My Mom’s “Precious”

 

Today would  have been my late mother’s 90th birthday, so she is very much on my mind.

I just love this photo of yours truly with my older brother, the eldest of Mom’s five children, and my younger sister, who is the “baby” of our family.  (I am the second-oldest; missing from this shot are a brother, the #3 middle child, and a sister, #4).  It was taken at the celebration of life we had for our mother after her funeral Mass in March.

Here we are, apparently sharing some private joke, per usual—most likely some ridiculous comment delivered by my older brother, who is hilarious.  He and I are only sixteen months apart in age, and we've been good buddies all our lives.  He always, always makes me laugh.  He is a hard-working, deep-feeling guy who has zealously embraced the vocational roles of husband, father, and grandfather; he is deeply devoted to his Catholic Faith and his beloved family; but he is also just plain silly, in the best possible way.  Just so, so funny. And we all jokingly call him “Precious,” because of course he absolutely was that to our mother.  Her firstborn baby, the one who made her a mother.

This photo was taken on one of our worst days, when we were mourning our recent devastating loss.  But what a testament to the job she and our dad did, raising us to rally together and lean on each other in our suffering—and to find joy in each others’ presence even during the saddest of times.  I think my mother would be overjoyed to see us looking so happy together like this on the day of her funeral. 

Thanks, Mom and Dad, for the greatest gift you ever gave us: siblings!   And also, thanks for always having a sense of humor about life.  You sure passed that trait on to your firstborn, your Precious, and he keeps us laughing.

Introducing The Boy in Blue

Over the summer, I wrote and published a short novel--and when I say short, I mean very, very short. More of a glorified short story, really.  This latest book (most likely my last book, because I'm not exactly a spring chicken anymore!) is not nearly meaty enough to be called a true novel and is technically a novella, which is defined as a work of fiction that is between 17,500 and 40,000 words.  My humble little book has a word count of about 20,500 and is only 78 pages long (although for some reason, the publishing site I used, Bookemon, lists it as 80 pages--not sure why).  I mean, it's even a bit on the short side for a novella!  To tell you the truth, I can’t recall ever having heard that term, before I finished up this book and went online to see if I could call it a novel; it sounds like some kind of fancy, made-up word.  But it's a real word, I assure you.  

If you're a fast reader, you could probably knock this slim little volume out in one sitting.

I consider it a YA work, suitable for young readers, maybe 12 and up. It’s part historical fiction, part ghost story, and part time-travel tale, with no inappropriate romantic scenes; there's no bad language, and it’s told from a very Catholic perspective, with a message of hope about the power of prayer.  But because it does include difficult themes of war and war casualties, I would advise reading it first before letting a young reader do so.

I fear it was rather silly of me to bother self-publishing this and making it a "real" book. (They call this "vanity publishing." Mea culpa!)  I probably should have just shared it here at the blog in installments, but I wanted to be able to give hard copies as gifts to my kids and grandkids.

The Boy in Blue is available for purchase in paperback and eBook formats at bookemon.com.   HOWEVER, you can read it for free--without even spending a single penny on it. Just click this link to the book’s page on the website, where right next to the "Add to cart" button you'll find a button that says "Read" or "Preview book," and if you click on that you can “flip” through all the pages on your laptop or tablet.  If you use the QR code below, you can read it on your phone (but the print is pretty tiny).

Loop

Like I said, I probably shouldn't have bothered to publish it...I hope God is not displeased that I did this, even though I wrote the story hoping to give glory to Him, using the gifts He gave me to the best of my limited ability.  I tried to go over this manuscript with a fine-toothed comb before publishing, but I’ve found that when I read something I’ve written, my eyes sometimes see what I meant  to say instead of what I actually typed out.  Knowing this, I enlisted a couple of beta-readers to proofread it as well; but we may have missed a typo or two--although I hope not! And I hope that if you do read The Boy in Blue, you'll find some value in it regardless and enjoy it.

Enough about that!  I wouldn’t want this blog post to be longer than the book itself!  😂

Oh, one last thing: I may have some guest reviewers stopping by here at the blog--four beloved granddaughters who are voracious readers and their Grammy’s biggest fans. (I am inordinately blessed, I tell you.)  They received their copies of the book in the mail and all read it cover to cover that same day!  (I told you it was a quick read!)  So stay tuned; some completely unbiased book reviews might be coming soon…

God bless you, dear readers!

