Me wearing my heart on my sleeve...again...

Today has been a day of emotion:

As I looked at my husband straightening my son's tie for his first communion, I had the thought, "We are not newbies anymore". Our kids are growing up. I am the one that new moms are asking for advice (there is no reasoning for this and I make no admonitions of having any of it figured out). I was filled with a recognition of the time that has passed and all that we have been through. We are stronger for our struggles.

I watched my eight year old receive the Eucharist for the first time. He is becoming a young man. He is sorting things out and recognizing that there are good and bad choices. He is daily on the threshold of new experiences and hard knocks. He sees first hand that the good guy doesn't always win and "fair" is not always the title-holder at the end of the day. I felt a sense of pride at watching my son take another step in life's journey.

I also received a phone call that was greatly disturbing. One filled with about twenty years full of hurt that I could never have understood as a child and know that it's not my role to understand as an adult. Anger is a sad thing to watch fester. And as I listened I felt a deep sadness for this person, and a surrender of trying to "fix things". Sometimes it just it what it is.

A neighbor came to tell me that his father who "did all the wrong things" had died. He (my neighbor) couldn't sleep at night thinking of his father in regard to "the after-life". When the ones we love leave us behind, it also makes us very aware of our own mortality...the choices we've made, the people we want to become. If we really believe in forgiveness and mercy and love...all that stuff we profess to believe. I felt appreciation for his raw emotion and the things that bring us to our knees when no one else ever knows.

This may seem like a rambling of sorts, but what I really wanted to put down in words is the stuff of life. In the waking of a day, the emotions that come out run the entire gamut.

Joy and pain. Strength and weakness.

And I guess, really, what Super-boy celebrated today encompasses all of that. The suffering, and the rising from the ashes. The loneliness and the embrace. And I think, regardless of what you believe, that's something we all can relate to.