On the journey home

It's unreal to me that the whole world is still moving all around me, because my whole family is standing still in silence as we hold on to the last moments of my Grandfather's life. Grandpa Harold started his journey home to heaven today at 2:20 pm, surrounded by his devoted daughter and his beloved wife. The rest of the family had all left his bedside at about 1 pm to head out to get lunch and naps, and I'm just so thankful that I was able to spend those last few moments helping my Mother to care for him. All of my siblings have been taking turns helping my parents care for Grandpa with the hospice equipment in their home over the last 2 weeks, and I will never forget these grace-filled moments, where I had the opportunity to minister in small ways to a man who was so close to God. I am so thankful for the chance to re-live all my memories with him in slow motion, slowly saying goodbye to this blessed soul that God shared with us. Most people do not get that chance. Thank you God for giving us this time with Grandpa. I know you are holding him in your arms and bringing him in to your kingdom rejoicing.

www.haroldedelonge.blogspot.com

Khania and Aaron

With misty eyes from my driveway I just waved off one of my oldest and best friends in the whole wide world. Khania and I met in elementary school in South Florida and after both of our families moved to different neighborhoods in our hometown, we ended up living in the same neighborhood in high school, which brought us even closer as friends (until I moved to Texas senior year, which of course devastated a great deal of the population of my high school, especially me). Khania is an architect and artist in NYC, and she came to visit us with her wonderful boyfriend Aaron who is also an architect and artist in NYC. He is visiting the area for a high school reunion, so it was a stroke of luck that we were able to see them this month!!! :) We had a wonderful time introducing them to Mexican food, kolaches, country drives and other Central Texas wonders. Here are some pictures of our time together. We will miss these lovely friends so incredibly much until we see them again!


Aaron & Khania








Khania & I





Khania, Me & Dominic




Khania & D on a train





Dominic painting




Aaron painting




Dr. Dominic!




Khania in the rocket

Special Delivery! Coming in May!

Surprise! :) We have a bundle of joy headed our way this early May! :) I've been holding on to this juicy secret for almost 2 months now, and my first appointment just got pushed back another week and a half, so I decided that was an eternity to wait to share the news. :) I've wanted to tell you all in person, but I don't get to see most of you, so this seems to be the way to announce :) We are very happy. This was the exact age-spacing and time frame with school semesters that we had prayed for. I am feeling really wonderfully, other than the fatigue ;) but that doesn't really interfere with life until it's time to do the dishes or do my homework! ;) If you could, please keep baby M's health and growth in your prayers. I'll try to post a sonogram pic after my first appointment, again, if I can figure out how to use the scanner! :) Thank you everyone for your love, support and prayers - we are so unbeliebably blessed!

Good old fashioned sillyness

Allow me to explain. Dad used to bring home videos from the library when we were kids, and this was one that he got frequently for us, at our request. To this day, no one can make me laugh like the Marx brothers. I was in need of some uplifting so I posted it to my blog so I could watch it whenever I wanted to. ;)

Duck Soup: Mirror Scene

More Monet

After seeing these books at my sister's house, I hinted not so subtly that I would LOVE to have them for Dominic. Lo and behold, they showed up on the doorstep as his birthday gift this year from her. I love them! Ahem, I mean, HE loves them! :) No really, we both do! I love that Dominic recognizes Monet and Van Gogh paintings, and distinguishs between them and talks about what's going on in the pictures. I hope this is just the beginning of Dominic's joyful discoveries of the humanities! I highly recommend this series by Julie Merberg! (And one day will figure out how to do a link directly to the Amazon listing instead of showing just a picture of what I'm talking about!)

A tribute to my Grandfather

It was about 3 weeks ago that we celebrated my Grandpa's 89th birthday. He was his normal self, walking around, talking with us all, laughing, catching up on news. It was also around that time that he started complaining about a minor difficulty digesting his food. Just a week ago, we discovered that Grandpa has a rapidly growing, malignant tumor inside of his esophagus which has now completely closed off his esophagus, prohibiting any food or drink to pass orally to his stomach. For 2 weeks he was barely surviving on Ensure shakes until we could schedule a surgery to get a tube inserted in to his stomach to allow him to receive sustenance. The procedure has been perfomed, and he is now in a rehabilitation center in Houston, doing much better. But. We still have very aggressive cancer looming on the horizon. He is in a great deal of pain, so hospice arrangements will be made when the time is right so that he can be comfortable. This all happened very quickly, and we don't know how much time we have left with him. But I'm going to cherish it. And I'm thankful that God has given us a "heads up" so that we can spend this time with him. We could never have prayed for a more wonderful Grandfather. Please pray for our precious Grandpa Harold DeLonge, that God's will be done in His life, and that my family has the grace and endurance to trust in the Lord's goodness through the fog of our sadness. Bronius and I will be working on a photo tribute for Grandpa that I'll be posting soon, as soon as I can figure out how to use the scanner. :)

Toddler yoga!

