Please, let me tell you about my boy....

It seems like every year on the anniversary of Keeghan’s death, I talk about my own grief. I talk about how losing a child affects our family. This year - the 15th anniversary of his death - I want to talk about Keeghan. I want those of you who will take the time to read this to know my son better. Rest assured, dear reader, that you missed out on knowing an amazing young man .

As a baby, he was perfectly content to just watch his big sister. She turned 2 just four days after he was born, so she was still a toddler. As he reached the age to be old enough to sit on his own, he would watch her running around like a crazy child (which she was) and just smile. Anything she wanted to do, anywhere she went, he followed. First with his eyes only. Then as he was able to crawl and walk, he followed. Whatever she wanted to do to him, he allowed. That’s how we ended up with pictures of them both covered in ballpoint ink. She was nice enough to draw on her own face so that they at least matched! It’s also how they ended up covering a room in baby powder at their grandparents house once! They were beautiful trouble together.

The first way Keeghan ever pronounced “I love you” was “I sush oo” (sush sounds like “lush” and the oo sounds like the oo in tattoo). To this day, Mackenzie still says it that way to me and I love it.

Keeghan was never a morning person. As a baby, I could change his diaper and get him completely dressed for daycare and he would not wake up. I started talking him through the whole process of getting dressed as a way to engage him and get him to wake up. I’d say, “Left sock, right sock, pants, shirt - tag goes in the back…” as I got him dressed. Eventually it became our fun Mama-and-Keeghan morning routine and he’d say the words. I think he was probably in school before he stopped saying “tag goes in the back” when he put his shirt on!

He was 3-years-old and in daycare in November 2000 when George W. Bush was running against Al Gore for President. The day before the election was school picture day. As he hopped up into the chair, the photographer asked him who he was voting for. Without skipping a beat Keeghan replied, “Al Gore!” He had obviously been listening to us talk at home and formed his own idea of who to vote for! The photographer - an older gentleman as I recall (although he probably was younger than I am now, so how funny is it that I remember him as being “older”?) - laughed out loud, which then made Keeghan giggle. That was the moment the picture was taken. To this day, it is one of my absolute favorite pictures of Keeghan!

Just a couple of months after the election, we took a trip to visit Mike’s parents in Texas to ring in the year 2000 with the whole family. Mike had told me many times about how when he was a kid, if he asked his dad about anything, his dad would tell him to go look it up. On this particular visit to Texas, Keeghan somehow got into a conversation with his grandad about whether or not tomatoes are a fruit or a vegetable. Grandad insisted they are a vegetable. Keeghan - who even at that age took great pride in how many facts he knew - looked at his grandfather and said, “It has seeds, so it is a fruit. Look it up.” He then turned his back and walked away - it was the pre-schooler equivalent of a mic drop! The best part though was the look on both Mike’s and his father’s face. Mike told me later that he thought for sure his dad was going to kill his son! 

Keeghan always had this innate coolness about him. I have no idea where he got that! I volunteered at the kids’ school often and I was always amazed at the older kids who would pass Keeghan in the hall and high-five him and say, “Whassup, Keeghan!” And my little 5-year-old would high five them back, acting all cool like these were his homies! It wasn’t just other boys though. At the end of his first day of 1st grade, I was standing with him outside the school waiting for Mackenzie to get out of class. Keeghan was sitting on his bike (I let him ride it to school, but I was still walking behind him). A little girl who had been in his kindergarten class the previous year, but wasn’t in his class for 1st grade ran up to him and said, “Keeghan, I MISS you!” She threw her arms around him and hugged him. He kept one hand on his handlebars and put the other around her, patting her on the back like such a stud! I know my mouth had to be hanging open in shock. Who was this kid???

At the same time that he was so cool, he also had no shame when it came to showing love for his family. There was a boy in his kindergarten class who was a serious problem child. This little boy would scream at his mother if she walked too close to him on the walk to or from school. He didn’t want to be seen with her. Keeghan, on the other hand, would proudly hold my hand. When that boy criticized him for holding his mom’s hand, Keeghan replied, “I love my mom. You should love yours, too.”

