The End of the Year ... oh Momma ... oh Lord ... what's next?

The End of 2007 ...

The Eve of the Feast of Mary Mother of God ...

Oh Momma how I miss you ...

Really, it's not been a "bad day" ... I don't feel sad or depressed or anything, really ... I just feel blah ... and frankly lifeless, hopeless ... the bleakness and futility of the future seems summed up in the prospect of a New Year.

Still, this morning, I took pictures of Mom's grave, really lovely under a light, sparkling frost.

This morning, I heard a story on NPR about foods traditionally eaten in different places for the new year. Italians, they said, traditionally eat lentils and Italian Sausage. The lentils are in the shape of coins and signify the wish for prosperity in the new year. This sounds so natural and traditional that I can't help but be attracted to this ceremony. I was tempted to buy some Italian Sausage but didn't in the interest of keeping costs down as much as possible these days. But I fixed a big bowl of lentils tonite, mixing in onions & seasoned with onion salt, and really it was good. Oh Lord I do pray for prosperity in the new year, in accordance and concordance with Sons and Daughters of Adam and Eve in Italy and elsewhere.

The dog and I went to Woodward Park for a walk this afternoon, and then this afternoon, we both visited Mom to wish her a Happy New Year and to give her a coo and say "Night night ... night night, Momma, and don't let the bedbugs bite," as she would say smilingly.

I thought of dismantling the Christmas Tree but didn't. Tomorrow ... but tonite, one last night of Christmas Lights on the Prettiest Christmas Tree We've Ever Had ... Momma, I know you would have liked the Tree taken down today, but forgive me, I so love to look at the lights even as I feel utter emptiness and devastation in this place in your absence, Momma ...

I watched Bad Santa, always a wonderful antidote to Christmas blues, and I worked on sorting through documentation needed to file for student loan repayment in the prospective new year.

Oh my dear Momma how I miss you so ...

O I love you Lord Jesus ... and please please please ... O Lord ... take good care of my dear Momma ... please ...

I love you Momma and miss you so much

I'm drinking some more egg nog in your memory O Momma and beg all the Angels and Saints who have gone before to celebrate the New Year with you dear Momma ...

And I look forward by God's Grace to celebrating a New Day and a New Eternal Year with you oh Momma ... God willing O Lord ...

I love you both ... I love you all.

Charles Delacroix
Feast of Pope St Sylvestre
Eve of Mary Mother of God

Beautiful ... just beautiful ... and sad ... so sad

I am sitting here looking at our Christmas Tree. I'll probably take it down today ... Momma, you always said that Christmas decorations should be down by New Year's. But for now ... oh how very beautiful.

The Prettiest Christmas Tree We've Ever Had ...

Or at least ... it would be ... if you were here ...

Maybe by God's Grace you are here ... then lovely indeed the Tree ... lovely indeed everything ...

But Oh Momma I can't see you ... and oh oh oh oh oh how I miss you ...

So so so so much ...

On this last day of the year ...

I want to say what a horrible horrible year, since this is the year that you were taken from me ... yet how selfish I know ... when it's time to go it's time to go and for you this must be good but oh oh oh oh oh ... I just miss you Momma so much ...

Oh and what a year ... there were many, many, many good things in this year, weren't there, Momma? This is the year I was given the privilege of being for you a small, small, small fraction of what you were to me for so many many years ... caregiver, caretaker ...

You always said it best: "I will always be your mother, and you will always be my son." This year in a very special way allowed me to clothe myself in this mantle, to walk this way of love, to gain God's Gift of you in a special way ...

All this is good, so good, but oh

oh oh oh oh oh Momma ...

How I miss you ...

Oh Momma I love you

Oh Jesus I love you

Oh Lord Jesus please please please please please ... take good care of my Momma ...

I love you

Charles Delacroix
Feast of Pope St Sylvestre
Eve of Mary Mother of God

Sound of Music ... and our Christmas Tree at Year's End

ABC was showing Sound of Music tonite. Oh Mom how you and I both loved to watch this, together. Mom you always thought Christopher Plummer so handsome and charming.

Oh and Momma as I watched this movie "on & off" ... I looked over at our Christmas Tree, the Prettiest Christmas Tree We've Ever Had ... and it does look so, so lovely.

Our Christmas Trees always looked so lovely especially in the dark, with hte Christmas Tree lights on. So beautiful, Momma.

And your chair is empty

And the tree looks so lovely ... and so futile ... so very out of place, for everythign is out of place with you not here ...

Emptiness and Dejection and Futility and Hopelessness ... isn't that what this life is all about O Lord

Oh Momma how I miss you

Oh Momma I love you

Lord Jesus I love you

And Lord Jesus please please please please please ... take good care of my Momma.

Charles Delacroix
Sunday in the Octave of Easter
Feast of the Holy Family

Feast of the Holy Family

Today is the First Sunday of the Christmas Season ... Sunday within the Octave of Christmas ... and the Feast of the Holy Family.

Our family ... such as it was ... would not be the kind of family that anyone would even consider comparing to the Holy Family.

That includes me ... well me at one time anyway ...

But things have changed. For me they have changed enormously, beyond words. My mother's decline and death ... and the days and weeks and months since then ... have left me with a very, very, very different view of my own family than I had in the past ...

Mom ... and (yes) Dad ... and Grampa and Grandma ... maternal & paternal ... and all their forebears ... those I know a little about ... and the many, many, many I know nothing about ... not even their names ... all of these have from me today really nothing but deepest, deepest, deepest gratitude.

Thank you dear dear dear Momma.

Thank you all.

I keep thinking of this picture of Momma in her picture album. It's just after WWII. She and Dad have set up their very first house in Columbia. It's winter, and Momma is looking back at the house, ice and snow everywhere. The caption of the photo says that the tree by the house is bent low under the ice. You don't in the photo really even see Mom's face very well. But her bundled up figure, and the way she's twisting back to look at the bent-over tree and the house ... her very first home for what she planned to be her new family ... oh my my my ... Mom looks so wistful, so full of hope, so full of young energy ... energy she placed at the service of a dream, a dream of family, a family under God. Oh my. That was ... when? 1946? 1947? Ah me ... so long ago ... but that photo ... oh I've been thinking about it since I saw it, looking at photo albums a few days after Momma died 4 short months ago ... and even if our family turned out in some ways tragically ... even if all families turn out, in the end, very tragically indeed ... even so ... even so ... isn't there so much to admire in a woman and a man who labor to build a family with such courage and tenacity and perseverance and joy and sadness ...

Oh thank you Momma ... thank you so much. I will never, ever, ever be able to express the smallest fraction of the gratitude I have in my heart for you. And for your God, and my God, who vouchesafed you to me. Who allowed little Charles Delacroix the sheer privilege of having you for a Momma. Who allowed me the Grace ... the sheer Grace ... of being your son.

Oh but Momma ... how I miss you ... I miss you so much ... so much ... so much ...

I'm going to the grave to pray for you now dear Momma. Yesterday morning, Aunt Edna and Cousin Rose came by the grave. The funeral home lady came by to inspect the grave marker. I thanked her, and asked her to thank all responsible, for managing to get it placed there the Friday before Christmas. Aunt Edna and Cousin Rosanna both said that they think the marker looks wonderful. So do I. I am so grateful, Lord, and so grateful, Momma. Thank you thank you all.

But oh how I miss you Momma ..............................................

Lord Jesus please please please please please take good care of my Momma ...

I love you Lord Jesus
I love your Most Holy Family
I love my Momma, true if tragic Ikon of your dear Mother, O Lord

I love you all

And am grateful to you all

Charles Delacroix
Sunday within the Octave of Christmas
Feast of the Holy Family

Pygmalion ... PS I love you

The OETA Movie Club is showing Pygmalion (1938), tonite ... the version with the great Leslie Howard as Henry Higgins, and Wendy Hiller as Eliza Doolittle. See http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0030637/. Frankly, this wouldn't be Mom's favorite version: she and I loved My Fair Lady (1964) http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0058385/ with the redoubtable Rex Harrison as Higgins, and the delightful Audrey Hepburn as Eliza Doolittle. Still, she and I would have talked about Leslie Howard ... a wonderful actor, who Mom and I both most associated with Gone with the Wind (1939) and The Scarlet Pimpernel (1934). What a wonderful actor in particular from the movies that Mom most knew and loved ...

I also saw another movie today ... PS I Love You (2007) http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0431308/ with a delightful Hilary Swank starring. I liked the movie very much ... I'm not sure Mom would have, to be honest, but I liked especially the sense throughout that Life and Death are closely, closely intertwined. The vision of Death affecting everything, the sense of a relationship sundered but not over; the overwhelming Job-like anger and despondency and demands for explanations of the Swank character ... all this of course touches me very deeply.

For what doesn't seem meaningless, valueless, worthless, hopeless, dry and dusty and tasteless ... in this life with Momma no longer here ...

Oh Momma I miss you so so so so much

Oh Lord Jesus please please please please take good care of my dear Momma.

I love you Momma

I love you Jesus

Charles Delacroix
Feast of St Thomas Becket
Eve of the Feast of the Holy Family

PS ... I love you!

Thomas Becket, the Holy Family, and the Prettiest Christmas Tree

Today I see is the Commemoration of St Thomas Becket ... Mom & I both loved Becket the movie, and this saint's struggles to be as Wise as a Serpent and Innocent as a Dove I think always resonated for Momma ... as it did, and does, for me.

Tomorrow is Sunday within the Octave of Christmas ... and the Feast of the Holy Family. Oh Momma ... our own ill-starred family may have been far, far from the Holy Family in so many ways ... but oh your courage and your determination and your love and the sheer strength of your efforts to make a family are all to me the greatest of gifts and I feel such deep deep deep gratitude ... thank you Momma oh thank you Momma ... and thank you Lord Jesus for my dear Momma ... and Oh Lord Jesus .... please please please please please ... take good care of my dear Momma ... please ...

Momma, I have the Christmas Tree lit .. and think it's just beautiful, just so lovely and special ... and oh I think I will miss it in a special way ... as we both did every year when it came down ... and Momma oh Momma I do think if you were here that we'd both agree smiling at each other, perhaps with tears in our eyes, that this is the Prettiest Christmas Tree We've Ever Had ...

