SAN ALFONSO
RETREAT HOUSE
WEST END, NEW JERSEY
Saturday, August 17, 2019
PUT YOUR
TWO CENTS IN
Take out your wallet. Put your
two cents in. Buy the lemonade.
two cents in. Buy the lemonade.
Say, “Keep the change, Kid!”
Watch the kid’s eyes - as well as
the beggar in the doorway.
Hear the music. Notice what
happens when people are nice
to each other in the plaza,
happens when people are nice
to each other in the plaza,
in traffic and in the parking lot.
© Andy Costello, Reflections 2019
Friday, August 16, 2019
August 16, 2019
SATURDAY WEDDINGS
It’s Friday evening and thousands
of couples meet to practice for their
wedding and their marriage on the
morrow. They meet in church or
chapel - temple or beach - mountain
or river - and they go through the
motions practicing for tomorrow.
And each time as priest, I pray for
them - and I think of Grace and
Joseph Mary Plunkett - who had
Joseph Mary Plunkett - who had
15 minutes of marriage - 15 minutes -
and I pray that their love - their
vows - their promises - their dreams
for a lifetime
last - last - last - last ….
And then the next day, at their
wedding ceremony, I
pray
for them and all the couples
present that they will realize
and remember they only have
so many minutes left, filled
with all the graces God gives us.
© Andy Costello, Reflections 2019
August 16, 2019
MY DAUGHTER
Thought for the Day:
My daughter died on a warm day in July. I'm not sure exactly which day,
or even that "she" was a "she" at all, if you want to be
really specific. At nine and a half weeks, the organs that determined these
things weren't fully formed, much less detectable by sonogram. And even though
I had seen pictures on the Internet of nine-and-a-half-week-old fetuses, the
doctor refused to speak in any concrete terms. We did not say the word baby.
Instead, she referred to the painful night of bleeding, cramps, and tears as the
"passing of cells and tissues.”
I suppose these words, cells and tissues, were what made it easier for
people to say things like "You can have more" and "Things happen
for a reason.” They did not know that in
my imagination she had dark hair and porcelain skin dotted with freckles like
her dad. We made up silly songs together, and she danced around the house in
pink tutus and patent leather shoes. She drew pictures of bright yellow suns
and green grass that I had already hung up on my fridge. She would fall asleep
on the giant paws of my Saint Bernard, her guardian who lovingly endured all
manner of bows and barrettes fastened to his reddish brown fur. She was an
athlete; she was an artist; she was my first child. She had yet to draw her
first breath in this world, but she was very much alive. She even had a name.
There was no funeral, no memorial marking, a gravesite, because there
was no burial. Barely anyone acknowledged that she was even gone. It felt
strange mourning for someone whom no one else seemed to know existed, much less
felt their absence when they were gone. Someone who changed the direction of
my life so profoundly without ever uttering a single word had left this world
as unremarkably as she had entered it.
I often wonder the purpose of a life that lived for only nine weeks,
just long enough to make me sick at the smell of chicken and want to lie on the
couch all day. I grapple daily with the notion that all things have a purpose
in a divine plan, when things feel anything but carefully designed. But I do
know that this baby made me a mom for the first time, if only briefly. And no amount of time will change that.
—
Sarah Schaffner is a freelance writer and
editor living in Baltimore.
Thursday, August 15, 2019
August 15, 2015
GOING BY GRAVEYARDS
GOING BY GRAVEYARDS
Driving through Annapolis,
heading away from downtown,
when I’m on West Street,
when I’m going by the 3 cemeteries there -
I feel the difference between them
and McDonalds and
car dealerships.
I feel the heaviness of life
gone by -
family loss - the last page of a book.
Those gravestones weigh me down
like the dead being tossed overboard
at sea with stones tied around the corpse.
But life goes on for me - till I’m buried
where I’m buried …. In the meanwhile
I have many more pages to be written,
many more stories to be part of …. I hope.
© Andy Costello, Reflections 2019
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