Jill

Spiritual Cardio, Part 2

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Blogger’s Note: This is the latest in a collection of daily posts outlining my journey to the Sacred Heart over the past year or more. See an overview and links to past posts here.

My departure from home to the Engels was bittersweet, of course. I was sad but resigned to going solo and making the most of my time alone with God. Even as I drove, I prayed for the ability to forgive my family, for Jodi (and Emma) to forgive my anger and hurtful words, and for God to have mercy on us all.

I arrived after dark, opened things up and turned on the lights, then turned Bruno and Dusty loose in the house together. Immediately they began tearing around the house, wagging, snarling, rolling, and wrestling. I began streaming the Friday night blues programming from Jazz88 and opened the windows to the lake breezes and nightly noises, then cracked a beer. I sat, watching the dogs, listening to the blues, nursing a beer, and feeling calm but discontented. Continue reading →

Heartstrings

/ J. Thorp / 2 Comments

Blogger’s Note: This is the latest in a collection of daily posts outlining my journey to the Sacred Heart over the past year or more. See an overview and links to past posts here.

It’s been a long week, headed into a working weekend and another long week, and I’m short on sleep. Rather than write a long, rambling, and unfocused Sacred Heart post, I think I’ll share this little piece instead.

As a kid I remember my sister and I spending a week in the summer at the farm where my mom grew up. I remember exploring the barn and watching the painted turtles in the water tank dive to the bottom when the cows came to drink. I remember Dziadzi’s dog King, and the screech of Guinea fowl, and Busia’s big, bountiful garden. I remember the big tire swing in the willow behind the house, and the mystery of Sunday Mass just up the road at St. Michael Catholic Church in Wilmot. (Yet another St. Michael parish in my life, along with this one and our current one.) Continue reading →

Airdale Chronicles: Blesséd Bruno

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IMG_20180319_174442886Bruno is eight months old today, napping in his crate in a Super 8 outside of Green Bay while Gabe and Trevor read and I write. We spent the past few days at my folks’ place in Michigan, which means Bruno got to spend time with their dog, Maggie, an older, big-boned Oorang type Airedale. Too old to roughhouse too much, but not too old for Bruno to begin to notice something different about her.

What’s it like having an eight-week-old male Airdale pup? I’ve said it before; I’ll say it again: like having a preschool boy who’s somehow going through puberty.

He got his first adult haircut a week ago. What a difference a day makes: he went in a big, woolly pup and came out a much lighter, leaner dog, clearly an Airedale despite a shorter than average cut (due to matting) and his corkscrew ear. He seemed an odd combination of energetic and embarrassed when we brought him back from our groomer—especially when Rosebud said he was naked. Continue reading →

Just the Four of Us

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For the first time in more than 20 years—near as we can figure—my mom, dad, sister, and I are alone together in my parents’ house.* The last time this happened, according to Jill’s recollection, was just before I left for South Dakota to marry Jodi. Jill was pregnant with my niece and goddaughter Kayla (hence the asterisk above) and couldn’t travel; she recalls sitting together in the loft overlooking the great round beams of my folks’ house, talking with me and giving me a old penny from her coin collection that had belonged to Grandpa Thorp. I don’t recall the exact moment as clearly as she, but I have the penny still, and the timing seems right.

And now here we are again, just the four of us, talking and laughing together. Births, holidays, weddings, funerals. Decades pass like minutes. We are entirely different people than the last time, and just the same.

I’m not sure I have a point tonight, other than to commemorate this day and note the speed with which time’s arrow flies, the swift fluidity of life, and the beautiful permanence of family.