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The effect hides any country reject into my economics.

Grief Suspended

Blogging stopped a while back while my father faced his final illnesses. He left us on June 1. If you read this, please join me in praying for the repose of his soul.

During June, we were raw with sadness, and worry over how our mom was taking this loss. There were so many things to do to reorganize her financial matters. In July we began to return to a new normalcy. Then in August, mom got sick, right before her only grand-daughter's wedding. Some adjustments to her heart medication, and she was fine, and managed to enjoy the wedding day without Dad by her side. Two days later she was back in the hospital with congestive heart failure. She pulled through. Two weeks ago, our phone rang at 3:30 AM. She was in the emergency room after falling in the hallway of her home. Hip fracture, but it did not need a total hip replacement. Surgery two days later went fine. Unfortunately, anesthesia and pain meds do a number on an 84 year old mind. We had about nine days of worry because she was delusional and paranoid. Thank God, she is back in her right mind and doing well in her rehab, progressing well towards getting back on her feet. Sometimes she cries and says she thinks she hears Dad calling her, or she dreams that he is lost and sad because he can't find her.

Because of all these other illnesses, I have pushed grief far away, I feel as if it's grief on hold, that I will have to return to this again and process it fully.

I don't know if I will blog much, because I feel more of a pull to engage in real life right now after a long day working at my computer, and absolutely no urge to stay up late and think up blog posts.

Withdrawing into Lent

On the eve of Lent, I am struggling with many worries. One adult child whose mental state is once again pretty bad, elderly parents struggling with my dad's dementia, job worries, etc.

I will be trying to limit my time on the internet, and trying to find more quiet time for prayer and reflection. I have to give all this worry over to God, or it will consume me. All day I have been longing to turn the corner and enter Lent...my life has felt off balance and unstructured for the past few weeks. I have been fighting a minor bout of depression myself, and it sapped my energy and will. I see Lent as my chance at healing, but I understand that it may mean opening up some old wounds so that things can heal aright.

If you read this post, please spare me a prayer during this Lent.

Septuagesima

I have been struggling to lose some extra pounds that I gained over the holidays. Struggling and failing. On Sunday morning, I was musing that I really need to focus and deal with my tendency to gluttony, because Lent should be arriving soon, and I will not be able to keep any discipline around eating, fasting, or abstaining in my current state. Lo and behold, when I went to set up my Missal for Mass, it was Septuagesima. The Church was right there, with the right messages to help me turn my thoughts toward Lent. Thanks be to God.

A good Lent takes careful planning. I struggle to keep every Lenten vow I make, it is never easy for me. I think I will be including less time online and more time taking care of my household. So blogging will be light to nonexistent during Lent. And I will have to give up reading some blogs as well. But I think this is a good thing to include in Lent this year.

Gluttony and slothfulness, good things for me to ask for God's help in conquering this Lent. To stop using food as an emotional crutch, and instead put my worries in God's care. To stop thinking everything else is more important than restoring order to my home, to rise a little earlier and take small steps each day to get it under control. Maybe part of my sin in this area is pride, thinking that the things the world praises me for are more important than the hidden and unnoticed everyday tasks. There is a lot to ponder here.

Sometimes a video is more than what it seems. When I saw this today, I felt like it was a representation of what is happening in the universal Church now, this quiet and joyful reclaiming of authentic Catholic worship and culture. It was so much more than just a how-to video of how to prepare a modern altar for ad orientam.

Our Forgotten Allies

Maybe I'm not seeing the full picture, but it seems to be that one area we should be actively cultivating to help swell the ranks in the pro-life movement is young men. Here's why I think this could be key to gaining additional momentum.

Note: I am not implying that men are under-involved in pro-life issues and am thankful for every man who actively supports pro-life causes. I just have this feeling that even more participation among young men could be key.

Proborts have tried for too long to sway our youth to a free sex, contraceptives for all, abortion on demand agenda. Many of their claims stem from their definition of women's rights. In drawing a circle around pregnancy as something that only involves a woman, they have denied a basic fact of nature, let alone the theological truth that all life belongs to God.

Young men, men who are in the prime of life and most likely to father children, need to reclaim their rights to participating in decisions concerning the children they conceive. A father's rights begin at conception. Consider the tragedy of a man whose child is aborted without his consent. What will his lifelong psychological wounds be? How will that haunt him and follow him through the years? I recall reading a story years ago about a young man who was adopted into a loving family. When his girlfriend aborted against his wishes, he explained that he had just lost the first person in his family who would really be related to him as a blood relative, and he struggled with the pain of that.

Furthermore, our efforts to raise pro-life youth need to concentrate on our young men. We have quite an uphill battle ahead of us on this front, given our culture. How early can we educate them on the theology of the body, on the divine gift of fatherhood? How early can we emphatically tell them that abortion is as much a man's issue as a women's issue? I'd love to hear your thoughts, please leave a comment.

Finding Grace at the End of Life

It seems that most of the Catholic women bloggers I read are younger women, doing a wonderful job of raising (and often educating via homeschooling) large families. They are an inspiration, and they make me wish I had been a little more like them when my children were small.

Right now, my children are lurching forward into adulthood and (hopefully) self-sufficiency, making a few mistakes along the way. Let's just say that I have taken one child's needs often to good St. Monica. Thankfully, that child is beginning to straighten out, and I have every hope that he will make it the rest of the way.

I am worrying at a distance (approximately 2.5 hours driving) over my aging parents. It would be more accurate to say both worrying over and being inspired by my parents at the same time. My dad has dementia, and it's been accelerating over the last few months. As I see him drift further and further into confusion week by week, I often feel like a child standing on a shore, watching my father drift away into a dark, cloudy sea. I remind myself that for every loss that takes him further from us, he is moving toward a bright eternal future that is the hope of all who believe in Christ. I would like to believe that this disease is some sort of purgatory while he is yet alive, because truly, he is becoming like a little child. Perhaps in this state, he will be able to enter the kingdom more directly when God calls him home.

Without faith, losing a beloved parent to dementia must be a horrible thing. Because of faith, I still see much to be thankful for here. Two months ago, he did not know me, after surgery to repair a fractured hip. When he once again greeted me by name, I cried like a child. He may never walk again, or even stand without significant support. My mother remains hopeful and steadfast. She has rarely left his side. Pre-Cana couples should be required to apprentice themselves to my parents.

I have been living like a ping-pong ball, bouncing from my parents back to my own home, a few days here, a few days there. Sandwich generation, a time of enormous trials, but also of immense blessings found in seemingly small things: the touch of my father's hand, the heroic strength of my mother as she cares for him, the sound of young people laughing in my home as I turn the key in the lock at the end of a long drive. I don't know where this post is heading. I don't think it said anything profound. It's just my way of of getting a few things out of my head and heart where they have been rolling around. It's my way of telling you a little more than I can provide in the profile space. Thank you for listening.