Oh Momma how I miss you so so so much ...

Chubby is here ...

The Little Pink Piggy is here ...

The Little Blue Monkey is here ...

The Christmas Penguin is here ...

Spooky is here ...

Those Cotton Tailed Bunnies that Aren't Hardly Worth a Nickel are here ...

Our Christmas Tree is here ...

Your beautiful things so full of memories are here ...

And Oh Momma I am here ... I am here ... oh Momma why are you not here ... oh Momma ...

Oh Momma ....

Oh Jesus please take good good care of my Momma ...

I love you Momma I love you so much ... so much ...

I love you Lord Jesus oh I love you so much ...

I love you Momma I miss you so so so so so so so so so so much ...

We all miss you so much ...

Love always,

Charles Delacroix
Feast of St Thomas Becket
Eve of the Feast of the Holy Family

4 Months Since the Funeral

Mom was buried on the Feast of St Monica - August 27; and today, the 4 month anniversary, is the Feast of St John, the Apostle of Love, the special adoptive son vouchesafed to the maternal care of Our Lady by Our Lord Himself as He Hung Dying on the Cross.

oh Momma how I miss you. Everything still seems just so very, very, very bleak. The New Year approaches ... without you ... so ... what's the point?

Oh well ...

Mahlesh ... :-] ...

I love you Momma

I love you Jesus

Please please please please O My Lord Jesus Christ ... take good care of my Momma ...

I love you and miss you so much

Now and always

Charles Delacroix
Feast of St John

Christmas ... and Momma

I spent my Christmas morning at Momma's grave, and really, on the whole, am very very glad. So many, many tears; but it all felt ... I was going to say Right, but of course nothing feels Right with Momma gone. But it felt less Not Right than otherwise.

I took along Chubby bear, and the little pink piggy, and the little blue monkey, and the Christmas penguin ... so Momma was surrounded by the stuffed animals she and I came to love so much. I took along Momma's bunny slippers too ... those "cotton tailed bunnies that aren't hardly worth a nickel" as we joked from time to time. Momma would of course say in due course, "Oh Charles ... you know ... maybe they're worth a nickel ..." Oh Momma what a big, big heart you had ...

I took along the picture of the mother bear and its cub, too. You loved that picture, Momma. So cute ... but of course that's how you always saw motherhood ... and me too ...

I took along two cards. Both are Charlie Brown cards. We both loved Charlie Brown, you see. Well, one card was from last Valentine's Day, although the front of the card, full of seasonal red, really looks like a Christmas card. On the front, though, it pictures Linus with his Blanket and Snoopy, and starts out with the capion, "When I count my blessings ..." ... and on the inside, reads, "I think of you!" It's addressed inside to "Mom!" and is signed by me on behalf of myself and the many loved ones around us:

Love,

Charles Lee
Spookey
Little Blue Monkey
Pink Piggy
Birds
Rabbits
Cotton-Tailed Bunnies Not Worth a Nickel

She liked that card very much, and it's been sitting on top of the piano. So's the 2nd card, which shows Snoopy and Woodstock sitting on top of Snoopy's doghouse. Snoopy has his typewriter out, and has typed out:

"It was a dark
and stormy night,
but Mom was
there, so it
wasn't scary
at all.
The End."

On the inside it shows Snoopy with his arms wide, saying "Thanks for always being there, MOM" and its signed by me and Spooky. I think this card is from last Mother's Day, though it might have been before that one.

I also took a teacup and saucer and set them just in front of her marker, and poured out for her some hot Earl Grey tea that I had brought in a thermos. I drank some tea, and took pictures of Mom's grave with all the animals and cards and tea set out for her. And I cried and cried and cried and took so many pictures.

I said OOR for Christmas this morning and MP from the Office for the Dead as usual. But in OOR, the 2nd Reading, that of Pope St Leo the Great, has our dear sainted Holy Father say that there is no place for Sadness today, on this glorious Feast of the Nativity of Our Lord, the Feast indeed of the Incarnation. Oh yes, dear Holy Father, yes. But oh. Forgive me, Holy Father, ands forgive me, dear Lord Jesus, for the great sorrow I do feel today.

Oh Momma how I miss you. But thank you thank you for the wonderful gift of your time with us ... all too short was that time ... but oh thank you for every minute you gave.

The Christmas Tree looks lovely, Momma. I think you and I would agree that it's the Prettiest Christmas Tree We've Ever Had. Although nothing really looks right without you here Momma. But oh. It has the ornaments you loved on it and I think it looks lovely ... lonely ... but lovely.

I've been listening to Christmas carols on the radio and watched part of It's a Wonderful Life last night on TV and keep thinking, "I'm going to do this if it kills me." It's painful but would be even more painful not to do these things. But Ohhhhhhh Momma ... how I miss you, how I miss sharing these precious, precious things with you. Oh Momma.

I spent yesterday afternoon at Aunt Edna's with our cousins. They were so nice, and so welcoming. I kept thinking about you Momma and I ran to the restroom to cry every now and then but I stayed and took pictures. You would love to see how big Ethan and Andrew are now. I got them a toy plastic earthmover/bulldozer and a toy helicopter and a set of large sized, children's sized, dominoes. They really seemed to like all of these and it was fun to watch Ethan playing with the bulldozer. You would have liked to see them too I know Momma.

I went to see Atonement today, too. What a lovely and moving movie: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0783233/. It's the 2nd time I've seen it in 3 days. It's a beautiful story ... and in so many ways, Momma, it's really about you ... and Dad ... and your generation. How deeply, deeply, deeply grateful I am, Momma, for all you did ... for all your whole generation did ... for all of us.

Oh Momma I miss you so much.

I love you Momma.

I love you so much.

I love you Jesus.

How I do love you and need you O Lord Jesus.

Please please please Lord Jesus ... take good care of my Momma.

O I miss her so.

I love you all so much.

Charles Delacroix
Feast of the Nativity of God

Her Grave Marker Is in Place ...

This evening, when the dog and I visited Momma's grave, I was surprised and ... in a way at least ... very glad to see that Mom's grave marker is now in place (!)

Somehow every step like this feels like one more nail in a coffin I never thought I'd see nailed shut. Oh my. But it looks nice, I think, it really does. Oh Momma. I think she would like it. I think.

I called my aunt and had a wonderful conversation with her. She said that when she was a child, she and lots of kids in Hornersville would, for something to do, visit one of the two cemeteries there. One's on the North side, one on the South side. She said Momma often went with them too. They would read the epitaphs and inscriptions and Bible verses, and look at the etchings and pictures sometimes a part of those old time grave markers. They found these fascinating, she said. And she said Momma did too. My aunt said she herself must have read them all hundreds of times.

My oh my. Sounds ... yet again ... as if I have something I never even knew I had in common with Momma ...

How many times have I gone for walks in cemeteries in Knoxville and here in Tulsa ... and read the inscriptions again and again. So many times. Am I crazy? Well maybe. But oh what great fruit for meditation in those visits to these wonderful reminders that "here we have no lasting place" ... these wonderful places, as well, of celebration of the lives of so many of our brothers and sisters who have gone before us. I think one of the greatest gifts of my own strolls among the dead has been the wonderful reminder of my own connection ... all of our connection ... to the Body ... as the Theology of the Body of Pope John Paul II reminds us ... we are all sons of Adam and daughters of Eve. Oh my ...

But what a wonderful thing that your marker is in place, Momma. Spooky was with me and we both admired and thought about you. Spooky made some paw prints on the muddy surface of your grave and I just know that you would be absolutely delighted. How many times did Spooky, coming in from a muddy afternoon, to be brushed by you, Momma, how many times did you find muddy pawprints on your pink jacket ... and you'd say, "Oh you ...!" and then would explain to her, once again, that she's the prettiest girl in town ... :-) ...

Oh my dear dear dear Momma ... oh God oh God oh God ... how I miss you Momma ... the lights are on the Christmas Tree now Momma and I'm looking at them ... and how I miss you not being here to look at them too ... I turned on the lights tonite and looked at the tree and said "Oh this is the prettiest Christmas Tree we've ever had" and thought oh if you were only here so we could say this to each other and laugh and carry on ...

I love you Momma ... I miss you so much ...

Oh my Jesus please please please please take good care of my Momma ...

I love you Jesus.

Love,

Charles Delacroix
Feast of St Peter Canisius

The Prettiest Christmas Tree We've Ever Had

Every Christmas, I would buy a Christmas tree and set it up in our living room and trim it, with Mom sitting and watching and smiling ... and we'd talk and carry on ... and at some point, one of us would say, "Oh I think this is the prettiest Christmas Tree we've ever had."

Every Christmas ... *every* Christmas ... our Christmas Tree was always pronounced by both of us to be the "prettiest Christmas Tree we've ever had." We'd laugh and carry on, but our evaluation of what was our prettiest Christmas Tree never wavered. We may have said it a little tongue in cheek but we meant it, too.

Well ... since you are gone, Momma, I've committed myself to celebrate this Christmas as an As If" Christmas. Christmas as if you were here. Oh Momma ... oh Momma ... it just isn't the same ... not at all ... not by a long long long shot. But Oh. It's better to celebrate a Christmas As If you were here than a Christmas As If you were not here. Oh Momma how I miss you.

Well, Momma, our Christmas Tree is now up and decorated.

And ... and ... and I don't know how I can say this ...

But I don't know how I can not say this ...

Oh Momma ... I think .. I think this is the prettiest Christmas Tree we've ever had ...

Oh but why oh why oh why are you not here ... to look at it ... to smile ... to say that this is the prettiest Christmas Tree we've ever had ...

Oh Momma ... how I miss you Momma how I miss you so ........................

Well, Momma, our lovely Christmas Tree is decorated and really does look so, so pretty ...

It took me awhile ... I intended to decorated it few weeks ago when I got the tree. The tree's been up and sitting there ... but I just haven't been able to bring myself to decorate it. It's just so so so painful ... so painful ... but oh it's more painful not to do this. So I did it. And Momma ... all our ornaments are on it ... you weren't here for me to ask, "Should I put a bulb here?" And you weren't here for me to say, "Where should I put this little Alvin the chipmunk on the tree?" You weren't here to tell me. But Oh Momma ....