Keeghan was so smart, but sometimes that was a bit…limiting. He was a very concrete thinker. He took everything at face value as a little boy. Case in point - I was going to college full-time in the evenings from the time Keeghan was almost 2 until he was 5. We were stationed in North Dakota at the time. Mike would come home from work and I would immediately leave to go to evening classes until 10:00pm. One night, Mike was playing a video game and the kids were playing. He didn’t realize how much mess they were making in the house, but when he eventually did, he said, “You guys, we have to get this cleaned up before Mama gets home or she’s going to kill us!” Instead of immediately starting to pick up their mess, both kids fell apart in hysterical tears. “Why would Mama KILL us?” Mike managed to calm them down and get the house picked up before I got home, but the way he told me the story almost had me in tears laughing! You had to be very careful in how you said things to Keeghan at that age!

That concreteness lasted his whole life in many ways, but in later years it was evidenced more in his sarcasm. We moved from North Carolina to Texas in 2004, just before Keeghan started 3rd grade and Mackenzie started 5th grade. On the bus on the way home from the first day of school, a bully on the bus told Keeghan he was going to throw him out the window. Keeghan looked at the window and then back at the kid and said, “I won’t fit.” Thank God for a savior in the form of a big sister at that point! Mackenzie dropped her backpack and got in the bully’s face and told him he’d have to go through her first. This was the day she gained the nickname “Maxx” because the bus thug asked her what her name was. She told him it was Mackenzie, but the next day when she passed him at school, he said, “Yo Maxx, what’s up?” And it stuck.

Keeghan told us when he was about 3 years old what he wanted to be when he grew up. 

“I want to be a maker guy, just like Daddy.”

Mike was a lieutenant in the U.S. Air Force, so we were clueless as to what a “maker guy” was.

“What does a maker guy do, Keeghan?”

“He makes dinner!”

That eventually graduated to being a “cooker guy.” It wasn’t until he was 5 that he watched a show about sharks and learned that they are resistant to cancer. That was when he decided that he was going to become a marine biologist when he grew up so that he could find a cure for cancer. That ambition stuck from that point on. In fact, when we were told in the hospital five years later that he had cancer, I think I said “No, he can’t HAVE cancer. He’s going to CURE cancer.”

Keeghan was never much of a behavior problem. In fact, I don’t remember ever having to discipline him much. He liked to please people. I guess that is why his kindergarten experience of misbehaving in class stands out in my memory. The teacher had a board in the classroom where each student had a paper frog. The frogs started every day on their lily pad. If the student had to be told to behave, they would have to move their frog. I honestly don’t recall what the progression of movement was. I only remember that eventually, if they had to move it enough times, it ended up in the pond. Keeghan was having problems one particular week with keeping his frog on its lily pad. Knowing him, it was because he was talking too much when he should be listening, because he never really got in trouble for anything else. After a few days of him moving his frog each day, we had a talk with him and told hm that if he had to move his frog the next day, he was going to lose being able to play outside after school.

The next day I was there waiting when he came out of the school. As soon as he walked out of the building, I knew. His little face crumpled in tears. He dropped his backpack and ran to me. I hit my knees and just gathered him in. I think I cried right along with him. He just kept saying, “I TRIED, Mama, I really tried!” 

I know he was telling the truth, too. His heartbreak was proof of that. I had to stick to my guns though and made him stay in the house that day while his sister and other friends got to play outside. I think it hurt me just as much as it hurt him. It must have worked though, because he never had multiple days in a row of moving his frog again!

We always said that Keeghan was an old soul or that he was the wise old man of our Fantastic Four. Since his death, Mackenzie has said that Keeghan actually lived to be 85. He just did it in 12 years. One of the things he used to do that made me think he was an old soul trapped in a little boy’s body was when he would disappear on the trampoline. If dinner time rolled around and we couldn’t figure out where he was, we merely had to go out to the backyard and look at the trampoline. Many times we found him out there by himself, lying on his back staring up at the sky. I have no idea what went through his mind during those zen trampoline breaks. I sure wish I did though.

Another example of Keeghan’s funny brain at work happened one afternoon when he was probably about 7- or 8-years-old. Mike was in the kitchen cooking and I was just around the corner in the living room playing a video game that the kids often played. Keeghan ran through the room, stopped to look at where I was at in the game, and said, “Yeah, I’ve played that part, too.” I sarcastically responded with some comment about how he’d done everything before. His response was, “I’ve never had diphtheria.”

