...blessings in sorrow...

After church liturgy and forgiveness vespers

for the beginning of Great Lent,

we saw pictures from years past, many of them

from before my time in NJ, of various ones

of our church and some really lovely ones of Patrick...

It will be 2 weeks tomorrow night that he 

departed this earth...

afterwards we needed to pick some things up

regarding Patrick as my Husband is involved

in his final affairs on this earth

and I saw his home for the first time since he

has passed on... 

by the time I knew Patrick and was visiting him,

he was already in his 80s and was losing a lot of his

strength and such... 

so today was the first time that I saw his house on a more

detailed level... it's such a beautiful home, with furniture

that is is from a more refined era and lots of beautiful icons and 

pictures of various historical things.

And of course I took pictures... the one above

is one I quickly took of some of his blessed candles from

a few years ago... and by it, I did not even realize,

was a postcard from Ottawa... that I am sure that we sent him...

I know we had some sent from my Husband and I... 

probably when we were on our honeymoon 

and I would know that postcard anywhere,

but I did not realize it was there so I will have to go 

back later and see it... but it was so beautiful to realize it was there...

While I was looking at Patrick's home, in such

warm sunlight,

I was called back down and was given a very special icon 

of St Herman... my first Orthodox church that I ever went to 

was dedicated to St. Herman and I went to a small church

in London Ontario that had this icon of St Herman

in the back of their church,

and I would always stand by it...

It was so special to me as St Herman was my first Saint

and very much my Father-Daddy-Saint, if I can say it that way.

I really felt his care like a father for me, a young woman of 

27 who still had so much growing to do, young despite her years,

and I was a student back then and I don't believe I had an icon of St Herman 

until I was living in Ottawa, after I left London Ontario.... I was at 

a church dedicated to St Nicholas after my time at St Herman's and their

iconography was still progressing and they did not, at the time,

have an icon at all in the church of St. Herman,

and I missed seeing his icon so much... I had a small

paper drawing icon of him at home, but that was all....

so having the icon at church in London Ontario was deeply meaningful to me.

I knew St Herman to be my protector, even though there was so much I did

not understand yet, at that point....

I would just stand by this icon of St Herman and be aware of him,

as if I was standing right next to him... 

when I would walk back from the bus after 10 at night

in the wintertime in London Ontario, in 

the dark snow filled night, I would have to walk by

a more unlit dodgy feeling street, I think it had a bar and I always

felt a bit unsafe, but I would do 2 things, since I really had to walk that way home

and I used the computers at school for my work...

first I would have my keys out as the only thing I knew

to tangibly protect myself, but the other thing was that I would

think of St Herman and would just think about him and think about

him walking right next to me, that I would hold his hand all the way home...

not that I would think or imagine this in detail, but that somehow I was doing this,

just thinking about him as my protector and that I would get home safe.

Well, today this icon came home with me,

13 years later... it was one that Patrick had on the inside wall

of his breezeway and it was given to me...so

unexpectedly, I nearly started bawling...

(I had already had a few tears when seeing Patrick's house,

I learned to cry, really, when I lived in Ottawa,

but that's another story)...

and so it is here by my lampada on my buffet,

by the lampada that I started having lit all the time there

for Patrick when he suddenly took to being very ill... 

This icon is such a deep treasure for me,

something that is a deep blessing and I feel that

it is a great blessing to have this at the beginning of 

Great Lent this year...

it gives me hope, it gives me courage

and so Lent begins and for this,

I join others in thanking God....