Something Zane loved to do was make cookies. This is something we did nearly every day. I used to hold his hand to help him crack an egg and make sound effects for him. He liked that. He used to try to eat the butter and show his enthusiasm for our baking activity by mouthing the bowl. His very favorite part was pouring the mix into the bowl. I used to say, “Here comes your favorite part!” I bought the same cookie mix today and I’m in my kitchen making cookies in spirit with Zane, smiling and chuckling at the parts of our process that I remember.
Well. my granddaughter will be happy and surprised to see cookies when she gets home from school.
Zane was a young nonverbal autistic guy with cerebral palsy that I took care of for the last four years of his life. He died at 20 years old on August 22.
I have been rather dysfunctional lately. I go to work (I still have one of my jobs) and I come home, do the minimum such as take care of my chickens cats and dogs. Then I lay in my bed and stare at the ceiling. My heart hurts. I feel like I am dying. It’s grief of course, for Zane, who died suddenly and unexpectedly August 22 of this year.
At the same time I have lost my job. I took care of Zane for about four years. I also take care of Mac, another special needs young man.
So I have lost my main job, my job with Zane, which is a crisis in itself. It’s hard to make decisions when you’re grieving and it’s not the best time to do it. However, I don’t have time to do this any other way.
I really love working with special needs young people. I seem to have a knack especially with those who are nonverbal. It is a calling I believe, to do this work. It’s a work that is love. It means a lot to me.
I interviewed with a new family. It went very well and they would love me to come work for them. I liked them too. I said I would let them know in a day or two. Then I cried in the car and had to go over and hug Zane’s mom. We sat on the couch and talked for a while about Zane, about things. Her loss is so great I had to stop typing for a few seconds just now thinking of it. I feel guilty talking about my own grief but I can’t help it.
When my mom got restless or had a problem she needed to think about, she re-arranged the furniture and cleaned madly. Sometimes she pulled up carpet or made new curtains and painted the living room to match. I’m not good at sewing. I don’t have money for paint. So I stuck with re-arranging the furniture and cleaning madly.
I talked to my friend Shawna who somehow manages to give me clarity when I need it. I continued to clean madly. My dogs were a little concerned.
I thought about how I am worried about the pay for a prospective new job which is far less than I made at my last. I wondered how I would pay the mortgage now. I finally got a house and I am not giving it up. I was thinking about what to do about that.
However the main issue is grief. It’s hard for me to think of replacing Zane and trying to love someone new already. I reflect that I have never failed to love anyone I have taken care of. In the nursing home where I did my clinicals there is no way to really get to know the people you care for. You take care of their immediate physical needs and even if they’re crying or something you have ten other patients you have to get to who need to be changed or whatever. Even then I always cared for each one in a loving way as best I could. That’s just how I do it. I can do this.
I have a daughter in college. I will do whatever I can to make sure she gets as far with her education as she wants to. She is busy applying for master’s programs lately. No matter what she is going. My other daughter has been going through hell this summer. It’s pretty unimaginable the way she is holding it together. However she needs me. Sometimes she needs my help. I’m going to be here ready.
If there is anything in my life I have learned to do it’s grieve and fight for my family at the same time.
I can work out the pay part somehow but I prayed about my next person to take care of. I think this could be the one I asked for or was led to. . I think I will try it and do my best.
The dogs needn’t worry. I think I am through cleaning for now.
Today I did something I have never done before. I took part in an “honor walk” for someone I love very much who has died- just yesterday in fact. I had never heard of an honor walk before. This is something that was done today for this person so beloved by so many. I can’t tell you who this person is to me because the family has not shared anything on line as far as I know so I won’t either.
However I thought this honor walk was pretty touching. Everyone came at such short notice and it was a lot of people!
It had to be carried out quickly due to the family’s decision to donate the organs “so he can be the answer to another family’s prayers.”
His body would be flown to Dallas for this purpose.
This death was sudden and tragic. Everyone I saw there in the ICU was still dazed from the shock of it. Hospital staff had us line the halls. Some of the people had signs with pictures of him saying “We love you.”
We seemed to stand there a long time. I didn’t know many of the others though I could guess who many of them were. I introduced myself to some I had heard the most about. I regretted that I somehow forgot my rosary. I always have one in my pocket but I didn’t remember today. I made desultory conversation with an interesting young person next to me whom I had met several times before. It was awkward or I worried it was.
