I need a new box.
When I miscarried my first baby, it wrecked me. I gathered up the reminders of her brief life and put them in a little decorative box. The ultrasound pictures ("Look," the midwife had said, "she's waving"). The intercessions from the Mass in her memory. A flower from an arrangement given me by a friend, pressed and dried.
I took the box across the ocean to Scotland, and home again two years later. I took it to the East Coast, and home again a year later. That's where I put the baptismal candles for each boy. Today I was tidying up a bit and tried to put away the candle from Stella's baptism last month.
It won't fit.
The box that was an emblem of emptiness and loss is overflowing now. It has become an emblem of bounty instead. My highest hope is that our whole family will be together one day, joyful and blameless at the wedding feast of the Lamb. That's what I think about now, when I open the box and see the little row of candles, symbols of hope and promise.
At the Holy Thursday liturgy I was thinking about all that's happened over this last year and it seemed like gift piled on gift, grace piled on grace. This afternoon I am taking the big boys and their little sister to celebrate the gift of Divine Mercy. I love this feast. When I picked my own name at confirmation it was chosen in honor of the mercy of God; when I gave my daughter her name it was also chosen in honor of the mercy of God. What a blessing it is to celebrate this day with her.
I do not have a neat ending for this post. I am writing it with the awareness that moments when everything seems like grace are usually followed by moments that threaten my equilibrium. I'm going to post it anyway. My husband has cooked a delicious Sunday brunch and I am going to eat it while it's hot. Yet another gift, gratefully received.
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