Kevin has recently gotten a full-time job after being out of work for over a year, so we are both thankful and relieved about that blessing. Since he’s back in retail, he was working on Thanksgiving Day as well as at the crack of dawn for Black Friday. He’s got a cold, so he chose to stay home and rest up until the time he had to go into work on Thanksgiving.
I told him before I left for Mass Thursday morning that people would ask where he was, possibly before greeting me. I can understand that. Kevin’s very friendly and can be lots of fun to chat with.
I sat with some of my Christ Renews His Parish sisters and the patriarch of our adopted family at Mass. I went over to our adopted family/close friends’ house for the holiday feast solo.
I was warmly welcomed and treated as family. I spent some time with some of my favorite people, including the three silly sisters and their two cute cousins. I have missed seeing the girls, but I’ve had to sub whenever I can at school so we can make ends meet while Kevin gets into a groove at work, so I haven't had much energy left to visit after hours. I finally made it over there last Friday to hang with the girls, and I got a chance to catch up with their parents as well, which was wonderful!We had some interesting faith-based conversations about saints, particularly married women who were also mothers while we ate at the dinner table in the kitchen amidst little ones who occasionally burst in running and screaming around us.Eventually, the twins crawled up on their mom and started grabbing food from her plate.No surprise there. The three silly sisters and their two cute cousins were served first, but the girls weren't nearly as enthralled by the food on their own plates. There's something about mom sitting down to eat that tends to turn up the appetites of the little ones.
I forgot to bring my camera, so I don’t have a single picture of this Thanksgiving.Other people took a few, though, I might be able to rustle one up eventually.
I really missed having Kevin there a lot! It's been over a decade since we weren't together for all of Thanksgiving. I’ve had him at my side for so many holidays over the years both when we were dating as well as since we’ve been married that I sometimes forget how out of place I tend to feel when he’s not there. I did bring him some turkey, a plate of sides, and a slice of chocolate pie which he thoroughly enjoyed later on.
I didn’t see any of my biological family at all on Thanksgiving which made me feel kind of sad, but hopefully I’ll be able to get together with them on Sunday. I have been away from Kevin and my family on Thanksgiving, but it was over ten years ago when I was studying abroad in Paris. All of us in the study abroad program went out to dinner together. It was fun, but I really missed my family and our normal fare.
I had lots of memories come back of Thanksgivings over the years. I thought back to some of the ones when we were little and we’d go to Uncle Rich and Aunt Linda’s house in Houston. There were a couple years when my aunt and four cousins came to spend the holiday with us. Our visits usually consisted of lots of yummy food and various card games we had all learned from Grandma. One year was particularly memorable, because we all were having so much fun wearing the slippers Grandma had knitted us and sliding on the hardwood floors in our house in Barrington. Click here to read about some of our other Thanksgiving festivities across the years.
Usually, Kevin came over to hang out with all of us. We had some new boat adventures. One time he took us out again to show us the sunken tugboat. Despite a thorough search, we never saw the submerged vessel whose existence, by the way, the rest of us question to this day.
Another afternoon, Kevin took us down to a restaurant on Irondequoit Bay called Newport House. The only problem was that he hadn’t informed us of our destination prior to leaving the house, so he was the only one wearing shoes and carrying money. It was around lunch time on a weekday, so the outdoor seating area was packed with people in business attire. My mom’s the queen of spontaneity, so she didn’t mind. I was just happy to be near Kevin, so I was fine with it.
We got some strange looks when I had to put together a makeshift ensemble to go inside and use the bathroom. I was wearing little black board shorts and my black Speedo bathing suit without any shoes. I borrowed a bright blue terrycloth jacket, which was at least seven sizes too big, and Kevin lent me his brown boat moccasins, which clearly didn’t fit either. Kevin waited outside on the sidewalk for quite some time before I returned with his shoes.
As luck would have it, I’d started my period. Of course, I had nothing with me including money and would have been mortified to go and ask Kevin for a quarter. Fortunately, a kind woman took pity on me and got me a quarter from her purse, which was back at her table. Eventually, I came back outside, and Kevin told me he’d been about to send someone with a fishing pole in for me. He asked what took so long. I just smiled, shrugged, and gave him back his shoes. I sat behind Kevin the whole boat ride home and fought the urge to wrap my arms around him or kiss his cheek.