That little red Star that's all but falling apart, it's up at the very top. You aren't here, though, for us to talk about it ... and how we've had it for a long, long time, as you would say ...

That little red bird is in the top of the tree too. You loved that little red bird. He's so cute, isn't he, and just goes there ... at the top. We always agreed. Why aren't you here to tell me it's in the right place, though.

Those ornaments that we always talked about ... every one wiht a memory it seemed ... they're on there Momma ... but oh you aren't here to talk about them and when you got them and where and how and why ...

Those silver tinsel ropes ... especially those two that you and Dad had way, way back ... the ones almost denuded of tinsel anymore ... the ones we always put up anyway ... they're there, Momma ... they're there ... but you aren't ...

Those little ornaments that go at the bottom of the tree are there. They go there because, as you said every Christmas, "they're there so the kids will get them instead of getting into the presents or messing with the Christmas Tree." That little monkey almost falling apart by now ... that you've put down there since I was what, 2 or 3 or 4 ... it's there, Momma ...

I had the Christmas Music on all while I was putting our ornaments on the tree ... just like we always did ... but you weren't here to talk about Bing Crosby and White Christmas ...

The Tree is just a few feet from your chair, Momma, just like always ... so you can see it and enjoy it ... and your chair is empty ... it has that little cushion in it you loved ... but you aren't there ... oh I just don't understand ...

Momma it's after dark, now, and I'm sitting here looking at the beautiful, beautiful Christmas Tree .. it's lit up with those bigger lights in all colors and with those little bitty sparkle lights in all colors ... oh it's beautiful Momma so beautiful ...

Oh Momma I think this must be the prettiest Christmas Tree we've ever had ...

But oh Momma how I miss you how I miss you ...

Oh Jesus ... please please please please ... take good, good, good care of my Momma.

I love you Momma so much.

I love you Jesus so much.

Oh Momma ... oh Momma ...

Charles Lee

Charles Delacroix
Eve of the Feast of St Peter Canisius

C'est l'absurde ... still ...

Everything still feels very, very, very strange ...

The universe seems wrong, out of kilter, without reason. Absurd. Meaningless. Pointless.

Actually it's nothing of the kind ... but that's how it feels. With Mom not here. In a way her not being here is exactly an Ikon of the rend in the face of the universe that is our Fallenness in this world. She's not here ... and therefore the Cross, the Sign of Contradiction. She's not here ... and nothing matters or makes sense ... apart from the Cross. Only the Cross connects anything at all. Especially now. But now is itself an Ikon for all times, and all places.

I've got a job pending ... report-to-work date is January 2. I received the news on Monday while I was at Mom's Grave ... which was nice, I could tell her immediately. But of course it's not the same without her here in a very different sense ...

I bought some eggnog today. But why? She's not here to enjoy it with me.

The Christmas tree has been up for almost 2 weeks. But I still haven't been able to bring myself to put any ornaments or lights on it.

I do think her vase arrangement looks really nice ... some little ornamental placements that look like little, miniature wrapped Christmas presents ... and little, miniature candy drops and sugar canes ... and a large, lovely poinsettia. I think she would like it. I pray so.

Oh Lord Jesus please please please take good care of my Momma

I love you Momma

I love you Lord Jesus

Charles Delacroix
Wednesday of Week 3 in Advent

I found

Of Golf, MASH, Friends, The Robe ... and Momma

This afternoon, I turned on TV to find a golf tournament being televised on one station. I watched for a few minutes and remembered how much I enjoyed a little routine I had with Mom when Golf came on TV.

Years ago, I saw a movie (Marx Brothers? Jerry Lewis? can't remember) in which a woman at one point humorously describes the game of Golf as "grown men hitting a little ball around on the green grass" ... or something like that. Since then, I would repeat the joke with Mom ... golf would come on TV, and I'd say, "Look, Momma, there's a bunch of grown men hitting little balls around on the green grass." And she'd laugh and I'd laugh. Sometimes we'd wonder out loud if golf isn't really an excuse to get out and walk around on a beautiful lawn under blue skies in lovely sunshine. Mom sometimes averred that fishing was similar: an excuse to get out and relax beside a beautiful stream. We were only half serious when we had these conversations; certainly no offense was meant to the noble endeavors of golf and of fishing. But it was part of our argot to say these things to one another. A sort of game that involved the same thing ever time ... and we always loved to play our game.

Well ... when golf came on I both thought of these things ... and O how I miss you Momma. I said the same things to your empty chair that I have always said. I don't know that you don't still hear what I say as before. But the game is no more: it takes two to banter as we did; and your chair is silent. Oh Momma ... how I miss you ...

I watched Friends and Cheers tonite ... oh Momma how you would have loved to watch these, together, with me ... and then the OETA Movie Club (PBS) came on and they are showing The Robe (1953) http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0046247/ , with Richard Burton and Victor Mature and Jean Simmons. This is one of the many post-WWII generation of films made in the 1950s, often with Bibical themes. Mom liked The Robe, as did I. We both loved Ben Hur (1959) and the Ten Commandments (1956). So many things ... so many movies ... we enjoyed and shared together. No more.

I love you Momma and I miss you

I love you Lord Jesus

O Lord Jesus please please please take good care of my Momma

I love you

In Jesus Name,

Charles Delacroix
Eve of the 3rd Sunday in Advent

Death of a Peasant

I always thought that Tolstoy's Death of a Peasant was so moving.

And I've been thinking about it every now and then.

In a way, my own death is something like the death of this peasant.

My death is slow ... but of course inexorable, inevitable, as all of our deaths are inevitable. In the meantime ... in the meantime, what does the peasant do, but lay where he's laying as he awaits death to come?

Same here. I really have nothing else to do but wait ... I can visit Mom's Grave and say the Prayers of the Church and go to Mass and I can await the inevitable end of this fatal journey we call life.

The peasant in many ways died alone. Except for God.

I too am dying in many ways alone. Except for God.

Is that so bad?

How could it be?

Life is both a gift and a curse, but it is what it is, and that's that.

Meanwhile, like the peasant, I huddle a bit to stay warm while I await the slow approach of the Grim Reaper. Very slow in my case: it might be some years - a decade or two perhaps - till God calls me from this exile.

In the meantime what is there to do ... but to huddle in the warmth, and pray, and wait.

O I love you Lord Jesus

I love you Momma

Please please please Lord Jesus ... take good care of my Momma.

Charles Delacroix
Feast of St John of the Cross

De Futilitate ... yet again ...

I went to see I Am Legend, which just opened today. See http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0480249/ ...

Wonderful movie ... and I couldn't help crying when the Will Smith character's dog, Samantha, died. She was his one and only companion for so long. And then she was gone. And as he drove through the empty streets of post-apocalypse New York, he looks over at the passenger seat ... where his dog used to sit ... and the seat looks so horribly, horribly empty.

Yes ... same with Mom's car. I can drive it and she's not in the passenger seat ... and everything once again seems so utterly, utterly wrong ... wrong wrong wrong ...

And that feeling of futility comes back.

Oh I can do things. But why. What's the point. Momma's gone. My insides have been kicked out. And what's the point really of anything.

O Lord I know you are there. I just don't know why you are there, or why I am here.

During the ice storm, I am very grateful, O Lord, that you enabled me to be able to visit Mom's grave. Just like always: morning and evening. I say OOR & MP in the morning, and EP at night. MP and EP are from the Office for the Dead. And although I feel so horribly alone and feel like nothing matters, for some reason, this seems like the right thing to do. And O Lord even when I am there praying the Office alone before her grave, I know You are there, and in praying the Office I am joining my feeble feeble prayers to those of the whole Church. I am not alone. I am not alone when I pray with the Church, the Prayer of the Church.

And why not. Nothing seems right and there doesn't seem to be anything for me to do now really. Except to pray the Office for the Dead at her grave.

I don't see any reason not to continue to do this for as long as I can. God willing. Why not. It gives me something to do. And it lets me visit you, Momma, even if it's really not the same of course as you being here like before, still, it's something.

But Ohhhhhhh,,. ... Lord Jesus ... I miss her so very, very, very much.

But O Lord thank you so much for the gift that was ... and is ... my Momma.

Thank you Lord so very very much.

And Thank you Momma.

Thank you Momma for everything.

Oh how I miss you.

I love you Momma.

I love you Lord Jesus.

Please please please take good care of my Momma, Jesus.

Charles Delacroix
Feast of St John of the Cross

Candles from Mom

Well, I'm back "up" ... Sunday through Wednesday (2 days ago) my house was without power ... and here I was almost going through withdrawals from not having Internet access.

The reason I was down is the same reason that most of Eastern Oklahoma, plus parts of Kansas and Missouri, were down as well ... due to a severe ice storm that has left enormous damage to trees, bushes, poles and powerlines ...

I really have no reason to not feel very, very grateful, though: so many were far worse off than me. And so many are still far worse off: many still have no electricity.

No power means for most of us no heat ... in subzero temperatures.

I kept warm by using lots of blankets ... including blankets that Mom had gotten years ago.

And I kept lights burning by using candles ... candles that Mom had collected and saved over the years.

Mom learned to hang onto candles a long time ago ... when we were overseas, living in Libya, power outages weren't all that infrequent. And we would use candles till lights were restored.

After returning to the States, Mom kept saving candles. There was a whole shoebox full of candles on a bottom shelf of one of her cabinets here. And there were two brass candle holders made for carrying candles ... you know, the kind you see in the movies, the kind that Scrooge held in his hand when walking through his dark house at night.

So yes ... yet again ... yet again indeed ... Momma has been taking good care of me.

Thank you Momma.

I love you Momma.

I love you Lord Jesus.

Please please please take good care of my Momma, Jesus.

Charles Delacroix
Feast of St John of the Cross

Feast of the Immaculate Conception ... and of the Christmas Tree

Hail Mary full of grace the Lord is with thee ...

I'm so sleepy now ... but bought and got up a Christmas tree.

Lord Jesus Christ have mercy on me

Please please please take good care of my Momma ....

I love you ...

