Francis' Baptism

Monday, January 3, 2005

Francis had been baptized that Sunday, and although Joe the Younger had even given him the wrong questions to answer before the actual sprinkling of water, (he was getting over being sick and was a little out of it himself), all had gone quite well, and Francis had been congratulated many times. Rev. Owl Eastwitch, visiting from Tennessee, had even spoken to Francis from the pulpit, encouraging him to always look to Christ, always. It moved him nearly to tears to hear that Francis wanted to be baptized to be obedient to Jesus, as with any child who gave his life to Christ. His sermon had been very moving and encouraging to all Christians as they began the new year, to keep the joy of salvation, always.

It had been a pleasant afternoon, as both of the grandmas had been there over a good hearty Sunday afternoon meal, and then football afterwards where the Rams nearly lost to the Jets. It was always good fun to see the grandmas watch football together. Whenever a deciding kick or run was made, neither could watch the screen. There was much hardy laughing, and both grandmas would ridicule the opposing team. Neither particularly liked the New York team.

But Saturday had also been good – New Year’s Day. Collette and OLeif had been given a gift card to the Macaroni Grille from Shepherd and had spent a nice lunch at around two, with good cheese and spinach pasta and buffalo mozzarella on lovely thick red slices of juicy tomato, plus good golden bread with dipping oil.

Before lunch, they had driven to Chesterfield Valley for a medium-sized canvas for Collette to paint the tsunami.

Later that evening, the Big Bad Dad had called, “our cute little Daddy”, as Carrie-Bri would call him, and left a message (as they were gone to the movies), to say that there was a Mayberry special on Channel 4, recounting the days of the Andy Griffith show. And they would have watched it too, had they been home.

That afternoon, before they went to see “Finding Neverland”, Collette began the skeleton of the tsunami piece – pale violet for the two huge surges and deepest fiery red for the sky, and gold for the sand, burnt umber for the hills…

She had even dreamt of a coming wave that night, and upon awaking that Monday morning, she found it had left a most unusual trace on her mind… on their second honeymoon of sorts… bouquet of orange blossoms and pale violet blues… wedding gown… Grandma, Mom, the kids… three Irish cottages torn down… rain forest roads to the meat, cheese, and sausage shop… to move north… waves coming larger and larger by the hour… always seemed to be late afternoon, often bright (the sun a false sun), but sometimes gray… all identification papers lost… signs in the heavens… ties with many other old dreams…