To the Heights: Creating a Domestic Church in Your Home

This is the second post in a row with a title that starts out "To the Heights," but it's not like I'm going to make that phrase a trademark of this blog.  I just thought that it absolutely fit last time, when talking about ordinary folks who keep their eyes trained upward, "verso l'alto," as St. Pier Giorgio Frassati put it, striving to reach the top, the pinnacle--which is of course eternal life in Heaven with God.  And I think it fits today, too, when I'm planning to talk about how the home is the family's domestic church, and everything that happens within its walls should point its members toward that same goal of becoming saints in Heaven.

They say that when you're in Rome, you should always remember to LOOK UP!  When I had the extraordinary privilege of taking three trips there (during the later years of my husband's career as an airline pilot, using the free stand-by tickets that were a perk of that job), I tried to always remember to do so.  And I was never, ever disappointed!  The Catholic churches over in bella Roma are just spilling over with so much glorious artwork (masterpiece-quality paintings, gold leaf embellishments, gorgeous statues, ornate metalwork, and intricately-carved woodwork, so much to see everywhere you look) that truly, every inch is a feast for the eyes and a proverbial glimpse of Heaven on earth.  But sometimes, the most beautiful artwork of all is on the ceilings. I have so many pictures of church ceilings taken while I was on those precious trips to the Eternal City.

So often, those breathtakingly beautiful painted church ceilings include areas that are deep blue and dotted with golden stars, like a splendid night sky framed in a skylight window.  It's funny, even long before I ever got to see those ceilings in Rome, I had a hankering to paint the dining room ceiling in our house in NH, where we lived for 26 years and raised our boys.  But I never had the guts.  (And also--Michelangelo I am NOT!)  It never happened, but the desire to have a painted ceiling in my own home was always in the back of my mind.

There's no reason one shouldn't have this sort of ceiling in one's own house, is there?  

Anyway, last May, all of my husband's siblings and many of their spouses met up in Savannah, GA, to celebrate the 60th birthday of one of the sisters.  While there, we attended Mass at the Cathedral of St. John the Baptist.  Oh my...have you ever seen it?  If you have, I don't need to tell you that it's simply magnificent.

And the ornate ceiling includes that element I love so in a church ceiling: areas that look like a star-studded night sky.  As you raise your eyes heavenward, you feel so close to Heaven!

Something about the starry sky thing just speaks to me.  You?

For some reason, looking up while we were in the Cathedral of St. John the Baptist got me thinking about how I'd always wanted to paint a ceiling like that.  As soon as we got back from that long weekend in Savannah, I looked at the dining room ceiling at our house here in VA and was like, Eureka!  It's a tray ceiling, and it had already been painted gray by the previous owners--so it hit me that one might hardly notice a change to blue. I realized that it was almost crying out to become my longed-for starry night sky!

Do you see what I mean?  That was how the room was painted when we bought the house back in 2017, and while I might not have chosen gray myself, I liked it enough to keep it as it was.  But now, in my mind's eye I could see the starry heavens up there in that framed middle section of the ceiling, and I could hardly wait to make my dream a reality.

I actually found a shade of blue called "Midnight Shadow," and I thought it was perfect.  I almost went with a more vibrant shade of royal blue, but ultimately decided that I wanted the change from gray to blue to be a tad more subtle.  Once I had the paint, I couldn't wait to get started!!

I toyed with the idea of stenciling the gold stars, but realized that hand-painting them would probably be way too difficult (and probably messy and disastrous!).  So I went online, and on Amazon I found some affordable self-stick gold stars meant for use on walls. 

 

Attaching the stars to the ceiling was a piece of cake.  But deciding on a pattern took a little more time and brain power.  And math!  I didn't want to just throw them up there randomly, even though that's what the real sky might look like.  I needed there to be some order to it.  I ended up using a yardstick to measure things out, and I made little chalk dots so I'd know where to place the stars.

This was early-on in the operation.

Eventually, it looked like this.

Sorry for all the pictures--I was trying to find the best one because none of them seem to quite do it justice.  It looks so much prettier in person...but you get the idea.

I am over the moon about this dining room ceiling.  I actually had a few pages of star stickers left over that I decided not to use, because I thought it looked "finished."  If I ever change my mind, I can always add more.  It's not exactly St. John the Baptist in Savannah...but this room is part of my very own domestic church (with stained glass in the chandelier, no less!  And a statue of Jesus in a niche in the corner!  And a Crucifix hanging over a picture of the Blessed Mother and Baby Jesus!).  And I love it.