In Christ,

Charles Delacroix
Feast of the Immaculate Conception

Feast of St Nicholas

I'm really sort of enjoying the gradual accession of lights and other manifestations of Christmas coming in this time of Advent.

And I had my first job interview today since Mom's death.

So much I would have had to talk with Mom about.

I love you Momma.

O Lord Jesus please please please take good care of my Momma

I love you Jesus

Charles Delacroix
Feast of St Nicholas

Momma and Advent both teach me ... that Everything Matters

Today's OOR gave a passage from St Augustine and made me think of St Augustine's many Advent and Christmas homilies on Truth Shall Spring out of the Earth.\

It's painful in a way to look at each note and each little object that is in Mom's house and think, "This matters .... this matters ... this matters because it mattered to her .."

But this is really an Ikon ... for everything, but everything, matters ...

Oh I love you Lord

I love you Momma

Lord Jesus please take good good good good care of my Momma.

Charles Delacroix
Eve of the FEast of St Nicholas

Walking under a Spectacular Sunset Sky

The dog and I went for a walk under this amazing sky ... with a glorious sunset setting fire to the west, and allowing a poignant reflection in somber lavendars and violets and blues in the east.

Oh Mom how you would love this sky ...

Truly nothing too good or too bad can really be said about this world ... tonite it's nothing too good ... what spectacular loveliness ...

The sky overhead was wide, bright, clear, with the most vivid sky blues, set off by boldly high flying cirrhus clouds, made into vividly glowing whites and pearls.

There were high, high, high streaks of brillieant white trails from jets high overhead. I saw a passenger jet making its approach for landing and thought about how Mom said I used to call aircraft, at a very young age, "air-panio's" ... pronounced "air pay nee oh's"

Oh how I miss you Mom. Yes yes. You may see all this now ... perhaps better than ever ...

But you are not here ...

Not here to share these things ...

Oh Momma ... I love you ...

I love you Jesus

Please take good good good good good good care of my dear Momma

Charles Delacroix
Feast of St John of Damascus

Pantophobia ... that's it!

I'm watching A Charlie Brown Christmas ... which was actually on TV just a week or so ago, apparently this popular program commands quite an audience.

And I so agree with that audience ... and so would Mom. We both loved the Charlie Brown Christmas programs.

There's one scene in which Charlie Brown confesses to depression while in session with the psychiatrist, Lucy. Lucy decides to identify what Charlie Brown is afraid of ... and after naming off a number of sophisticated sounding terms for different phobias, she asks Charlie Brown if he could have pantophobia. "Pantophobia?" says Charlie Brown, "What's that?" "Fear of everything," responds Lucy. "That's it!" cries Charlie Brown with such force that Lucy is sent spinning away.

I think I can so identify with this pantophobia in so many ways. But then again I'm willing to bet that almost everyone feels that way sometime or another. There is something of Charlie Brown in all of us ... surely that's why he's so popular.

Oh Momma I wish we could both sit here enjoying Charlie Brown this very night.

But then I freely admit that it was sheer grace that God allowed us to enjoy Charlie Brown together so many Christmases past.

Thank you, O Lord.

Thank you, Momma

And O Lord ... please please please please ... take good care of my beloved Momma ...

I miss you so much Momma ...

I love you Momma so much ...

I love you Jesus so much ...

Charles Delacroix
Feast of St Francis Xavier

Come, Lord Jesus, Come!

On this first Sunday of Advent, I awoke obsessively worrying about my conversation last week with my former supervisor; and worrying about getting a job.

The whole prospect ... like the whole prospect for anything in this life these days ... seems so bleak. For I was thinking about Mom during this whole terrible rumination ...

And I thought, O Lord, I know this life is your gift ... but what a horrible, horrible gift ... so horrible and so excruciatingly painful ... and without Mom ... how in the world do people do this? How do they manage? How do they get along? How can I get along?

And ... why? Why? Why should I get along? In a world as horrible as this? Why?

Then I remembered something CS Lewis said once: that about life there is almost nothing one can say, either good or bad, that is not in some sense true.

Glorious and miserable. Beautiful and ugly. Full of delights and full of torture.

It's all true. All. That and so much more.

I went to Mom's grave and stood in my shirt sleeves ... it's unseasonably warm this morning ... and said, for the first time in my life, an Advent OOR over her grave. Then the Office for the Dead MP ... and it looks like the Office for the Dead during Advent is the same as the Office during Ordinary Time.

I wept and gave Momma a coo on her grave marker and left thinking Of Course ... this is the way it is and always has been and always will be ... until You, O Lord, Come. For this Advent Season is really a celebration of the Advent that is Life. A Life full of Holy Saturdays of Waiting and Longing is surely as well a Life full of Advent Longing ... for You to Come, O Come, Emmanuel.

The Office reminds me that in a way all pain and suffering in this world is a form of the Pangs of Longing for YOU to Come, O Lord. To Come and rescue us. To bring Justice and Mercy.

Justice ... O Lord come ... set things right ... the universe seems revealed to me as a horribly wrong, wrong place with Momma dead and gone. Nothing is right without her. O Come. I know tthat this sense that all is wrong is at least to this extent true and accurate: nothing really is right without You here. So Come, O Come, Emmanuel. Come with Justice and Righteousness and restore what lays in ruins, restore me, O Lord, who lays in ruins. Come O Lord and Make All Things Right. Including me, O Lord. Slay me, O Lord, if that is Thy Will, but Make All Things Right. For nothing seems right without my Momma here. But then nothing is right wihtout You here anyway.

So Come O Come Emmanuel
Come, Lord Jesus, Come
Maranatha, Lord Jesus, Come

And O Lord bring justice

And please o please o please ... take good care of my Momma.

I love you Lord Jesus.

Charles Delacroix
First Sunday in Advent

A Personality Only a Mother Could Love ...

One of the areas in which Mom and I differed greatly was in social popularity.

Mom was popular growing up: she was affable, fun, outgoing ... everyone liked her. She was a leader in her class, and had jobs (in Jefferson City and Tulsa) where ability to get along with a wide variety of people was important and valuable. By the early 1960s she was President of her church's Women's Society and has a photo in the newspaper in which women around her are clearly laughing easily and sincerely at something Mom said.

I, in contrast, was never popular. I grew up full of social anxiety; for I was "one of those kids" who other kids tended to pick on. My social skills never developed very well and my personality was ... in general ... repellant. This was always so painful for me. By my teens I was finding my life in books, and found myself attracted to those figures who seemed to affirm my isolation in some way or another: Tarzan, Harry Haller (in Hesse's Steppenwolf), Holden Caufield (JD Salingers' Catcher in the Rye) ... and the Jesus of the Sermon on the Mount, who blessed the "poor in spirit" ... with whom I then, as now, identify strongly.

In many ways I've managed to develop a much better connection with society. In my profession, there are colleagues who I genuinely like and who genuinely (I think) like me: but the latter connection is really more generosity that reciprocal friendship. My social skills in common social situations remain backward, and I have almost no personal friends at all. In fact only one: another person with a generally unpopular persona.

I'm not sure how much of this Momma was really aware of. I remember talking with her, though, as a preteen in anquish ... and she tried to advise me as best she could ... though I suspect that she might have felt uncomfortable that a "weirdo" should be in her family.

But she never, ever evidenced anything of the sort. Instead, she was always ... always ... proud of me. she said so, again and again. And always, always, when the world seemed most horribly cruel and alien ... I could always, always go to Momma and she always loved me ... just as I was.

We used to joke that some puppies had faces that only a Mother could love.

And I always knew that in reality I myself had a personality that ultimately only a Mother could love. Only a Mother ... and Jesus ... He Who is Hope of the Hopeless, and Supporter and Love and Advocate of the Poor in Spirit.

Oh Momma how I miss you ...

Oh Momma how very deeply, deeply, deeply grateful I feel for your love of me over all those years ... me with a personality that only a Mother could love, mirroring indeed the love of God.

Oh God please please please take good care of my Momma.

I love you Momma.

I love you Jesus.

Charles Delacroix
Eve of the First Sunday of Advent

The Red Green Show

Now I'm watching The Red Green Show ... which I watched along with Momma every now and then ...

I loved endorsing some slightly corny, rustic piece of male humor from the show and watching Momma laugh ... this show always but always included a generous helping of Duck Tape (duct tape) ... and often when I'd turn on the show I'd run get a roll of our duck tape and lay it on the floor next to me while I began watching, and I'd ham it up for Momma ... "OK, I've got my duck tape, like every good man keeps always right at hand, so I guess I'm ready for the Red Green Show. Mom would laugh and chuckle quietly ... and I would too.

Oh Lord you know that my chuckling was more at her chuckling than at either Red Green or the duck tape ... I imagine she knew it too ...

Oh Momma ... how I miss you ...

What is Love? "The Nearness That Is All"

A man in my Grief Support Group brought in copies of a poem by Samuel Hazo titled "The Nearness that is All". He said he had gotten it from the NPR website. I did a Google search and it looks like Garrison Keillor has mounted it in his Writer's Almanac, with permission, at http://writersalmanac.publicradio.org/programs/2007/11/19/ ... scroll down to Saturday 11/24.

I read this poem and couldn't stop thinking about it, choking, crying ... excerpts:

"Love is the man who siphoned phlegm from his ill wife's throat three times a day for seven years ..."

Oh Momma it was sheer privilege ... every time I wiped you where you wiped me as a babe; every time I cleaned you, every time I gave you a back rubby down, every time I gave you a foot rubby down, every time I touched you, every time you touched me ... Oh Momma that was sheerest sheerest privilege ...

"[Love's] why a mother whispers to her suckling, 'may you bury me.' "

Oh Momma this then was also my privilege, to carry out your unspoken heart's desire for I think this truly was your desire ...

"Love leaves no one alone but, oh, lonely, lonelier, loneliest at midnight in another country."

Oh lonely lonely lonely now ... it is now midnight in another country ... every moment in this country is midnight in another country, here in Babylon, far far from Jerusalem, here, where we are all aliens and exiles ...

"Love's how death creates a different nearness but kills nothing."

Oh Momma ... a different nearness ... this is perhaps still to be mine ... I can only hope and pray for this nearness that now feels so very very much like a farness too too far away ...

