Gabe

She’s Actual Size

/ J. Thorp / 1 Comment

(Blogger’s Note: This post is written with the express permission of my wife, who is 8-1/2 months pregnant and as lovely as the winter is long. Her one caveat is that if we’re still talking about this in June, then she’s gonna be upset!)

Somewhere (or rather, somewhen) around March of 2004, when Jodi was about six months’ pregnant with Trevor and still chilled to the bone by the retreating winter, we stopped at the store to pick up a few things. Jodi walked in because the list was in her head; I stayed in the car and entertained the kids by demanding silence in a menacing voice, then napping. Due to my closed eyes and lethargic state, I did not realize that behind me, Gabe was getting nervous. Someone was approaching the van — closer and closer. A figure shuffled past his window and reached for the door on the van. The door opened.

Gabe exhaled his relief. “Whew,” he said. “I thought a great big fat man in a green coat was coming toward us, but it was just you, Mom!”

Nearly a decade later, Jodi has again dug out the coat, a thick, roomy, pale green affair that isn’t the prettiest, but remains to this day both warm and functional. This fall, a friend of ours offered her a barely worn black maternity coat, which Jodi eagerly accepted. Unfortunately, by the time winter rolled around, the coat could no longer be made to meet in the middle.

We found ourselves in the same pew as our friend last Sunday, and Jodi was self-conscious about not wearing the coat. She hoped to explain after church, but never had the chance. We joked that she should message our friend on Facebook: “Sorry I can’t wear the coat you gave me. Thank you for being the David Spade to my Chris Farley.”

We laughed — hard — together, but the truth is, this pregnancy has been difficult. Jodi’s feet swell painfully every day; she calls them monster feet, and the kids have a daily discussion about whether they look more goblinesque or trollish. (I helpfully observed they look like Chipotle burritos with toes, but no one else found that comparison appetizing.) Her hands swell, too, and she had to have her wedding ring cut off a couple weeks ago. The other day, when a friend of ours who will shoot our newborn photos told Jodi to be prepared to have her hands in the shots, my bride asked me, “Should I see if she can Photoshop them back to normal and add my ring in?”

I tell her she’s beautiful, and judging from the Facebook comments on the photo above, many of you agree — but she doesn’t feel beautiful. This morning, I greeted her with, “‘Morning, glory!” — and she immediately recalled that the kids watched Madagascar last night and assumed I had said, “‘Morning, Gloria!”

“Yes,” I said, rolling my eyes. “I called you a hippo.”

We do our best to keep things as light as possible, knowing we’re almost to the end. Three more weeks until the blessed bundle arrives…and although people gasp at the size of our previous children (9-9, 11-11, 9-5, and 12-2), I think Jodi hopes this one is a 30-pounder. After all, she says, beyond a certain size, it’s all just pain.

By the way, we’ve been humming this song all day. It’s a strange sort of love song, I think…

“She’s Actual Size” by They Might Be Giants
I’m not talking about the lady’s actual size
I’m talking about the lady who is actual size
Words fail
Buildings tumble
The ground opens wide
Light beams down from heaven
She stands before my eyes
She’s actual size, but she seems much bigger to me
Squares may look distant in her rear view mirror but they’re actual size
As she drives away
Big men
Often tremble
As they step aside
I thought I was big once
She changed my mind
She’s actual size, but she seems much bigger to me.
I’ve never known anybody like her, she’s actual size
Nationwide, believe
She’s got
All the money
Money couldn’t buy
She’s got something special
That someone left behind
She’s actual size, but she seems much bigger to me
Squares may look distant in her rear view mirror but they’re actual size
Actual size to her
Her face
Hangs in portrait
On the post office wall
She’s stuck in my heart now
Where my blood belongs
She’s actual size, but she seems much bigger to me
I’ve never known anybody like her, she’s actual size
Actual size, believe
She’s actual size, but she seems much bigger to me
Words fail
Buildings tumble
The ground opens wide
Light beams down from heaven
She stands before my eyes
She’s actual size, but she seems much bigger to me
Squares may look distant in her rear view mirror but they’re actual size
As she drives away
Big men
Often tremble
As they step aside
I thought I was big once
She changed my mind
She’s actual size, but she seems much bigger to me
I’ve never known anybody like her, she’s actual size
Nationwide, believe
You think she’s big, you think she’s larger than life
But if you open up your eyes you’ll see she’s actual size
Etc.

Do Whatever He Tells You

/ J. Thorp / 2 Comments

Above: A Wedding in Cana: my sister Jill and her husband Rusty, married in the Wedding Church at Cana of Galilee, Tuesday, October 18, 2011. Photo courtesy of Stephen Ray, their pilgrimage guide, online at Catholic-Convert.com.

