PAST HELP, PAST HOPE, PAST CARE

For most of my working life so far, I had the most extraordinarily wonderful situation, which I innocently wrote about before I had any idea that in the blink of an eye it could all be lost.

Prior to the merger of our parish with another, and a lot of changes in budgeting, staff and direction, I worked out of a big, old convent....me, the Adult Ed Director, a great man who I'd known for twenty years, and two wonderful assistants who were more like friends than co-workers.  The perfection included plenty of space for my children to be at work with me.  In fact, we could do just about everything there but laundry (which would have been a big improvement and definitely increased my productivity)!     I even had a big, spacious room I could use for sewing.  Sewing which t included banners and altar cloths, the occasional vestment and so forth, for the parish, but also personal sewing.  Everything worked.  I could put in unbelievable hours, involving my children in the work (church work - doubly beneficial!) and never feel conflicted or overwhelmed.  We could eat there; I homeschooled there.....it was more home than home.

I felt this wonderful building was key to my ministry, too - the living room space, formed into a wonderful parish library, was perfect for study groups and prayer groups and intimate meetings.  There were rooms upstairs that were just the right size to accommodate all the middle school classes.  There was a great big room upstairs which was perfect for the Knights of Columbus a few nights a month, but also just right for activities with the girls club, and Confirmation groups....socials, and conferences.  The children's birthday parties were held there.  Lydia practiced her dancing up there. That building was perfect for everything I needed to do and allowed me to develop a ministry that was warm and welcoming, that drew people in, made them feel at home, got them involved.

The new pastor didn't really see how it was used, I don't think...but I should admit there were issues with the building - the most important, probably, was the amount of money it cost to heat it.  Also, it was full of asbestos, which prevented it from being easily made handicap-accessible and in other ways brought up to code.  And it was not being brought up to code because they were'nt being entirely upfront about its zoning (it was still zoned "residential" and I felt that was hardly a lie!)  No matter the problems, perhaps it 'twas "a poor thing but mine own".   I loved the place.

Imagine if your family was suddenly told that you must live not in your house - but in a small hotel room.  That's what it was like, having to move.  BUT (a big but, let me tell you) I did have a job, unlike most of my colleagues.  I am literally getting sick to my stomach just writing this - that is how horrible the experience was... and yet, due to my colleagues' job loss on one hand (their loss was so much worse than my own, obviously), and the need to put on a positive, enthusiastic face to everyone on the other (what a great new beginning for our parish!), there was no way I could ever express the devastation all of this change had wrought.  So often I felt like Dr. Zhivago, who coming back from the front during WWI, finds that his beautiful home has become a communal dwelling, and, still in shock, he manages to tell the dour woman who is head of the "People's Housing Committee" that "It seems much more fair."  That scene always resonated with me, but all the more now....devastation that cannot be grieved.



See the little table in the far back?  That was in my
home when I was a tiny girl; this was the "playroom"
where Lydia kept her box of Barbies....and much more..

Dealing with a new boss, a new staff, an entirely new reality - to say nothing about Craig going to Korea for a year (how did I live through that year?) - I never really organized what was left in the old building.  Then, add to that, the building was opened up for the school, the Knights of Columbus, and (worst of all the Boy Scouts), to use for storage.  [The scouts were worst because, for some reason, they decided to adopt the room where I had been keeping all of my files, children's books, and most important records, into their own storage space, and though I wasn't there, I am pretty sure the way it was done was - "Hey boys, get this stuff out of here!"  because all of my most critical materials were thrown haphazardly throughout the building.....]

Well, finally, this year the parish manager rightly decided that the building was out of control - and asked each group to put their belongings in designated rooms by Memorial Day.  After that everything else would be thrown out. 

Things I need for work....gathered from around
the building and now in utter chaos - and way back
in the back - the oak table from my grandpa's house.

He was right; it needed to be done. But, I cannot begin to describe the pain.  Twenty years of spreading out in a building..... personal files (everything from my financial files to my children's records from Russia and my older kids' homeschool materials) the Russian school supplies, family heirloom furniture put into use there when my mom moved out of their home, all our program art supplies, fabric for banners and all my personal fabrics and craft materials, boxes of library books that don't fit into the new library, closets of first communion suits and dresses for parishioners to borrow, closets of saints costumes, preschool materials, our children's books...and on and on.  Just cleaning out the kitchen took me a day, and how many times I wanted to weep over the loss represented by a mug or a spoon or even an old potholder -  because each item had years worth of memories attached.  And the entire operation was a reminder that I no longer have the perfect life.  My job now prevents me from being a decent mother, my situation now prevents me from even doing my job as well as I feel I used to.

In this kitchen we used to have little luncheons.  Such great ideas came out of the time spent chatting in a relaxed way about our work.  There was a table where all my children sat to do homework.  I was in this kitchen when I first heard the news on 9/11.  Our Russian school made pelmeni in here, all gathered around the table.   When Lydia was little we had a cooking club - my favorite session was when we made about four different kinds of brownies using vastly differing recipes.  Our Sodality girls made pies in here to sell....  I first learned to use embossing materials at the table here.  Whenever I forgot my key, Aidan knew how to climb in the window....Such fun, such happiness, so many stories.....wiped clean.                                                  

Frankly, I have sat on this post a bit, because though I think it was one of the most well-written things I've ever posted here, it was  far too - well - sad. Self-pitying.  I couldn't read it over without crying and feeling powerfully sorry for myself.  And that's not right.

So, I cut a bit above and here's to a more appropriate conclusion.....

One of my favorite St. Louis Jesuits songs is "Wood Hath Hope"...words I should dwell on (I can't find the lyrics anywhere on line, so this is according to my memory.):

Wood hath hope
When it's cut it grows green again,
And its boughs sprout green again.
Wood hath hope.


Root and stock, though old and withered up,
And all sunk in earth corrupt, will revive.
Leaves return; water pure brings life to them
/And the tree lives young again.  Wood hath hope.


But, ah - strange thought -if a man could rise again.
Called home to a loving land,
We would have hope.


We would have hope.
Like a tree we'd grow green again.
And our boughs sprout clean again...
We would have hope.  

Somehow cleaning out that building did make me feel "old and withered up".....but I'm sure it will pass.

The end of the "old" building.....the end of the "old" blog.  But, there is new life on the other side. I have hope.