"Love saddens glad dayts for no bad reason.
Love gladdens sad days for no good reason.
Love mocks equivalence.
Love is."

Oh Momma yes this is love ... what else what else indeed ... this is Agape love of which St Paul wrote to the Corinthians our brothers and sisters now past ...

Oh Momma oh Momma oh Momma how I miss you .... oh oh oh oh oh ....

Oh Jesus my Jesus please ...

Please please please please please ...

Take good care of my dear dear Momma ...

I love you Momma so ...

I love you Jesus so ...

Charles Delacroix
Feast of St Andrew

Loneliness ... Again ...

I'm sitting here watching TV ... and feeling this horrible, horrible sense of utter loneliness ... I look at Mom's chair ... and she's not there ... she's gone ... gone ...

Oh God Oh God Oh God ...

Of course it probably doesn't help that I'm watching, off & on, On the Beach, http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0219224/ the 2000 remake of the 1959 classic. According to the IMDb comments, this is an even more powerful but also even more depressing movie than the original.

I didn't go to see a movie today ... which saved some on $$$ but also probably contributed to this horrible feeling of emptiness & loneliness ...

Gratitude ... yes ... but bleak the past, and bleak the future ..

After the initial feelings of emptiness, that seems to be a staple of my mornings these days, I felt enormous gratitude thinking about the gift that was Mom ... and the gifts that are, really, every moment of every day ...

But the feelings of torment ... worrying about the future ... after a very bleak conversation with a previous supervisor last night ...

I had a really interesting conversation with my cousin about the small town in which my mother, and his, had grown up. I'm not sure if I should say the name of the town ... I'll call it
"H-ville" This small town was both the place from which my mother was always moving away ... throughout her life ... yet it was always, always in a most fundamental sense Home for her.

I've heard about H-ville all my life. And talking with my cousin ... who lived there, taking care of our Grandpa in the early 1970s ... I benefited from his vivid memories of H-ville. He said he's lived in large cities and small - San Diego, Jacksonville, Tulsa, Pocahontas (small town in Iowa) ... but of all the places he's lived, the one he really found to be the best ... at many levels ... was tiny H-ville. My cousin said H-ville really was just like the Mayberry of the Andy Griffith Show. And this was a place that really was tolerant of aberrant, elderly, or otherwise less than perfect citizens. To this extent, H-ville was something like that wonderful town in Lars and the Real Girl. http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0805564/ And my cousin and I agreed that this town ... Grandpa's home ... would have been the place he would have liked to have died, even if he fell off a bridge or drowned in a "ditch." Better by far than to die broken and stripped of everything that was of value to him, in the nursing home where he was placed, to die abject and alone within a year of his compulsory placement there.

Mom ... and my Aunt ... "moved on" from H-ville. And it's hard, very hard, for me now to wish that they had not followed the contemporary cultural lead, followed by all good peripatic Americans back then, thinking to escape the Great Depression by finding a life Somewhere Else.

And what of me ... today ... and thinking of my Mom ... yesterday ...

I can't but admire Mom for trying. She followed the path she thought best, and did the best she knew how. But ultimately ... things seemed not to really work out. In a way it has to be said she over-reached ... and the results of over-reach are all around us in our shattered, alienated, impoverished and deracinated family.

Even ... can it be said? Even when it comes to our chosen professions. Mom and I were here once again, as so often, so much alike.

For to be honest, I'm not so great at what I do. I'm one of those folks in the profession who has his license and does sort of OK but on the whole really doesn't quite measure up.

Likewise my Mom wanted to write ... and got her degree in Journalism ... but was really not all that great despite her honest and vigorous efforts. She too didn't really quite measure up.

How if she ... and her children ... had stayed in H-ville?

She could not have reasonably really been a Journalist in H-ville. I doubt if I could have plied my profession there either. She .... and, I suppose, I ... would have been situated in humbler vocations. But ones perhaps that would have brought us greater sense of purpose, of satisfaction, of connection to the community - even if I had been a shopkeeper and she a homemaker.

Oh my. Those strategic decisions of the 1930s and 1940s truly led to deep dislocation and deracination for all of us ...

And today I sit alone ... rootless ... hopeless ...

and therefore turn to the Hope of the Hopeless ...

Oh Lord Jesus Christ have mercy on me and rescue me from my own isolation and nothingness.

Oh Lord Jesus Christ please please please take good care of my Momma

I love you Lord Jesus.

Charles Delacroix
Feast of St Andrew

Sparkling Frost

When I visited Mom's grave this morning, the whole cemetery displayed a wintry, heavy hoarfrost that simply sparkled and shimmered in the morning sunshine.

Oh Momma you would love to see this beautiful, somber, affecting scene ...

I miss you Momma so much ... so much ...

I love you Momma

I love you Jesus

Please please please Lord take good care of my Momma ...

Love,

Charles Delacroix
Eve of the Feast of St Andrew

Monument for Mom

I spent some time at the funeral home making arrangements for a permanent grave marker. I really felt good about the outcome ... and yet part of me was screaming, "No, No, this isn't right ... she should be here and now ... why oh why am I arranging a grave stone?"

I have no answer. But "it is what it is". Thy will not mine be done, O Lord.

And Lord please please please ... take good care of my Momma ...

I love you Lord

I love you Momma

Charles Delacroix
Wednesday of the 34th Week in Ordinary Time

3 Month Anniversay of the Funeral ... and Job Hunting

Today is exactly 3 months since Mom was buried on August 27 ... the Feast of St Monica.

And yesterday was the first day I actually was able to get myself to submit a job application ... back at my old employer, the one from whom I resigned about 9 months ago to take care of Mom full time.

I found myself worrying and worrying and worrying about work ... and then thought of that wonderful OOR for the Feast of St Monica ... St Augustine's account of the last days of St Monica. And what a wonderful reminder ... that here I have no lasting place.

I'm looking not just for any job but for the right "match" ... that fits my status as a stranger in a strange land, an alien and exile laboring until I am recalled by Our Lord from this, my place of temporary sojourn i this world ...

I love you Lord

I love you Momma

I love you St Monica

I love you St Augustine

O Lord please please please take good care of my Momma.

I love you.

In Jesus Name,

Charles Delacroix
Tuesday of the 34th Week in Ordinary Time

A Charlie Brown Christmas

I watched "A Charlie Brown Christmas" tonite, in the spirit of doing an "as if" Christmas Season ... so I watched "as if" Momma were sitting here and watching with me.

Mom and I both simply loved Charlie Brown TV shows, including this one. Oh how she would have loved this one as well, I have no doubt.

And honestly, although it's painful, still, I don't know when I have enjoyed the annual "Charlie Brown Christmas" more.

Oh Lord thank you so much for this wonderful show.

And thank you so much for my Momma.

Please Lord take good care of my Momma.

I love you Lord.

In Jesus Name,

Charles Delacroix
Tuesday in Week 34 in Ordinary Time

"I'm not ready" ... "Not yet"

There's a wonderfully, darkly humorous scene in High Society (1956) http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0049314/(see previous blog entry):

Mike (Frank Sinatra) and Tracy (Grace Kelly) are driving quickly down the highway in Tracy's convertible. Tracy is driving.
Mike: Where are we going.
Tracy: To the graveyard.
Mike: I'm not ready.

I laughed ... and then winced. This could be the story of my life since Momma died ... and this reminds me of Gladiator (2000) http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0172495/ Juba (Djimoun Hounsou) gives the final lines, as he buries the figurines of Maximus (Russell Crowe) parents after Maximus death:

Juba: I will see you again. But not yet ... not yet.

Missing Momma ...

I've had a really, really rough day ... missing Momma ... so very, very, very much ....

Cheers & MASH were on tonite ... Saturday night ... how you would have loved to watch these ...

High Society (1956) http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0049314/ was on OETA Movie Club tonite. Mom would have loved it: Bing Crosby, Grace Kelly, Frank Sinatra ...

Oh Momma I miss you so much ... so much ...

Oh Momma I love you and I miss you ...

Oh Jesus I beg you ... take good care of my Momma ...

I love you Momma ...

I love you Lord Jesus.

Charles Delacroix
Eve of the Feast of Christ the King

Finding the Cabin

"The Cabin" was a small building constructed by Mom's father (my Grandpa) and by my father as a sort of get-away for our family. It was located on 7.5 acres of wooded property near the crest of a ridge located a few hours southeast of our home in Tulsa. It was built in about 1958 or 1959, when I was only a few years old. A small cinder-block building, it was painted a distinctive light pink color because (according to Mom) Dad was able to get a special price on pink paint that made it the most economical color for his project.

We used The Cabin principally on weekends during summers until 1966, when we moved overseas. The Cabin and adjacent property was finally sold in the 1970s or 80s, I think. I myself don't think I had been there for over 40 years.

Well, my cousin and I went looking for The Cabin today. And after searching the ridge crest, now far more heavily populated, with houses and trailers and mobile homes lining the street running along the crest, we found it. A 17 year old boy showed us around the property that he said he had grown up on after his parents bought it about 8 years ago. The Cabin itself showed the wear and renovation of time, but was impressively intact, in basically good condition, two walls still exhibiting the distinctive pink pigment. Only one additional coat of paint had been applied to another wall, although the roof had been replaced several times, and the building was now used to hold tools and supplies, according to our young guide.

I felt deeply grateful to see that a building built by my father and grandfather had weathered almost half a century. I saw part of a fence line that had been lined by rose bushes, planted and cared for by my dear mother, who raked and cleaned under them each time we visited The Cabin.

I know of course that she never really liked The Cabin. Yet she always tried to make the best of this project always dear to my father.

She ate what was set before her.

I am simply deeply, deeply, deeply grateful ... what an amazing Mom, and Dad, and Grandpa.

Thank you Lord

And Lord

Please take good, good, good care of my dear Momma.

I love you Lord

Love,

Charles Delacroix
Feast of St Clement

Thanksgiving: 3 months since Mom's departure from this life

Thanksgiving Day ... exactly 3 months since Mom's death on August 22 ... and the Feast of St Cecilia, Patron Saint of Music. To me this is a confluence of 3 very special days in remembrance of my dear Momma.