On the third day there was a wedding in Cana in Galilee, and the mother of Jesus was there. Jesus and his disciples were also invited to the wedding. When the wine ran short, the mother of Jesus said to him, “They have no wine.” And Jesus said to her, “Woman, how does your concern affect me? My hour has not yet come.” His mother said to the servers, “Do whatever he tells you.” Now there were six stone water jars there for Jewish ceremonial washings, each holding twenty to thirty gallons. Jesus told them, “Fill the jars with water.” So they filled them to the brim. Then he told them, “Draw some out now and take it to the headwaiter.” So they took it. And when the headwaiter tasted the water that had become wine, without knowing where it came from (although the servers who had drawn the water knew), the headwaiter called the bridegroom and said to him, “Everyone serves good wine first, and then when people have drunk freely, an inferior one; but you have kept the good wine until now.” Jesus did this as the beginning of his signs in Cana in Galilee and so revealed his glory, and his disciples began to believe in him. 

— John 2:1-11

My sister was married yesterday. I was there in spirit. I woke in the dark wee hours of Tuesday morning — 4:18 a.m. — to discover a text from Jill on my phone, sent a couple hours earlier, while I slept: “We are going to Cana right now! Won’t be long!!”
4:18 was what time? 11:18 in Jerusalem. And they were leaving Cana for lunch, according to the itinerary, so they may be there right now.
Jodi slept peacefully beside me. I lay on my back, eyes wide, and began to pray.
I learned later, via text, that at 11:18 local time, Jill and Rusty were likely walking up the aisle in the Wedding Church in Cana. For the half hour I lay awake, praying, they were promising their lives to each other. Those moments are captured in video below, courtesy of their pilgrimage guide Steve Ray at Catholic-Convert.com and FootprintsOfGodPilgrimages.com.

I wore a tux in Jill’s first wedding, a lovely outdoor ceremony on a little island in the Chippewa River in Michigan where her high-school sweetheart had grown up. We were fallen-away Catholics then — my mom, Jill, and I — and her first husband’s family was of no particular faith that I knew, so they were married by a the pastor of the Wheatland Church of Christ, who was a neighbor of my folks, in a short ecumenical service. It was a day of great joy, the start of something wonderful — though we had no idea in what way. 
Today she has two wonderful children, Kayla and Kyle, and an ex-husband who is remarried, and who by all accounts is a supportive dad and a good friend to her again. In the months that followed the breakup, she found herself seeking God, and, with Jodi’s conversion of me and Gabe’s youthful interest in the priesthood as inspiration, ultimately came back to the Catholic church. As fate (or faith) would have it, I was there in Michigan with her when she met with her priest to discuss returning to the Church and the sacraments, and having her teen and her tween baptized. I was there when, after going to Reconciliation for the first time in decades, she received the Eucharist for the first time. And when her priest told her when the baptism of the kids would be, Jill and I were amazed to realize that Jodi and I were already planning to be back in Michigan that weekend — since she had just told us that she wanted us to be their godparents. 
We were also in Michigan this past Easter when my niece and nephew made their First Communion, and Jill and Kayla were confirmed. This was my first opportunity to meet the man my sister had begun seeing during the previous year — a man with whom she was unabashedly smitten. After all she had been through, it had been strange to listen from afar as she met and fell in love with somebody new. I’ve watched a handful of female friends go through divorce, then quickly and repeatedly fall for the wrong guys, and I had to swallow hard. I don’t want to see her hurt again.

My parents, on the other hand, had met Rusty and seemed to like what they saw. That helped, especially because Dad has a knack for gauging people. Still, it was difficult to show up at Easter as the only close family member who hadn’t meant this man — and as the person (quite frankly) who was most inclined to not like him. I had my guard and filters up, but he came through clean: a genuinely nice guy who likes good music, a Catholic convert who enjoys talking about his faith, a veteran of the Navy and other life battles who loves his young son and his aging parents, and a good man who did not hesitate to say that he would gladly spend his life working hard to treat my sister right and to get her to Heaven.

They told us that weekend that they were planning to marry, although they weren’t yet engaged. Then they told us they planned to do it at the church in Cana, in the Holy Land, on a pilgrimage to learn more about their faith. We were amazed. How much more different could this possibly be from her first wedding? How far had my sister journeyed, in such a short time?

