Timely preaching

So, given the end of yesterday's post, Fr. Dave's homily this morning was most appropriate.

It can be so helpful when a message I hear coincides with where I'm struggling.

Another "milestone" that isn't, of course

For about six months now I've been watching my hit count creep toward an average of 9 hits per post. It doesn't matter; it's just an exercise in . . . well, in curiosity, I guess.  And it isn't as if I really have all that many  people who are interested in my thoughts.  All time, 40% of my page views have come from Russia, which I imagine to probably be machine hits, so I don't take the whole statistical exercise as being at all indicative of my "popularity" or, by extension, value.  Anyway, when I first started paying attention I was averaging under 6 hits/post, and ended up passing 6, 7 and then 8 hits per post within a couple months of each other. But the average has been slow to reach this next integer, in part because I've been blogging so prolifically this year - by nearly three times my previous highest number of posts, and December looks as if it will be the first month in which I don't average at least one post per day.

The count has been hovering just below 9 since we got back from vacation, the wonderful trip and family time that was also the reason I didn't write as much this month.  I was a little surprised when  I got up this morning and saw the average was over 9, with enough views to spare that I could do another post without dipping back under it.  I probably have something to actually say, so when I get around to that one the average will dip back under again unless I've picked up a couple more views.  Eh.  I suppose I can live with that.

Anyway, I seem to be having a really difficult time focusing on the positives in my life right now.  The negatives are right in my face all the time, and it's a constant exercise in discipline to turn my attention from them that I just don't seem to always (or even usually, of late) be up to.

I can't afford not to be, though.

From a Christmas sermon of Pope St Leo the Great

Dearly beloved, today our Saviour is born; let us rejoice. Sadness should have no place on the birthday of life. The fear of death has been swallowed up; life brings us joy with the promise of eternal happiness.

So the second sentence above sums up what I was already thinking - how I was judging myself - on Christmas Eve.  I knew that Christ's presence in my life has overcome all the petty things in which I was wrapped up, yet couldn't seem to get beyond them.  Ultimately, the joy of worshiping together finally overcame my frustrations.


In the fullness of time, chosen in the unfathomable depths of God’s wisdom, the Son of God took for himself our common humanity in order to reconcile it with its creator. He came to overthrow the devil, the origin of death, in that very nature by which he (the devil) had overthrown mankind.

And so at the birth of our Lord the angels sing in joy: Glory to God in the highest, and they proclaim peace to men of good will as they see the heavenly Jerusalem being built from all the nations of the world. When the angels on high are so exultant at this marvellous work of God’s goodness, what joy should it not bring to the lowly hearts of men?

The angels' song seems so distant, beyond my reality somewhere.  Sometimes I wish for the opportunity to witness the undeniably miraculous, and in the process I know that I tend to denigrate the circumstantially miraculous which I have experienced.  I sometimes think that it is a matter of my faith not being simple enough - all those who seem to experience this type of encounter seem to be far less complicated than I imagine myself to be.  I envy them, and yet I cling to my own gifts.  "But you should appreciate your own gifts!" you might argue, but it seems to me that there is a difference between appreciating and clinging. The latter has a sense of not being willing to to let go even for the sake of gaining God more fully.  The truth is, I have a hard time praying the prayer of St. Ignatius: Take, Lord, receive all my liberty, my memory, my understanding, and my entire will, all I have and call my own.  Intellectually, I know that what I will gain far outweighs what I might lose, yet I still seem to lack the faith to truly return these gifts to the care of the One who gave them in the first place.

Beloved, let us give thanks to God the Father, through his Son, in the Holy Spirit, because in his great love for us he took pity on us, and when we were dead in our sins he brought us to life with Christ, so that in him we might be a new creation. Let us throw off our old nature and all its ways and, as we have come to birth in Christ, let us renounce the works of the flesh.

Christian, remember your dignity, and now that you share in God’s own nature, do not return by sin to your former base condition. Bear in mind who is your head and of whose body you are a member. Do not forget that you have been rescued from the power of darkness and brought into the light of God’s kingdom.

