Empty Bed, Full Heart- A Single Mother's Journey

“Wash the plate not because it is dirty nor because you are told to wash it, but because you love the person who will use it next.” - Saint Teresa of Calcutta Every night after dinner, Niles does the dishes. Mostly, he stacks them in the dishwasher and runs it, but often he also hand washes the pots and pans, setting them in the drying rack and putting them away later when they've air-dried enough. He always clears the table and wipes it down, making sure everything is the way it was (sometimes cleaner than it was) before we sat down to eat.  At the beginning of our relationship, when he’d do this I felt somewhat at a loss. Doing the dishes had always been my responsibility, along with nearly every other household chore, and I wondered what to do with myself while this other person took care of  it. It was one of many mundane tasks that had always been on my already-full plate and freeing that space felt almost like cheating. A little breathing room felt suffocating in the con...

Recently, my aunt's brother in law, Tom, passed away. Tom was such a fantastic person - born with Down's Syndrome, he was a joyful and loving light to all who knew him, a blessing to everyone he met. While I was struggling through my divorce, Tom became fiercely protective of me and my three children; and it was shortly after this time that he gave me what appeared to be a purple rosary. At the time, I was deeply touched by this sweet and beautiful gift. It was a testament to his simple, faith-filled desire to pray for me and care for me. How little he knew what a miraculous gift that "rosary" was.  One night, I picked it up and I noticed something peculiar about the rosary. Instead of five groupings of ten beads (each separated by one) it had fifteen groupings of three beads. Curious, I decided to do some research at Google University and discovered that it was actually a chaplet to Saint Joseph. Tom, who wanted nothing more than to protect my family, had inadvertent...

My fiancé and I regularly get into arguments about Garth Brooks. The country singer with the bass twang was a staple of my childhood and I can’t think of a song he’s done that I didn’t absolutely love. Admittedly, most of my adoration now comes from the nostalgia factor; his music transports me back to wedding dances two-stepping with my uncles, road trips with my parents and older brother arguing about what the lyrics actually were (pre-Google life was like that), and romanticizing his adult wisdom about life and loss.  For Niles, who has no such fond illusions, he feels the quality of music is lacking (I don’t 100% disagree with that on an objective level). However, the real thing that turns his ambivalence into disgust is the song “Unanswered Prayers”. As an adult, I can appreciate that the story and lyrics are a little trite and simplistic. But the notion that God just lets our prayers sit unanswered because we don’t know enough to pray for the right things is the real matter o...

  “In silence, I find sobriety; In quiet, there is a clarity; In stillness, I find simplicity; It’s there I find your love, your hope, your peace.” One of my favorite meditative songs is “Sobriety”, a recording done by Brother Isaiah on the album “Shade 2”. Brother Isaiah belongs to the Franciscan Friars of the Renewal, a monastic group in NYC that, among other things, records simple acoustic tracks for meditative prayer and adoration. (As an aside, all of the proceeds from their music fund the various service missions they run for the vulnerable populations in New York City. I’d definitely recommend checking out literally anything they do.)  Lately, my life has been a busy, chaotic mess, so I’ve been aching for the sobriety mentioned in this song. My desire for clarity, peace, and simplicity shouts out to me; I feel like my interior life is a cacophony of endless to-dos, constant interruption, and heaps of laundry and dishes, finished with a flourishing sforzando of guilt. I ...

 Several years ago, maybe in 2014 or 2015, my school held an end of the year talent show. As the music teacher, I’d helped some of the kids write and perform skits, listened to their songs, gave them little tips and pointers, and generally made myself available as needed. Of course, I’m only one person, so I hadn’t heard all of the performances. At one point during the show, one of my 3rd grade students walked up to the mic and began singing the song “Watching You” by Rodney Atkins. I hadn’t heard him sing it before and the words washed over me:  “I’ve been watching you, Dad, ain’t that cool? I’m your buckaroo I wanna be like you And eat all my food and grow as tall as you are! I wanna do everything you do, So I’ve been watching you.” It was just a simple, sweet little country song, but suddenly I couldn’t breathe. The air disappeared around me, my chest felt compressed, and I began to have a panic attack so severe that I needed to leave the room, something that has only happe...