I am so grateful to
Mama Kat (who by the way, has a whole new look to her site - stunning! - you must check it out) for her weekly series that keeps me typing at the keyboard with a smile on my face and provides me with the much needed blogging "practice," me being new to the blogosphere and all.
This week I am selecting the following prompt, and taking liberties by doing it in the form of a letter:
3.) A moment you truly felt relieved
Dear St. Anthony,
In my Catholic household, I grew up knowing you were the patron saint of lost things.
But it wasn't until meeting my college roommate that I ever heard the prayer with a down-home familiarity I have come to say too many times to count: "Tony, Tony, look around. Something's lost that must be found."
This was the prayer I prayed one summer when I lost my contact lens on a beach, while enjoying some rare one-on-one time with my oldest niece, 9 or 10 years old at the time. It does not bode an adult well to be crying over a lost lens, having her young charge on her hands and knees coated in her aunt's contagious panic thicker than sunblock.
Because of the severity of my bad eyesight, these lenses are special ordered and far from cheap. I dreaded having to tell my dad, who had paid for them, about how one blew off my fingertip in the wind when I was taking them out to go swimming.
Yes, at times I can be that foolish.
The prayer went into full action and after what seemed like a lifetime, the blue tint of the contact lens caught the sun. There it was, in the sand, right on the edge of the beach blanket. I don't remember if I saw it first or my niece. I just remember a whole lot of hugging and crying and hooting it up as if we had won the lottery.
I am sorry I turn to you only when panic sets in.
I firmly believe you helped to find that lens on the beach, and a lens that slipped out of my eye, the night before my rehearsal dinner, as I picked up my brother at Newark Airport. It wasn't until the car was pulled into my parents' driveway that my brother found it under the seat, eliminating the nightmare vision I had of walking down the aisle with one eye closed so as not to lose my balance.
You also came through for me when I lost the opal heart-shaped pendant. Surely you remember that fiasco. I was playing catcher for a rec softball team and in a scuffle at the plate, my necklace was ripped off. I had been wearing that heart since my Aunt Mollie gave it to me for my 16th birthday.
The umpire helped me look. My teammates helped me look. Even the opposing team helped me look. When dusk started to settle and everyone packed up, I was hell-bent on not leaving that softball diamond until I found my opal.
You heard me.
It was in the dirt, just on the edge of home plate.
Still, all those happy moments of discovering lost treasured items does not compare to that day last summer, when you really outdid yourself.
I lost my wedding band. For about an hour, I was in hysterics -- full-blown gasping and sobbing -- the kind where you can't get the words out.
Worse, it was lost in a neighborhood where I was housesitting and where I would not be able to keep my eyes peeled for it on a daily basis.
It fell out of my pocket. No need to go into why it was in my pocket and not on my finger (the warm temperatures swell my digits when I'm out taking power walks). My husband and I retraced our steps as our 45-minute walk doubled with two sets of eyes darting everywhere.
"Tony, Tony look around. Something's lost that must be found," I prayed with every single step.
Drained out of hope and energy, my eyes saw it on the side of the driveway.
You came through again.
I am your biggest fan, can't you tell?
Stop by to see what others are writing about this week.