Right now I'm listening to a Thanksgiving choral music special on PBS. Oh how Momma would have loved to sit here and listen to this program. She loved choir music; loved being in choirs; loved the human voice.

This morning, I made a special arrangement in the floral vase at Mom's grave. I placed some branches with dead leaves in the vase along with the rose arrangement already there. And I placed a little turkey, made of plaster, chipped but always a part of our Thanksgiving, on her temporary marker. I took photos of her grave with the turkey and the arrangement. I also took Spooky down to visit Mom and took pictures of Mom's grave with the dog at the grave.

I also took some of Grandpa's old things over to Aunt Edna's. She looked at them and so did Cousins Arthur Lee and Rosanna and Annette. I think we all enjoyed looking at these precious old things: a duck call and a turkey call, both made by Grampa. Arthur Lee knew how to use both, and showed us where Grampa kept resin in the turkey call and how he would have used it to enhance the sound of the turkey call. There was a small animal trap and an old watch and a pocket knife and a wooden-handled screwdriver. All had belonged to Grampa - Mom's Father.

Then we all went to a bed & breakfast between Tulsa & Bartlesville for Thanksgiving Dinner with Cousin Charlotte and her husband Jeff and their children Andrew and Ethan. The latter are aged about 8 and 7 ... my 2nd cousins. It really felt good to see them. Aunt Edna didn't feel up to going, but the rest of my cousins were there.

It was so very painful, Momma, that you weren't there. Oh how I miss you so very very much. Yet it was so good to be there with my cousins.

I have so much to be grateful for.

But Oh how I miss you Momma.

I stood and looked out from the bed & breakfast place ... looked out across a lovely view of Washington County ...

And couldn't help thinking ...

That nothing but nothing but nothing is right without you here Momma.

The universe is wrong.

Utterly wrong.

Without you here.

Lord Jesus Christ please please please take good care of my Momma.

I love you Lord Jesus

Holy Mary Mother of God Pray for Me and My Momma
St Cecilia of your courtesy please pray for me and my Momma
All Angels and Saints please pray for me and my Momma

Love in Christ always

Charles Delacroix
Feast of St Cecilia

Probated Will - "she departed this life"

Rough day ... I went to the hearing at which Mom's will was probated.

I thought at first I'd get through it OK, but then I heard a few cases before mine, and heard the judge drily stating in each case, "X departed this life on ..." giving a date.

It sounds somehow so final beyond final when a judge says "she departed this life."

Yet in 2 days it will have been exactly 3 months since she died ...

Oh Momma ... why oh why oh why did you depart this life ...

Yet I know you have departed this vale of tears for a better place ...

Fortunately, afterward, with establishment of access to Mom's estate account, I arranged to meet with a cemetery "counselor" to (hopefully) arrange a permanent marker ... permanent as things are reckoned in this life anyway.

Oh Mom I said this would be the first thing I would do when access to funding made this possible ...

And it feels so strange ... good in a way ... horrible in a way ...

Oh Momma ...

I love you Momma ...

I love you Jesus ...

Please please please O Lord ... take good care of my Momma ...

In Christ through Mary,

Charles Delacroix
Eve of the Feast of the Presentation of Our Lady

Mom's Cranberry Juice

I drank the last of Mom's cranberry juice a few days ago. I was only drinking a little every now and then; she drank several small cups a day. "It's good for me," she would say.

It was actually painful to put out the empty container in the trash can. But I've decided to get some more cranberry juice. After all, Momma, you said it's good for you. Good for me too, I think.

I love you Momma.

I love you Jesus.

Please Lord Jesus ... take good care of my Momma.

Love,

Charles Delacroix
Monday of Week 33 in Ordinary Time

And now ... the leaves are gone ...

It was a cold, wet morning at the cemetery this morning. The clouds were heavy and grey and there was a cold sprinkle falling intermittenly through the light fog. The sun shone in the East through the clouds, though. It gave a very cold, white light.

And the trees west of Mom's grave are mostly bare now, their leaves have fallen, and they stand cold and barren.

I felt a real lightness of heart, though. As I put my coo on her marker, and drank from her tea, and drizzled three drinks of tea onto her grave, I felt both enormous sadness ... oh how I miss you Momma ... but also a strong sense of comfort from God and God's universe. I am alone, but I am not alone. The wet, damp cold to me says that all things are weeping for her loss.

There are leaves at home on the ground. I couldn't find the old plastic rake that we used at one time for raking leaves. I remember that it broke awhile back, and I've been using the garden rake instead. But now I feel a strong desire to buy a new leaf rake. Momma ... oh how I wish ou were here. Yet I know you would want the leaves raked. I'll rake them up, Momma. I promise.

I love you Momma.

I love you Jesus.

Please Lord Jesus ... take good care of my Momma.

Love,

Charles Delacroix
Monday of Week 33 in Ordinary Time

Cold Tramping through Leaves

This morning, the dog and I went walking through the leaves at Woodward Park and I was really struck both by how cold it was ... OK, it's above freezing, but for Tulsa, it's cold ... and by all the leaves, especially oak leaves, littering the lawn. Acorns covered some spots under the trees, and crunched loudly underfoot as we tramped across them.

Today I picked up my special ordered "hard copy" of Salvifici Doloris at the Bookstore along with a book about the sufferings of the Saints.

Oh how I need these things ... so much ...

I love you Lord

I love you Momma

Lord Jesus please take good good good care of my beloved Momma.

And thank you for the privilege of the gift of my Momma

In Christ,

Charles Delacroix
Feast of St Albert the Great

Leaves are Falling, Falling, Falling

A very cold wind this morning, blowing leaves everywhere, under grey skies. Bleak morning ... which seems to fit the bleakness inside me, and the bleakness in a world without Mom ...

The leaves are now falling in earnest now, blowing everywhere. I think of George MacDonald's Sexton who tends the dead laying on the ground like leaves till the Resurrection.

John Keats wrote of Joy and Melancholy ... that the former is to be found within the latter. I wonder and wonder and wonder why that should be ... even if I know that this is so ...

Oh Momma I miss you.

Lord Jesus Please take good care of my Momma.

I love you Momma.

I love you Jesus.

Charles Delacroix
Eve of the Feast of St Albert

The Veteran at the Cemetery on Veterans Day

Last night, when I went to visit Mom, I saw a man at the graveyard looking among the graves. It was early dusk, and just before I began saying the Office for the Dead, I heard Taps. There is a sound system at this cemetery that plays Taps nightly in the area reserved for the graves of fallen military personnel. When I heard Taps, I stopped and faced the flag waving above their graves and held my hand over my heart. The man I saw had also stopped his search, and was standing at attention, his right hand snapped into a full military salute, facing the flag.

After Taps, I began saying Office, and had just started Psalm 121, when this man approached me with a map of the cemetery. He said he was looking for his father's grave. We spoke briefly; he's a veteran and his father was a veteran, and on this Veteran's Day he wanted to find his father's grave. I know the cemetery fairly well in that area by now, so I'm glad that I was able to help him. He thanked me and then I resumed Office. I told Mom that I had had to stop my prayers for a veteran looking for his veteran father's grave, and that I was sure she would understand.

At that point I felt an amazing warmth in my heart. I knew that Mom would have been proud to help a soldier, any soldier, and a veteran, any veteran. And I count it a real blessing that it was during Mom's favorite Psalm ... the one she especially asked to be said at her funeral ... Psalm 121, the first in the Psalter for EP of the Office for the Dead ... during this Psalm that God granted her, and me, the privilege of helping in a very small way this man whose service to our country means so much to me, and to my Mother.

St Martin de Tours, pray for us.

A Walk Down E. 32nd Place

I got a call from the dentist's office reminding me that Mom had a dental appointment tomorrow. I felt this enormous feeling of hopelessness as I told the person calling that Mom has died. The caller was very kind but oh ... oh ... oh ... what difference does anything make ...

I took photos of Grampa's old duck call and his old turkey call, and the dog and I went for another walk in Woodward Park ... and then I had the notion of going for a walk on E 32nd Place. We parked and walked down this wonderful old street full of feeling memories ... past hte house we lived in back in the early 1960s ... then past a telephone pole at the end of the street that looked like it could have been, back in about 1964 or so, the device in which I managed to shock myself so badly my thumb was split open. I ran home crying to Momma then ... and she made it all better of course ...

Gone ... gone ... gone ... yes gone ....

Oh Lord Oh Lord Oh Lord ... please take good care of my Momma ... please please please ...

I love you Momma

I love you Lord.

Thank you Lord for my Momma.

Love in Christ,

Charles Delacroix
Feast of St Josaphat

The End of Unconditional Love

I had a rough morning ... driving to Woodward Park, I passed a building that has Christmas lights out on display. Ouch ... then the dog and I went for a walk, and returned home, and I visited Mom's grave ... and at home took a call from a cousin who asked, not unkindly but sincerely, "you're not doing nothing, are you? I mean you have to be doing something ...?" I replied ... and then felt enormous emptiness and guilt and shame ... and realized that one of the things I miss most with the loss of Mom is that she was always there to console and reassure and tell me she loved me no matter what ... the closest thing to unconditional love I have ever been graced to meet in this world ... and now ... and now she's gone ...

Yes Jesus is hte Only True Unconditional Love

But Oh how I miss Mom telling me how much she loved me ... and that "whatever happens, I will always be your mother, and you will always be my son." The words seemed to say that anyone can say anything they like but this love and this relationship are forever and untouchable by any of the horrible challenges of this world.

Oh Lord ... please take good care of my Momma ... please please please ...

I love you Momma

I love you Lord.

Thank you Lord for my Momma.

Love in Christ,

Charles Delacroix
Feast of St Josaphat

Denouement Then, Denouement Now

I've been having a rough time for the past few days. The Autumn colors, the Autumn feel in the air, the approach of Thanksgiving and Christmas Season ... all seem to be crying out to me yet again that se's gone ... she's not sere ... she's gone ... never again ... never again to enjoy the colors with her ... never again to talk about the holidays ... never again ... ne plus jamais ...

Then this morning I was reading about today's celebration of Veterans Day - Armistice Day of old; Remembrance Day in the Commonwealth. I watched The Longest Day http://imdb.com/title/tt0056197/ and The Best Years of Our Lives http://imdb.com/title/tt0036868/ last night, shown by the OETA (PBS) Movie Club to commemorate Veterans Day. Oh Mom ... we would have talked about these movies ... these are you ... and Dad.