“Do whatever he tells you” — these words from Our Blessed Mother from the Gospel account of the miraculous wedding at Cana were a statement of faith in her son, that, although He insisted it was not yet his time, He would not allow a need to go unmet for God’s faithful — that  from misfortune he would work wonders in order to manifest God’s love in our lives. He did it again and again during his ministry, and again in the most profound way on the cross on Calvary.

And again yesterday, at another wedding in Cana.

Before she left, Jill told me she was thinking of ways she could have her closest family and friends with her on her wedding day: a family rosary, a lucky coin, that sort of thing. From Jodi and me and our family, she asked that I write a prayer for them to meditate upon.

I was overwhelmed. I had planned to write a letter, but the idea that I could add something substantive to this sacrament when the very location was a homily and blessing seemed like more than I could possibly deliver. I wrote a letter that said as much, then asked that, the night before their wedding or the morning of, they consider doing the following:

  • First, ask the priest to hear your confessions, that your hearts may be pure and open to God’s graces.
  • Second, read the only scripture that ever mattered to me at the time of our marriage (and the only detail of our wedding I insisted upon): Tobit 8:4-9.
  • Finally (not that the prayer of Tobiah and Sarah needs any improvement or addition), please share the following as our prayer for you both:

Father in Heaven, in your wisdom and love, You said:
“It is not good for the man to be alone.”
You made man and woman both in Your holy image,
unique in all of creation, as both spiritual and physical beings,
made for each other, as complements and co-creators, living and life-giving.

Then, in the fullness of time, you called Our Blessed Mother to bear your Son,
and St. Joseph, her husband, to raise and protect Him,
giving to our Lord and to Your people two shining stars to guide us
in holiness, obedience, fidelity, chastity, and courage
in marriage and family life.

We love you, O Lord, and we thank You for Your many blessings:
For life and love, for mercy and grace,
for Your living example of selflessness and devotion shown by Your Son, Our Lord, Jesus Christ.
We ask Your forgiveness for the times we have failed to love as You love,
and for the strength each day to forgive and to try again

O Lord, please bless my beloved and me,
that we may make a true and generous gift of self to each other and to You;
that we may be a light for each other on the pathway to heaven;
that we may be a living sign of Your love and fidelity;
and that we may be a beacon to draw others nearer to You.

This we pray with confidence in the name of Jesus Christ and through the power of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

Another friend of ours tells a story related to the biblical account of the wedding at Cana, in which we imagine ourselves as the servants, who, on the word of a wedding guest — a poor but faithful mother from Nazareth — and the orders of her son, also a guest in the house, lug six massive crocks to the city well, carrying back, on foot, more than a hundred gallons of water for who knows what purpose. As a result, they got to see Christ’s first miracle…

When I texted Jill later in the day yesterday and told her how I was with her in prayer, she agreed, and closed her reply with, “Thank you, Jim and Jodi, for leading the way…”

Sister, we were just carrying the water.

Burning Love

/ J. Thorp / 3 Comments

Last weekend, to celebrate the end of summer, we had a little campfire in the backyard. I had thrown an old birdhouse onto the fire, which was finally beginning to break down, with flames of blue, and yellow, and orange. It was a beautiful night, and for the first time in ages, we all sat and did nothing but visit with each other: about the coming school year, the dancing flames, the smoke rising to the stars. 


Then Gabe said something curious: “There’s a flaming heart in the fire.”



It was the remains of an old barn-wood board from the birdhouse. Emma saw it, too, and noted that she was, at that very moment, wearing her “Burning Love” t-shirt, featuring a red heart like a torch and St. Paul’s words from 1 Corinthians 13:4-7:


Love is patient,
love is kind.
It is not jealous,
is not pompous, it is not inflated,
it is not rude, it does not seek its own interests,
it is not quick-tempered,
it does not brood over injury,
it does not rejoice over wrongdoing but rejoices with the truth.
It bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.


We were marveling at this coincidence, when Trevor noticed something else. “Look,” he said, “there are three nails in it…just like Jesus.”



Sacred Heart of Jesus, we entrust our family to You. Look down upon us and reveal to us the treasures of love, goodness, and grace in Your Heart. Forgive our sins and fortify our weakness, that we may serve You faithfully as You deserve. These favors we ask for ourselves and for every family in our neighborhood and homeland. Heart of Jesus, pierced by a soldier’s lance on Calvary, be our refuge in life and our gateway to Paradise. Amen.



Trevor Contemplates the Nature of Fear

/ J. Thorp / 1 Comment

I brought Trevor in on the train this morning. As we were waiting at the Elk River Station, I related the story of Gabe, standing with his back to the tracks on a narrow train platform in Connecticut, when a freight train blasted through. Somehow, immersed in the newness of it all, Gabe hadn’t heard it coming. “It scared the bejeebers out of him!” I laughed.