Through the sacrament of baptism you have become a temple of the Holy Spirit. Do not drive away so great a guest by evil conduct and become again a slave to the devil, for your liberty was bought by the blood of Christ.

I often find that, after a grace-filled season such as Advent or Lent, I quickly fall back into a less focused approach to life in the immediate aftermath of the great feasts for which they prepare us. This reading helped me this morning to remember this tendency and to choose better, for one day, at least.

Christmas feelings

I felt emotionally blackmailed on Christmas Eve:  You made clear there was only one thing you really wanted this Christmas, even though we'd pretty explicitly agreed (sorry if you don't remember it that way, but we had) that our main gift to each other this year would be our Hawaii trip, and even though you're going to insist on buying that sofa and chair from Sam's by New Year's Eve.  Instead we spent as much as ever on each other.  I had no idea you'd bought me three pair of pants from Lands' End already - even though you say they weren't originally intended to be for Christmas - nor the (very nice) tripod, in addition to the LOTR on Blu-ray on sale from Amazon.

So I suppose it's a good thing you made it so clear that you really had your heart set on a Kindle Fire and that nothing else would do.  And I'm also glad you indicated that you'd rather have the HD model.  If you'd gifted me and I hadn't done the same for you, I'd have felt even worse than I did earlier in the day.  I'm glad you have it, and I hope you enjoy it.

I also felt hurt on Christmas Eve, left over from the weekend:  If there are two things I've come to understand in the intersection of relationships, money, and priorities, it's these: our words reflect our true feelings, and we allot our resources to what's important to us.  So when a daughter says that she isn't willing to "waste gasoline" for her children to spend time with us, there are implications that go beyond the family of six that they're trying to keep fed, housed, clothed and educated.  When she then drove most of the way here anyway because they needed to go to her in-laws' place, and didn't save us the full round trip to her place by bringing the oldest two along with her, it really felt like a matter of adding insult to injury.  It's clear that nurturing her children's relationship with her parents is not important to her.  My bride and I were both deeply hurt, but we went and got the oldest two kids anyway even though we just wanted to curl up in a ball.

On the other hand, I'm glad that didn't completely cloud my judgment:  I was thinking on Christmas Eve about how my grandparents always came to our house on Christmas Day, after having spent Christmas Eve evening with my cousins.  That way, none of us had to "leave our new stuff" on Christmas, or at least, that was how it was explained to us.  I think that maybe it also reduced the stress on the then-current generation of moms and dads to not have to worry about getting everyone (and another round of gifts) rounded up on Christmas day; for my cousins, that would have been a round of gifts from the grandparents for 8 kids who were already squeezing into the VW bus with their parents. So when our oldest asked on Monday if we could come there on Christmas to exchange gifts because she wasn't feeling well, I was emotionally prepared to be open to that suggestion.  And when we were out finishing our shopping on Monday night, I was prepared to be generous with a gift for her and her husband even though history had made clear that they weren't going to reciprocate.  But I feel as if we may be pressuring them a little just by our generosity, and need to ask if they'd just rather not exchange gifts at all among the adults, even as much as I'd hate not giving to them.

Perhaps that openness helped with the resolution of my funk:  When I know I should be feeling thankful to God, and I'm just. not. because of all the aforementioned issues, my recognition of my bent perspective can become another obstacle to getting past it all and back in touch with God's love. The should gets in the way of itself.  But midnight Mass was so uplifting, and being part of the music ministry helped me enter into the worship.

More than hypothetical

So, our daughter unapologietically took financial advantage of us for nearly a year.  When we suggested it was time for her to get financial counseling so that she could meet her financial responsibilities, including to us, she announced that she was suddenly able to afford to move out.  Now that she finds herself in legitimate financial straits, what course of action truly benefits her best?