Today is also the Feast of St Martin de Tours, most admirable of soldier heroes in my book. But I went back and read the OOR 2nd Reading for OT yesterday. Yesterday was actually the Feast of Pope St Leo the Great, and I used the OOR from the Proper yesterday, but I was drawn by the title of the OT's OOR 2nd Reading for yesterday ... alas I can't find it at the moment, my DO is out in the truck ... but it was St Ambrose talking about Death and Dying ... and celebrating both as God's doorway to Life. And I thought, "So ... even now ... is Denouement. I thought of Denouement in connection with Mom's earthly decline for so long I think I've too often plain forgotten that my whole life is a Holy Saturday pilgrimage that is its own Denouement.

If I just remember O Lord that here I have no lasting place, that Mom has simply preceded me on a journey that is mine as well, if I just remember that I am living even now, here and now, Denouement ... well, things don't seem so very bad after all.

And yet ... Oh Mom how I miss you. How I miss you. O Lord may I see her again. The sooner the better if it be according to your will O lord.

And My Lord please please please please please ... take good care of my dear, dear, dear, dear Momma.

I love you Momma.

I love you Lord.

Love in Christ,

Charles Delacroix
Sunday 32 in Ordinary Time
Feast of St Martin de Tours

Michael Clayton's Story ... and Denouement

I saw Michael Clayton for the second time in 2 days today. This is perhaps my 3rd or 4th time since it opened about 3 weeks ago. See http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0465538/

And I left with such a deep sense of gratitude. For the Story for one thing. I love Story. It helps me to keep things in perspective. When I see someone else's Story I guess it reminds me that I ... and Mom ... and everyone else ... has a Story as well. And all Story is really an Ikon of The Story of Stories: that of Adam and of the Second Adam.

But also this amazing vision of a man who in so many ways is a loser. Who does what he needs to do in response to a Summons that he initially believes to be the ravings of a madman, and which he subsequently embraces in response to a conversion experience when he has a sort of Trinitarian encounter with a triad of horses. It's sort of a willful turning away from limitations of this world, to a narrow way that could feel like a different sort of limitations.

Still the end of the movie shows a man who has, by his choice, ended his own life as he knew it. He's frightened, astonished, relieved, energized, confused. And what's next? We don't know.

I went on to the Cathedral Chapel where I did another Way of the Cross for the Bereaved. And thought some more of Michael Clayton. And what was to become of him.

And the word that came to my mind was Denouement.

I remember last Winter/Spring that horrible word came to my mind again and again in connection with Mom. Oh how I miss her ... but even then I knew I was acting out, and she was acting out, a Denouement.

And now what am I facing but a different kind of Denouement.

My Denouement.

Painful thought but also kind of liberating.

Denouement.

"For to me to live is Christ and to die is gain." Phil. 1:21. St Paul's words could be mine and every Christian's of course.

"Far be it for me to glory except in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ by which the world has been crucified to me and me to the world." Gal 6:14. Yes ... how else indeed.

Oh Mom how I miss you ... yet in my Denouement perhaps I can see an opportunity to live toward your Denouement.

Sleepy ... time for me to go to sleep.

Oh Mom how I miss you and love you.

Oh Lord Jesus how I love you and I beg you ... take good care of my dear Momma, O Lord, please, please, please ...

I love you Lord.

Charles Delacroix
Eve of the Feast of the Dedication of Basilica St John Lateran

First Frost

There was frost on the front and back lawns this morning. Beautiful, delicate white in the pre-dawn light. Lovely. Mom would have loved it. Oh Momma ...

The dog and I went to Woodward Park as usual. There are some extraordinary Maples alone the way, turning from green to blazing red without any pause for yellow in between. The dog and I parked in our "usual place" in the Rose Garden parking lot. The sun had just risen and was flashing beautiful yellow light in the east that looked for some reason so very, very kind. Thank you, Father Sun. Thank you God.

The frost is a light frost ... I think a sign I saw driving over there said it's 34 deg, so just above freezing. No frost under the trees, but the broad grassy lawns in the middle of the Rose Gardens were cloaked in the lightest, most sparkling frost. A few bushes held a light, light dusting of white on their upper, horizontally pleached surfaces.

All of this Mom would have loved. And I love these things too. And I thank you God for these Your Gifts. But a part of me still wonders why there should be anything so beautiful if Momma is not here.

Mom, the dog and I took a cold walk this morning, but of course she loved it: with that thick fur, she seemed either indifferent or positively delighted by the cold. We walked under the oak trees in the Park. There are oak leaves and acorns littering the lawn everywhere. I thought that we would see no squirrels, or very few, like yesterday morning, but I was wrong: Spooky jerked the leash and took off after one, then another, then another ... and had a wonderful time chasing squirrels. They all seemed to be up on the sides of the trees, and not on the ground, though. I wonder if the cold dampness of the ground discouraged them from coming down from the trees. But then I wonder why the bark would be less cold. Surely it's less damp, though. In any event, Spooky and I had a good walk, Momma. You would have loved to see her chasing after those squirrels, If you can, even now, O Momma, how I miss sharing this with you.

I am coming this morning to see you at the cemetery, Momma. It's cold, so I may stop at your grave only long enough to put a coo on your marker and talk with you and give you a few drops of nice, hot tea. Then I'll probably have to go back to the truck where it's warm to say the Office for you.

Oh Momma how I miss you. You loved Fall. I can hope you love Fall still. But Oh how I wish you and I could enjoy Fall together once more.

Thy Will Not Mine Be Done, O Lord.
Please help me to do what I do not want to do.
Please help me to pick up this Cross and take it with me on yet another day without Momma.
Please please please take good care of my Momma, Lord.

I love you Momma.
I love you Lord.

Charles Delacroix
Wednesday of the 31st Week in Ordinary Time

Christmas Already Approaching

I saw decorations prominently displayed in stores yesterday.

And this Friday two movies set at Christmas time will open. Fred Claus & P2.

You will not be here. At least not as before.

Oh Lord.

Oh Momma.

What is there to say.

Time goes on. And htis Cross is so heavy.

Oh Lord Jesus please take good care of my Momma.

Charles Delacroix
Tuesday of 31st Week in Ordinary Time

Leaves are Falling

I was amazed this morning how much leaves have been changing, even in the past few days.

Here in Oklahoma, trees seem to have been holding off on Autumn till last week, when leaves began changing. Now they are changing ... and falling ... in earnest.

Leaves on the lawn ... leaves on the ground at Woodward Park. I crunched and crunched as the dog and I strolled in the park. It was the coldest morning yet, too. Low 40s. I only saw one squirrel.

Leaves are changing and I can only wish you were here with me to see, Momma. You and I would talk and talk about the leaves, wouldn't we. Even the little tree in the back yard is shedding leaves.

I love you Momma.

I love you Jesus.

Please take good, good care of my Momma, Lord Jesus.

Love,

Charles Delacroix
Tuesday of the 31st Week of Ordinary Time

The Cross

What tends to challenge me most these days is the Call of Christ to Surrender ... everything. Including, in my case, my own natural family.

There's no question of what is being asked. Of me, as of all of us. I am to take up my Cross daily (Lk 9) and Follow Christ, surrendering my own life and more (Mt 16) and this can and does extend to my natural family (Lk 14).

My mother died on August 22.

And I miss her so much.

Every day, sometimes every hour, every minute.

There's nothing wrong with this of course. But there's a big, big part of me that plain doesn't want to take up this Cross daily. There's a big part of me that really doesn't want to hurt. That plain doesn't want to surrender my Mom to God.

Yet she belongs to Him. She has always belonged to him. All things, all people, are His. Not mine. His. And He loves my Mom from all eternity with an infinite love that is infinitely greater than anything I can every know.

And yet ... and yet ... sometimes I find myself crying and crying and calling out, "Come back, O come back."

I know she's not coming back. Not in the sense in which she was here before, anyway. And when I really think of it, what a cruel thing to wish on her ... on anyone who has passed on to a better place, to ask her to come back. God loves her and will take care of her with His infinite love. The Office for the Dead is full of readings affirming this.

But if she is to live in Him she had to die here. Die to me. And when she died, a big, big part of me died. And still dies. Every day I die. My heart aches, my whole being feels the weight of the Cross, and I am bid to bear that which I do not want to bear at all.

Still, isn't that what it really means to bear a Cross. When Jesus bore His Cross, there's no indication that he wanted to bear it. He certainly willed himself to Bear It, as He willed Himself to Die for us. From all eternity this was God's will: that Jesus should die for us in the great Sacrifice that is re-presented in each Eucharistic Sacrifice of the Mass. But Jesus, True God and True Man, suffering and falling three times on His Way of the Cross, surely did not, humanly speaking, want the pain and suffering. Yet He chose pain and suffering. He took up His Cross.

And now asks me to take up mine.

Oh Lord, Just for Today, I ask you to give me the strength to do what I really don't want to do.
Just for Today, I beg You to go before me Bearing Your Great Cross and showing me the Way for me to bear my little Cross.
Oh Lord it doesn't really feel like such a little Cross yet I know my Cross is but a handful of slivers from Your Own Cross.
Oh Lord help me surrender my dear mother into Your Loving Care
Oh Lord help me to die daily to myself and live to you daily.
Oh Lord help me to remember that for me as for us all, as for St Paul, for me to live is Christ and to die is gain
Oh Lord help me to Follow You on the Way of Your Cross
Lord Jesus Christ help me to remember that here I have no lasting place
Lord Jesus Christ help me to find in Your Cross everything that matters in this world or the next
Lord Jesus, Man of Sorrows, help me to lay my own Sorrows at the Foot of Your Cross
Holy Mary, Mother of Sorrows, help me to find in Your Son my mother now passed away and gone from this world
Holy Mary, Mother of Sorrows, help me to find in Your Son all my brothers and sisters in the Church, my true mother on earth
Oh Mary accept into your maternal care my dear mother
And Oh my dear Lord please take good care of my dear Mother
And dear Lord please take good care of me
Lord help me to embrace Your Cross that is the Tree of Death and the Tree of Life
Oh Lord let me find in Your Cross, along with St John of the Cross, everything and nothing, all that is and all that is not.
Oh Lord let me find in You all that is You and in You all my brothers and sisters in this world and the next
Oh Lord let me find in You You and in You my Mother
Oh Lord let Your Will Not Mine be done now and always
Just for today.

