The Meaning of God's Grace

This time 10 years ago, my Madison was 2 years old and came home from my friend's house in her friend Adin's pj's with trucks all over them. She had gone there with my friend when I lost feeling in my hands earlier in the day. I knew I could not focus on Madison, watch the news, email frantically to friends on the East Coast about what floors people were getting out from, cry, sit with Eddie, call home every 5 minutes all at once. Today I watched her as an almost 12 year old...running around laughing with her cousins in a hooded sweatshirt at our family picnic and this day 10 years ago seemed like it happened in another lifetime. Or just yesterday.

The service this morning was filled with families, re-married widows, grown kids and aging parents. The passage of time was apparent, and the empty space where my Dad would be standing felt substantial this year. By the time we recieved Communion, a ton of texts had come through from old friends and new ones waking up to thoughts of my family- I could not have felt more loved today.

Heartworks House had a full day vigil of all the names of the victims that we hand wrote this week and hung on the walls. United States Veterans came for two ceremonies and when I walked Mr.Burkholder through the office space (94 years old, Vietnam, Korea and WWII Veteran) it occured to me that I have no void in my life right now. Heartworks, and the ability to reach out to others has healed any lingering emptiness that used to sneak up on me, especially when the girls were young and we would be home all day and I didn't know what I was supposed to be doing with myself. Our new space for Heartworks is awesome...it is ours. It is going to allow us to do whatever we can for people who need us with very little restriction.

Maryanne's kids are all doing well. Maryanne laughed alot today. We spent the day with John's sister Maureen and her husband and his brother Jim and his family- it was so good to be with them. My brother was here from Chicago, all Mare's kids were home too. We were all together... loving John and it was beautiful.
Father Pete said something I loved in his homily today at the Shrine-
"We do not need to solve the mystery of evil to find our way into the magnificent meaning of God's grace."
Today, Heartworks house was filled people...
We were together as a family....
Charlie is happy at school and his BFF Kieran is in his class...
God's grace is magnificant and evil had no hand on us today.