December 8th, 2024
That morning, preparing for church, pull the silky cranberry red gown I bought twenty-something years ago and never wore (E is leaving on a cruise in a few days… take a quick photo to send to her if she wants to borrow it)… Patience, examining it, concludes… “You used to be skinny”… thanks, Patience…
Patience, highlighting random passages in Jeremiah from the pew as the handbell choir gently rings “O Come, O Come, Emmanuel”… under the light of rich candy glass… pew cushion in zippered pattern of chocolate, rust, maize, moss, sand, and other colors best chosen in the 90s…
Seminarian E.L. delivers the sermon
Seminarian A.C., the Bible study… passing around a batch of icons, rosaries, chotkis as visual aids from the early centuries… possibly the first time I’ve ever held anything so traditionally Catholic
Yali and Patience coloring their own visual aids in Sunday School of the three young men in the furnace of Babylon
A perfect chocolate long john from Tony’s Donuts before home
Sadly, a final letter waiting online from my sponsor child in Ecuador… he’s twenty now and prepared to graduate
Puck walks out of his room low on protein complaining about the lack of forks in the utensil drawer… it’s not uncommon finding them scattered in the yard, around the house, wherever a project calls for a spoon, a knife, or a fork
While Puck leaves for four hours in Produce, the rest of us drive the dog down to the desolate river fields of Cliff Cave… rain pushing in from the south… beautiful
Back home, Oxbear and Yali leave for the Cub Scouts rollerblading party while Patience and I make snickerdoodles (from a mix) and watch “Home Alone”