My initial evaluation was that it would probably be best for her if we give her the one of the most important gifts a parent can give a beloved son or daughter: the gift of being responsible for herself.  This isn't a matter of being pig-headed about her lying in the bed she's made, with a hint of bitterness.  Working though her own issues to arrive at her own best solution still strikes me as the best thing we can do for her.

Yet she's going to be car-less if she doesn't do something.

But it will be important for me to not feel pressured into paying for decisions I don't agree with, too.  I'm not going to help her pay Brownie's IT double to rebuild her transmission what our mechanic would charge her for a junkyard transmission, just because she wants the perceived security that comes with the former.  If she was footing the bill for that security herself, then it would be her decision to make.

Quick hits from Christmas 2012

This may be the first of several posts as I process some of yesterday, finally.

I'm fairly sure it was mostly because of playing it for the first time after hearing Fr. Satish' homily at midnight mass - which dealt heavily with the comparing and contrasting events surrounding Jesus' birth with those of Newtown - but may have also been due to the pre-service being less hectic yesterday morning, but When He Comes hit me pretty hard at Christmas 9:00 mass.  I had to fight back tears as we sang: "When He comes, the children of ages will die nevermore," then somehow managed to make the transition to Can You Hear the Christmas Bells without losing control of my voice.

I've wanted to play on Breath of Heaven for as long as we've been doing it, but they didn't publish chords with our arrangement, plus my voice has always been needed in past years.  Now that we have four other voices on each men's part, I looked up the chords online.  They were in the wrong key, but only by a half-step, and I think they only had one or two chords wrong, both of which I recognized and figured out right away.  I ended up just memorizing it rather than writing the chords onto the music (which I'll likely regret the next time we pull it out).  Oh, it was wonderful!

The mass setting we're using this year is well suited to the classical, which I also think fits better with the violin and bowed bass, so I didn't have deal with nearly as much switching between guitars as on Christmases past.

The other new piece we did which was a big hit was Rise Up and See the King.  What a fun piece!  I think it would have fit better in Advent, but that also made it appropriate for the beginning of our prelude music. It wasn't originally on the menu for morning mass, but it was so fun and so well received that we rearranged things to include it. (We really didn't need to do Gesu Bambino again anyway, even if we do use the first choir arrangement of it I've ever really liked.)

I may have teased Teri just a bit over her suggestion that she might have lost her mind if I'd done 5:00 mass, too, this year (i.e. "oh, it's too late to avoid that!").  The truth ended up being that, with the way things worked out, I'd have likely lost mine if I'd committed to it.  (yeah, too late for that, too.)

Mele Kalikimaka

All day long I was feeling ungrateful for all God has done for me.  I couldn't for the life of me shake the depressed feelings I was having, or the negative thoughts I was battling.  I knew I should be thankful, this day of all days, for the gift of God's love.

It turns out all I needed was to go to such a wonderful Mass!

(I FINALLY got to play Breath of Heaven!  But we had so much great music, and Fr. Satish offered a wonderful set of reflections on the birth of the Son of God.)

Must remember:

I've survived far darker ones than this.

just shoot me

our oldest daughter has just told us, both by her actions and in so many words, that the use of her resources to help us have a relationship with our grandchildren is a waste.

Another wonderful Advent reading

Yesterday's reading from St. Ambrose, which I didn't read until late last night, deals first with Mary's trust in the word which the angel spoke to her, which led to her journey to visit with her elderly kinswoman Elizabeth.  It then moved on to the interaction of the Holy Spirit among the four people present at their meeting.  Jesus' presence in Mary's womb was perceived first by John in Elizabeth's, and the sons inspired the movement of the Spirit in their mothers.  Only after John stirs in her womb does Elizabeth greet Mary with the words that become part of our wonderful prayer requesting Mary's intercession in our lives, then wondrously question why the mother of her Lord should come to her.  Mary's response in the Magnificat is a prayer of praise and wonder and trust rooted in God's wondrous work that we should all echo with our lives.

