All Souls Day

And I found some pictures. But I can't load pictures from today so I'll have to wait.

There are so many occasions to post but I'll just try one at a time. These are from our neighborhood costume party. I decided to forego the the kimono and sari as it was really cold. So I donned my snowboarding attire- for the first time- and I was very, very cozy all night. Maybe this year I'll try it out for real in the snow.

Shane went as Anakin and the girls as fairies. Cyril was Robin Hood. It was a fun party. I think we are going to skip November and just do a Christmas one in December. I offered to have it at our house as it is very kid friendly and it will be too cold to have much of it outside. And we could set up the garage for extra space too. We had talked about doing a progressive dinner but being cold and dragging all the kids around could be not as much fun as just staying put and staying warm.

Today was All Souls Day - the day we remember and pray for all the departed. It was especially personal as the anniversary of my brother's death is in three days. We had wanted to get all the family together on the 5th but it wasn't working out so we - or as many of us as could-got together at Holyrood where Bishop Tyson was saying mass. He actually said the funeral mass for my brother too. It was good to be there together. I did fine until I tried to sing. I decided I'd better not.

Afterwards they had coffee and cookies so I let the kids grab one for the walk to the burial sites. Kateri was munching on her cookie and I asked her if it was tasty. She said,

"Yes, that was very nice of God."

"What was nice of God?" I asked.

"To give me this cookie" she answered.

The hunt for the burial sites was a little funny. We tried to locate my younger brother Aidan's in the children's section but couldn't find the marker. So we trekked down to the familiar area where we stood last November, to locate Karoly's. The stone will be done and set next week so we looked for the small marker. Without much luck. So after much wandering we gauged the distance from the road and a monument and tried to find the most likely unmarked grave. And possibly gave roses to a stranger. I'm sure Karoly wouldn't mind.

Then we came back to our house to do the obvious- eat. We had a great feast and could have fed a lot more. But it ended up being a long day and we never had to stop to cook.

We thought the day had been emotional enough but the big event came later in the day when we tried to check on the boys ( Cyril, Liam-8- Colin-5) who had been digging at the edge of the woods for over an hour. And they weren't there. We searched the house hoping they had come back in unnoticed. They hadn't. My sister and I hiked down a ways calling them and got no answer. We started screaming for them and still nothing. I called Shane and he left work right away. Then I called the police. The ravine is pretty steep in places and I was having trouble finding a path or the way I had just come. And you can't see houses when you are back there. The gulley runs at least a mile long and somewhere we knew there was a stream. And who knows what else. I came across a couple teen age boys who had not seen the kids but said they would look for them. I wasn't sure if that made me feel better or worse.

Mrs. Sauvage called her mom for prayers and I petitioned faithful St. Anthony. Poor Shane was stuck in traffic and had had to stop for gas. All the while refraining from running people off hte road and envisioning searching with flashlights all night. My sister got in her car to try some other access areas and finally she heard some voices. It was so echoey I could hear them up the street so I don't know how far they had to have been to not hear us. I ran to the back yard and into the woods calling to give them some direction and finally saw them down below. They slowly made their way up. Cyril had gotten scared and was crying. Which I think taught him better than anything else to obey the rule of not going into woods without Papa. They had found the stream- being boys, peed in it. Cyril's hands were so numb he couldn't get his jeans snapped. And of course, being boys, none of them had coats on so they were all freezing. I called Shane- and the police-and now am pretty much emotionally spent.

Shane went to play poker at Aaron's house. I think after getting the kids in bed I'll take a nice hot bath. And thank God all my children are here and safe. And not much else matters.

May the souls of the faithfully departed, through the mercy of God, rest in peace. Amen