Prayers Said on Stars and Spiderwebs

April 28, 2008

Italy is far away. I don’t realize it most days. Most days pass and the daily emails and the occasional but phenomenal mail from my nephews is enough to make me feel like I am still part of the lives of the people I have always and will always love.

But then there are moments. Moments when being in Italy feels a little like living on Mars. When you realize you are the one who calls and most people don’t even know your phone number and the way you get emergency information is through an email received late at night.

It is in that moment that I understand the meaning of prayer and I am not a religious person. Though, I probably do the formal definition of pray more than anyone else I know. I constantly talk to the people I love in my thoughts. Whether it is when I gaze up at the moon, see the middle star on Orion’s belt, or find the North Star from the handle of the Big Dipper. They are all symbols of the connections I feel. Even a dew filled spider web gives me a way to converse with the people I love. Is it strange that I feel like I am heard in those moments? That somehow my whispers are able to state the gratitude I feel?



I had just gotten home from dinner, when I received Tracey’s message. Ron and Trenton had been in an accident. Ron had been airlifted to the hospital. Trenton went in an ambulance. I sank to my bed, numb, my heart suddenly racing, as I realized I was alone in my apartment. Looking around to find some sense of comfort, all I could utter were the simple words, “Please, have them be okay.”

They are okay. Hurt, but okay. Shaken to the core but, okay. Me too. I am a little shaken. For I feel a little helpless to be so far away. God, how I wish I could rock little Kloden to sleep, so Heather could go to the hospital. Or that I could just sit and watch Heather run around her house doing the countless things she does when her mind needs solace. I wonder. Does the Rapp family possibly know how much I love them? And how grateful I am for the unconditional friendship Ron and Heather have shown me. Or how much I love to go on bike rides up Green Street with Trenton, with my hand resting gently on his back, providing the support he doesn’t really need?

Do any of you know, how much I love all of you? God, I hope so. I hope my nephews know how much I miss making up bedtime stories with them. Stories that I try to make boring just to get them to sleep, only to instead make them giggle, as we stare at the ceiling. Do they have any idea how much I miss their constant questioning and their sparkling eyes?

I think it is impossible!