Thinking about God..........

My groom with his youngest sister, Jen and her daughter, Cassie. There is a bagpiper in the bar as well..and friends.

Today was Sunday and I so rarely go to church anymore. My faith is the same as it was but I just find I have so much to do that I just can't seem to fit it in. Lately I have not been feeling well either. I had an email conversation with a friend who once thought of being a minister but now defines himself as an atheist. That threw me a bit but I fully understood where he is coming from. He has had a lot of pain and perhaps some of that came from his religious experiences. Most of us who were raised in a religion have baggage. Often we find another religion that seems better. Probably because that religion was of our choosing and we didn't feel forced into it. I do know that there were times I stepped back from religion but then in my own time I was drawn back to it. Several months ago a priest who was so supportive of me passed away. I have not been back to church since then. Partly because I am in denial about his passing. He lived a full and good life and then had his body shipped back to his native Ireland. He once laughed that he had been Americanized when he began to drink coffee daily in place of tea. He listened to me as I poured out my heart during a painful divorce. He gave me my sacraments. I miss him.

I also miss my sister-in-law Jennifer. The baby of my husband's family of four children. She lost her battle with cancer in June of 2007. This cancer is hereditary and we lost her Dad to it in 2000. I hate knowing all the things she is missing with her ten year old daughter. Today we bought her daughter some earrings as she recently had her ears pierced. She wanted pink sparkly ones and that is what I got her. The box had a dragonfly on it, reminding me of how Jen loved butterflies and dragonflies and fairies. She was all about the magic of life.
She is the only one in my husband's family who ever told me they loved me, aside from him. Well her daughter has told me that now. Her daughter came up to me as I knelt gazing at her mother's body and this eight year old child told me that her mother loved me. She was comforting me. Of all the things in my life I know that I will never forget, that is one of them. Jen was only thirty-four with so much life ahead of her. What she might have done we'll never know. We do know that we miss her and I don't think that will ever stop, but certainly not in the near future.

Note: if you scroll down to the bottom of the page you will see the picture of Jen on her way to attend our wedding...it's one of my favorites of her but she was very photogenic, and a good photographer.