When my husband and I moved here eight years ago, we left behind a large and well-built Colonial house in NH, situated on over an acre of land near the end of a quiet, wooded, cul-de-sac street.  It was a property which we tended lovingly and improved patiently,  DIY project by DIY project, over the years--a home where we happily raised our five boys.  But then all of those boys grew up and moved away, and it just so happened that three of the five providentially moved to the same area of VA.  So we did, too.  Our VA house is a good bit smaller than our NH house (but certainly big enough for two empty-nesters!) and located in a cookie cutter neighborhood, with a postage stamp-sized yard that's a breeze to take care of.  Some might say that we've taken a step down, going from the NH house to this one; but the funny thing is, I just adore this sweet little house.  It couldn't be more perfect for the phase of life we're in.  Obviously, it wouldn't have been an ideal place to raise our sons.  But it's so perfect for the two of us: small enough to keep clean and tidy, very cozy and comfortable, with a giant master bedroom suite that has a ridiculously oversized bathroom (I feel spoiled rotten!) and an upstairs bedroom that serves as an office, something we never really had in our old house.  And even though it's not the biggest house in the world, it somehow manages to hold all of our loved ones relatively comfortably for holiday parties, and we have three different guest bedrooms (one in the basement and two upstairs) set up at all times for our visiting out-of-town sons and their kids.  (Or for the occasional grandchild sleepover!)

I hope that when our our boys come here, they feel God's presence because of the way we have honored Him and His Son and the Blessed Mother in our decor.  I hope that they feel our profound love for them and their wives and children, too, as they walk from room to room, noting that aside from religious artwork, the walls are mostly plastered with framed family photos and meaningful mementos of our long and happy life.  I hope this sweet little cozy cottage of a house feels like a domestic church to them.  I know it does to me.  And as much as I loved--LOVED--those years when all five of our boys lived under our roof, I am feeling exceptionally blessed to have lived long enough to be enjoying these empty-nesting years with my husband now.  You start out just the two of you...then, God willing, you add the children...then they grow up and leave...and you end up with just the two of you again.  And if you not only love but really like your spouse, there's nothing at all depressing about it!  In fact, it’s a joy--a different kind of joy than when your babies were little, but a joy nonetheless.  Yes, the members of the family you created will come to spend time with you--often, hopefully; but it is your marriage that is the rock upon which that family has been built.  Cherish and nurture it.  And keep looking up to the heights! (If it helps, paint your ceiling to look like the starry night sky!)  Because the point of it is to help each other get to Heaven.

God bless you, dear readers!  Thanks for stopping by.

To the Heights: When Ordinary People Become Saints!

It's been weeks since I sat down at my laptop to write. As usual, I've been wondering whether I'm "done." I'm becoming like a broken record, repeating that sentiment here at the blog.  If you've stopped by much over the years, you've probably heard me say that more than once, and it's probably getting tiresome.  Yet I can't help but ponder the usefulness of keeping at it; blogging really is a thing of the past, mostly, and not that many people seem to be writing blogs or reading them anymore.  But this little site of mine has been part of my life for so long now, I feel like I'd be losing an old friend if I let it go to seed completely.  I don't even worry about how many people actually read it.  For goodness sake, when I started blogging more than 14 years ago (with the help of my daughter-in-law, Regina), I didn't even know how to check if anyone had read any of the posts. I didn't care about that one bit.  I certainly never planned to become an Internet "influencer"  (what a hilarious idea!).  When I opened up my dashboard to start today, I was shocked to see that my last post on August 28 had gotten more than 1,400 hits, which is about 1,200 more than a post normally gets.  I can't imagine why that happened...

Anyway--

I have been suffering from my typical recent aridity when it comes to writing anything to post here at the blog.   But it's not because there is nothing important to write about, nothing that I want to say.  The opposite it more like it.  There's just SO MUCH that I want to write about, SO MUCH that needs to be said (and is being said much better than I ever could by other communicators all over the Internet) that I am a bit overwhelmed.  Where to even begin?

There aren't enough words to describe the elation of the September 7 canonization of Carlo Acutis and Pier Giorgio Frassati, two holy young men who are the most excellent role models for modern youth (and for souls of any age, for that matter), followed so quickly afterward on September 10 by the horror of the brutal assassination of Charlie Kirk, a young man who was a strong and effective voice speaking out for the need to save the Christian identity of our country, and who was turning the hearts and minds of so many young people. It's been an emotional roller coaster, hasn't it?

