we were just three cars away from our turn before we could zoom on with our lives. And then I saw him. He was sitting on the corner, in a tattered lawn chair. He looked like he might be somebody’s dad. He could have been my dad. His silver hair peeked from under a dirty baseball cap. He wore sunglasses. He was waving at every single car that passed through that intersection. Not a half-hearted flip-of-the-wrist wave, but a vigorous hand-over-head wave. He tipped his chin up to the sun – THAT sun - and with a full smile sent goodwill and greetings out to universe and to those who crossed his path that morning. “Hi!” or “Have a nice day!” he called to every driver.

My first thought was “What kind of nut…” Finally it was my turn. I pulled up to the stop sign. “Look Mommy! A man!” Sean called into the front seat. “Him wave at me!” “Yes Sean, that man waved at us,” I said as I looked in the rearview mirror at his baby face, so pleased. As I pulled through the intersection, the man in the tattered lawn chair made eye contact with me. Even though I couldn’t see his eyes through his sunglasses and he couldn’t see mine through my tinted window, I knew that he had looked into my eyes, that he had laid eyes on my soul. I rolled down my window and yelled “Hi! Good morning! It’s great to be alive!” And I wasn’t even embarrassed.

We continued down the road, heading east. The sun no longer seemed as harsh and my “Go” button had been magically disabled. Such a simple gesture had changed the course of my day and my attitude and maybe even my life.

I thought about that man in the lawn chair off and on throughout the day. I couldn’t let it go. Something had happened to me at that intersection. As I lay my head on my pillow that night, it came to me. Like a feather floating down from the ceiling, it settled on my heart. And it is this: It takes so little to reap so much for the kingdom of God, the kingdom of humanity. If you’ve got a lawn chair, a smile and an arm to wave, you’ve got a ministry.

What are you doing for the kindgom?

Here’s Your Baby Ma’am. Welcome To Adulthood.

October 14, 2006 | Faith, Makes Me Sigh

The years I lobbied to be treated as an adult have blown up in my face.
~ Lisa Simpson

I managed to put off adulthood until I was 44. Once I was handed that precious bundle of screaming, puking, pooping responsibility joy, my carefree protracted childhood lonely meaningless life came to an end. Adulthood blew up in my face in one big gush of baby blue confetti. And I’ve never been the same since.

The first time that Sean looked up at me with those unfocused drunken eyes of infancy, the weight of the responsibility for his wellbeing and survival bore down upon me, and for the first time in my life I felt like an adult. And it was terribly frightening. I remember looking into Sean’s tiny face and praying, “Dear God, I’ve managed to screw up a lot of stuff in my life — I guess you already know that — but please let me get this one right.”

Adulthood has meant that I am no longer the center of my own universe. It has sometimes meant cleaning up puke for six straight days, inspecting poop, wielding a rectal thermometer, getting only four non-sequential hours of sleep in any given 24-hour period and existing on a diet of luke warm coffee and left over chicken nuggets.

Yet it is in the servitude of motherhood that I’ve discovered another facet in the prism of my being — a richness and depth of experience that can only be gained from dealing with someone else’s boogers. To love is to serve.

Yes, being an adult has blown up in my face. And I could not be happier.

Noiseless and Patient

September 22, 2006 | Faith, Makes Me Sigh

The first time I caught sight of Margie was late in the springtime. I was walking through the dining room and happened to look out the windows and there she was, just beyond the Nandinas. It was startling to look out and find someone looking back. We both stood perfectly still for a moment, pretending not to notice the other.

I crept quietly to the window to get a closer look. She was beautiful and delicate like a ballerina with long thin legs. I stood there and spied on her for quite some time watching her steadily knitting and knitting the most stunning circle of lace you ever saw.

At the end of the day she was still there. And she was there again the next day. And the next day and the next day after that. We didn’t know what her name was so we just started calling her Margie and that seemed right.

Every day of the summer, Sean and I ran to the dining room windows first thing to see if Margie was still there and to watch the morning sun cast its pink and then yellow glow across her glossy web. And every day she would be there, noiseless and patient. No matter what kind of harsh weather the Texas skies served up — hot and sunny or rainy and windy - Margie stayed put, confident that she was where she was supposed to be, doing what she was supposed to be doing.

The days are growing shorter now. The leaves are beginning to turn brown and occasionally one will spiral softly downward. Another season of life is upon us. One morning, we will look for Margie in the window suspended between the earth and sky and she won’t be there. All things come to completion.

There are probably many lessons that can be drawn from watching a spider all summer, but for me, in this season of my life where patience eludes me, Margie has taught me that there is beauty in being noiseless and patient — no matter what life serves up.

Last Weekend In July

July 28, 2006 | Antique Friends, Faith, Makes Me Sigh

It is from the shards of broken dreams that the mosaic of life is created.

The last weekend in July was to be one of celebration. A young bride was to meet her groom at the altar, and before God, pledge to him her love, her body, her eternity.

The plans had long been in the making. Caterers had been hired. Rings had been purchased. Gowns had been fitted. Pictures had been taken. Parties had been given. Gifts had been wrapped. Promises had been made. Dreams had been launched.

A phone call can forever alter the course of a life. The groom has had a change of heart. With little explanation there will be no wedding. No one tells you how to keep your knees from buckling in a moment like this. No one tells you what to do with broken dreams and five pounds of wedding mints.

I have no words of wisdom to offer my young friend.  Nothing to assuage the sting of humiliation or to numb the pain or to assure her that someday she will be happy again.  What I have to offer her, she does not want or need right now. What I have to offer her is my confidence that some day she will lie in the arms of a man who never doubted for a second that she should belong to him, never doubted that she should spend her life with him, never doubted that they should weather life’s storms and grow old together — a man who never doubted that for him there could be no other.

I know that someday she will sometimes think back to this last weekend in July, if for only a second, and whisper this prayer: Thank you God.