This morning it struck me how often our children lead us to some fresh insight into or understanding of the boundless love of God.  I'm amazed at how becoming a parent helps us to experience God more fully, in so many different ways. To describe just a few that I have experienced:

• The initial awe of having participated in the creation of the marvelous new person, who is in our own image yet is unique unto themselves.
• The wonder and responsibility of having someone so utterly dependent upon us for their every need.
• The joy of seeing them grow into people who make their own decisions, of being amazed as they choose to love in ways we don't expect or anticipate.
• The pain of seeing them make selfish or short-sighted decisions.
• The self-discipline of withholding action we could take out of respect for their own will and independence.
• The peace of having them return to the right path for their lives.
• Seeing them experience the bounteous wonder of parenthood for themselves.

This wonderful season provides so much practical insight.  People who think that Christianity is irrelevant to modern life have never really entered into it.

Newtown and the 2nd Amendment

It has always been true, and it always will be: we can be safe, or we can be free.

I think this debate needs to be held, and we need to understand as much as we can what is at stake in both options.  As we discuss it with each other, we will undoubtedly invoke all the passion that we feel on both sides of the issue.  I have strong feelings on both sides warring within me, in fact.

We need to understand the 2nd Amendment's intention - which has never been to protect our right to hunt.  And we always need to be very careful about what rights we are willing to yield to our "benevolent government," particularly in these days in which the governability of the people - our own citizens and those who enter our nation from abroad using the transportation means which are available today - may be at an all-time low.

The freedom which we may yield because of our fear will be sorely missed should the tyranny of our government ever rise to the level from which we seized our freedom by force. And we should never trust our government to be immune from such tyranny.

With all that said, I do not know what the wise path is in the face of today's challenges.  I know I must trust God for my security, but do not know the degree to which he would call me to defend this freedom which our founders found so essential as to give it second place in our Bill of Rights. But why should we expect it to be sacrosanct when those listed first are themselves under assault?

Has the American experiment already failed, overcome by some combination of the threats of technology, population boom,  mental health issues and lack of good sense, and we have simply not recognized it yet?

Which loss will our posterity mourn more acutely: their fallen peers, or the right to take up their own arms when necessary?

I fear the wisdom of Solomon is insufficient for this dilemma.

God, help us to know the way that is truly wise, and to trust you in it.

Second night back in Ohio

I was so exhausted after the nearly sleepless overnight of traveling that I had no trouble sleeping last night.  Tonight seems to be a different matter, as my body seems convinced it should still be awake.  Tomorrow will be a challenging day, but at least it's the last work day before Christmas!  And my sleeplessness has given me a chance to enjoy one last cognac before the end of the world.

One of my favorite Advent readings

I keep losing track of when the reading from St. Bernard falls in the liturgical calendar. I always remember that it's in the Office of Readings, but I keep thinking it's from the feast of the Annunciation. So I was pleasantly surprised to encounter it this morning during my prayer time.

I love the idea that all of creation throughout all of history is waiting on the response of this betrothed maiden of Nazareth.  Bernard doesn't take it into the future, much, focusing more on the parallels with the past of salvation history, but it is easy enough to think of all of us who have ever lived anticipating her reply, even those of us for whom it occurs in the past.

There is an interesting paradox in the idea of omniscient God submitting his entire plan of salvation to the Virgin's response, and likewise to his submitting his plan for each of us to each of our own individual wills. I'm appalled by all the times I say "no," in the moment, rather than granting my fiat. Yet God meets me in each moment, offering me another opportunity to let it be done to me according to his divine will.

I believe I'll wait . . .

. . . until after the Mayan apocalypse to catch up on any new words-of-the-day I missed while on vacation.

Leaving them sucks

I'm so grateful for the time with them, though.