Charlie Kirk was by all accounts a happy warrior, an exceedingly good, kind, generous, and humble man, a friend to all, a devoted husband and father of two young children; and if you ever watched one of his trademark debates with folks who disagreed with him, and saw how he could win every argument without anger--indeed, with a smile on his face--you know that he was an extraordinary person.  When asked once what he hoped to be remembered for, he didn't cite his successful political career as the creator of Turning Point USA, or the fact that he hobnobbed regularly with presidents and other famous movers and shakers; he said that he hoped to be remembered for his faith.  He was an evangelical Christian, married to a Catholic, and in recent months had spoken out about the need to honor and venerate Mary.  I get the feeling that he was going through a spiritual conversion (his good friend, podcaster Candace Owens, said as much on her show in a tribute to him after his death); I think perhaps that Charlie was on his way to converting to Catholicism?...Maybe not, but seeing him talk so reverently about our Blessed Mother was so touching that it moved my husband to tears when we watched it. I can't help but believe that if Charlie had been asked if he was willing to sacrifice his own life to uphold the teachings of Christ, he would have said, "Yes, absolutely."  I feel as if Our Lord welcomed him home with those words we all hope to hear: "Well done, good and faithful servant."  I don't mean to canonize Kirk. But in so many ways, his death feels to me almost like a martyrdom.  May he rest in peace.

About those canonized saints, though...oh my, it's just so exciting.  I don't know enough about Carlo Acutis yet, but as a mother of five sons who grew up loving video games in the 90's, I feel like he is the most perfect saint for young people to emulate.  We need more saints like this: "regular" guys who lead lives of extreme holiness, while living in the modern world and enjoying many of the things our own children enjoy.  It gives one hope that he or she needn't be a priest or a nun, living a life of extreme poverty and prayer in a monastery or convent. One can became a saint, even while living an "ordinary" life. What a great message for all of us!

The other young man who was canonized along with Carlo Acutis is someone whom I DID know a whole lot about before he was canonized: Pier Giorgio Frassati, whom Pope Saint John Paul II called "A Man of the Beatitudes."  The cause for his sainthood was opened in 1932; he was declared venerable in 1987 and then beatified by JPII in 1990.  

Sometime in the early 2000's, I ran across a chapter about him in a book about modern would-be saints called Faces of Holiness, and something about his story really spoke to me.  I immediately went online and ordered a book titled My Brother Pier Giorgio, His Last Days, written by his sister Lucianna, which recounts the last week of his life.  I read and re-read that inspiring book, before ordering others about him.

Books about Pier Giorgio have rested among my other books about the lives
of saints for years now.  I'm so happy that his sainthood is official!

I so loved his story that when I started writing my first novel Finding Grace in 2007, I knew right away that I wanted him to play a part in the story of a young girl who is inspired to become a saint and looks to heavenly intercessors to help her along the way.  But the novel was going to begin in the early 1970's and end in 1980, and Pier Giorgio was not even named Blessed until 1990.  He was not a saint that anyone would have heard much about back in the 70's.  In order to fit him in, I created a friend for Grace who was from an Italian-American family, with an elderly grandmother who'd known him back in the Old Country before emigrating to America.  She had lived in Turin, and her brothers had gone to school with him at the Polytechnic Institute there.  After Pier Giorgio's untimely death in 1925 at the age of 24, people there became aware of his extraordinary holiness and his heroic charitable work among the poor, and they felt that they'd had a saint living among them.  (Only 7 years after he died, the cause for his canonization was opened; it didn't take long!)  Thus was I able to fit this future saint into the book--and indeed, Grace Kelly half falls in love with him, as she gazes at a now-famous picture of him (which the Italian grandmother happens to have and passes on to Grace, conveniently enough!).

Here is an excerpt about him from a post I wrote back in 2014. (In that post, I talk about some other saints first; but this is the section that deals with Saint Pier Giorgio Frassati.)

One day about 12 or 13 years ago, I was flipping through Ann Ball's Faces of Holiness, Modern Saints in Photos and Words (one of the many Catholic works that crowd our shelves), stopping to read the sections that interested me.  This book is filled with short chapters that tell about the lives of different Saints, Blesseds, and Venerables--as well as some people who lived lives of extreme holiness, but whose causes for canonization have not yet begun.  I love to read about modern individuals--average Joes, lay people, married women--who have found the path to sainthood.  It gives me such hope.

