When I was a little girl I used to love to watch the butterflies, particularly monarchs, as they gracefully swooped in large numbers through our backyard in late August. There seemed to be hundreds throughout the day passing through. I viewed them as treasures in the air, like falling coins or surprises of chocolate that […]

I took my youngest children to the pool the other day.  I was wearing the bathing suit I had purchased new last year, and I was also wearing my newer, cute, matching sleeveless cover-up. The suit is brown (’the new black’, I had been told by the salesgirl) and white patterned on top. The bottom […]

 I went to the UPS store to see about mailing a set of electrical adapter plugs to my son in Rome. The bearded man behind the counter greeted me with a brusque, “We can’t mail liquids.”
I looked around because it wasn’t entirely clear that he was talking to me, and I was confused by his […]

My son, 20, who would be traveling to Rome in a short month, lost his passport. Apparently he delayed telling me for days, surely hoping he would find it. It probably did not help his stress that when he called to report this my response was emphatic and frantic, “Oh my gosh, NO! Do you […]

Hoosier Jen J. seems respectable enough. Her name appears in an Internet 2006 Guide to the Indiana General Assembly as a contact person. She writes serious editorial pieces for reputable Indiana newspapers, and she holds a bachelor of fine arts degree from a well-regarded university. She is young and articulate, and some would say pretty. […]

On Saturday evening my six year old daughter Theresa ran shrieking down the stairs. I thought someone had gotten hurt and I rushed to her at once. There were no injuries but there was elation and a dangling baby tooth on the bottom of her gums — her first dangling baby tooth.

"It's almost ready! It's almost ready! "She cried excitedly. I had to agree. As she eagerly jumped up and down I hugged her and told her, "This could be it!" Then I steered her toward her father. He is the baby tooth expert, after all. Seven siblings before Theresa have climbed on Daddy's lap to have their first loose teeth examined.  And seven children have climbed off that same lap with one less tooth.

My husband David is out of town at a dealer show for business. I miss him when he's gone. I was thinking about calling him this morning just to say "Hi" when I noticed my cell phone had a text. Surely he was going to tell me, in one sentence or less, how much he […]

I once was visiting a beautiful home, finely furnished with exquisite furniture, lovely artwork and impeccable décor. However, the heavy draperies around the windows blocked most of the natural light in the rooms, and left an atmosphere of heaviness and, quite frankly, suffocation. Although the home was beautiful I couldn't wait to leave and enjoy […]

I was walking into the dance school office to pay our daughters' tuition and order some sweatshirts for a Christmas performance. The girls had just finished their first rehearsal, and I was grateful that the office was open on a Saturday. That's when I saw and heard her, standing, hands on hips, and screaming at […]

It hit me last night. We have only two weeks until the two oldest boys head back to college. I was in the Target store, picking up a couple pairs of shorts for my ninth grader, and I witnessed an influx of moms with their presumably college-aged kids, buying extra long twin bedding, wastebaskets and […]

Once upon a time there was a boy named David. His dad was a golf professional, and his family lived on the fifth hole of a modest golf course. Every day David spent hours hitting golf balls, tee to green, over and over again, until the hazy orange light of the setting sun could no […]

Sundays were magnificent when I was growing up. Not flamboyant, Fourth-of-July-fireworks magnificent, but rather simple, find-a-four-leaf-clover-when-you-aren't-looking-in-your-backyard magnificent. On Sundays, after Mass, we kids never knew if we'd be popped in the car for a two hour jaunt to my grandparent's home in Michigan, where we'd sip Cokes on grandma's porch, and play tag or Red […]

Seventy years ago today, on May 24, 1937, Blessed Mother Teresa made her final profession as a Loretto sister. Like most suburban housewives, I have never been to India. I never witnessed Mother Teresa as she ministered to the world's "poorest of the poor." Like many others, however, I devoured books and articles about this dynamic […]