Love in Christ,

Charles Delacroix
Monday of the 31st Week in Ordinary Time

Frank Sinatra

Tonite is Saturday night ... and as usual I am watching TV especially with Mom in mind. For we often watched things together on TVon Saturday nights.

Friends was on earlier; MASH is on now. And both of us loved both of these wonderful series.

But PBS/OETA-TV has a Frank Sinatra special on tonite.

And I know ... I know she would simply love this program. Very Sinatra. Very old-time. Very, very much the kind of show she would love.

Oh Mom I hope you can see it now ... and enjoy it now ... as I know you are enjoying all that God has to offer ... and I have been told that nothing good shall be lost ... so how could God not share with you a Frank Sinatra show?

I love you Momma and miss you so much.

I love you Lord Jesus

Please please please ... take good care of my Momma.

Love,

Charles Delacroix
Feast of St Martin de Porres.

She Gave the Most Thoughtful Gifts

She gave me that felt hat I mentioned in my last post ... about 20 or so years ago. The hat looks like an Indiana Jones hat, or perhaps a Humphrey Bogart hat. I remember saying to her, while we were watching one or the other of those movies, that I really had to get a "hat like that." I was laughing, and she was laughing too. But I meant it.

And she went out of her way to get me ... a "hat like that."

She did this kind of thing so many times.

I told her how much I valued a certain book from childhood that was long lost. The Story about Ping, by Marjorie Flack, pictures by the great Kurt Wiese. I have that book before me now. Because she got a replica copy somehow, from somewhere. She must have ordered it from a used book dealer.

After my father died, his widow (he had remarried) asked me if there was anything of his that I wanted. I said just one thing, and one thing only, really: A large coffee-table book replete with Bill Mauldin's WWII cartoons. My father and I had few happy memories. But one happy memory we had: our shared delight in Bill Mauldin. Dad had to explain him to me, of course. But I learned and laughed. Well, after the funeral, his widow said that they had been unable to find this book. I was keenly disappointed. So Mom ... Mom ordered a replica copy. It was exactly the same as the lost Bill Mauldin book.

Mom had the grace to even get something for me when she knew I would like it, even when she herself didn't understand it and perhaps didn't entirely sympathize with it. For example, after moving away from my Methodist roots, in an evolution that would take me to Roman Catholicism, I valued on this path C.S. Lewis very much. Mom knew this; knew I loved Lewis; and ordered me a really nice hard-back edition of Lewis' Mere Christianity ... one of my favorite Lewis books.

She did this kind of thing all her life. For me, and for others. In fact, I simply don't know now, and have never known, anyone more generous, kind, and thoughtful in her gifts.

Oh Momma how I miss you. How I miss you.

I love you.

Please Lord take good, good care of my dear Momma.

Charles Delacroix
Feast of St Martin de Porres

Treasure

I was putting my bedding up in a closet, and just happened to glance down and see a box.

A box that I must have seen a thousand times but this time I noticed it.

Well, I opened it ... and found Treasure.

No, not the kind that involves dollar signs. The kind that is real Treasure. The kind that has meaning. That means something to me; to my Mother; to my grandfather. Therefore to God.

A shoebox containing things that belonged to my maternal grandfather: a duck call made by him. A turkey call made by him. One of his old small-game traps. His old pocket knife. His old stop watch.

I was ... and am ... simply tickled. Wholly delighted.

There was an old felt hat that Mom had bought for me.

Pictures from our travels in Europe.

Memorabilia - odds and ends - from our time in Tripoli, from my Scouting days.

Including a Cub Scout memorabilia banner put together by my dear mother.

Oh Momma ... how I miss you ... how I miss you ... but what wonders you ... and your father ... gave to me ... what treasures you gave me.

I love you Momma.

I love you Lord Jesus.

And Lord Jesus ... please please please take good care of my Momma.

Charles Delacroix
Feast of St Martin de Porres

Dies Irae

The Roman Breviary for the Feast of All Souls allows use of the hymn Dies Irae during all hours of the Feast day. I said it in Latin, since it was in Latin in my Office, but I didn't know Latin well enough to understand it. I just looked it up and was deeply moved. http://www.franciscan-archive.org/de_celano/opera/diesirae.html. Yes, Lord Jesus ...

"Kneeling and bowed down I pray,
My heart contrite as ashes:
Do Thou {, my End,} care for my end.

"That sorrowful day,
on which will arise from the buring coals
Man accused to be judged:
therefore, O God, do Thou spare him.

"Faithful Lord Jesus,
grant them rest.
Amen

"O Thou, God of Majesty,
nourishing brillance of the Trinity,
join us with the Blessed. Amen."

Amen indeed, O "nourishing brilliance of the Trinity"

Feast of All Souls

What a day ... first here's a link someone else posted to the Mass announcement for today at Westminster Cathedral. What a moving, lovely views of the interior of the Cathedral and the Holy Souls Chapel. See http://westminstercathedral.blogspot.com/2007/11/mass-for-holy-souls.html

I prayed the All Souls offices, mostly taken from the Office for the Dead, starting with MP this morning, and later OOR and EP in the evening. I thought the 2nd Reading, from St Ambrose, speaking on the occasion of the death of his brother, was so very moving. http://www.universalis.com/20071102/readings.htm.

After MP, I drove to the attorney's office to sign the Petition for entering Mom's will into probate. I cried and cried all the way there, and cried and cried after I left. Oh Momma ... after I left the attorney's office, I went to Philbrook Art Museum to spend some time with some of the beautiful and moving works of sacred art in their Italian gallery. Then I went to see a movie, then went to do clinical supervision of a supervisee, and then to the Cathedral. There I was able by God's Grace to say the Way of the Cross for the Bereaved in the chapel. On this day I prayed especially for blessings for my dear mother ... and, if she is able to do so, I asked for her prayers as well.

At home tonite I finished cutting the pumpkin meat out of the jack o'lantern from Halloween. Wow, I had no idea how much would come out of one pumpkin. I took some pieces and cooked them in the microwave with some pumkin spice, cinnamon, and brown sugar, and really enjoyed just eating the cooked pumpkin pieces. Whether this was OK or not I guess I'll find out. If I die tonite of food poisoning I beg God to take me at once to the company of my Momma.

Oh Lord. Oh Lord. Oh Lord. Please ... whatever happens, whatever happens to me, whatever else may take place, please please please take good care of my Momma ...

Love,

Charles Delacroix
Feast of All Souls

The Leaves are Turning

Just within the past few days the leaves have started falling more. Most trees are still green. But autumn is in the air ... and Momma is not here to enjoy the Fall ... Oh Lord ... Oh Momma ...

Mom's Kitchen ... and Me

I went through Mom's kitchen a bit better this morning, partly looking for things to use in processing the pumpkin to make a pumpkin pie.

I kept seeing things that bring back such memories. A beat up old cookie sheet that has held so many, so many cookies made by Mom, that I've eaten so many times ... cookie cutters that Mom' used to make Christmas cookies ... skillets belonging to Mom and to her Mom ... glasses and flatware and teacups and a Mason jar ... all that Mom used ...

One thing I didn't find that I was hoping to find was an electric mixer that she used to use especially when making icing for cake. Oh my ... how many times as a kid she would whirr and whirr that thing and then disconnect one of the rotors, and hand it to me with a big big smile ... I would take it and lick it clean of icing ... oh my ...

I found several tea pots that had one thing or another broken ... Mom used so many little teapots and a handle or a spout would break every now and then.

I found a big big pot that I can remember Mom using whenever she was boiling water for spaghetti. Ah ... her spaghetti was served with the most meaty spaghetti sauce that I've ever had the deep pleasure of enjoying ...

I finally ran by Walmart with the dog after we went for a walk this evening ... and I bought a potato masher to use when mashing up the pumpkin meat. I looked up and down the aisle at the kitchenware and cooking ware and thought about getting some more things to try in the future ... and then I went home and boiled some hot water for fettucine. I think I must be getting more domestic by the day sometimes. It really felt good to go home and make this simple fettucine dish.

I'll never forget quoting Samuel Johnson to Mom once ... Johnson said that to be happy at home is the end of all human endeavor (or something like that). Mom agreed wholeheartedly.

My oh my oh my ... how I miss you dear Momma ... oh I never ever ever went hungry in your household ... but what you fed us was so much more than just food ... you served everything with you love ... and that nourished us more than anything else ...

I love you Momma.

Jesus I love you Lord. Please please please take good care of my Momma.

And may all the angels and saints intercede for Mom and for me on this special, special day.

Love in Christ,

Charles Delacroix
Feast of All Saints.

Halloween ... and Mom

I am deeply grateful to say that tonite was a really enjoyable Halloween.

By God's Grace I had resolved ahead of time to proceed as if Mom were still here. And of course for all I know she still is in a way. I can only hope and pray that she might have been here and seen and enjoyed our Halloween. There were very young children, little girls in princess outfits and little cowboys ... that I know Mom would have simply adored. How she would have cooed over them. There was a Spiderman and a vampire and a few ghosts and a Teenage Ninja Mutant Turtle and a Barney ... and more that I just didn't recognize. I know Mom would have enjoyed ... as did I ... seeing the little kids, and their young parents ...

I carved a large pumpkin and have started stripping its meat in order to make a pumpking pie. For the first time ever. So if this blog suddenly falls silent, you'll know I managed to poison myself and may or may not rejoin this site.

But it was so much fun. I took pictures ... lots of pictures ... and gave out lots of candy ... and found Mom's old little pumpkin, in ceramic, and set it up with a candle in it. And I imagined her sitting in her chair, and watching the little kids coming to the door, hollering "Trick or Treat" and carrying on as they do. Mom would have loved it.

And so did I.

I love you Mom. I love you Jesus.

And Jesus please take good care of my Momma.

Charles Delacroix
Halloween
Eve of the Feast of All Saints