All Saints and Illness

On Friday night, we returned from a five-day trip to Disney World. I'll write more on the trip, but suffice to say that it was slightly marred by illness. Harry was recovering from a sinus infection and then came down with a stomach bug on our second full day. I came down with a cold on Thursday, our final full day. By the time we returned home, I was pretty miserable and by Saturday morning it had moved into my chest. Harry is still feeling under the weather and apparently has a virus of some kind. We're both feeling rather rotten. On the bright side, Nora appears to be feeling fine.

Anyway, it wasn't until about halfway through yesterday that I realized that it was All Saints' Day. This year, I've had three people in my life die. The first was Jack, a lovely man I went to Licensing School with and served on the same District for two years. The second was my friend Jim, another clergy friend. He and his wife (who is serving my former parish) were good mentors to me during my time at SJ. The third person was my grandmother, who died in July at the age of 92. This past weekend, my mother and her three sisters were down in Florida to inter and scatter my grandmother's ashes. Her wish was the half of her ashes be interred in her church's memorial garden, and the other half be scattered over the Gulf of Mexico. I don't know if they (meaning my mom and aunts) intentionally planned to do this over All Saints' weekend, but they did.

I am thankful for Jack, Jim, and Nani, and the way they touched and enriched my life, and the lives of others while they were on this earth.