Mike walked into the living room and asked, “Did he just say he’s never had diphtheria?” I think I was still just staring at Keeghan, speechless. We asked him how he even knew that word. He then told us all about the movie Balto and how the girl in the movie had diphtheria. Perfectly logical explanation, but it still cracked us up that he remembered (and could say) diphtheria!

Going back to that story about moving his frog…I’m sure that I cried with him when he came out of the school and sobbed because I always cried when he cried. In fact, I’ve always had a hard time seeing either of my children cry without crying along with them. When Keeghan was getting chemotherapy at Walter Reed, we had a routine that we went through while he was getting his port accessed because even though they put cream on the port site to numb it before sticking him with the (huge) needle, it was still very scary. So I would lean over him, almost nose-to-nose, and tell him to blow my hair. He would focus on blowing my hair out of my face so that he wasn’t paying attention to the needle coming at him. One day it was all just too much though. He was trying to blow my hair, but he couldn’t stop the tears from streaming. Seeing that destroyed me, so of course I ended up crying right along with him. The nurse who had the needle asked me why I was crying. Before I could reply, Keeghan very matter-of-factly said, “It’s ok. When I cry, she cries. It’s what we do.” Laughing and crying at the same time happened a lot when he was in treatment.

On one of our many trips across Washington, DC, to get from the base we lived on to Walter Reed for a chemo appointment, Keeghan killed us with his sarcastic wit. There was an intersection in the District that we always got stopped at and there was always someone on the median selling something - bottled water, flowers, fruit. Always. On one particular day, however, the median was empty. I commented that it was the first time we’d ever been stopped there and not seen someone selling something. From the back seat, Keeghan very drily replied, “Wow, Mama…I’m so glad we were able to be here to share this experience with you.” I looked at Mackenzie, who was sitting beside me in the front seat, and her mouth was hanging open like, “Oh no, he didn’t just say that!” Then we both started laughing. As soon as we started laughing, Keeghan started giggling. I think we laughed the rest of the way home!

In the last days of Keeghan’s life, when he was no longer able to walk on his own and spent a lot of time either laying in his bed or on the sofa, he said something to me that, to this day, haunts me. He was in his bed and I was leaning over him, talking to him. At one point I ran my hand through his hair and I said, “You’re a good man, Charlie Brown.” This was something I’d said to him since he was little. But this time he shook his head, as if to disagree. I asked why he didn’t think he was a good man. He was slow to form words by this stage, but when he could get them out he said, “Because I have cancer.” I vehemently told him that cancer was not who he was and that he damn well WAS a good man! But it has tortured my mind for 15 years now that he may have died thinking he wasn’t good because he had cancer. Children should never have to feel like they have somehow failed because they are sick.

There are so many stories I could tell. I could tell you how the only request he had of his neurosurgeon before his first surgery was that he not make him stupid or that he asked if he could have the tumor to keep in a jar after surgery. I could tell you about how he always thought about others before himself, even has he himself was dying. I could tell you that he had the best laugh, gave the best hugs, danced in his chair when food tasted good or that he loved coffee with his breakfast (with one half-and-half creamer and one Irish creamer). Honestly, I could go on forever. Keeghan was amazing. He wanted so many things out of life and did not get most of them. The one thing he got plenty of though was love. He was so loved in life and he is still so loved now.

So, there you have it…for now. My boy in (more than) a few words. 

Musical is visceral.

I have a strange relationship with music. I can't play an instrument. I'm not a great singer. I can hear a song though and tell you exactly where I was the first time I heard it, or who I was with. If it is a song from my childhood or young-adult life, I can probably tell you what year it was released. That drives my husband crazy.

I can tell you that "A Little More Love" by Olivia Newton John was the first song I ever slow danced with a boy to. His name was Georgie and he was my next-door neighbor. I'm pretty sure he felt sorry for me and that is why he asked me to dance.