I repeated “Jesus Maria” in my head as I tried not to let my emotions or my social anxiety overwhelm me.
In High School my best friend, Philip, was killed in a car accident. I remembered vividly watching his mother, Helen, go stoically through all of the necessary procedures. Afterwards I tried to stay close to her through the varying stages of her grief and mine.
A lot of feelings from my past came up standing there because I felt so terrible for the family. I remembered the last time I would ever see my first husband’s face after he had died in a car crash when he was twenty-eight. I had to ask my dad and brother to remove me so the funeral home people could close his casket because I just couldn’t leave Marc’s side. Standing and waiting today I kept thinking of the trauma, shock and horror this family must feel in these last moments with the body. I felt those feelings of horror and bottomless darkness from my past that I wish I could save them from.
I had to sort things out. I didn’t want to avoid my own grief for this person now. But I also needed to be present and remind myself that this is not my trauma. This is their trauma. This is their day, his day. I wanted to pray and to be there. I wanted to grieve this person and not my other people I’ve lost. I so wanted to strengthen the family and love them. As someone who is all full of trauma and loss myself this was hard to do.
Staff handed out water bottles and tissue. I noticed I was crying a little bit. That’s a sign of healing for me because I did not have that ability for many years. It is a recent development.
Finally the hospital bed carrying our person was pushed between the two lines of people from the other end of the hall. Everyone stood in silence. After the family had passed we followed. He was propped up on pillows. His eyes had some kind of shiny stuff on his closed eyelids. There was a ventilator tube coming out of his mouth. There was the face I loved, empty of expression now. He didn’t even look that empty when he was sleeping. He was definitely gone. Still I mentally told him I loved him knowing he could spiritually hear. I asked him to look after his family.
Finally we came to an open door leading to a kind of dock. A chaplain invited us to pray together which we all did. A hospital staff member of some kind read out some words of gratitude for what the family was about to do, and a blessing. She cried while she did it. The mother of our person spoke to him for a while some loving words. I couldn’t hear them exactly. And he was sent out.
I saw a beloved grandmother in the hall and hugged her and the weeping grandfather too.
The parents hugged me. I so wanted to be a comfort to them. I think I was. It seemed that way.
We were all guided back out to the lobby where I joined my step mom and daughter who had come with me, having known him too. I had stood with the family and close friends. My step mom had pushed me over there. I hadn’t been sure I should be so forward but it worked out.
I thought the honor walk was beautiful. It was fitting. It was just like the family, who are so loving, to do this.
I will think about it for a long time.
This is not my trauma but the family’s. However, I grieve. I do grieve terribly.
Now that the family has openly shared about Zane’s death I can too. I was his care giver since he was 16. I loved him – I do love him- very much.
I did not cry for nine years after you self destructed like a kamikaze in our midst. There are not even any pieces left to sort through. Where did you go and why couldn’t I stop you. We were closer than close and I should have known when you locked me out what was coming. We always said when we didn’t spend time together neither of us was right in ourselves so we should always make sure to connect no matter what was going on. You kept trying to apologize, trying to come back into our front porch days. You said “When I hurt you I hurt me and I can’t stand that I hurt your feelings. I hate that.” And I always said it was ok. I said we can work through anything just like we always have. I had faith in that. Absolute faith. How crazy did you have to be for me to not be surprised. Denial is more powerful than I ever thought. When you said “I’m scared I might be mentally ill,” I should not have reassured you that you weren’t. The last time I saw you I hugged you brother and I rubbed your little head. You looked like a small boy that day who had been sick, safe at his parents’ dinner table. Your letter to Dad said I would be OK. Well I’m not. None of us are. You must have hurt so badly to do something like that. You just needed it to stop. I thought oh he will be back like always. He just needs to think. I was so close. But I think you thought we were far away and you had no idea how to get back. You couldn’t find us. And you thought we couldn’t help. I finally cried the other night and it was about something else. It felt weird. It didn’t last long. I wish I could miss you the way I miss everyone else. But there is just a void where you used to be. Like the Mariana Trench. No one knows what’s down there, only how unfathomably deep it must be. I’ve been there. But I couldn’t understand anything.
Then Peter came to Jesus and asked, “Lord, how many times shall I forgive my brother or sister who sins against me? Up to seven times?” Jesus answered, “I tell you, not seven times, but seventy times seventy times.
