A Glorious Sunrise

As I mentioned in my post yesterday, last night was my youngest son's all-night graduation extravaganza known as "Last Blast," and my husband and I were chaperones. This was the fifth time that we pulled this all-nighter in order to share this wonderful experience with our sons, and it will be the last. And we sure went out of the Last Blast chaperoning business with a bang! The festivities always end with a breakfast cruise, and while they're on the boat the kids watch the sun come up on the first day that they are officially no longer high school students. Isn't that a great way for these friends to say good-bye--and a fine way for these young people to welcome the dawn of a new day (get it?) and the beginning of the next chapter of their lives? It's downright metaphorical. And my husband and I have seen some good ones on these Last Blast cruises; but this morning, the sunrise was without a doubt the most glorious of them all.

I thought I'd share the magical beauty of this picture-perfect New England sunrise with you.
I'm pretty proud of this photograph, which was taken with my Canon Power Shot SX100IS--the greatest camera I've ever owned. I think it's beautiful enough to put on a postcard!

In Praise of Mothers

Today my youngest son graduates from high school at noon, and then this evening his entire class begins an all-night adventure known as "Last Blast." The kids meet at school and then after signing yearbooks and being fed extremely well, they get loaded onto four buses and go to four different locations (places which have been reserved specially for just this class of 178 graduates) where they do things like ride bumper cars, play mini-putt, and bowl. And at every stop along the way, there are parent-provided munchies and drinks: these lucky devils get pizza, sandwiches, chips, desserts (baked with love by students' mothers), ice cream, candy, and who knows what else. The festivities are topped off with a breakfast cruise out past a lighthouse, and in clear weather the kids end their last night as high school classmates watching a glorious sunrise together. On the boat ride, the kids are winding down: some sit on deck chairs passing around their yearbooks; some curl up and sleep; some cry. Last Blast is a truly awesome way to end four years of high school, and for the fifth time, my husband and I are going to be there to witness the whole thing. We have always volunteered to be all-night chaperones; and though we may be getting a little old for this sort of thing, we wouldn't miss doing it this one last time for the world!

Every year, there's a red bus, a white bus, a yellow bus, and a blue bus. The chaperones of each bus decorate it in its designated color with crepe paper streamers, baloons, etc., and they pass out plastic leis, glow sticks, hats and other goodies in the same color to all their student passengers. Everywhere you look, you can tell which bus each student belongs to! It's really fun and becomes a competiton to see whose bus is the best. My husband and I will be chaperoning on the blue bus, riding along with the kids all night as they hit each spot and move on to the next. We aren't 100% sure where they're going this year--it's a big secret! But we are fairly certain that it will end with the traditional sunrise harbor cruise. We are really looking forward to it. Our son is on the white bus (the administration never puts a student on the same bus as his parents), but he has already informed me that I can take as many pictures of him and his friends as I want throughout the night. (Luckily, none of our boys ever requested that we stay away from Last Blast, because I think it's as much fun for my husband and myself as it is for the kids!)

I started out this post planning to say simply, "My youngest son graduates today and then we are chaperoning his all-night graduation party, so I don't have time to write much." I figured that since my daughter-in-law is a new mother, I would just post a beautiful image of Our Lady of Grace, with a tribute to mothers and all the jobs they do, and that would be it. The whole point of this post was going to be to praise mothers! Instead, I went on and on about my son's Last Blast! But maybe what I wrote in this post wasn't so far off the subject of motherhood (and fatherhood, too, for that matter) after all. It's hard to imagine now, just days after the birth of her twin girls, but someday, my daughter-in-law might very well find herself riding on a bus with my son, chaperoning a graduation party like this one. Along with about a million other things, that's the kind of thing that mothers do.