When I was in the second grade at Holy Cross School next to the brewery of-all-things, my teacher, Sister Teresa Marie, used to give out prizes for exceptional work. Amazingly, each week every child was exceptional. Usually the prizes bestowed were holy cards, but one Friday Sister walked up and down the rows of desks […]

Do you remember your First Holy Communion? I remember mine clearly — memorizing the acts of faith, hope and love in Sister Teresa Marie's second-grade class, the excitement and anticipation in finding a beautiful lacy white dress and veil to honor the occasion, and on the big day itself, kneeling at the altar rail with […]

My husband's Lebanese grandfather, George Thom, immigrated to Michigan City, Indiana, where he met his young soon-to-be-wife, Victoria, a cheerful and fun loving 16-year-old girl whose parents had also emigrated from Lebanon. They attended the same Lebanese Catholic Church of the Maronite order, and soon struck up a friendship. When she was 17, and he […]

I am not cool.
My teenagers have declared it so. In case I had any hopes of being "in", they assure me I am, in fact, not. I suspected as much when they insisted I drop them off away from the entrance of the Catholic high school on the first day of orientation and stiffened when […]

Have you ever heard this (supposedly) true story? Once there was a woman who cut the front part off her ham before placing it in the oven. The woman's daughter asked her, "Mommy, why do you cut off the front part of the ham?" The mother thought for a minute and said, "Well, I don't know. […]

You can't walk through the grocery store this time of year without being bombarded with trinkets of "love" — gaudy foiled chocolates peeking out from brightly decorated bags, red and pink mugs declaring undying commitment and sarcastic cards propositioning things that the children wandering in the cookie aisle ten feet over should never hear about. […]

It’s serious. I need a new heart. No, no, not that kind. Thank goodness I’m alive and actually pretty healthy. What I’m talking about is my kitchen. They say the kitchen is the heart of the home. Well, I need a transplant.
Let me back up a second. My kitchen is actually very nice. I have […]

I think the first time I realized you can’t run away from suffering was when I volunteered at a nursing home in high school. I was simultaneously repelled and drawn to the older people there, who grasped to reach my hand as I passed by in the hall on my way to the activity center.
I […]

We mothers can be so efficient. We can do laundry, clean a dirty kitchen, and calm sibling spats in between spooning Gerber’s best into our babies’ mouths. Once, just for fun, I wrote down everything I did during a one-hour period one morning. The list took up two pages.
I often get wrapped up in juggling […]

My piano bench pad is wearing out. I suppose that is a good thing. Five of my children, ages 6 thorough 15, practice piano regularly — religiously, you might say. On Tuesdays, the piano teacher comes to our house for three hours.
That’s a really long time to keep the other kids quiet and out of […]

I admit it was a dirty trick. As I walked into the playroom with an armful of towels and other clean clothes, I enthusiastically asked three of my little girls, ages eight, six and three, “Who wants to be a saint?!”
“I do!” they all shouted, before they saw my unfolded linens. By then they […]

At 10:00AM on a warm August day in 1962, Irvin and Bonnie Kloska, both 21 and full of hope, married in St. Adalbert’s Church, in their home town Grand Rapids, Michigan. “I believe it was the first time I ever wore a tux,” says Irv, who currently lives in Elkhart, Indiana. “I know it was […]

He looked terrified. He was 13 years old, diagnosed with lymphoma, and a guest at a Leukemia/Lymphoma Society fundraiser with which my husband was helping, and which I was attending for the first time. He wore a baseball cap to cover his bald head, and kept pulling it down as if no one would know […]

Last week my oldest son David left the house to be measured for his high school graduation cap and gown. I can’t believe he’s almost 18. He looked so strong and handsome and sure of himself as he walked out the door with his sweatshirt slung over his shoulder and his keys jingling […]

About 12 years ago, my sister Cheryl was asked by the pastor to be the pro-life representative in our parish. Each parish in the diocese was to have a representative, and there was some vague instruction as to what that representative was supposed to do.
In the Beginning There Were Two
Cheryl was interested in helping further […]