Well Executed Surprise

I met with Fr. Reid at St. Ann's for the usual goodbye after Mass, and he already knowing of the cancer spent a little more time with me.  I urged him to consider adding a nice ejaculation  for the poor souls after each Mass, such as the traditional :

"V. Eternal rest grant unto them, O Lord.
R. And let the perpetual light shine upon them. 

And may the souls of all the faithful departed, through the mercy of God, rest in peace. Amen."

And he promised to consider it.  Father was also letting me know the word was out and there are many offers for assistance from the parish.  I passed this onto Laura.  At the moment, all our known needs are met  - but I haven't seen any costs that insurance won't cover yet, so there are some big unknowns to face.  However, considering how perfectly things are going now, I do trust the ultimate shepherding of God.

So I then took the family except Kate to The Dragonfly Chinese Restaurant and had a great meal (which I ate most of save all the fried rice).  I had my favorite Hot and Sour soup and beef and broccoli for the entrée.

We had a nice conversation about how each of the children were named and I told the story of Matthew's response when I announced his new baby brother, Thomas Girard was still born at 32 weeks.  There will be more detail of that story in a later post.

We told the story of St. Athanasius and the heretic Arius, and also how St. Nicholas slapped Arius in the face in front of Constantine.  The topic came up because Stephen's middle name is Athanasius. When Laura and I settled on those names we were pairing two saints who had the courage to speak the truth when nobody wanted to hear it.  You may have been familiar with the phrase Athanasius contra mundi - or Athanasius against the world as he fought to hold the doctrine that Jesus is fully God as well as man.  The line in the Nicene Creed "true God from true God, begotten, not made, consubstantial with the Father" is a direct repudiation to Arius's heresy.  Arius would state 'Jesus was made the son of God by God'.  This is false, because if Jesus were made by God, he would be just a creation of God, not God Himself.

So onto the surprise!

The great fun was that at about 18:30 I made a call to Michael to see if he would be interested in helping buy four bunk beds for the men's bedroom in preparation of the big Christmas we were planning.  His answer was that he was on the road and shouldn't talk for about a half hour.

A half hour later, Michael called, and asked "You still have the black Ion with the 3 service stars on the trunk?"  and I quickly realized, he was in the driveway and surprised us with an early leave down!

Only Kate knew he was on the way, and she did a very good job keeping the secret.  BRAVO ZULU!

I am grateful for the early leave, because I will have more time to visit with Mike as I use my short term disability.  Still lots of things to settle in the house, for example there are a few light switches I'd like to change because the electricians wired them in a non-intuitive order in some places.  Easily done, but it will be nice to have another Second Class Electronics Technician in the house to secure power and get this done safely.  Now we can shop for those bunk beds, while I'm on STD together.

Luckily, I had just asked Mike yesterday to visit the Navy Exchange to get me some new sweats too - so glad he didn't leave before I made the request.  Also for good measure, Mike got me a USS New Hampshire ball cap - does that make me an honorary bubble head now ?

Mike intends to stay until October 1st for when I return to work.

My intention is to have room for Michael, Stephen, Matthew, and Brett - and save for Matthew, they are all ready for tight quarters anyway.  I do aim to get decent twin mattresses for full adult weights though.

Brett, if I have not mentioned before, is Kimberley's love interest and he's stationed on USS Antietam CG-54, which is in the same squadron as the USS Stethem DDG-63.  So yes, both are coming from Japan this Christmas.  It's going to be a great memory!

My mother is making arraignments for my two sisters, Cindy and Julie and Julie's son to be down in Charlotte as well.   Mom is also working on a photographer for the big event.

Now honestly, isn't this what family is for?  All it took was a little terminal illness :P

I am so looking forward to the rest of my life.

Ad Jesum, Per Mariam - Eric