Mtt. 18 21-22
It’s been almost nine years but I’m still not sure whether I have forgiven it or not. I still struggle with how I am supposed to forgive someone who turned out not to be who I thought they were. Forgive who? What was that who was that?
In the aftermath I realized I was thinking of the whole mess about once every 15 seconds. I began training myself to repeat the names of Jesus and Mary any time I caught myself dwelling on the whole thing. I had dwelt on it long enough truly. I increased my prayer time. I decided to try to stop talking about it. It helped a lot. Slowly I didn’t think about it, not even every week.
I went to Confession. In exasperation I asked the priest, “How do I get to Father forgive them for they know not what they do?” He said my penance would be to go out and meditate on the crucifix in the church and ask the Lord, “Father forgive me for I knew not what I did.” Instant peace came to me then.
As time passed I realized that I “forgave” this person over and over again while they were still in my daily life but not in any real way because what I did was be upset about what they had done, avoid them for a while and then simply go on as before so that they did the same things again and again. My kids suffered emotional scars because of this lack of boundaries on my part. I let this person be with us for so long. At the time I didn’t realize how much the girls were harmed especially when they were still young. How did I fall into this trap? How could I not know how mean this person was being to them? Even the things I did know about them should have been bad enough. I should have not allowed this person around my daughters. I certainly did do things I didn’t know I was doing. Those mistakes seem crazy now.
Then at a time of another tragedy in my life, this person set out to ruin my reputation, blame me, interfere with my friendships and even my family relationships, to tell distorted versions of my private sufferings, commandeer one of my daughters with lies and emotional scenes when she needed me most and was too young ti break out of that situation. This person deeply hurt my other daughter as well during a time of grief and shock for my family with hateful accusations and not allowing her to retrieve what was hers and precious to her from the house. This person also participated in grave financial harm to me and one of my kids that we will never recover from. I was emotionally and socially betrayed on a level that was traumatic enough to keep me curled up on the couch for days. I never thought they would go that far especially at a time like that. Why was I shocked? I can’t answer that fully.
One thing I have learned from all this is that being a forgiving Christian does not mean having destructive people in my life. Even Jesus had boundaries.
But Jesus did not entrust himself to them because he knew their hearts.
Jn. 2:24
However I sometimes still feel angry at this person, even after I have peeled away several layers of resentment and reached certain levels of forgiveness. I didn’t feel that it was complete. Because of those feelings of rage coming up now and then, especially recently, I tend to think of this person every time I pray the Our Father. How can I forgive this person as God forgives me? God forgives me more than completely. God is mercy, God is love. I always ask that I will be able to do this. I have learned forgiveness is a grace. We just have to be willing to receive it. Was I willing? I didn’t know. My mom used to say that sometimes we have to ask to be willing. Other times we have to be ask to be willing to be willing. Sometimes the situation is so difficult we have to pray to be willing to be willing to be willing. I think this is like that.
Recently, sitting quietly in prayer, I felt that the Lord untangled my thinking a bit about what forgiveness looks like in a situation like this. In a flash I understood that all Jesus wanted from me now was to pray for this person’s salvation. I felt my heart open as it seemed the Holy Spirit prayed in me for just that: for this destructive person’s salvation. It was an understated but all the same beautiful moment. I understood that God did not need my tortuous worry about my lingering feelings about this, or the useless dead end paths of my self judgement or scrupulosity on this point. Just prayer for their salvation that is all. The rest was between that person and God. Oh.
Three times I pleaded with the Lord to take it away from me. But he said to me, “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.”
2 Cor. :8-9a
Then I prayed the our Father in freedom and when I said, “forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us,” I almost felt a kiss from Jesus, and I had to smile. I love that guy.
A few days ago I was interviewed on local Catholic radio about loss and grief, my stories and relationships with my family and friends who have died, and how my faith figured into the journey.
One of the questions I was asked was whether I had any advice about handling the holidays. As you may know I lost my first husband in a car accident 25 years ago. Then, between 2012 and 2015 we lost four family members, all tragically. My second husband we lost to brain cancer. Six months later my mom, only 63, died of a combination of things; COPD, Lymphoma, untreated Lyme’s disease and dementia. My brother committed suicide in 2015 and my step dad died in a house fire four months later. These were the people we usually spent the holidays with.
