Who Is Donna DeGuglielmo?
I hadn’t expected her passing to affect me as much as it has. After all, we never met in person. It was her need for me, or what I perceived … Continue Reading Who Is Donna DeGuglielmo?
Fruit Is Born: Prayer
What do I do? I get irritated. I get mean. I fall into self-pity. I get scared. I worry a lot. I don’t want these feelings or experiences. This is … Continue Reading Fruit Is Born: Prayer
Hope Blossoms: Prayer
My problem is trust. I can no longer be transferred from wheelchair to bed and bed to wheelchair in my usual way. With progressive motorneuron disease, adaptations are always occurring, … Continue Reading Hope Blossoms: Prayer
Crosses Carry: Prayer
I feel hesitant and awkward about this quote from Saint John Vianney: “Why not love our crosses, and make use of them to carry us to heaven?” I don’t really … Continue Reading Crosses Carry: Prayer
Too Late for Me
I wonder … is this genocide? No, of course it isn’t, I tell myself. Genocide is the brutal, bloody business of exterminating an entire group of people based on a … Continue Reading Too Late for Me
Books and Veils
In August, I had the privilege and pleasure of pre-reading a book about Blessed Margaret of Castello — excuse me, Saint Margaret of Castello. Through a process I’m calling “What … Continue Reading Books and Veils
Through
There’s thunder and lightning, bombings and gunfire, and I’m abandoned in the dark — horrifically alone. At any moment I could be obliterated, searing explosions invading my mind so I … Continue Reading Through
Unborn
We all begin in mystery. When I was smaller than the period at the end of this sentence, my life’s story began. All that I cosmically and genetically am was … Continue Reading Unborn
Blighted
“The blight’s takin’ her slow, limb by limb,” said the man with the saw, flanneled arms crossed, looking at the pear tree with its hard and gnarled fruit, some naked, … Continue Reading Blighted
Poster Child
It’s that time a year again. Another Labor Day is coming, a time when I have tended, for most of my life, to reflect upon my own reflection, to look … Continue Reading Poster Child
Progress on My Memoir
This isn’t working. On the fifth Thursday of July, I was supposed to be giving a progress report on the writing of my latest book. But I really don’t have … Continue Reading Progress on My Memoir
Rooted
Rooted. A nice way of saying “stuck.” This tree is stuck, it cannot move unless a force shall blow, or chop, it down dead. Never roaming to distant lands, or … Continue Reading Rooted
Real Men Stay
I should be dead, but I’m not. I should be a forty something-year-old in a nursing home, but I’m not. I should be miserable, but I’m not. Why? The reason … Continue Reading Real Men Stay
Envy
It was naptime in the church basement kindergarten, and I was lying on my little mat looking through the spokes of my wheelchair at the dimly lit figures of Julie … Continue Reading Envy
Flared Teeth and 7 Years of Blogging
This is going to sound sadder than it really is. In fact, it’s not sad at all. It’s just life. And life is terribly beautiful. When I was a baby, … Continue Reading Flared Teeth and 7 Years of Blogging
As Autumn Leaves
The mask of bright-leafed gaiety drops away and displays the bare truth, vulnerable and thin without the show of exuberance. Let’s not pretend, you and I, that life is easy … Continue Reading As Autumn Leaves
Christina Chase 