The first time I watched the film God’sNot Deadwith my mom and my youngest sister. I didn’t catch everything that happened, in
part, because we were talking during some of it, someone decided to search for
and order a clothing item online, we were texting (people who weren’t present),
and my mom had no idea how to backtrack using her remote control. I jotted down some quotes and phrases in the
little notebook I keep in my purse to jump-start my memory later on about
possible writing topics.
The egotistical Professor Radisson (played
by Kevin Sorbo) is clearly more interested in building up his own image and
spreading his anti-theist propaganda than he is in imparting knowledge or
promoting logical thinking. He
concentrates on running roughshod over an entire class because domination
rather than education is his primary goal.
Throughout the film, we hear various
philosophical questions, many of which we studied on the creation of the
universe and the existence of God in the Philosophy of Religion course I took
from Dr. Downey. I have concluded that Dr.
Patrick Downey, philosophy professor at Hollins University, is the perfect foil
to Dr. Death-to-Any-Thought-or-Opposition Radisson.
God’s Not Dead reminded me of the
hours I spent reading arguments and discussions by philosophers who lived and
wrote a number of years ago. That
semester I went to class with all of these different theories, questions, and
debates in my head, then Dr. Downey would ask us questions that would make us
dig even deeper to understand and explain what these men were proposing, what
line of logic they followed, and if it made sense. He was so good at playing the devil’s
advocate from every side that I couldn’t tell from what he said in class
whether or not he believed in God. (It
honestly wasn’t until I saw him as part of a group of faculty members who came
around to the dorms and houses to sing Christmas carols that I realized he is a
Christian.)
Someone who is so interested in developing his students’ logic and
reasoning skills that he’ll take the opposite side of just about any argument
to get them to examine it more closely from all facets is a good philosophy
professor. At times, I could almost feel
my mind stretching to new lengths and expanding when faced with these universal
questions about God and man. Even if the answers weren’t clear, just knowing
the questions people thought to ask made me feel like my brain would have to
grow in order to contain all the possibilities.
My favorite day of this course was Friday. Why? Because Saturday was sure to
follow? No, it was because after doing my best to sift through, consider,
accept, and/or debate so many concepts, I would get into my light blue Pontiac
6000 and drive through a very picturesque valley. I would get out at the top of
a hill and could feel God welcoming me, His mother outside waiting for me to
enter.
I always arrived just in time, gave a quiet nod to the other regulars who had
come to worship, and sat down ready to let the clutter in my mind exit, so only
faith would remain. Before long, the reasons and questions, some of which
reason may never understand, were replaced by truth, hope, and love. I couldn’t
help but smile as I professed the Creed, reached out my hands to others to pray
the Our Father, and give the sign of peace. I yearned for the Eucharist. I had
answers and could embrace, even appreciate, the mysteries inherent and perhaps
necessary to having faith.
I would walk out of Our Lady of Perpetual Help Church after Mass feeling
refreshed in my faith and grounded in the truth. It was a great way to put the
philosophers’ voices and nitty-gritty debates to rest so that the Holy Spirit
was easier for me to hear in the present.
Kevin came over to say goodbye before we left.I hugged him, knowing I would miss him and our time at the cottage.In a July 21, 1997 journal entry, I wrote:
I’ve been overflowing with emotions lately. It surprised me a little how saddened I was when we left Rochester. I miss all of the friends and family we saw there! I often find myself thinking about Kevin and our cottage. On the way home, I was reading about “chance” meetings in a Catholic magazine Grandma let me bring on the trip. I thought about Kevin and Harry when I read it. I thank God that we had the opportunity to meet such nice, friendly people. I would like to write to Kevin and make a card for Harry and one for his wife, who is in a nursing home with Alzheimer’s. I hope that we are able to keep in touch with them this year and maybe see them next summer if we rent the cottage.
When we returned to Richmond, Virginia, I was left feeling like I wanted more to come of my relationship with Kevin, but eventually I resigned myself to accepting reality: we are 17 years apart in age; I was still a minor; he already had a girlfriend; and we lived five hundred miles apart.At that point, the potential problems with me being a devout Catholic and him not wanting to have anything to do with the Church didn't even occur to me."
I was so incredibly depressed and disgusted by Ripley's alcoholic
bent, womanizing tendencies, and his manipulation of so many people and
cultures for his profit, fame, and curiosity that I couldn’t bring myself to
finish reading the entire book.