Fifteen minutes later, safely aboard the Northstar, Trevor asks, “Dad, is ‘bejeebers’ just a made-up word, or something real?”

He told me later that he couldn’t imagine what “bejeebers” would be if it was something real that had come from Gabe.

The Second Third, Week 37: Can-Do Attitude

/ J. Thorp / 1 Comment

“I am always doing that which I can not do, in order that I may learn how to do it.”
– Pablo Picasso

Jodi has commented more than once that she wishes she were more like my sister when it comes to trying new things. “Jill can do anything,” my bride tells a friend. “She painted that mural in Emma’s room, and bought a hanging lamp, cut the cord off it, and turned it into a ceiling light. She’s like, ‘I’ve never done that before; of course I can do it!'”

Jill gets that from my dad, a mostly self-taught machinist, mechanic, and builder of … well, pretty much anything, and my mom, who has been known to take a raised eyebrow or a snicker of unbelief as reason enough to turn a cartwheel in the living room, just to show she still can. (That was years ago, but please, don’t tempt her.)

I got just enough of the can-do attitude to believe, just after we were married, I could change the water pump in my car with a socket set, a couple screw drivers and wrenches, and a Xeroxed copy of the Chilton’s instructions in the open parking lot of our first apartment in Sioux Falls. When the landlord came out halfway through the procedure to point out that Jodi’s lease forbade auto repairs on the premises, I apologized, but suggested it might be best to let me finish and clean up the mess than to snarl things any further. I’ve retrofitted a flush-mount ceiling fan to hang on the level from a sloped cathedral ceiling. I drew the picture my sister projected and painted on Emma’s wall. I did these things because somebody had to do them, and I was available. But I don’t necessarily go out of my way to look for new challenges of this sort.

So this past week, Jodi and I looked at the calendar and realized that Gabe was registered for a mid-day soccer camp, and both of us had to work. We suggested he ride his bike a mile or so up the road to the middle school on quiet residential streets and paved bike paths, for the most part. We also suggested that Brendan accompany him on his bike, with his cell phone – at least on the first trip – to be sure Gabe didn’t have any problems.

I was informed that Bren hasn’t really been riding his new bike much since last summer, mostly because he didn’t “get” the gears: he couldn’t find one he liked, and whenever he shifted to another, the chain made annoying noises. Gabe’s problem was more practical: he wasn’t sure how he could ride a bike and carry his soccer ball at the same time.

I was exasperated. When I was their age (and younger!), I stripped all the “extras” off my BMX – chain guard, reflectors, handbrake, etc. – because I wanted the lightest functional bike possible, and I rode my bike to the lake near our house with a lifejacket, tackle box, fishing pole, and bucket for the catch, without issue or explanation. I explained to Brendan that he should take a minute to look at his sprockets as he shifted gears, and when his chain was making noise, so he could see what was going on – that most of the time, you just need to back the shifting mechanism off slightly once you changed gears to make the noise stop. I suggested to Gabe that there was a hands-free way to carry stuff to school that would work just as well on a bike as it does on foot: his backpack. I assured them (somewhat sharply) that they could handle this little adventure – and might even enjoy it.

Only later did it occur to me why I was that way as a kid (and as a newlywed). My dad did all his repairs – auto repairs, home repairs, you name it – himself, and required me to be with him, come sunshine, rain, or snow. I didn’t have “the knack,” but I learned to look more closely at how things worked, and learned which tools did what, and where to find them. After hours in the shop, working on my bike was a piece of cake.

And Mom and Dad set clear boundaries and rules, then gave me the freedom to roam the neighborhood, the woods, and even the docks and beaches, playing, exploring, fishing, and even hunting. If I wanted to take advantage of this freedom (and make the most of my time) I had to figure what I needed and how to transport it. We built forts in the woods, repaired bikes on the road, camped on islands in the middle of the lake, without anyone carting me around.

We do live in a different place and time, but I have consistently opted to keep the kids close to home rather than send them out on their own, and I avoid DIY projects in order to protect “family time.” As a result, my kids are well-mannered, bright, obedient … and perhaps overly dependent. In my Second Third, I need to recognize that working together with my kids, or even letting the kids do thing together on their own, is family time, too. I need to do what my folks did: create opportunities for my kids to do, to learn, and even to make mistakes – so when they are my age, whatever challenge they face, they’ll echo their Aunt Jill: “Huh. I’ve never done that. Of course I can!”