I had to share this fun picture of friends teaching our toddlers yoga! (notice Dominic nonchalantly sitting on the chair eating his snack, though). I have witnessed first hand what a calming effect this has on children, and Mommies as well. The Eastern cultures have much to teach us about slowing down to breathe, relax - and we can even incorporate our prayer life in to this tradition. I was so excited about the prospect that I'm hoping to get an informal class started for both Mommies and toddlers together - looks like good times!!!!

I treasure these moments....

at home with our son!

Sparkling clean house

I wouldn't say that I *despise* cleaning, but unless I'm really in a frenzy, I would alway prefer to be doing something else. :) I lucked out in that my friend Elizabeth reminded me that a family from church has twin teenage boys who had started a cleaning business. I think I'm the last on their client list for the moment since family "K" just welcomed baby number 9! :) I'm not sure when the boys will have time to come back here since they are also busy being homeschooled, but we are enjoying the fruits of their labor!

Blessed Mother Teresa

"Give yourself fully to God. He will use you to accomplish great things on the condition that you believe much more in His love than in your own weakness." - Mother Teresa

With half of my family being Indian and having traveled to India, I understand to some very very small degree what the world looked like that Mother Teresa lived in. Contemplating on how she tended to the poor, the crippled, the emaciated, the sick, the dying, the abandoned, the abused...day in, and day out, I can understand how she must have struggled with her faith. How much easier it is for me to believe in a loving and faithful God when I have a beautiful home, bountiful food and money leftover to agonize over one shampoo over the other. It's sad to me that the world would attack her for her weaknesses as a human instead of praising her for her ability to love and serve God unquestioningly, doing the work that no one else would do, inspite of her doubts. Her candor has done great things for my faith, and for so many others that I know. My admiration of her has grown even more now for how much she must have loved, trusted and obeyed God!

There is room for everyone at the Lord's table (and at our table, too!)

We had a wonderfully busy couple of weeks. I began my Fall semester with one online course and an on-campus course at night and spend my days with Dominic, Bronius joined a jazz ensemble and his cup is overflowing with web projects, we had our family from Manhattan in town, visitors from Baytown, visitors from Houston and our Supper Club. We had someone different for dinner nearly every night this week and weekend. And as I pondered how I might have the energy to cook for one more night for a house full of beloved people, this selection from the Gospel reading from Mass yesterday moved me so deeply:

"When you hold a lunch or a dinner,
do not invite your friends or your brothers
or your relatives or your wealthy neighbors,
in case they may invite you back and you have repayment.
Rather, when you hold a banquet,
invite the poor, the crippled, the lame, the blind;
blessed indeed will you be because of their inability to repay you.
For you will be repaid at the resurrection of the righteous." - Lk 14:1, 7-14

Now, no one who visited us this week was crippled or blind, but this passage gave me such perspective. Not just that it is a privilege for me to serve friends and family, but the realization that we must look for ways to pour out our lives to others with out counting the cost, especially to those who are struggling or who are marginalized, with out grumbling, and allow them to have the seat of honor at the banquet table. And God repays us richly - so that we can go out and DO IT AGAIN and AGAIN! This gave me such a renewed sense of purpose for the week ahead!!!

We were so busy these last few days we hardly took any pictures. That, and we left our camera at my parents house. But these are the pictures we managed to snap that I wanted to post :)



Greg and Crystal, our good friends from college, came to visit us with their son Austin!







Wishing B's sister Milda and family a safe trip back to NYC






B's Mom, Senele (Grandma), with 3 of her grandchildren Erazmas, Dominic and Zina.



And look who had his fingers stuck in the sugar jar! All the kiddos were accounted for at supper club but one, and here's where we found him. He's enjoying the papparazzi taking pictures of him as you can see!