Endings and Beginnings

June 2 was a day of both bittersweet endings and joyous beginnings. On that day, my youngest son put on a blue and white uniform and went out onto an athletic field to represent his high school for the very last time. His lacrosse team, which was ranked 5th in their division, played the #4 team in the championship quarterfinals. Unfortunately, they lost 6-4, so their season came to an end sooner than they would have liked. But my defenseman son has a lot to be proud of: his team's defense kept them in the game and held the other team to their lowest goal output of the season. My son (if I may do a bit of bragging here) had a whale of a game, one of his best ever, keeping their premier attackmen away from the cage and frustrating them completely. But this boy of mine never thinks much about his personal performance; with him, it's all about the team. And it was a tough day for his team.

It hit him at the end of that game that this was it: this was the last time he'd ever put on a high school jersey and play with these boys he's been playing with for the past four years. Last fall, after the last football game (where his team suffered a heartbreaking loss in the championship game), he was sad when it hit him that his gridiron days were over; but he still had lacrosse season to look forward to. On June 2, though, there was that unmistakable note of finality: it was the end of an era, the end of a part of his life that (if he's anything like his four older brothers) he will remember with great fondness. To this day, his brothers will say that their best memories about high school all have to do with playing football and lacrosse (and for son #3, basketball, too).

I snapped this picture as my baby was heading across the parking lot to get on the team bus, for the last time ever, and ride back to school with his teammates. Endings are tough, especially endings to things that have been so wonderful.

But June 2 was also a day of miraculous, exciting, blessed beginnings! Because on the morning of the day that my youngest son played his last game of high school lacrosse, my oldest son became a daddy to two beautiful, healthy baby girls. I am finding myself amazed at the timing of these family events: as our youngest graduates and leaves the nest, we become first-time grandparents! When people ask us, "What in the world are you guys going to do, now that you're going to be empty-nesters?" we just say, "We're going to travel to see our kids and grandkids!" As one phase of our life ends, a new one begins. I couldn't have planned things out better if I tried!

They're Girls!

Yesterday morning my daughter-in-law, God bless her, gave birth to healthy twin daughters. (Yes, they're daughters--those foreign creatures, those soft, sweet things that are going to have their Papa and their uncles wrapped around their little fingers, I'm sure.) My son, who was a baby himself only "yestertime," is a daddy! And there are two more girls in the family--woot woot! We're gaining on the men.

My daughter-in-law was induced yesterday at about 7:00 a.m. (Central time) and had a 6 lb. 10 oz. baby girl at 10:01, followed closely by 5 lb. 9 oz. baby girl #2 at 10:03. One was 20 and 1/2 inches long and the other was 19 and 1/2. Babies in general are simply miraculous, irrefutable proof of the existence of God; but the fact that she had two of them that size living in her is almost impossible to believe. I'm dying to reveal their names, but I have been working hard to keep most personal information about my family out of this blog, so I won't; but I will tell you this: they have been given the most beautiful saints' names, names that could make you cry--perfect names for the little angels I know they're going to be! I love their names, and I can hardlly wait to see the baby girls that go with them.

My son was able to "be there" in a way, via Skype, so he has seen his wee daughters. In about a month, he will be home to spend his two weeks of deployment leave with his new little family.

Papa and Grammy are very, very happy, and relieved that mommy and babies are doing so well. Thank you to all of you who have been keeping my daughter-in-law and the twins in your prayers--I know they helped. God is good! Life is good!

A Prayer for Safe Delivery

We are eagerly awaiting the news of the arrival of our oldest son's twin angels (and the blue border on this picture doesn't necessarily mean I'm predicting boys--we just didn't have any pink construction paper!). We can't believe that the day is finally here!

I pray that St. Gerard, the Patron Saint of Expectant Mothers, will protect and comfort my daughter-in-law today. Here is a prayer to this saint for women in labor.

A Prayer to St. Gerard for Safe Delivery

O great Saint Gerard, beloved servant of Jesus Christ, perfect imitator of your meek and humble Savior, and devoted child of Mother of God, enkindle within my heart one spark of that heavenly fire of charity which glowed in your heart and made you an angel of love. O glorious Saint Gerard, because when falsely accused of crime, you did bear, like your Divine Master, without murmur or complaint, the calumnies of wicked men, you have been raised up by God as the patron and protector of expectant mothers. Preserve [my daughter-in-law] from danger and from the excessive pains accompanying childbirth, and shield the child[ren] which [she] now carries, that [they] may see the light of day and receive the purifying and life-giving waters of baptism through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

"B" and "A" Are on the Way

I already put up a post this morning, and I don't usually like to do two in one day; but I just heard some very exciting news from my daughter-in-law's mother on my answering machine. The babies, heretofore known only as "Twin A" and "Twin B," will most likely arrive tomorrow! We will finally know if they're two boys or two girls, and what their names are going to be!

