When All You Have to Do is Wave Goodbye

Two years ago, we helped Timothy move into O-House at UGA; one year ago, we helped him move into a house rental just off campus.

Today, Timothy is again leaving to go back to school, and what are Joe and I doing to help?

Absolutely nothing.

This week Timothy told us not to make a fuss. He’s going back to the same house, with the same buddies, and his room is just as he left it. Before he left campus, he cleaned his bedroom and bathroom, as well as washed and folded his sheets so he can make his bed as soon as he returns. He still has pantry supplies. The only thing he needs to take back are the clothes he brought home for the summer.

Joe and I keep trying: what about groceries? (me) or A/C filters? (Joe) or toiletries? (me) or toilet paper? (joe). What about school supplies? (Timothy: already done)

No fuss. And he means it.

It is fun watching him straddle two worlds. On one hand, he still sprawls on the couch while watching YouTube videos, loves Legos, eats anything with watermelon or cotton candy flavor, and STILL does not like to read anything except instruction manuals or car magazines. On the other hand, the majority of the summer he worked 40-hours a week as an engineering intern, spent an evening standing on a ladder to change Nonna and Nonno’s laundry room light fixture, pushed Nonno’s wheelchair through the craziness at the Seattle airport, and is not afraid to express his opinion on current events. He is the one who suggests we go to confession before Saturday evening Mass.

We will miss him. Joe will not have his Friday golfing buddy, and I will miss someone who makes me laugh—like, really laugh. He is funny, that one. When Timothy is around Joe and I are more cognizant of not falling into “old” routines—eating dinner at 5:30 or going to bed before 11 pm. While in Hilton Head he convinced us to go jet-skiing, and he helped organize my workouts into “leg days” and “arm days” with days for back and core sprinkled in.

So, no fuss today. No air filters or groceries or toilet paper. No accompanying him to campus.

As parents, we raised him to go off into the world, to make decisions and be independent, but it still comes as a shock when all this actually happens.

And when it does, like today, we will stand in the driveway waving goodbye. 

Speak to Me Sunday: Passion and Hate

It is a beautiful thing to be passionate about something. Passion fuels belief systems, provides focus and clarity, and propels action. It inspires leaders to lead, missionaries to evangelize, activists to protest, artists to create, and pacifists to make peace. It unabashedly spills forth, compelling one to share, teach, and proclaim because you want others to experience what you have.

Passion anchored in kindness, patience and example, leaves room for growth. It opens doors and encourages dialogue. It helps you stand strong in your convictions, but it understands, empathizes, and welcomes. It does not force your way. It does not make you superior, or anyone else inferior.

But the same passion that inspires creation of the Sistine Chapel can also spark a war.

When passion is mired in hatred and scorn, accompanied by finger-pointing and name calling, when it snarls and spits, the result is alienation to the point that the only people listening to your message are those who are just like you. And this leaves absolutely no room for growth. 

It is human nature that passion and hate bubble forth from the same wellspring of heightened emotions, but while the former can be inspirational, the latter often leads to abandonment of all reason to the point of irrationality. It is passion without reason. The ability to see good (any good at all) in the opposing side is lost. Haters are gonna hate to the point it becomes pro forma.

And here we are.

Today, passion in our country is satiated with hatred that festers, boils, bubbles, and breeds destruction on all sides. It is ugly. It is dark. It hurts and maims and kills. Sadly, so many people miss the point. If your passion is fueled by hatred and violence, then you are just promulgating hatred and violence. 

It is that simple.

Among the hills, when you sit in the cool shade of the white poplars, 

sharing the peace and serenity of distant fields and meadows—then let your heart say in silence, 

"God rests in reason."
And when the storm comes, and the mighty wind shakes the forest, and thunder and lightning proclaim the majesty of the sky—then let your heart say in awe, 

"God moves in passion."
And since you are a breath in God's sphere, and a leaf in God's forest, 

you too should rest in reason and move in passion.

-Kahlil Gibran

A No-Birthday Birthday

Today is my mom’s birthday.

Two days ago, she called to tell me she does NOT want anything for her birthday—no gifts, no fuss, no birthday cake. Nothing. “We will celebrate later,” she said, and I knew she meant after … after this month, after my dad’s cancer treatment is finished, after all this is behind us. My mother has a bullseye focus, and right now she is focused on my dad.

When my parents met with the oncologist, he told them: “My job is to cure cancer. Your job is to keep up with nutrition.” Well. The doctor was speaking my mother’s language, the language of food which is home-cooked, fresh, and nourishing. THIS was something she could do. Homemade minestrone? Done. Freshly baked bread? Done. In the mood for banana pudding? Protein pancakes? Baked chicken? Done, done, and done. When my father switched to eating smaller, more frequent meals, my mom set up a schedule to ensure his caloric intake was where it needed to be. 

She is tiny, but mighty.

On our family cruise last month, stormy weather in Seattle delayed boarding for all the passengers. When the port finally opened, we arrived to complete bedlam—taxis and Ubers everywhere, luggage drop-off points, a lengthy line just to get into the check-in area, and Seattle weather that was rainy, stormy, and cold. We stood there a moment, a little stunned. Where to even begin? How would my father be able to stand for that length of time in the drizzly weather?

