not forgotten.....

I was 39 when our daughter died.

In today's society I was "irresponsible" for being pregnant "again" when I already had 5 children. With 2 of them being special needs, and being "old & tired" in the "high risk" pregnancy category, I should never had "wanted" or "tried" to have another child.

I didn't care.

The more the merrier was my motto.

And the joy, oh the joy, when we found out it was another girl after our string of boys!!!

I had never looked forward to having a child as much as I had with that one!! The one that society said I was "blah, blah, blah" to have. Oh, how I still want her!!!!

Today is the 10 year anniversary of the day that a link in our family was broken. It is still in tact in God's time, but here on earth we are missing a daughter, sister, our baby girl.

It isn't acceptable to say in polite society that I'm the mother of 10 with 6 still living. I know. I've tried. People absolutely freak out when you say it. But the missing children are not forgotten. Even though I'm the only one in the family that "knew" them, even my knowledge of them is fleeting. We don't know what they would have liked, or looked like, or grown to be. But they are members of our family, and are not forgotten.

So I look at little girls in the 4th grade and wonder who she would have been friends with, what her interests would have been, how the older sons and daughter would have been with a little sister. What would it be like to have a 10 year old girl living in my home?

It wasn't meant to be.

And even though I don't have all those answers, or knowledge, or the fulfillment of those hopes and dreams for that dear little daughter, she is still very much a presence in my family.

Surely absent, but not forgotten, and still loved.

Uncharitable

My dad fell off a step stool on Memorial Day weekend.

After 3 hours in the ER, we found out that he had a lumbar compression fracture. Basically one of his vertebra collapsed. His pain tolerance was remarkable, admirable, and enviable. Too bad men can't give birth, cause he would totally be rockin that pain!!!!

I have been making the trip to my home town once a week to check up on my parents. My mother's health isn't great either and I have now entered care taker mode of elderly parents. I am so grateful that they have been independent up to this point, since my youngest is now 9. I have much more time to be able to be split between 2 households.

Yesterday I made my visit. While in the house helping my mom, we heard the lawn mower going. It was my father, 3 weeks into recovery of a broken back, mowing. the. lawn.

I. WAS. FURIOUS.

1. That was one of the reasons I came down. And I brought the 12 yr old to teach him.

2. Dad isn't healed yet, isn't supposed to lift anything over 10 pounds, let alone push a mower! He just got released to drive!

3. I felt that it was very reckless and could have caused further damage.

I prayed and prayed for the rights words to let my father know how unhappy I was with his choice.

I should have prayed some more.

I'm pretty sure I wasn't charitable, or respectful, to my father. Who is struggling with pain, humiliation, and loss of some independence. It can't be easy to realize that you are now old and being told what to do and don't do, by other people.

Not much of a Happy Father's Day present.

I'll apologize today when I call him.

a good daughter would!

I'm leaving

Going on retreat today!

WOOO WHOOO!!!

20 of us are going to the local shrine of Venerable Solanus Casey and spending the night.

It was an epic Lent, Easter and now octave of Pentecost.  Insanely blessed beyond any reasoning of deserving such graces.

I'll be praying!!!!

So many needs for so many souls and I'm so lazy! I shouldn't have to go away to be this committed to prayer! I hope this retreat helps me to get better with that.

Let me gain the graces to be the saint I was made to be!!!!