Michaelmas

A Poem about the Michaelmas Daisy:

The Michaelmas Daisies, among dede weeds,
Bloom for St Michael's valorous deeds.
And seems the last of flowers that stood,
Till the feast of St. Simon and St. Jude.


Today is the day the Church celebrates the Feast of Saint Michael the Archangel, and my first Michaelmas bloom was yesterday, in the pouring rain. What a brave little flower! As you can see from my patch of Michaelmas Daisies, they are in all stages of bloom; some are still tight little green buds, and some you can see the tightly folded white petals, and some the petals are on their way out.

I wasn't always a fan of St Michael the Archangel, not that I ever didn't like him, but his feast day has come and gone without me noticing it, until my brother Michael's death. Sometime in that first year of bereavement, I came across the habit of the Michaelmas Daisy, and the knowledge that I had had Michaelmas Daisies ever since some time in the early 1980's, even before my brother's death!

So every year as the 20th approaches and I feel grief again, the 29th follows with Michaelmas Daisies that I have seen brave heat, cold drenching rain and howling wind. They are an inspiration that usually endures to the Feast of Saints Simon and Jude on October 28th.





And this is how our biodegradable bag of Sun Chips is doing. A little dirty, a little faded, but still going pretty strong, despite drenching rains, wind and lots of 80 degree heat.

Just a reminder, tomorrow is the last day you can scroll to the Earring Giveaway post and post and become one of my followers to have a chance to win the earrings, donated by DiamondEarrings.org

A Day that Will Live in Infany

America has had some days that "will live in infamy." Luckily for me, for most of them, I have only known about them through word of mouth and studying history.

Remember the Maine! Only learned of that tragedy through history classes, and I have no idea when the memorial day for that is.

Pearl Harbor. V-J and V-E Day Learned because of history. My parents were both children/older teen during that time, but neither spoke about it.

The assassination of President Kennedy. I was alive, but too young to know anything.

Challenger Disaster - Sadly old enough to have full knowledge. But after the disaster. I heard it on the noon news.

The bombing of the World Trade Center was a whole different event. Perhaps because I saw the whole event practically from the beginning.....

It was a beautiful, September day. Really one of the nicest. The sky was just a gorgeous blue, and today there was no need to have the air conditioner on. All of my children were living at home, and meals were a wonderful family affair.
Breakfast had gone without a hitch, and the younger children were loading the breakfast dishes into the dishwasher, while the older sons were bringing a lumber delivery from outside to downstairs in the basement in case of rain later on in the day. Soon they left to catch the bus to college and the younger children gathered around the table to start their schooling. Everyone was perfectly settled, instructions not only given, but understood when my telephone began to ring. I didn't want to interrupt the flow, so I let the phone go to my answering machine figuring that I would collect messages and return any needed calls at lunch break. The caller was my mother, and she insisted, absolutely insisted, that I put on ABC RIGHT NOW!

I didn't. Things were going so well that it would take more than something on television to make me interrupt it. The phone began ringing again. When the caller was again my mother, I was mightily annoyed. What was with her today? She knew how busy I was!

I answered the phone this time, feeling pretty irritated, when my mom demanded "Have you put on the news?"
"Why?"
"Just put it on, you'll see!!"
I turned the television on, just in time to see what had to be a film clip of one of the new adventure movies.
"You interrupted schooling for me to see a clip from a movie?" now I was really, mightily annoyed at my mom. It had to be a movie. The plane had just flown into a building in New York City.

That's right, even with the evidence right in front of me, I couldn't believe that America was under attack. I was sure it was just Hollywood doing it's thing.

Of course, I did get it eventually and the older boys were still around. I called all of the children in front of the television, and they all saw the second plane hit the second tower.

School that day was over. My son made it to college, which was closed, and he almost didn't make it home, because the buses were all taken off-line. He caught the last one, and I had to drive a town over to pick him up.

A day that will never be forgotten.

Read other memories of this day at
http://www.mommymoment.ca/2010/09/never-forget.html