It was by reading Faces of Holiness that I first became acquainted with Gianna Molla, who at the time was a Blessed but is now a canonized Saint.  Her story definitely resonated with me.  But I think the whole reason I was drawn to that particular book in the first place was so that I would find Blessed Pier Giorgio Frassati, whose name was completely foreign to me at the time.  I read pages 213-219 (a short synopsis of his heroic life and untimely death), and I was blown away by this handsome young man from Turin, Italy, who died in 1925 but whose body remains incorrupt.  He was for all intents and purposes a "normal" guy: good-looking, fun-loving, athletic; a practical joker who was always surrounded by friends; a student who struggled academically and was a bit of a disappointment to his parents.  He was extremely devout, however, a trait not shared by the rest of his family members, and he was especially devoted to Our Blessed Mother.  He also had a secret life: born into wealth, he gave almost all he had away to the poor (and his family did not even know the extent of his charity until after his death--when it was revealed that unbeknownst to them, there'd been a saint living among them).  I'm not even sure why the combination of photos and words in that book hit me the way they did, but I felt as if I knew him, as strange as that sounds--and I wanted to know more.

Before long I had ordered and read My Brother Pier Giorgio, His Last Days, a memoir written by his sister Luciana that chronicles his last week on earth--his "passion" and tragic death at 24.  It remains one of the most re-read tomes in my personal library, and if you're interested in reading a review I wrote for this wonderful book, click here.  After that, I got my hands on Luciana's other book, a biography titled A Man of the Beatitudes (which I had my youngest son read in 8th grade when we were homeschooling him; because--like JP II, who named him the Patron of World Youth Day in 2000--I can't think of a better role model for a young man to emulate).  It, too, is well-worth the time.  If you haven't heard of this extraordinary young man, or if you haven't read much about him, I highly recommend these two books.  His life story is utterly fascinating and inspiring, and if you do get to know Pier Giorgio better, I believe there's a very good chance that he will become a special friend of yours among the saints.

I admire this young man so much that I had to include him in my novel Finding Grace.  My shy little heroine, Grace Kelly, who is determined to achieve the goal of sainthood while living in the world, is "introduced" to Pier Giorgio (I won't tell you how--you'll have to read the book to find out!), and she becomes enchanted with him to the point of having a bit of a crush, even though he's been long dead.  I had to figure out a way to work some Italian immigrant characters into the novel so that there could be a personal connection between them and this saintly Italian boy, because the story is set in the 1970's and my research efforts failed to turn up the titles of any books that Grace could have read at that time to learn about him.  It took some finagling to figure out a way to have her "meet" him, but it was worth it to me.  I was determined that Pier Giorgio Frassati would be one the many saints whose life is an inspiration to Grace as she struggles to find and stay on the path to sainthood.

I can imagine that I, too, might have felt like Grace about him--if at 15 I hadn't yet met the true man of my dreams: the boy who would become my husband, the boy who made crushes on other males forever a thing of the past for me (and the boy who was my main inspiration for the character of Grace's love interest, Tom Buckley).  And I think if more young girls would ignore the Justin Beebers of the world and swoon instead over men like Pier Giorgio Frassati--men of exemplary character, moral fortitude, and deep faith--there would be a lot fewer heartaches.

I have yet to receive any special sign from this special friend of mine, and yet I feel a deep bond.  I urge you to learn more about this holy young man who will one day be numbered among the saints.  (This link is a good start, if you'd like to read about him.)

This photo of Pier Giorgio scaling a high mountain is representative of his earthly life, which was a constant striving to reach the goal, the summit: eternal life in Heaven.  The caption he wrote on it is quite apropos--"Verso l'alto" (Toward the top).  With the help of saints like him and so many others, may we also reach the summit.

Carlo Acutis' life ended at 15; Pier Giorgio Frassati's at 24; Charlie Kirk's at 31.  Their lives are a testament to how much good such ordinary--and yet extraordinary--people can do in this world, even if their time here is very short. 

God bless you, dear readers!  And don't ever lose hope, no matter how grim things seem.  Verso l'alto!  

Saints Carlo Acutis and Pier Giorgio Frassati, pray for us!