Sunday, April 17, 2011

Sawi

It's about time I wrote about my very best girlfriend. What better friend than a sister? No, sisterly love is not all peaches and cream, but that just shows how deep the friendship is. And how much more we can grow in it. We have to constantly forgive each other. I do not live in a large family. But I have this one incredible sister of mine. The Sunny type. She's the type that makes the best of situations and puts up with your grumpiness with apparent ease most of the time. When she is having a mean streak, it never lasts too long. She loves to pray and go to mass. She declared the other day that she is going to write to a nun as a pen-pal, and that she's starting a club called “His Divine Mercy Club”. She's always full of awesome ideas like that, and very often follows through with them. She is good at doing things for others- she'd make a great nurse. She leaves me little notes saying how pretty she thinks I look that day, and she gives me gift cards for free back scratches or hairstyling. Wow. She doesn't compliment me so that she can get compliments back like a lot of girls do; she does it out of sheer thoughtfulness. And she also leaves me notes telling me that I'm a rotten bum, but that's good, too.

When she walks down the road, people smile at her. One day in Italy, a nun was sitting on a bus and motioned my sister to sit down beside her. The nun was grinning from ear to ear and put her arm around her, talking away in Italian. My sister just grinned back. My sister has this knack of bringing an extra bit of joy to older people very easily.

My sister is a goof. She is a natural at making people laugh. However amidst her goofiness, she has her deep side; she can be much deeper than me. We have our sister walks and talks, where we discuss all sorts of things.

I love how she putters around in her room dreamily when she is supposed to be going to bed but has lost track of time; how she secretly memorizes poems without telling anyone; how she slips little candies and things under my door; how she does nothing other than reading when she is in the middle of “the best book in the world” (which changes with almost every book she reads); how she has her little snacks and drinks always prepared as if the queen were coming to visit; how she bursts into song at any given moment; and how she very often thinks the best of others.

I love my sister, what can I say? No words could ever depict the living flower garden that she is.

Saturday, April 16, 2011

I'm Back.

People say that my family and I went away at a very good time. The month of March in BC was rainy and cold with little signs of Spring. Well... I'm wondering if I should feel guilty or not. Apparently we took the sun with us. We arrived in Poland, where it was supposed to be snowing. It was definitely colder than here, but a drier, more enjoyable sort of cold.. and to top it off it was sunny for us during our stay. We had about 2 days total of light rain during the entire month. The rest? SUN. And no, I did not tan. Of course not. I did manage to get a couple more freckles though.
I am not even going to try and explain our trip on here. If you know me well you will ask me yourself, anyway.
Sometimes, in order to look at things in your life from a different view, you literally have to pick yourself up and move elsewhere for a bit, and then come back. After seeing so much beauty on our pilgrimage... and also after seeing things that broke my heart... I feel as though I have come back to my little life with a slightly different perspective. Some things were starting to get foggy in my brain. Perhaps because of too much school, or too much worrying, or too much mindless thoughts weaving in and out of my head... on our trip I had more time to read...to think... I know you can do those things at home, but it's different when you are out of your daily routine. By the way, I read The Pearl by John Steinbeck, Blooming Rose by Louisa May Alcott, and Anne of Ingleside by L.M. Montgomery. All very different and all very thought-provoking and wonderful.
These simple words of Padre Pio (we went to his shrine, by the way) are a very good reminder for me during this season of Lent:

This heart of mine is Yours... my Jesus, so take this heart of mine, fill it with Your love and then order me to do whatever you wish.