Hawaiian memories

How wonderful these last eight days have been.  Here are just a few things I want to be sure to remember:

• Warm temperatures, but not too hot.  Always warmer at the lower elevations than up here at Schofield.
• Rain, practically every day.  But also at least a little sunshine every day.  Again, differences between the coasts and the higher elevations inland.  And rainbows!  The one while we were driving on Monday was the best; wish I could have gotten a picture of it.
• Three tries until we finally managed to visit the USS Arizona Memorial.  What a solemn and moving place.
• Hale'iwa, and the North Shore in general.  
• The traffic around Honolulu and Waikiki.  No fun, but we didn't spend much time there.
• Two tries to get to the Hard Rock Cafe, then a visit back right away to get the right shirt.
• Beach after beautiful beach.
• Laie Point State Wayside Park: stunning rock formations, the serpent, the wind, the awesome views all around it.
• Every turn in the road bringing another breathtaking view of mountains, beach or ocean, and sometimes all three in one turn.
• Finally immersing in the Pacific, 23 years after missing my opportunity to double-dip in the Pacific and the Bering at Shemya.
• The luau and show at the "Polynesian theme park" (I can't think of it any other way) run by the LDS.
• Lots of yummy food.
• Dancing with Teri on stage on our anniversary.
• Adequately clothed hula dancers (there are some advantages of going to an LDS facility).
• Fire dancers!
• Shave ice, first at Matsumoto's, and then even better shave ice (snowier ice, better flavoring, yummier coconut topping than the condensed milk) at The General Store; I'm glad we had it at the original place, though, too.
• Turtles just off the beach in the water off the North Shore the first two times we tried to see them, then finally one on the beach on the third try.
• Two lunches at places featured on Diners, Drive-ins, and Dives:
• Hank's Haute Dogs, where Teri had a Hawaiian Dog and I had the best Andouille I've had outside of Louisiana.
• Sweet Home Waimanalo.  Cassie and I shared a vegetarian meat loaf sandwich and a tofu and black bean burger, and Teri enjoyed the pulled pork.  Cassie and I didn't miss the meat on either of them, and agreed that the meatless loaf was delicious, suffering only by comparison with the tofu and black-bean burger which was absolutely incredible!
• Wonderful time with our daughter and son-in-law, along with his mom and brother.
• But mostly great time with our precious grandchildren:
• Getting up with Hannah and Nic for school in the morning.
• Grandma going to read in Hannah's class.
• Doing the gingerbread house project with Nic.
• Emma shaking her head "no" when I told her I love her, just so I'd tickle her.
• Taking Emma to the Dole Plantation and riding the train together, then watching in amazement as she ate a whole Dole Whip cone.
• Madelyn ("Baby") finally warming up to us.
• Lots of hugs and kisses and "I love yous"

Wonderful day

What a wonderful day.  Nice prayer time this morning.  Took Hannah and Nic to school after getting them ready.  Great visit to the North Shore with them and Hannah this afternoon.  I'm really pleased with the whole day!

Thanks to Daddy and Uncle Bubba for cooking, again.

It's real now

It is a great blessing to be with our daughter and her family in Hawai'i.  I'm looking forward to doing some things on the island, but for now it has been nice to just hang out with the crew.

Mass today with the older three was an unexpected opportunity to explain some of what they were hearing in our prayers, of encouraging them to pay attention to what was going on, of sharing the Lord's love with them as we worshiped.

But I was especially pleased when our 7-year-old granddaughter thanked me this evening for praying for them at bedtime.

What a blessing this trip has been already.  I know the remainder will hold many more . . .

First morning in Hawai'i

(HAST; recorded as text and subsequently entered here because I didn't have wireless credentials entered yet. . . )

My body is so confused.  It knows it needs more rest after yesterday's long travel day, yet it is convinced that it is 5 hours later than evidenced by the not-yet-visible sun.

The grandchildren were all so happy to see us, except for Madelyn, who doesn't quite know who we are yet.  That's okay: Baby will come around.

It is nice to be able to take some time to pray and to jot down a thought or two before the rest of the house rises.

I was so pleased when Cassie greeted us at the airport with leis.  How thoughtful, and fun. It helped make our first visit to Hawai'i seem real, finally, especially since arriving in the dark kept us from having a good view of the island.

