Sunday, 1-21-96
11:36 PM London
6:36 PM H.H.I.
5:36 PM E-Town
Called Gramma Dee & Grampa Jack today to wish Grampa a “Happy 80th Birthday!” It was a very special conversation with both of them! They seemed very happy to hear from me & I was so happy to hear their voices and their upbeat attitudes! ☺︎
Church at Newman this morning. The “I will make you fishers of men” Gospel from Matthew was read. It is a lovely story, but the sermon got a little scary when Fr. Tim started prophesying that some of the young men in the audience would be called to the vocational life of a priest & not to ignore that call! No offense God, but yikes! I can only imagine how those guys must have felt hearing that… “No pressure!” ☺︎
Then I did some massive grocery shopping Sainsbury’s before clothes shopping w/ Jami! I bought a cute mini skirt (denim) from Gap for £8 and a white blouse & a black skirt w/ red flowers from Espirit for about £47! Out of control, but not really cuz they were practical purchases that go w/ a lot! Lori bought more shoes! ☺︎ We came home & had a fashion show for each other & played dress up! ☺︎
We continue to get along better & better and confide in each other more & more… We have also started talking about traveling together at the end again.
Erin & Erica hung out with us & procrastinated with us for a while earlier. That was good & made me feel better somewhat about the whole thing w/ them & Adam and Paul… Adam has been trying to get on my good side a lot today. I don’t know how to act towards him right now. I know he cares, and I do too, but he seems more interested in hanging out & bonding w/ Erin & Erica. It hurts, but I will get over it eventually & or talk to him about it. Paul is more removed from the situation & seems to care less one way or the other. Overall, a great day! Enough analysis… Time to sleep! zzzz
But first, thanks be to God for giving myself, & all who love & care for him, John Arthur Beisler for the past 80 years in the world… I am grateful and feel so blessed & I hope he will be with us for many years to come…
CHEERS! ☺︎
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Note from Present Day Kathy: After my recent posts included sharing some marathon journal entries, it was nice to come across a shorter one to transcribe and reflect on. That said, because this one was written on my beloved maternal Grandpa Jack’s birthday, it brought back a lot of memories.
The end of this entry was bittersweet for me to read, as my grandpa died just over two years after I wrote it, in February 1998. I certainly hoped he would’ve lived longer, but by that point he had Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s, among other health challenges, which lessened his quality of life. I feel blessed and lucky to have had my Grandpa Jack around for just shy of 23 years of my life and, by not dying until age 82, he lived a relatively long and full life.
I took this picture is of my Grandpa Jack, in May 1996, after I returned from my semester abroad. I got to go visit my maternal grandparents, for a week that month (between May 16th – 23rd) on Hilton Head Island (HHI) in South Carolina, where they retired/lived from 1979 until my grandfather’s death in 1998.
As I’ve shared over the years, here on my blog, HHI is one of my happy places! We used to go there at least once a year when I was growing up. Since my grandparents died, we try to get back every few years. We still have extended family members who live there, which is really nice. My maternal grandparents are buried there and the villa that the owned/lived in for almost 20 years is now a rental, so when we visit, Bob, the kids, and I are usually able to rent it and stay there.
I remember when I took this picture, as my dear maternal Grandma Dee had gone out to run an errand of some kind (likely a trip to the grocery store). I don’t recall why, but I stayed home with my grandpa and we must’ve gotten to talking about his record collection. The next thing I knew he was DJing for me.It was so cute! He was a great dancer and loved his music/records. When he died he was listening to a tape cassette with some of his favorite songs on it, while holding hands with nurses (or staff members) at the nursing home where he lived towards the end of his life. Being sentimental and our family’s archivist, I now have both the tape cassette he was listening to that day and his record collection.
As a fairly liberal/progressive/open-minded/hearted Catholic, as well as a feminist, who would like to see women ordained and married priests in my lifetime, I can see why that homily took me aback, as it would today. It’s not that I don’t believe that people should listen to their hearts and minds if they feel called to a vocation, it was more the approach (not his real name) Fr. Tim used.
In this entry and another recent one I used the word “massive.” I am thinking I must have picked it up across the pond back then, as I don’t recall the last time I said it and rarely hear others in my life use it in conversation. I remember enjoying learning words like that, while in the U.K. and trying using them in conversation during my semester abroad.
Also, I still have the skirts I bought that day and have gotten a lot of wear out of them over the years. They are both somewhat timeless pieces of clothing, that never really go out of style. However, I also can’t recall the last time I wore either one, so may need to reevaluate keeping them at some point.
Finally, its funny to see how I would over-analyze my relationships back then, as I still do at times (22 years later).
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Reminder: Unless I’ve been given permission to use people’s actual names, in most cases I’ve removed or replaced the names of the real people who were part of my journey/experience there, in effort to protect and respect their identities/privacy in my London Semester Journal entries. I will also not share details that I think and feel are too personal for anyone I interacted with, my loved ones, and me.
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Here’s the back story of My London Semester Journals from 1996, including what prompted me to revisit and decide to share them here in 2018. And here’s a list a list of the entries, which I will update as I share them.
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