4th Sunday of Lent

Gosh, I feel disconnected from all of you! Like Nancy said earlier, I don't feel like I am having a fruitful Lent so far. Worries about a plethora of things as well as keeping the house in order and all that has really been consuming me. I wasn't even sure if I was going to post today because, well, I have been in a really foul mood today. I think it may be the happenings of the past week.

Most of you saw my post during the week about Sr. Rita. I will get to that in a moment. On Tuesday, I received a phone call from the company I worked for in college and graduate school. It was also the company my Dad worked for for about 47 years. They were calling to let me and my siblings know that the owner of the company had died unexpectedly over the weekend. He was only 64. I knew that I could not make the funeral mass on Saturday because my team had their last Forensics tournament. That meant that I had to take off from teaching and got to the wake.

On Thursday, Andy called to say his check engine light was on. I made the appointment for Friday. We dropped the car off, and I got a call a couple of hours later that the fix would be about $350! OUCH! We said to wait on it because we want to see if we can find someone to do it cheaper. I had to drive across town and get Andy from work, bring him back to our side of town to pick up the car, and I sped off to the funeral wake on yet again the other side of town.

My plan was to go from the funeral wake down to the sisters' convent chapel for a prayer vigil for Sr. Rita. We had word the she was very weak and could die at anytime. I arrived at the funeral home only to find I would have to stand in line for an hour and a half to pay my respects. I was glad I saw the family, and I also ran into many people I had worked with. It was just kind of draining. It made me miss my Dad.

Once I left, I sped to yet another side of town to the convent chapel to pray. I am so glad I did. Unfortunately, I missed the news that Sr. Rita had died at about 4:15 PM that day. A few of us still gathered to pray and remember. I found out that there are 270 sisters living there! How wonderful! Sr. Rita had been a part of that community for 61 years. She was also a part of the legacy that was my high school (it closed in 1991). God Bless her!