The first album I ever bought - which really means the first one my parents ever paid for - was a Donny Osmond album that I chose at Tower Records in Stockton when I was 7-years-old. But the first "real" album I ever bought was when I was 11 and it was Foreigner's eponymous first album. "Feels Like the First Time" and "Cold as Ice" still take me back to a carefree summer of laying on my bed at night, feeling like a grown-up because I was listening to rock music and not teen idol pop.

Music is visceral for me. I started buying albums and 45 rpm records young and I've never stopped. My life has been a series of playlists since before there even was such a thing. I got my first stereo for Christmas in 1977. It was one of those single-turntable deals that had two speakers and a smoky-gray plastic top that lifted up. It even had an FM radio built in! I thought I was seriously cool. I could stack ten 45's at a time on it, so there was some planning that went into what the mix would be. 

It shouldn't surprise anyone then that I was a huge fan of the mixtape. I spent hours listening to the radio to hear that one new song that I liked, ready to hit record as soon as I heard the first notes. For 8th grade graduation my parents gave me a boom box. It was the coolest! It had an 8-track player, AM/FM radio, and a dual cassette player. I could record songs from radio or from 8-tracks and then dub from one cassette to the other to create my own mixes. I was in heaven!

My high school memories are defined by the music associated with them. "Do You Believe in Love" by Huey Lewis & the News takes me back to 9th grade. I'm sitting with a new boyfriend on a set of bleachers at a baseball diamond, flirting and feeling so happy. "Open Arms" by Journey takes me back to 10th grade and that same boy, but this time we've been apart for a while and are back together. Breakup songs are the theme for 11th grade. Early Duran Duran and U2 are 12th grade, all the way. 

My brain holds specific playlists for so many things. College, my early-twenties, my time in the Army. "We Belong" by Pat Benatar takes me back to riding in a car in Texas with my brother and hearing it for the first time. Play Peter Gabriel's "So" album and I am immediately in a barracks in Germany with my future husband with nothing more than hopes and dreams. There are playlists for my children's early years. I have a Keeghan list that I listen to when I'm missing my baby. There are so many lists for Mackenzie - girl pop for elementary school, emo for middle school, K-Pop for high school. Most of the time, these songs are happy reminders of good memories. Sometimes they can bring me to tears in just a few notes. That is how music works for me.

The first time I was ever separated from having music constantly playing was in basic training. The only "music" the Army allowed during that time was the cadence we sang while marching and running. About midway through my eight weeks of training, we were supposed to be bivouacking in the field, meaning we were supposed to be camping out in small tents, when it started to rain. When it rains in South Carolina, it doesn't mess around. We had rivers running through our tents. The drill sergeants screamed at us to gather up our gear and head for a bus that had just arrived. I wasted no time doing so!

As I got on the bus, I sat right behind the driver. He had the radio playing! Oh, sweet lord...I almost cried. "Here With Me" by REO Speedwagon was playing. I closed my eyes and silently sang along. Another group of females got on the bus and one of them yelled, "Can you change the station." Before the bus driver could respond, I did for him. "No! He can't!" The driver looked up into the big mirror over his head, made eye contact with me and slightly smiled. "I wasn't going to change it, Private." In my mind, that bus ride is one of the best memories I have from Army basic training.

The one thing I have never done is listen to music that I don't like. Sure, there are plenty of songs and genres of music that I don't necessarily like, but listening to them was always optional. I could change a radio station or, in the case of school dances, walk outside and talk to friends if I didn't like a song. Sometimes there were songs that my friends liked and I would suffer through. That usually ended in me getting angry if it happened too often though. I (yes, selfishly) wanted to listen to what made me happy, not what irritated me. I've never been able to change in that respect - I do not tolerate lousy music well.

The proof, then, that I am getting old is that I have a hard time finding new music to connect with. The most visceral reaction I have to most current music is to want to run any place I can get where it isn't playing. Everything is auto-tuned. I don't believe any of these people can actually sing! There are rock bands that I love - Godsmack, Shinedown, Three Days Grace, Pop Evil - but to get in the car and just turn on the radio to a local pop station is a thing of the past. I just can't do it anymore.

For someone who wants...no, needs...music, that is incredibly sad. 

The Shadow at the End of the Hall

I grew up as a shadow. I didn't have an identity of my own. I followed behind, always. I was the shadow at the end of the hall.