Today at her appointment, my daughter-in-law's doctor made the decision to keep her in the hospital overnight, as her blood pressure has been a bit high recently. Tomorrow at 6:00 a.m., labor will be induced with pitocin, and at 6:30 they plan to break her water. I pray that means that tomorrow will be the babies' birthday (let's hope they come in a timely fashion and make things as easy as possible on their dear mommy!). What a great birthday for twins: 2 babies born on June 2! How fitting that would be!

I'm afraid that it will be hard to sleep tonight, but that's okay; if I can't, I'll just say lots of prayers. I'll ask my daughter-in-law's Guardian Angel to be by her side as she labors to bring those two little souls into the world. I'll ask the babies' Guardian Angels to watch over them as they make their way out of the safe haven in which they've been snuggled up together all these months. I'll pray that all three of them are resting peacefully together by this time tomorrow night, if not sooner.

If you are reading this, please pray, too: for my daughter-in-law, for her twin babies, and for the twins' father, who can't be there because he's on deployment in Afghanistan. Thank you!

Band of Brothers

I hijacked the title for this post from the 2001 HBO ten-part mini-series of the same name. That "Band of Brothers" was about the experiences of E Company, or "Easy Company" (part of the 101st Airborne Division), during WWII. "Band of Brothers" was a fantastic mini-series and I highly recommend it; however, this post has nothing to do with war stories, other than the tussling and scrapping of little boys. I just thought it made a great title for today's ruminations about my five tight-knit sons.

A number of years ago, a woman whose son played on the high school football team with several of our boys told me that he'd said to her, "The Pearls are so lucky to have all those brothers! They probably never get bored." In this particular boy's house, it was just he and an older sister. I remember being flooded with warmth and happiness when I heard that comment. My husband and I had always thought that our sons had a unique and special situation: they lived in a world where everyone was interested in the same things, played on sports teams together, and even shared mutual friends from school. I remember thinking that it didn't matter if we weren't the richest people in the world, materially speaking; we had given our boys the greatest gift they could ever get, and that was each other. We used to tell them that they were rich in brothers!

Well, a few nights ago, the same sort of thing happened again. It was downright deja-vu-ish. My youngest son had a buddy from school over, and we were hanging out in our "sports room" (also still known as the "new room," even though it was finished off years ago). Whenever our boys' friends come into this room, they spend a lot of time looking all around: at the many framed pictures of the brothers playing football, basketball, and lacrosse; at the line-up of the five brothers' high school football jerseys that are tacked up on the wall, oldest to youngest; at the row of five varsity letters that hang in order in a line over the coat rack; at the tributes to the various sports teams the brothers follow (Notre Dame and the Red Sox very obviously among them). This boy's eyes were wandering around the room, soaking it all in. And then suddenly he said to my son, "It must have been fun growing up with five brothers."  And my son replied simply, "It was. It was awesome." This friend of his was another boy who had only one older sister. I guess boys who have no brothers always think about how cool it would be if they did (and the same could be said for girls who have no sisters, I'm sure).

I hope my boys will always look back fondly on growing up in a band of brothers. Now that they're men--now that the bickering over video games, fighting over whose turn it is to ride shotgun, and all that sort of childhood nonsense is long past--they truly are the best of friends. What a blessing they are, and have always been, to their father and me! As I mentioned in a previous post, some young mothers used to look at me with horror-filled expressions when they found out that I had only sons (gasp!), and they'd say, "God bless you!" I could never think of a good comeback on the spot; but after the fact, I would realize that what I should have always said in response was this: "He already has!"