Good morning... "This meditation from yesterday really speaks to me, and I think it will speak to you too," she texted me yesterday after a really hard ten days. "Happy Saturday as I enjoy the lake and mountains before the boat traffic starts." ****** Love Is the Only Solution by Richard Rohr, July 22, 2022 Father Richard’s Franciscan [...]
Good morning... Deeply moved... He went into his private room and wept there (Genesis 43:30, NIV). When we are deeply moved, might we also give ourselves the gift of private tears? You have seen me tossing and turning through the night. You have collected all my tears and preserved them in your bottle! You have recorded every one [...]
Good morning... A longtime friend has also had a loved one fighting for life in the ICU this month. We have been exchanging private prayers and texting one another updates most every day. She wrote me an email after this week's blog post My Mom's Bumpy Ride Home, a post which ended with a music video of Willie [...]
Good morning... Look at that smile! When my father texted this photo of my mom back home at their senior living community, her pure joy made me smile. What a contrast from the image seared on my mind from eleven days before. My mom was hooked up to a ventilator, heavily sedated, laying unresponsive in the ICU. Now, [...]
Good morning... "I am happy to hear that your mom is progressing," texted my friend from across the street. "One thing that could be really great for her is music. Music is the only thing that we use both sides of our brain for." She sent the music video below as a form of encouragement. This morning, I [...]
Good morning... Many of you continue to ask about my mom's condition since last week's post My Mom Is In The ICU. Together as a written word community we have experienced the potent power of prayer. Connected to tons of life-saving machines, there was no medical explanation for my mother opening her eyes to greet the sound of [...]
Good morning... Waking after a full night's sleep, I cozy up on the couch and think, "Healing is happening." God invites me forward from yesterday's post, My Unexpected Grief. I return to the wise book sustaining me very personally during this season of Lent, Paula D'Arcy's Winter of the Heart: Finding Your Way Through the Mystery of Grief. [...]
Good morning... It was hard to leave Ohio with my mother in the ICU. I had a meaningful visit with my parents and siblings, but I was deeply concerned about my mom's condition. On my final morning with her, the nurse asked her where she was and my mom replied, "I am at the Renaissance (the retirement community [...]
Good morning... On Monday morning, my dad and I were with my mom in the ICU when her regular doctor stopped in. He had seen my mom soon after she was admitted, when she was hooked up to all the machinery keeping her alive. Very, very sick with an unidentified infection, she was unresponsive and highly sedated. That [...]
Good morning... When we left my mom in the ICU, it was a blustery late March evening with light snowflakes swirling in the Ohio air. There was a strand of hope frozen in our minds: mom had opened her eyes for about five minutes. Then she had drifted away from us again. Sustained by the ventilator, her body [...]