Still a fantasy

Only two days away.  I wonder when Hawaii will start to feel real to me?

Taking one day at a time

I heard a coworker drop this cliché the other day, and a bunch of thoughts sprang to mind in rapid succession.

"Actually, I generally like to take a week at a time, myself."  A completely smart-aleck observation.

"I think I'm going to try to take the next four days all at once, then go moment  by moment thereafter." A Hawaii reference, for me.  I'm antsy to get there, but want time to pass slowly while we're with our dear ones!

The thing is, on the one hand we sometimes bite off more than we can handle, and sometimes fail to plan enough in advance for success.  So the "one day at a time" adage has some places where it serves well and others, well, not so much.  Everyone knows this, of course, so a couple examples.

If you eat a doughnut in the morning, figuring that the damage is done for that day and to make a fresh start on eating better tomorrow, you're going to lose a lot of battles that you're not even in.

He who sets his hand to the plow and looks back . . .

I'm lately finding it very difficult to set aside the tendency to make a pair of "only one who" lists.

While this context is very different from the one in which this scripture passage first struck me upside my head and so greatly encouraged me, it is very applicable to this one, as well.  Keeping score is as much an example of "looking back" as any of the other things we're not to long for like Lot's wife.

I must. not. do. this.

A (not song) snippet or two from life, lately

Nominally related?

• The most striking thing about my life during my wife's recovery from surgery may be how little it changed from before.
   
• I have to stop thinking that I don't believe in Hawaii.  Putting away some decorating empties (boxes, light reels) at lunch time, I nearly missed a step on the stairs - barely got enough of my right heel on it to support myself - which may well have self-fulfilled that thought.  But it has come to represent a sort of terrestrial paradise in my mind, even if a temporary one for me.
   
• We make time for the things that are important to us and for the people we love. When someone doesn't have time for us but that makes sense for the limited role we should have in their lives, it feels right and appropriate; there's a confidence that time may eventually allow us to reconnect.  When you can tell someone is making an effort to fit you into their lives, at least as much as they can, it feels affirming.  But when someone whose life we clearly should fit into doesn't have - doesn't make- time for us, it is hard to describe how deeply it hurts.  This contrast is pretty clear for me right now.

Today's words

campestral \kam-PESS-trul\ - of or relating to fields or open country : rural

scumble \SKUM-bul\ - 1a. to make (as color or a painting) less brilliant by covering wi th a thin coat of opaque or semiopaque color applied with a near ly dry brush  b. to apply (a color) in this manner  2. to soften the lines or colors of (a drawing) by rubbing lightly

I don't know when I've had so little enthusiasm for two new words.

i must remember that my daughters were not raised on regular time with their grandparents.

What love isn't, or Of Ents and Entwives (fixed)

Ent.	When Spring unfolds the beechen leaf, and sap is in the bough; When light is on the wild-wood stream, and wind is on the brow; When stride is long, and breath is deep, and keen the mountain-air, Come back to me! Come back to me, and say my land is fair!
Entwife.	When Spring is come to garth and field, and corn is in the blade; When blossom like a shining snow is on the orchard laid; When shower and Sun upon the Earth with fragrance fill the air, I'll linger here, and will not come, because my land is fair.
Ent.	When Summer lies upon the world, and in a noon of gold Beneath the roof of sleeping leaves the dreams of tress unfold; When woodland halls are green and cool, and wind is in the West, Come back to me! Come back to me, and say my land is best!
Entwife.	When Summer warms the hanging fruit and burns the berry brown; When straw is gold, and ear is white, and harvest comes to town; When honey spills, and apple swells, though wind be in the West, I'll linger here beneath the Sun, because my land is best!
Ent.	When Winter comes, the winter wild that hill and wood shall slay; When trees shall fall and starless night devour the sunless day; When wind is in the deadly East, then in the bitter rain I'll look for the, and call to thee; I'll come to thee again!
Entwife.	When Winter comes, and singing ends; when darkness falls at last; When broken is the barren bough, and light and labor past; I'll look for thee, and wait for thee, until we meet again; Together we will take the road beneath the bitter rain!
Both.	Together we will take the road that leads into the West, And far away will find a land where both our hearts may rest.