Honestly we haven’t done well with holidays at all since all that, especially without my mom, the holiday queen (or shall we say dictator). We hardly ever had to do anything except bring a thing or two and stay out of her way, being unquestioningly obedient and obsequious to her requirements of us. These included No (more) practical jokes (that had been a major coup attempt to take over her iron fisted rule over the holidays) no disorder or chaos of any kind, and everyone cooperate peacefully and sing Christmas Carols whether we liked it or not.
We missed all of that after her death. We would never be able to cook like that (and for DAYS), set a beautiful Fiesta ware table like that, make flower arrangements ourselves from our own garden or provide the atmosphere she did. We would never do two Christmas trees; one artistic and one victorian style in different parts of the house, or line the sidewalk with luminares, or cover everything with color themed lights, or wrap the presents in themed artistically matching colors. Or be her. We could never be her. Nobody could. And nobody Could read The Grinch Who Stole Christmas like her. It only made us sad.
So that first Thanksgiving without her we did something completely different. We had a chaotic Thanksgiving pot luck at my step brother’s house. It was loud with football on the TV the whole time and music playing and people in the band room banging the drums and everybody talking in every room. Lots of people people people.
My step brother has become more of a recluse since then. We don’t see much of him though there is no ill will and only deep affection between us. We keep in touch.
So pretty much we didn’t really do Thanksgiving. I mean not really. Sometimes we did very little and it depressed everyone even more. Other times we did nothing. It would just be my daughters and me and the babies.
At Christmas we did what we needed to do for the three kids but everyone kept it as simple and quiet as possible. It was hard not to get depressed. We usually did get depressed. I truly longed for Christmas to just be a religious feast day instead of all the other stuff on top of that.
Eventually we began to bring back some traditions we missed, like going around the table doing “wishes and gratefuls” on Thanksgiving. You say three things you are grateful for about the year. Then you wish the person sitting next to
you a year of whatever you see them needing or wanting. We brought that back. The kids come up with some pretty sweet and funny things to say too.
We brought back our old household tradition of leaving Santa cigarettes and beer on Christmas Eve. We know from experience that is what St. Nicholas is into. He left cigarette buts and beer cans all over the yard that time he set up a trampoline for the girls all those years ago. So we give him what he really wants.
But THIS year for the first time I am truly excited about the holidays. Because THIS year we have a HOUSE to have these events in! Our own HOUSE again. We have room for sitting at the table, to invite friends too, room in the kitchen for my daughters and I to cook together, a yard for the kids to play in. We don’t understand football at all but I want to put it on anyway. It will remind us of our men and we will just be comforted by it, not, I am hoping, sad. I think we may even be happy.
All of my mom’s Fiesta ware except a tea cup and a salt shaker were destroyed in the fire but I have been building a new collection. And we have SO much to be grateful for!
I plan to introduce some new traditions as well. We plan to light candles on the table for each of our beloved dead. Also when the girls were little we had poetry night and A.A. Milne night. On A.A. Milne night we would take turns reading from The World of Pooh and laugh and laugh. That stuff is hilarious. We continued that into their teens and laughed just as much.
And poetry night we could read one of our own poems or someone else’s we admired. We used to have a lot of fun with that.
We used to break into a family dance sometimes after dinner.
I’m thinking we could read aloud from The World of Pooh after Thanksgiving Dinner and then have a family dance.
On Christmas Eve last year I got the kids to memorize a poem each. It turned out really funny. (Especially the Shell Silverstein ones). I should start working with them earlier this time. But we can have poetry night again this Christmas. We will all do a poem!
There is even a yard for the kids to play in afterwards. I think it will be good.
Mom’s house was always filled with cigarette smoke on holidays because so many of us smoked. None of the smokers are with us anymore. But maybe we will light one up just to recreate the ambience.
I almost forgot we have a fire pit. So we can have a fire and my youngest can play guitar and we can sing our family song, Wish You We’re Here by Pink Floyd. 🙂
And any time my daughters and I are together we end up telling stories about the people we miss and what they used to do or say back then. We still miss them. But mostly we laugh.
And anyway, we know they are still here. They are probably laughing too. Even Mom. 😉
I forgot something in my post about what I did this summer. It’s just a ridiculous story. My life seems to be dotted with crazy stories involving animals. Here is another one.
