Come, Holy Spirit, help me to write the words my heart is achingly filled with tonight. The images etched in my mind that hold me back from smiling to my friends or socializing with people whom I care so very deeply for.

Why? Lord, oh God, why?

If you are reading this, join me in what I witnessed today – perhaps if I share the images fully, wholly, you can understand the ache and weight I feel? I can perhaps remove that which isn’t fully mine to hold…

Early in the morning, driving along a twisted, narrow road as I reflected on some writing I was called to do on my faith. The day stretching wonderfully in front of me as the light dappled playfully with shadows upon the pavement. Glimpses of a river to my right. Promise held with every puff of wind for a good day, a beautiful day. You want to press the pedal down and let your old car feel her bones once again and roar a bit and feel the wheel in your hands as the your tires grip the road. A beautiful day for a walk with your furry companions who have their cute heads wedged between the seat backs as they watch the passage of the road too, knowing their favourite destination lies only minutes ahead. There, in front of you, another car is stopped… why? No one in front of them. No one coming along. You start scanning for danger just as you’re also slowing your car to see what’s going on. A person? No… what is it? What’s there? The car begins to pull away, and there… you see it. Large black eyes ringed with lashes, soft tawny skin, small boned still. So young. So fragile and delicate. Its movements not quite right. It is hopping. You slow the car more and study the doe in front of you… to realize it’s front leg is fully disconnected from its body… dangling there, gruesomely and sickeningly swaying as the small deer hops along…weaving along the road. You’re not sure if the car in front of you hit the deer or not…they’re gone and your mind is on the injured animal in front of you. I stayed with it…behind it and protecting it with my car until it hobbled into a green space and nestled down… calling for help from animal control… verifying someone will come to be with the animal before you return to your journey… now tainted a bit with the hurt of another heartbeat. Pain felt…how could it not?

The day continues… you walk your dogs, you try to erase the images from your mind and focus on the present. You get home, clean up, get ready for a long day of meetings and work. But first. It’s still summer break, and you need to go get your son from his job.

Back into the car you go; this time only driving through town. Not really a city, not really the suburbs. One of those in-between middling sort of towns of shops and restaurants built to serve those who live there so that the majority can commute to larger cities where they work in cubicles – at least that was the dream once up on a time. The nature of the place has been changing for years… drug addicts and unhoused individuals generally found wandering about at all hours… while having grown accustomed to their stooped backs and funny vehicles hand built for the utilitarian purpose of shuttling recycling to the depot for bits of change, nothing quite prepares your mind for the sight of the nearly dead.

But once again, I found myself today… zipping along, my mind preparing for the meeting ahead where I was to smile and meet my new coach in all things AI so that I, in turn, can guide my own company towards an ethical adoption… I am turning and zipping. A red light here, turn right, keep the wheels turning, turn left up ahead where there’s a gap. Take the back roads between the houses and the shops and the townhomes…stick to the side roads where there are stop signs and not long waits at street signs… on a good day, the drive takes 7 minutes point to point… and I know there’s great coffee at my destination. And then. I reach a T where I need to turn right. I look left, I look straight…and there they are. Three of them. A most unholy trinity but still so much sons of God. The one who I see first while my eyes struggle to make sense of what I see… he is in dark pants and a light grey hoodie, the hood pulled over his head. He is kneeling on the sidewalk, his body bent fully in half… with the crown of his head pressing hard into the road below…his arms are lost, akimbo on the ground…as though disconnected from his body. He’s leaning ever so slightly… into another man on a wheelchair, bent as far in half as one can and still be in a kind of seated position. His head just grazing the back of the man kneeling broken below…and then finally the third, sitting on, I think their belongings. His legs in shorts and exposed to the sun for so long they look almost black, though he is fairer skinned. He sits slightly leaning backwards, his head lolling.

I stop the car and study them. I think they are dead. I am wondering… what do I do? Do I call the police a second time today? Now on three men who look dead and broken? Lying fully in the way of vehicles that might pass their way. Exposed and not hidden in every way… as though if they took their addictions into the well of a doorway they might somehow be more fitting to the landscape and less bothersome to the eyes. I wait until I see the one on the bottom rock his body slightly… enough for me to know he is alive…before seeing him slump again.

I cannot help but feel… tears in my eyes and a heaviness in my heart as I turn away and continue to where my son is working on the landscaping of our parish. Ripping out vines and weeds, preparing the grounds for incoming wave of guests for the funeral of a truly good man.

We return home. I attend meeting after meeting after meeting, my heart and mind focused now on my young son who is navigating the first heartbreak of his young life, a beautiful girl who is ready to have more adventures than my sweet boy is going to offer her. Ever more meetings as his sobs reach my ears while I try to maintain a straight face and come up with something clever or at least sanguine while I repair a coworkers computer from afar… while I walk through a new database build… while logging into yet another Zoom session. My mind split in two – the online, professional me, the mom-me who desperately wants to protect her boys from the world and fold them both into hugs…

I reach out for help to navigate a donation pick up that I had hoped to manage on my own, cheeses and milks and dried goods to give to the community… to help those like those three men should they find the courage to find their way to us… Grateful forever to the good hearts of the good people who will also hop into their own battered and worn cars and jump to help and give and do whatever is necessary to help others.

Both children home, but I have more yet to go today; another event at the parish… this time celebrating the work of ministry, of caring for those in the community, of leading and guiding hearts according to His guiding hand… my children eating cold pizza alone one day after they return home from their summer vacations… somehow my heart isn’t there fully and I am unable to focus.

I take my time helping to organize donations, knowing I am now late… not wanting to be late, but not able to find it in my heart to be warm or bubbly or sweet. We listen to music and prayers, and I cannot shake the men from my mind, the hobbling deer from my heart, my son’s own cries at the challenges of all that it means to be human. The pain of carrying our loving souls around in bodies that hurt, that ache, that cry, and learning to navigate it all somehow with grace by seeking Him.

I couldn’t find it in me to follow the instructions for tonight’s activity, however beautiful it was. I found myself instead disappearing into the beautiful and gentle eyes of my friend who has also suffered much these past years as she talked about her work and the joy of receiving a gift of a basil plant, thanks to some of our generous donors. Imagine… the immense pleasure of the scent of fresh basil in your home; a luxury too frivolous for women like us to spend our hard earned dollars on.

I left the event… quietly. Walking to my car I was reminded of the gift of God in the beautiful evening of clear crisp air; God taking his paintbrush out and giving me a personal view of the heavens. A woman I kind of know asked me if it was I who played the violin at Mass… and telling me how much she enjoyed it… I was mute for words and said something horribly lame… words not coming quickly tonight.

Driving home, I somehow managed to connect with my older son on the final stretch of his walk home from karate class. While a new sadness is present in his eyes and words, he had time to lean into my passenger window with a twinkle and a laugh, and then help me with pulling in the garbage bins.

I parked and made myself a caprese salad for my dinner. I too enjoy a good bit of fresh basil and the glorious gift of tomatoes growing against my house.

And after many months, I heard Ave Maria in my mind as I would wish to play it on the violin… my fingers aching to play it in prayer to our Lady… to intercede for those men, for my son, for all the men whose hearts are breaking this evening… to play it for the good man who has passed and yet stood in as a kind of father figure for my son last summer.

Finally, humming Ave Maria… I realized I should perhaps write again.

I don’t know if this blog post is meaningful. I wrote it as more of an explanation for those I care very much for and yet was distant to this evening… There is so much brokenness in the world, so many people who are in so much pain. There but for the grace of God go I.

Go in peace my friends. I love you, even as I cannot express it some days and I appreciate you and every moment you walk upon this earth.