I don't mean to judge people, or Ents or Entwives.  But it seems to me that marriages suffer when the partners do not submit their divergent callings or interests to their relationship.  It is easy for a relationship that was rooted in deep admiration, respect and fondness to fail to develop into the selfless love that alone is a marriage's life blood if the partners allow their individual passions first priority.  The life together can easily fork into lives apart.

I have to be on guard against this all the time.

"Ancient" history reminder (edited)

(I've reviewed some of the historical facts online, but the basic memories are still vibrant.)

I still remember the night that made clear for me whose side I was on in their relationship.

The 1973 Sugar Bowl was held on New Year's Eve.  It hadn't moved to New Year's Day as of yet, when the Cotton, Orange, and Rose Bowl games were contested.  This year, the tilt would basically be a national title game between Bear Bryant's undefeated Crimson Tide and Ara Parseghian's Fighting Irish, who'd also completed their regular season with a clean slate.  Alabama finished the year ranked #1 in the coaches' poll, which at that point didn't vote again after the bowls.

In our home, while mom may not have been the typical Catholic in many ways, she was very much rooting for Notre Dame in this contest.  Dad was convinced that Alabama was the better team, and was pulling for them to complete their undefeated season. Each of them openly relished the debate over the game.

By then, Dad's too-brief period of sobriety - prompted by our family doctor's well-intended misleading regarding the negative effect that drinking might have on the recovery of control of his left eye following his auto accident in the autumn of 1972 - was long since over.  His relationship with mom, and with pretty much everyone else, had deteriorated drastically in the booze.  The two of them were usually civil to each other, though by no means "always," and it was clear by now that they no longer had a loving relationship.  Mom had figured out that she couldn't stop him from drinking but also didn't have to be a part of his entire dynamic anymore.  She'd returned to working nights at the bank, which usually allowed her to leave after my sister and I had gone to bed for the night and be home before we were up for school in the morning.  So in the midst of this dynamic, a friendly - well, socially acceptable - area of unwavering disagreement between them was this football game that had the nation's attention.

I'm sure I'd never cared about either team before, but that on that night when dad's Alabama team took on mom's Irish for the first time, I was definitely a Notre Dame fan.

In retrospect, I recognize how much that bothered him.  I think he concluded that mom was turning us kids against him; he'd yell as much at her in the midst of an argument one night in the coming months, when we were in bed and the two of them thought we were asleep.  He couldn't understand that it was his own dysfunction that was making it impossible for him to love us as we needed and would be able to respond to.  In the fog of his alcoholism, he lacked the foggiest notion of how unstable he was making our home, how we feared his drunkenness even though he never physically abused us in the midst of it.  In fact, during the only directly abusive action I remember from him, which had happened at least the summer before and perhaps as much as three and a half years earlier, I am certain that he was completely sober.

(disgustingly detailed memory omitted)

Notre Dame would win the AP national title that night by hanging onto a one-point victory in a hard fought game.  Dad was pretty pissed (in both senses, actually) at the end.

And grown-up me wonders whether concluding on that night that he'd lost my sister and me to mom - as I'm sure he thought of it - contributed to this being the last Sugar Bowl he'd ever see. By the following New Year's he was dead by his own hand.

Remembering this, as Notre Dame and Alabama prepare to contest for the national title once again, feels oddly calm.  As I finished recounting the memory, I expected to check in with myself to find my stomach in knots and my fingers and toes cold from the stress of the recollection, from the pain of our dysfunctional home and the brokenness that just kept pouring forth in my life for so long thereafter. Instead I'm just grateful for the memories, and missing my mom just a little, and praying for her and my dad and sister.