My Pots symptoms have greatly improved but now I'm dizzy, as regulating the vestibular system is another role my brain considers optional. Luckily there is efficacious therapy for that at the St Luke's Pots lab too. Feeling like I just stepped off the teacups does make tasks a wee bit more challenging so this particular Maycember feels like a lot a lot when it's probably just a lot.
Jason's dad, Terry had been in an assisted living facility in his home town of Cedar Rapids for a few years. Last year, after a series of declining events where he'd bounce from hospital to rehab facility to home he moved in with Jason's estranged brother in Rochester, Minnesota where the pattern continued eventually leading to discussions of palliative and then hospice care which initiated at the end of March. A family FaceTime became our final good bye.
We prayed many novenas and divine mercy chaplets for a peaceful and holy death for Terry and for a conversion of hearts. I happened to ask my friend Shannon, known for interceding for the dying to pray for this the day before he passed and later learned she'd asked for the intercession of Padre Pio's guardian angel to go to him. I feel like though we weren't able to be in the room, some Saints were.
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| The Island |
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| St Pius |
Terry died on Thursday, May 14. The day after our wedding anniversary. It was opening night of the second week run of the musical Jason was in, Crazy for You. To Terry, life was a stage and he spent plenty of time on it. He picked up a habit of slipping the word, "Huckleberry" into one of his lines as an inside joke that spanned his acting career.
Jason was playing Moose, a bumbling bass playing oaf of a creature in overalls and was inspired to sneak a Huckleberry into one of his lines. He thought he heard his dad laughing in the audience. The second night during the finale, he was certain he saw his father applauding in an upper seat, the stage lights glinting off his glasses, white unkempt beard and hair, flannel and suspenders and that unmistakable laugh. Terry came to say good-bye.
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We will remember Terry for his playfulness, his generosity, his theatrical magical imaginative story telling, his stubborn refusal to do the next logical thing. We will remember the summer he lived with us, playing chess with the kids, the tv always tuned loudly to a black and white Turner Classic Movie. We remember trips and visits and holidays and cleaning out hoarded rooms and homes and storage sheds. It was edifying to hear so many stories from people at the visitation who considered Jason's childhood home their safe place, something we've tried to foster in our home as well, a welcoming gathering place of presence. We were regaled with stories of travel, adventure, not-to-code construction projects, and outrageous generosity.
I called to request memorial Masses at a few churches in Cedar Rapids that we had attended when we lived there and we would take Terry along when we visited. The diocese is undergoing mergers and the Mass schedules were all on hold so I was told to call again in a few months. After the funeral service, we attended Mass at St Patrick. We lit a candle for Terry at a little shrine dedicated to Padre Pio. The church credits his intercession with saving the building from the flood of 2008. I also happened to be due to renew my 33 day consecration to Mary and did this here as well. We thanked Padre Pio for sending his angel to be with Terry as he died. Four days later, MARY from St PIUS Church (a derivative of Pio) called to say they'd had a sudden opening for a memorial Mass for Sunday June 14th at 8:30 am, the one month anniversary of Terry's death.
We had not been able to attend Jason's cousin Robert's funeral last year, so on our way out of town, we found his grave in Iowa City to pay our respects and left flowers from Terry's service there.
I had planned to spend a week with Alex, (who has never traveled solo) in Rome and Florence before his summer program began specifically to get him comfortable handling his severe peanut and tree nut allergy in Italy. He has a good grasp of Spanish but piccolo Italian. We cancelled our trip for the funeral and changed Alex's flight to leave from Cedar Rapids. Worried mom attempted to cram all the hoped for lived experience into helpful advice on the way including "don't eat pesto, it has pine nuts." Foreshadowing
We accompanied Alex all the way to TSA, asking him to let us know when he found his gate. Trickster sent us a selfie at a gate departing for STL.
He navigated his transfers in Minneapolis and Paris and the cab to the campus without hiccup and I started to breathe a little easier until I got the text the next day saying he'd eaten a nut, had given himself epi and the ambulance was on the way. I went into flying novena mode and asked Mary to be a mother to him while calling him to assess the situation. He had eaten two bites of pesto. He remembered us saying something about pesto, maybe that he should try it? His swollen tongue and throat said differently. I stayed on the dwindling speaker phone with him fruitlessly yelling things in Italian until Anna, the Hungarian woman turned local came to our communications rescue. She accompanied Alex in the ambulance and stayed with him until he was released from Santa Maria Nuova (New St Mary) hospital. I later realized my prayer for Mary to be a mother to him had been answered when both Mary and her mother (Anne) "showed up." Alex was given iv steroids, an RX for oral steroids, allergy meds, and a refill of epinephrine and promptly released. He's to give a presentation at the end of the program on an aspect of Italian life. He was assigned primary schooling but requested a change to healthcare and was granted the addendum.
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| This hospital was founded in 1288 and is called "New" |
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| View from campus |
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| Piazza Michelangelo |
I decided I earned a gelato too.
We celebrated Ben's 24th with cookie cake and Project Hail Mary on the big screen. He got a suit which he wore for the first time to honor Grandpa.
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| The Knight is Still Young |
Mom and I met my sister in our old hometown of Paducah, Kentucky for Mother's Day weekend. We attended Mass at the parish we used to belong to, St Thomas More. They built a new church after we moved away and I'm pretty sure the crucifix is the one I remember from the old church but no one I asked knew. We happened to run into a young woman who was curious about joining the faith and had never attended a Mass before so she joined us. She ended up with a Wear and Give bracelet, of course. I snapped a photo of the original St Mary's Academy that would become my high school. I never knew where it was when I lived there in the Pre-Google Age.
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| Old St Mary's Academy from 1858 |
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| Ohio River |
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| New St Thomas More |
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| I had the sweetest Facebook memory pop up from my friend, Sarah who passed away this year. |
Gigi and her friends went strawberry picking at Eckert's.
Oh yes, two baptismal anniversaries in May too...
We picked the four seasons for the wedding anniversary themes until 30th pearl, settling on Fall for 26. Finding Fall in May in Missouri has its limits unless the vision is expanded. We set off for a Pickle Springs hike hoping that recent rains would create enough of a trickle to count as a waterfall followed by lunch at the Dew Drop Inn. The kids decorated the house for Thanksgiving. We had pumpkin bread and apple butter and took a photo by the Japanese Maple which was our anniversary gift to each other this year. We also plan to head to Michigan later in the year for more authentic autumn and water falls to punctuate the celebration.
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| Had to do a lot of recovery sitting to get through, but we made it! |
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| Fall! |
I was in the adoration chapel this week, gazing at Jesus in the Blessed Sacrament, mulling all that had befallen us lately. I again asked the question I've been wrestling with for exactly two years, "But HOW am I to console your Sacred Heart?" The feast of the Sacred Heart is next Friday and this particular aspect of Jesus, this devotion, this exquisite fire of Jesus' intense love for all souls has pursued me for decades. There is much that consumes my mind and heart with the worries of this world, but I'm well aware that all things and desires pass away, yet His Word and those who seek to do His will, will not pass away. The things that are forever are what matter to me and He wants His love for us to be known and received and shared. Still, two years of asking this question I've received no satisfactory answer and so it seemed that as my hour ended and the next adorer came to take my place, it was to remain unanswered. Until I stood up to leave and noticed a piece of paper on the chair in front of my kneeler.
Whoever gazes upon Me already consoles Me.
Oh Sacred Heart of Jesus, We Place our Trust in You.
