Just Want to Remember

A few things lately, that I just want to write down and remember:

Little Miss Reagan, sitting on my lap after dinner with Father Ben, shyly asking him if he would bless our house and do the rosary with us at our prayer table.  Then, later, over a piece of blueberry cheesecake, declaring loudly that "THE DEVIL CAN'T SCARE ME!  JESUS IS STRONGER!"  And Father Ben, stopping mid-sentence in his unrelated conversation with Rob, turning to her and saying "Not only is He stronger, but He's already won!"

So sweet.

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My aunt out of the blue sent me a care package not so long ago.  It contained my grandmother's pearl necklace, my other aunt's letter "M" necklace, and my grandfather's rosary.  Both my aunt Margie and my grandpa Carl had died long before I was born, and grandma died when I was 5 or 6.    I was so touched that my aunt would send these precious items to me of all people; we have a very big family, plus Aunt Mary has two kids and several grandkids of her own.  And yet, she shared these things with me,  the niece she rarely sees or talks to.  Just really nice and thoughtful.


I don't know a whole lot about my grandpa.  I know he was a miner, and played the fiddle.  I know his rugged face with it's sharp angles, because of the faded black and white picture that hung on our walls growing up.  I know that he was tall and thin, and was in a band, and that he liked to laugh and tease.  He was a hard-drinking smoker, who died too early of lung disease caused by a hard life in the mines and mountains of north Idaho.  "But Dad was very devout," my mother told me.  "I remember him going to church by himself, and then coming back home to pick up the rest of us, and going again.  I remember him on his knees leading the rosary with our family every night during lent.  And going to midnight Mass on Christmas eve." 

  So during first Friday adoration last weekend, I took my grandpa's rosary to use.  It's black and silver, obviously old, but well-made.  It has a little brown pouch to hold it.  It was Saturday, so I was meditating on the Joyful mysteries, about Jesus' birth and childhood.  And I just felt so close to this man I'd never met.  I had this distinct image in  my mind's eye of Grandpa Carl and I both kneeling in front of the manger, adoring the baby Jesus.  And it was so nice, to be there together with him, sharing the experience.  Such a cool thing, "being" with him, a man I'd always wondered about but had never met. 

Just a really cool experience, "meeting" my grandfather this way, and I want to remember it.