I found myself when I left home, but even when I found my own personality and learned that I could be front and center, the shadow always told me I needed to get behind. There was always doubt...that I wasn't good enough to be in the spotlight. I didn't belong there.

It wasn't until a very handsome Army Corporal showed me attention that I discovered I didn't need to be noticed by everyone. I only needed to be noticed by him. That was incredibly liberating!

Fast-forward a few decades and I have learned to be okay with being noticed, but the only one who really matters is still him. I can speak up now. I no longer feel like I am not enough. I know that I am smart and capable. Sometimes I can even be cocky about things that I know I am good at. It's not something I am proud of!

After a while though, I start to miss being the shadow at the end of the hall. I don't want to see other people. I don't want other people trying to take up my time. When others put expectations on me, even if those expectations are merely that they want to see me or spend time with me, I want to run. 

The worst part is that I start to dislike people that really haven't done anything wrong. But because they are making me feel awkward and uncomfortable, I want to say or do something to make them not want to be around me. 

That is where I'm at right now. The difference is that I'm not the child in the room at the end of the hall, spending my time with my stereo and my cat. I need to behave like an adult, be polite, smile. Be nice. 

I'd rather run.

Paying Tribute

This was written ten days after Dad died. For many reasons, however, I waited until now to publish it.

How do you eulogize a man who never wanted a eulogy?

My Dad died ten days ago. Out of respect for his wishes, there was no service for him. If you knew Dad, you'd understand how truly fitting that was.

Dad was the youngest child of a large family. He was born late in both of his parents' lives. He had four older brothers and two older sisters, one of whom died at age 9 before Dad was even born. I don't know a lot about his childhood beyond where he was born (Arkansas) and how old he was when he moved to California. He didn't talk about it. I know that he married young, had two children and was divorced all before his 30th birthday. Then he met my mom. In my mind, that is where his story began. Not because I discount anything that happened before that. It is merely the beginning of the story that he would tell and, later on, that I would live with him.

I grew up at ballparks. Dad was a pitcher in a number of fast-pitch softball leagues. He was good. Living in California, the weather allowed him to play in summer and winter leagues. I can still remember being fascinated by him pitching, the way he was so calm out there on the mound and then that lightning-fast swing of his arm in a full circle and the release of the ball. It was mesmerizing. Mom was his biggest fan in the stands, usually razzing the other team's pitcher mercilessly. In fact, on a few occasions she was asked by umpires to keep it down!

When Dad eventually decided he was too old for pitching, he took up golf. For more than three decades he took every chance he got to be on the links. He took it serious, too! Dad was quietly competitive. He expected everyone to play their best or not play at all, something I think he passed on to his son. Dad loved watching Brad play! Whether it was football, basketball, track or baseball, Dad was there watching. He wasn't that father that expected a win or else though. What I remember about Dad is that he expected effort and good sportsmanship, win or lose. He expected honor on any playing field.

He wasn't a perfect man though and I would never want to paint him as such. He certainly had regrets in life. There were relationships that I know he wished had been better. Maybe he didn't try enough to foster them when he could. Maybe he did try and got burned. I will never know. On two occasions I was fortunate enough to spend long hours in a car with him when he helped my family move from one military assignment to another. I tried picking his brain about what his childhood was like and why his relationships with his family were the way they were and he'd just laugh and give me some generic answer. 

"We don't have anything in common." 

"I'm too busy."

I think a lot of it was that Dad liked being a bit of a loner. He was not a social butterfly - at all! As a younger man, he often spent hours in his garage with all of his tools. If something needed fixing, he fixed it. Need something built? He would build it for you. He was always efficient with his time. Get to the golf course, play, leave. Go to a restaurant, eat, leave. When I called him on the phone, our conversations were short and to the point. He did not like to yammer on. 

That's where I drove him nuts! As a child on car rides, he always teased me for talking too much! It was always with a smile though. That's how you knew you were loved by Dad...if he teased you, he liked you. You knew how much he liked you by the way he hugged you. Because I married a career military man, I never lived close to my parents. When we would go home to visit, I'd always get one of Dad's big bear hugs when I arrived and then again when I left. He wasn't big on words. His "I love you" was in the bone-crushing hug he gave you. 

