A Bittersweet Thanksgiving

Yesterday would have marked our 38th Wedding Anniversary. So a bittersweet day as I thought about the passing of my wife Socorro last year. Yet their was still sweetness in the bittersweet.

Partially that is due to a thankfulness for the debt I owe her. I feel a palpable gratitude towards her. One primary aspect of course is that she was the instrumental cause of my conversion. I was a prideful and arrogant jerk. Well still working on that. I disdained her faith thinking it ignorant and out of touch with reality. Yet despite all that she continued to pray for me. Praying for me daily and not in the “I’m praying for you” manner.

She had very little education and was not drawn towards reading books. Yet she knew Jesus and talked to him and interceded for us. With the many books I have read, I wish I had half the relationship with Jesus she had. She poured herself out for our family which was always her focus over herself. As I read St. Paul referring to this attitude, I think of her.

So while I failed her in many ways, I work hard in not failing to remember and pray for her everyday. To maintain praying the Divine Mercy daily. Not that when I think of it do I believe she needed much more purgation then living with me entailed.

Thank you Jesus for her and as I have written before, the Communion of Saints is much more real to me now.