My eldest daughter lives out in the country. She had a neighbor she was going to get me some chickens from. I like to raise them from chicks (it’s more fun) but I was open to it. I wouldn’t have to wait until spring this way. I requested hens only, all different colors so I could tell them apart and get to know them, and I asked for only four of them.
I wasn’t ready yet though. My daughter helped us move and at the end of the day offered to go pick up those chickens. I said I hadn’t had the chance to get a coop ready for them or anything. She said they had told her it’s today or never.
I don’t think sometimes so I said OK I would figure it out. I worked on it but there is just no rushing something like that. When she pulled up in her truck I was still excited to meet them though. Maire said, “Well these look like a different kind of chicken. And there are six of them. I was’t sure what to do so I went ahead and took them.”
They sure were loud. I looked in at them. They looked like turkeys and seemed almost as big. They looked at me and started screaming at me. I said, “These aren’t chickens.”
Maire said, “What do you want me to do? I can take them but the coyotes will get them for sure.” “I guess for the moment we can put them in the garage.” So we dragged the large dog crate they were banging around in, those crazy things, into the garage.
After she left I decided to try hanging out with them for a while and see what they were all about. I was trying not to be disappointed. Chickens are funny and endearing. These things were a little scary. I noticed one of them seemed slower and more hapless than the others. She kept getting separated from them and freaking out. The others had to call to her and find her. I started to worry because by my reckoning it was probably about 120 degrees in the garage. I couldn’t leave them in there. I thought of a truckload of chickens that broke down years ago and how all the chickens got too hot and died. Hundreds of them. I couldn’t risk that. I didn’t have a coop for them but my yard was fenced. So I decided to let them out where at least they wouldn’t die of heat.
To let them into the back yard they had to come through a room that probably used to be a back porch. We call it the sun room. The birds shot into the sun room screaming their heads off. I opened the back door and most of them ran out to the yard. That slow one got stuck in the shower somehow and was hitting the walls and screaming like a banshee flapping her wings. My dog was barking and the cats went streaking from the scene. I finally managed to catch her and get her to her friends outside.
I went out with them to see what happened. My dog was going berserk at the back door. They poked around for a minute, checking out the situation and then they all flew away.
I don’t know why I was shocked. Maybe because chickens can fly but not really. I rarely have had a chicken go over the fence. Trying to roost in the trees on a low branch, yes but just… leaving?
So I was shocked. How disloyal of them!
Admittedly we didn’t really know each other.
Well what now? Should I try to catch them? That did not seem possible. And where would I put them? I didn’t have a place for them anyway.
Then I thought, “Did any of the neighbors see this?” I didn’t think so. I hoped not. They would surely not be any too happy to have me as a new neighbor if they did.
I was worried about the not-chickens. One of ,my employers has a background in poultry science. So I asked him if they would be alright. He said they were guinea hens and ill suited for “urban life.” He said they were very loud and obnoxious. I could agree with that. He said even if I caught them they would just leave again unless I caged them which sounded like a sad life. Apparently they would be fine. We even live near a creek.
I found out they will eat squirrels and other rodents or any small animals. My boss said that if I had chickens they would have attacked them and eaten them. They sounded like real charmers.
I actually was impressed with their loyalty to each other, though, and their care for the slower membr of their group. Also they mate for life which is cool.
However none of that mattered because the situation with those things was completely out of my hands.
We saw them from time to time over the next several days walking along the road or in a neighbor’s yard. Something about this cracked us up.
Just when we thought they had moved on we would hear them in the trees next door screeching. Taking the trash out one night it sounded like one of them got separated from the others and was calling out. The others answered back from across the street, like “Is that you Mabel?”
This happened again another time and the whole gang ran single file down the alleyway looking ridiculous and sounding insane, to reunite with their friend.
I had to laugh as they went by like a gaggle of old ladies on the attack. But it is cool how they take care of each other.
My youngest daughter saw them all the way over at St. Joseph’s walking along a busy road seemingly arguing with one another.
In fact I saw them today already walking through our front yard. They’re still hanging around the area. Screaming.
Sometimes people drive by those goonie birds, laughing when they see them. I guess it’s a “what the heck!?” kind of laugh.
I hope they haven’t killed too many squirrels or carried off anybody’s chihuahua.
Yes I confess I have released a terrorist avian gang into my new neighborhood.
Sorry.
If you want to hear what they sound like I found a video on YouTube.