So how do you eulogize a man who never wanted attention, who was content to just be in his own corner of the world? A man who quietly provided for and loved his family. A man who never wanted his life put on display and certainly wouldn't want his death put on display either. For me, the best I can do is offer up the words I hope he always knew.

I love you, Dad. I always missed you. You were the rock in my childhood and I was lucky to have you. I will forever miss your silly chuckle, your teasing nature and your big heart. Thank you for being mine.

Sis

How does an atheist become Catholic?

A few weeks ago, I officially became Catholic. The question that seems to keep finding its way to me is, "How does an atheist become Catholic?"

My knee-jerk response to that (in my head) is, "What ever made you truly believe I was an atheist?"

So here is the story...get some popcorn, because this might take a bit.

I'm pretty sure my mother was raised Lutheran and my father was raised Baptist. I don't think either of them were frequent flyers in a church though. I could be wrong; I honestly don't know though because they never talked about it. When Mom was in the Navy, she converted to being Catholic. My older brother  and I were baptized as infants in a Catholic church, but we never attended mass. By the time I was old enough to remember going to church, Mom had begun what I think of as "The Great Quest" for the perfect church. We attended the Methodist and Presbyterian churches for a bit, but never officially joined the religion. When I was 11, Mom enrolled me in a Seventh Day Adventist school because she was worried about the drugs that were so rampant in the public schools back then. Throughout The Great Quest, I was the only other member of the family that was dragged to all of these various houses of God. When I was 13, Mom became interested in Mormonism because her mother joined that church. 

And that was when I said, "Peace, out!"

I attended Catholic mass a couple of times as a teenager, but only because my boyfriend was Catholic and wanted me to go. I asked him once (after watching him serve as an altar boy), how he justified the things we did on Saturday nights with being an altar boy and he said, "I just go to confession, say a few Our Fathers and Hail Marys and I'm clear." 

"After a while, can't you recite those prayers and be thinking about something else at the same time?"

:::laughs:::

"Of course! I can be thinking about when we will do the things we did on Saturday night again!"

Needless to say, my interest in Catholicism disappeared at that point. I will say, however, that I did attend mass all through Army Basic Training, but that was only because if I didn't attend church, I had to help clean the barracks. So off to mass I went every Sunday!

I did marry an atheist though. I think when we got married, I thought of myself as an agnostic. I wanted to believe in a higher power, but I felt like I hadn't really found much example of it in my young life. Being married to an atheist opened my mind to other possibilities. I spent many years studying different religions and traditions. I still love a lot of pagan traditions mainly because I like the nature-centric way of viewing the world. But even with those, I never found exactly what I thought "religion" or "God" should be.

Then cancer entered our lives. If you don't have a strong faith to begin with, it's pretty hard to find God while watching your child die. It's even harder when there are other children out there surviving their (less lethal) cancer and seeing the parents say things like, "Thanks be to God!" I hated those people. Not because their child lived and mine died, but because the message they were sending, and that they fully believed, was that God CHOSE to save their child and not mine. To add salt to the wound, people would make comments about how they fully believed their kids were healthy because they've always gone to mass every week. 

Then there were the people (and by people, I mean my mother) who said things like, "God has a purpose for Keeghan." Or my personal favorite, "God doesn't give you more than you can handle."

I hated those comments the most. Try finding a faith that you've never felt in the middle of that. I prayed constantly for God to heal my child. I begged, I bargained. He didn't listen. Or so I thought at the time.

My mother eventually gave up on her quest. She never went to another church after becoming Mormon, but she didn't remain active in that church for very long. She used to say that she stopped going to church because of "Sunday-only Christians." She didn't like it that people would be so nice to her on Sunday, but then act like they had no idea who she was if she ran into them at the grocery store on Tuesday. With her last church, it was the gossip that did her in. She worked for a chiropractor who was a member of the Mormon church that she attended and many of the parishioners were patients. The way they talked about other parishioners was just too much.