Well, my mom was a terrier. She bulldozed her way to a counter, requested a wheelchair, flagged down an attendant, and within thirty minutes we were sitting in the Windjammer enjoying our first meal on board the ship.

My mom will go to battle for you; she will also dance with you.

On that very same cruise, one of my favorite memories was a line dancing class with my mom. All day the weather had been stormy, resulting in a rolling, pitching ship; in fact, several members of our group were out for the count due to seasickness. But the two of us danced in a room with a panoramic view of the choppy seas. We lost our balance due to the ship’s rocking but laughed and danced anyway.

Here is another thing about my mom: anywhere I go in Augusta—ANYWHERE—I always run into someone who knows my mom: from Bible study, church, the Italian classes she used to teach, her work as an interpreter, or her volunteer work. “I love your mom,” they tell me, which always makes me smile.

My mom. She is no-nonsense who does not like attention. It embarrasses her. She does not like to go to the mall, hates shopping for clothes, but will spend hours in a grocery store. She walks fast, likes to dance, and is not afraid to ask questions. She is both smart and practical. During her morning prayers she prays aloud and often sings a song she made up called, “Thank you Jesus, thank you, thank you Jesus!” (her grandchildren tease her about this). She loves honey mustard.

So, today is my mom’s birthday. And she does not want anything.

But if you see her, wish her a happy birthday anyway.

Happy birthday, Mom! We love you!

A Conversation with My Mom at Sea

The ship was between ports, the sun was shining and the seas were calm, and I was having a quiet, one-on-one conversation with my mom. She had been through a lot, lately, during my father's recent hospital stay. A simple question such as how are you doing? or what are you thinking? seems inadequate when addressing the unknown. As you can imagine, it is hard to pin down a specific feeling because they all overlap—fear, hope, anger, anxiety, relief, gratitude.

Earlier that morning, my mother was sitting on deck during her morning prayers and watching the sun dancing on the whitecaps.

“Those whitecaps are like graces,” she told me. “Sometimes you see them, sometimes they disappear without acknowledgement, but just like the whitecaps which are absorbed into the ocean, so are God’s graces. They are present whether we see them or not, given to us whether we acknowledge them or not.”

God’s grace, meant to lead us to a holier life, but also there to offer hope, encouragement, and a reminder that there is power in prayer and that He knows each and every one of us by name.

Shortly before our family cruise, I was having a moment, the kind which involves tears and feelings of abandonment. Does God hear our prayers? How can He hear my prayers when I am but one among many?  Does He see me? Can He reach out and touch me through the crowd, like the woman in the New Testament? I tried to pray my way out of that dark place, but the words would not come. Then, at that very moment my friend Thalia, who was traveling in Greece, texted me a photo of a sign that read: Maria’s Boutique Rooms.

God’s grace reminding me (in a very dramatic way) that he knows my name.

So, sitting there with my mom, talking about whitecaps and the timing of God’s grace, we counted our blessings. This cruise, sandwiched between a lengthy hospital stay and upcoming cancer treatments, was something we were not even sure would happen. There had been so many questions and no answers: Was my father strong enough to travel? What if something happened? Should we cancel? Postpone? But sometimes you have to live the question, so after eight days in a hospital we relished the eight days at sea. Eight days to recover, celebrate family, gather strength, find peace, cling to hope.

A week to feel God’s grace and know that He is, and always will be, there for us.

Even as we face unchartered waters.

Especially then.

Did "juneau" that ...

Did “juneau” that Juneau has only 80 days of sunshine a year? Well, we got one of them. We explored, panned for gold, and saw a Native American festival. Then, Timothy took a 45-minute seaplane flight over five glaciers. No photos of Nonno because he went deep sea fishing with my brother. Remember those 80 days of sunshine? Perfect fishing weather.

A Piña Colada at 10 am

Family dinners, trivia competitions, Skagway train ride on the White Pass Railway, glacier viewing, and today … deep sea fishing and gold mining. And how are Nonna and Nonno? Yesterday Nonno showed up to the trivia competition with his cane in one hand and a giant, frothy piña colada in the other (it was 10 am). And today, after 33 cruises, Nonna was on a team that finally won a trivia competition. She proudly wore her medal.

Carpe Diem

Nine days ago my father was coming out of his fourth medical/surgical procedure in eight days (two cardiac catheterizations, a biopsy, and a cauterization to control bleeding). It had been a grueling eight days. Still groggy from the anesthesia, he looked up at the nurses, technicians, and doctors standing around his bed and said, “I am going to eat, sleep, go home and take a shower, and then I am going on a cruise and get fat.”

Everyone in the room laughed.

But what the nurses, technicians, and doctors did not realize was that my father was not making a joke. He was making a declaration.

So this evening, our family is boarding a ship for a trip to Alaska, a trip we have been planning for half a year. My dad is still recovering from his hospital stay, and the biopsy results did not give us good news, but before he faces seven grueling weeks of radiation treatment … for now—TODAY—we are going on a cruise.