I just got off the phone with Amy, and Charlie's surgery went GREAT. So now I am e-mailing, returning phone calls and announcing to everyone that the surgery was a success. I want to throw up, drink a glass of wine and go up into the mountains to a cave and pray -- all at the same time. The relief I feel for them is beyond words.
My day was spent in constant prayer with other people (at the church Amy and I grew up going to) and by myself. It was interesting to me that I was not able to hold the intensity of prayers all day. At one point I was watching Regis and Kelly and eating Cheese Its. It is a funny balance this God vs, human vices thing...I know the peace is with God, and yet the temptation of mindless TV and sugar pulled me away at points.
To sit in the church were Amy and I both received our First Holy Communion, attended mass (regularly OF COURSE) :) both got married at and attend my Dad's funeral mass in was just about as "whelming" as it gets. Old family friends Mr. and Mrs. Dolan and their son Cholly were the first to arrive for Charlie's prayer vigil, along with my Mom. To sit there with them, all in their late 70's/early 80's and pray for Amy's son is a vision I will never forget. Mr.Dolan is not his old self, but an Irish spirit in an worn out body that came along too soon for all of us. It seems it's all happened to fast, life, I mean...my mom and Mrs. Dolan's grey hair, Mr.Dolan's shaky body, my father gone 6 years ago this month...when did all this happen? How is it we are not here in white dresses going home for our communion parties? The phrase "life is fleeting" was like a physical presence sitting next to me in the pew.
To hear Amy's voice a few minutes ago telling me the tumor was removed successfully, is the first time I have had my BFF back in two weeks. It is the first time I have recognized her voice since the morning of May 18 when she called me screaming into the phone that Charlie had fallen down the stairs while having a seizure. I have a newfound love and appreciation for her voice, her laughter ... and her. And I didn't even know I was lacking this.
A good glass of wine is more fun than puking or praying in the mountains (don't tell the Pope) ... so I think I will sit with Eddie and have a drink -- for Charlie, the sound of my BFFs voice and my favorite memory of Mr. Dolan when I was 11 years old and he was only a few years old than I am now. We were at his house on Boulderwood Drive, surrounded by his friends, watching the 1980 USA Olympic team beat the Russians in hockey. At the time I knew I was lucky, not because I was an American and we had won the game, but because I was a part of a great party at a house full of love. Thirty-one years later as I sat with his daughters today at church it was a similar feeling, just with less beer and no celebration ... but the feeling of love was unchanged ... grey hair, shaky body, brain tumor and all.
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