Fast forward to 2019 and my incredibly wonderful and meddlesome friend who I will refer to as V. After hearing that I had toured a couple of Catholic churches in our new home of Erie, PA, she decided to call the Diocese here. She was on a quest of her own - to find me a church. It turns out that she had heard of the priest at one of the churches I had toured and she thought he would be PERFECT for us. She made me promise I would go to mass just once.

We went for the first time in January 2020. The first time I sat in that church (in the back row, so that if we started smoking we could make a hasty exit), Father Larry said something to the congregation that made me sit up and listen. He said, "You can come to mass every Sunday and pray the rosary every day and still go to hell!"

Wait...what???

"If you are only going through the ritual and there is no relationship, you will still go to hell."

Mike and I looked at each other that day with raised eyebrows, like "Did he really just call out his parishioners and tell them they could still go to hell, even though they are sitting here in church?" I was intrigued. We went back a couple more times, but then COVID hit. We didn't go back until early 2021. In the time between though, I had stayed friends with a young woman who was the first to reach out to me after V put me in touch with the church. I bugged this poor woman with questions a lot. Like...A LOT. She was a trooper though and was always quick to answer. When we started attending church again, she became more than just my Catholic Google. She became my friend.

Once we started back to church, we found that we constantly wanted more. We didn't necessarily always feel welcome in the church though. People gave us the side-eye a lot. I wasn't there for them though. I was there for The Word. I found myself not just hanging on every word of the readings, but also the homily. What Father had to say became very important to me because he does not shy away from brutal honesty.

Something I can relate to, right?

We decided that we wanted to find out more about becoming Catholic. We started meeting with Father and going through the process. As in most things with us though, we kept it on the down low. We are not showy people. We also started volunteering at the church, which opened us up to meeting new people. I learned something then...it's nice to have friends who share your faith. That's when it hit me...Mom wasn't looking for God. She was looking for friends, but the places where she tried to find them didn't produce any so she quit. I learned something else as well: just like with family, you will not like everyone you go to church with and they will not all like you and that is ok. It's sad, because my mother gave up so quickly. We came close to doing the same, but decided that we weren't there for those people; we were there for God. Mom died without a single friend. There was no one to notify of her death. I wish she would have stuck it out somewhere; maybe her life would have been happier.

But...back to the question of how an atheist becomes a Catholic. I don't think anyone who has ever taken the time to really get to know me well believes I was an atheist. There are a handful of women who have (crazily) remained my friends since Keeghan's death who probably saw this coming all along. I know they've been praying for it. I stopped looking for a perfect religion and instead found a relationship with God.

As for my husband, the actual atheist? Well, his story is just that...his. It's a great story! Maybe he can tell it sometime if he wants. 

So...there you go. I don't know how an atheist becomes a Catholic. I only know how Shannon did it. With the help of a meddlesome friend (who I will forever be thankful for) and a lot of love and support and prayer from my huge family of friends.

Borrowed time.

It’s been a good day.

Of course, aren’t all days good when you’re living on borrowed time?

I’ve been having major anger issues lately. Sure, some of it might be from this stupid COVID-19 mess, but a lot of it is just me being mad at my own body. Since moving to Pennsylvania nearly a year ago, I have had labs drawn a few times. I don’t even know what prompted my doctor to check whatever mysterious level in my blood it is that indicates I might have an issue with gluten, but check it she did. The first time this level was checked, my blood sugar was also checked and came back crazy high. It made zero sense, because at the time I had been on a diabetic diet for a little over a year. The doctor, of course, defended the lab stating that “this level is rarely incorrect.”

Well, it was wrong. Way, WAY wrong.

So when she told me I “might have celiac disease” I didn’t believe it and asked for the labs to be drawn again. I had no symptoms of celiac (and believe me, I looked them up) so I figured the lab screwed up again.

The results were the same the second time. Long story short, I got referred to a specialist in Pittsburgh who decided I need to have some scope procedure done where they shove a camera down my throat and look at my small intestines. This is apparently the only way to get a definitive diagnosis.

Enter COVID-19.

That procedure has been postponed indefinitely. In the meantime, another set of labs were drawn and still indicate celiac disease. Like it or not, for now I have to live my life on the assumption that I have it and need to be on a gluten-free diet for the rest of my life.

