A favorite ballad from decades ago, sung by Barry Manilow, is “When October Goes,” which has a haunting melancholy about it, as he recalls his blissful younger years.
November begins with All Saints’ Day and is immediately followed by All Souls’ Day. My wife and I would go to those services annually. I went last November, but without her, as she had died the previous July.
A French Catholic writer of a century ago, Léon Bloy, frequently wrote this sentence. It is one of the most profound sentences I have ever read: “There is only one tragedy, in the end: not to have been a saint.”
Imagine that your 11-year-old daughter or granddaughter, once a bubbly, active little girl, is crippled with chronic stomach pain. The family has tried everything—nothing is working. Where do you go?
The island of Kauai be best referred to as the “Kingdom of Beauty.” God ( Akua in Hawaiian), many Hawaiians will say, was showing off with His creation when He made Kauai.