Author Neal Thompson's writing is actually quite beautiful, interesting, and smooth. The style of the writing and layout of the book are both perfectly fitting for a biography about such an unusual character. The photos included are very telling. The problem I had with the book came in the subject he wrote about in such minute detail. The moral depravity of the man in question is what shocked me more than any of the peculiar people or practices he wrote about or drew during his extensive jaunts around the globe.
I had planned
on reading A Curious Man: Robert “Believe it Or Not!” Ripley and joining a
Cursillo friend who’s a librarian for the book club discussion he was leading
last month. A series of unfortunate
events that took place during the beginning of that week led me to spend most
of my time reading spiritual, religious, and hope-filled books instead of
forcing myself to make it through the one about Robert Ripley.
The wildly popular cartoonist and world traveler's manipulative manner in his personal and professional relationships
showed a complete disregard for the value of human life. From what I did read it seemed he wasn’t able to recognize or muster an
ounce of respect for human dignity. He’d
exploit anyone and anything to satisfy his curiosities, placate his
self-centeredness, and indulge in whatever pleasures and distractions fit his
fancy at that moment in time.
Believe it or
not, Ripley’s ego was bigger than any of his dwelling places. He was without a moral compass of any
sort. He lived his life like the
consummate frat boy: drinking all the time, using people, shirking
responsibility, dodging the truth, sleeping with all the women he could
get. He led the unexamined life of a
spoiled but intriguing celebrity with very eclectic obsessions and far-reaching
influence.
I found it quite disheartening to read about
the mess he made of things because of his flippant treatment of women and total
irreverence for other cultures. He
tainted newspapers and radio with his unconventional fetishes and raging
materialism. His belief that the only higher
power greater than himself was a sultry mix of money and fame underlined his desire
to remain in a prominent, lucrative, and highly influential place in society no
matter what the cost.
At the end of
the day and his life, I wondered if he ever really inspired or gave hope to
another human being by the way he lived or what he did. A whole lot of people over a long period of
time were fascinated by his reporting, his exotic collections, and skewed view
of things, but did he ultimately cause more corruption and scandal, influence greater
greed, degrade women, and present a derogatory perspective of other ethnicities and cultures? It’s hard to know for
sure. Each person’s life is so deeply
entwined with those of other people. I
don’t suppose the answers to the following questions would cast him in too
favorable a light: how will most remember him? who and what was most important
to him? for what purpose did he use his time, talents, and resources?
That having
been said I realize people can’t really be contained in or fully explained
by anything they produce. Each project
is only a glimpse inside, a part of the mystery, a fraction of the wholeness
God created. Our essence isn’t something
others can grasp entirely, nor is it something they can take from us. It is clear to the Lord alone who we really
are, who He made us to be. No one else
gets to determine that or define us, though they may try to.
There are some
inspiring books I’ve read and a great short film I've seen which treat subjects
that would have fascinated Ripley in ways that illustrate these individuals are
human beings with inherent value and dignity. I highly recommend the following
two books as ones that are heartfelt, faith-filled, and inspirational by a man
who was born with no arms or legs: Nick Vujicic.
Nick has done music videos, public speaking, and also is in a great short film called The Butterfly Circus. The story's about people with special talents and abilities being exploited in a freak show setting and how they are rescued, become a family of sorts who join together to entertains others, but without dehumanizing themselves or anyone else.
It occurred to me when reading this book that we have so many opportunities to use our talents to glorify the Lord or instead to cater to our own self-centered desires for pleasure, renown, and success. The choices we make not only affect those we come into direct contact with but thousands of others who are influenced by the decisions we make for good or evil. If Robert Ripley had a bucket list, he probably crossed off a number of things on it before he died. He became famous, got to travel the world, draw cartoons, write, influence many people...But what I’m left to wonder is what was on God’s Bucket list for his life?
I’ve been overflowing with emotions lately. It surprised me a little how saddened I was when we left Rochester. I miss all of the friends and family we saw there! I often find myself thinking about Kevin and our cottage. On the way home, I was reading about “chance” meetings in a Catholic magazine Grandma let me bring on the trip. I thought about Kevin and Harry when I read it. I thank God that we had the opportunity to meet such nice, friendly people. I would like to write to Kevin and make a card for Harry and one for his wife, who is in a nursing home with Alzheimer’s. I hope that we are able to keep in touch with them this year and maybe see them next summer if we rent the cottage.