I’ve been pretty angry about it for a few weeks now because it doesn’t affect only me. There are two of us in this house and we are not going to make different meals for each of us, so Mike now has to eat gluten free as well. It sucks.

Today was a good day though. I’m lucky that Mike has embraced this whole lifestyle change. He knows how much I love baking, so he’s made sure I have a plethora of gluten-free ingredients. For the first time since before Christmas, I got the stand mixer out today and baked. It was glorious! I made oatmeal raisin cookies that are not only free of the evil gluten, but also mostly sugar free, and I made flourless peanut butter cookies.

Life is good. 

Thinking about all of this while I was baking got me thinking about my life and the different ailments I have dealt with over the last 20 years. It was July 2000 when I was diagnosed with Graves’ Disease, an autoimmune disorder that affects the thyroid causing hyperthyroidism. After a decade of that flaring up and being treated with medication, I finally had my thyroid removed in 2010. Since then, other than having to take a thyroid pill every day, life has been pretty simple.

Then in 2018 I was told that I was very close to being diagnosed with type 2 diabetes. That prompted a major lifestyle change! My doctor at the time didn’t think I could change my eating and exercise habits enough to avoid the diagnosis. In one year, I did just that though. I lost 25+ pounds and changed my eating habits. I was officially no longer on the brink of diabetes.

Life was good again! 

Now this. I’ve always loved the idea that from the day we are born, we are dying. Every day should be lived and appreciated to its full extent. Losing our son to cancer at such a young age also taught us that lesson. 

But damn…sometimes I feel like my body is hellbent on getting me to death faster than I want to go! Never with anything that is guaranteed to kill me. Just this little thorn-in-my-side stuff. 

Here’s where the borrowed time comes in.

I am incredibly fortunate to live in a time when there is knowledge of these disorders and treatment options available. I may not like having to give up some foods, but at least I know that is how to deal with it. If I had been born 100 years ago, I might have had any (or all) of these ailments and not known that I had them at all! Who knows if they would have killed me or not. When my Graves’ Disease flared up, I would sometimes have a resting heart rate of about 110 beats per minute and only be able to get 2-3 hours of sleep per night and that would go on for days until the medicine the doctors prescribed kicked in and got it under control. Without medication, who knows how long my body could have withstood that. 

So yeah…maybe this time that I have now is not time I was meant to have. Instead of wasting time being angry over this new twist in my life, I’m choosing to consider it my next great adventure! Like all adventures, there will be struggles…kind of like taking a beautiful hike in the mountains and getting bit by mosquitoes and falling into a patch of poison ivy. It’s all part of the whole experience, right?

If my body is determined to keep throwing these curveballs at me, it better be prepared for a battle because I love a good challenge!

Bring on the gluten-free cookies!

Feeling lost.

The world is in quarantine. In many places it is a crime to break quarantine. People are out of work. Businesses are suffering. Many small businesses are likely to fold if this quarantine goes on for very long.

I am watching the government with hope. This is a situation unlike any we’ve faced before and I want to believe that they are doing their best to figure out what is right for the people of our country. At the same time, I see so many who cannot hide their hope that this government fails because it is not the government of their choosing. I see our elected officials using this virus to get their own agendas passed and it sickens me. What sickens me more is the glee that others find in those same actions.

This is one of those odd times where I’m glad that Keeghan didn’t live to see this world. I worry for Mackenzie - what kind of world does she have to look forward to? She’s young. She should have hope for the future. All young people should have hope for the future. Instead, this society seems hell-bent on imploding into a black hole of despair and anger.

I like to read dystopian books. I never thought I’d be living in one.

I have to wonder what it will be like in a year. Will this all be over, with everyone talking about it like some great success that we all made it through together. I certainly hope that is how we are able to look back on it. Or will it just be the fuel for more anger and hatred (something we already have too much of). Worse, will we move on from this and forget about it, learning nothing, like we seem to have done with the events of 9/11?

Sometimes it is so hard to live in this world not knowing any of the answers. Why is it so hard for us humans to work together?

The end of this story...or this chapter of this story...is not known yet. I feel like we can each affect it. The problem is that we all have different ideas of who the hero is in the story and...well, I think that the heroes should be us, not those we are expecting to fix everything. Can we do that?