Me (left) and My Sister Sheila (right) with our Dad
Wow! I don’t know about you but this past weekend just flew!!
Mine was full of family activities and I was glad to get to all of them but in making sure it all got done, it seems that the weekend was spent going from one event to the next, and now I find, in the blink of an eye, that it’s Monday morning.
I hope your weekend was productive and/or lots of fun and that many good things happened to you.
Looking back on the past several days it seems my family is having a moment. One of my nieces and her husband became the parents of a beautiful baby boy named Liam James, I drove to Richmond to visit my son and his fiancé to talk about wedding plans and check out venues and then on Sunday went to a wedding shower for a cousin with another of my sisters and our Mom.
But that’s not all of it. Among all of those wonderful happenings was another special event I attended with another of my sisters, her husband and our Dad. At our Dad’s high school, Gonzaga College High School, the oldest boys’ high school in Washington, DC, they held a rousing football rally because they were getting ready to play a big game against St. John’s High School which has been an intense rivalry for decades. (Sadly, Gonzaga lost!).
Our 88-year-old Dad graduated in 1945, making 2015 his 70th anniversary of attending school there. Our Dad is a gifted athlete and is in the Athletic Hall of Fame at Gonzaga and Catholic University for the sports achievements he earned while playing basketball and baseball for both schools. What an achievement right????
At the rally I attended last Friday, Gonzaga generously took the time to introduce our Dad which he thoroughly loved!! Afterwards, some of the high schoolers even came up and talked to him about what it was like when he went to school there. It meant a lot to watch these young people go up to him on their own and show him that kind of respect. I think both sides learned some valuable information about each other and I can’t emphasize enough how important it is for young people to have a dialogue with the senior citizens in their community.
The senior citizens among us possess an incredible amount of wisdom, knowledge and strength and unfortunately are often overlooked as people who have passed their prime and therefore don’t have much to contribute to society. So untrue!
Inside most senior citizens is the heart of a younger person who is looking out of their aging body and trying to figure out what the hell happened to the younger body and mind that they vividly remember. For example, when we ask our Dad how old he feels he is, not how old he actually is, he doesn’t miss a beat. He’s tell you right away that he feels like he is 28 or 29 years old! I’m sure I will feel the same way if I am blessed to live to the wise age of 88.
All in all it was a wonderful weekend, so please let me share two other pictures of my Dad being silly and just having a great time among the students while absorbing their positive and healing affirmations:
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