And at the world because it was his playground and he loved when it surprised him.
At The Eagle Newspaper pressroom
Red was irreplaceable
Ingenious
An out of the box thinker who loved to save the day.
He liked telling pressman history and showed me how to fold the paper hats they used to wear in the old days to protect their hair from ink.
He was proud of his work.
Red had endurance
Working long hours until the job was done.
I hardly ever saw him not covered with grease and ink.
He was often seen eating refied beans out of the front pocket of his uniform.
Red was a hard worker but a rebel
Full of mischief although he understood honor
A little crazy though he had his own wisdom.
He would have made a good pirate.
Great in an emergency Red had the presence of mind to laugh and take a sweeping bow when his hat caught on fire.
He was a gentleman who smiled at the ladies, opened doors for us, always ready with a compliment “You smell good!”
Red was kind, believing in love.
Red was a wild man.
Red could fix anything
Blow up anything
Get into anything
Race anything.
He had a theatrical sense of humor; coming to work dressed in a sarape and sombrero, maracas in hand.
It was a national immigrant walk out day but those in the mail room were not allowed to participate under threat being fired. Red and Bob harassed the manager all day yelling “No worky Monday” on their behalf. Loudly they sang in fake Spanish their made up Tejano music making said employees screech with laughter and take pictures.
And who could forget Bob and Red’s mock strip tease routine in their tool belts when they popped out of a cardboard cake for that mail room crumudgen on his birthday?
Red was accident prone.
Once accidentally peeling off the top of an Eagle truck under a bridge. We had a picture of him shrugging dramatically at the scene, smile intact.
Red was the most believable Gun Smoke cowboy and on alternate years, tie dye hippie, at The Eagle Halloween parties, always in character with memorable lines off the cuff
Red always had something inappropriate to say to make us shake our heads and laugh.
Red believed in peace but he didn’t mind stirring up a little trouble now and then.
Red was a dare devil we were sure would go out in a blaze of glory one day.
Red loved his six Yorkies with all his heart maybe especially Chester the rattlesnake fighter.
He loved his kids and spoke of them often.
He married in his teens and stayed with his wife until her death, often writing on face book afterward, that he would love her forever.
Red tattle tailed on my daughter but also defended her to me, reminding me she was a good girl.
Red made everything he touched and every place he inhabited into art. Things that dangled, things that drove, things you weren’t sure about. He was an unusual yet somehow traditional decorator. Odd keepsakes and knick knacks you couldn’t mistake for anyone else’s’ filled every available space of his house.
Red had a quick mind and a ready wit.
Once he fixed a dirt bike in the woods with a rock.
At The Eagle Red is legend, someone we’re proud we knew.
Red repaired my rosaries with love though he made cracks about it the whole time.
Red loved the press crew as his brothers.
He was there for my husband when he was dying, racing him around in his wheelchair for “one last ride.”
He said he and the press crew wanted to heal my broken heart.
Well they did.
You helped a lot Red.
Red was a good friend to all of us.
Red was reckless, adventurous, a lover of danger but he could be a sage at times, cautioning me against resentment.
If he left us with a message maybe it would be a kindly but funny warning like the one he spray painted on a barrel of toxic waste the guys were stacking on the dock to be taken away; bad shit do not eat.”
Red would tell us to forgive, to let things go and not to ever let hate settle in our hearts to embitter us.
He would tell us to live, love and be free.
Don’t eat bad shit that will damage your well being and the priceless gift of joy.
I don’t think Red will just “rest in peace.”
Too much to do.
God will have to start breaking stuff to keep Red occupied.
Precious in the eyes of the Lord is the death of his faithful ones. (Psalm 116:15)
St. Joseph, your death was beautiful and tender. Your passing filled the room with love; your love, the love of your family, the love of God.
Joseph the dreamer, the worker, the father, the husband, the prophet, the protector, the meaning of your life settled with intense clarity on those who kept watch at your side and on everyone who ever knew you, flooding the hearts of them all. Help us when our time comes to leave this world, to have fulfilled our purpose, to have loved God and every human being he sent our way, to have lived with Jesus and Mary daily that we may also die in their arms and ultimately reach heaven in the company of the angels and saints, to be forever in the Heart of the Father, inhabiting his House filled with wonder. St. Joseph, Patron of a holy death, pray for us as we honor you. Pray for us always.
Bethany Hang Out 