May 29: Blessed Richard Thirkeld

It's Saturday night, and I'm sitting on my mother's back porch watching my 20-month-old son push his trucks around. My son is very blond. As the weather has warmed and he has spent more time in the sun, his hair has lightened even more. He hasn't gotten his first haircut yet, so the back of his head is a nest of baby curls. It's so long now that he's often mistaken for a girl when we take him to the store or a restaurant. I'm OK with that, but other of my family members tend to get upset by such gender confusion.

It's a lazy night. Aside from church tomorrow morning, we really have no other obligation s this weekend. I like this languid time, when I don't have anything to do or any place to go. It gives me a chance to watch my son and be amazed at the power of his tiny legs, the dimples of his elbows, the embers of his cheeks (he's cutting a tooth). It's nearly June, and in just four months, he's going to be two-years-old. It's true what they say about the passage of time. When you're young, time seems to crawl by at about the pace of an ice age. As you get older, time goes faster and faster. I can't believe my son has been a part of my life for almost two years already. I can't believe my daughter is moving into the double digits this year.

Watching my son and daughter just be themselves makes me want to live forever. I want to be there to see them graduate from high school and college. I want to be there when their hearts get broken for the first time. I want to be there when they fall in love. I want to be there when they become parents. I want to be there to put bandages on all their scraped knees. I want to be there to fix everything that gets ripped, torn, bruised, or broken in their lives.

That's the dream of every parent, isn't it? Every parent wants his/her son(s) and/or daughter(s) to grow up completely unscathed by life's twists and turnarounds, by the brutality of the world. No matter how hard I try to shield my children, however, I know cruelty and disappointment will somehow slither into their lives. There's going to be bullies at school. There's going to be failed exams. There's going to be prom dramas and car accidents. If I'm lucky, that's all there's going to be. There are other specters that lurk in my parenting nightmares: drugs, teenage pregnancy, school shootings, STDs, sexual violence. Don't even get me started on mental illness.

That is why, for me, the prospect of my not being around to pick up the pieces and put Humpty back together again for my kids is terrifying. On nights like this, when time seems frozen in a moment of absolute summer ease, the heat sitting on my skin like a winter coat and my children happy being children, I want the world to stop. I want it to last forever.

Richard Thirkeld, the patron of the day, stands out in my mind for one thing and one thing only. My book says, from the time he became a priest in 1579, he "prayed constantly for the privilege of suffering martyrdom for the Faith." He prayed for death. Now, aside from a couple of bad nights that involved a little too much tequila, I can say, without reservation, that I have never asked God to kill me. Richard eventually received a death sentence with "evangelical joy." He was hanged and drawn and quartered. Not something I'd volunteer for. But he took it like a third grader takes the final bell signalling the start of summer vacation.

I can't stop my children from growing up. Eventually, my son will have his baby curls lopped off. Probably sooner than later. Eventually, some boy will want to take my daughter to a movie or dance. More later than sooner if I have anything to say about it. Time moves forward, usually at a gallop. But, sometimes, time slows to the speed of a Popsicle melting on a hot, summer night. I can't embrace the eventuality of death, the way Richard Thirkeld did. It's not in me right now.

I can embrace my son crawling into my lap, exhausted by heat and play. He leans his head against my chest, twirls his blond hair with his fingers. He stares out at nothing, blissed with the comfort of my breaths, the proximity of daddy. For him, this is eternity. It will last forever, like June, July, and August for a third grader.

I hold him, feel the slow, even beats of his heart against my fingertips. For this one, perfect moment, we are all happy, safe, together.