October 23, 2026: “Late Morning,” So Much Love, “You’ll never be broke”

Greetings, Faithful Disciples!

Last weekend,  I visited my daughter and her significant other downstate in Mount Pleasant. My wife, son, and I headed across the Mackinac Bridge on Friday and came back Sunday afternoon. It was a trip about five weeks in the planning, and I cherished every moment of it.

Marie Howe reflects on cherished times with her loved ones . . .

Late Morning

by: Marie Howe

I was still in my white nightgown and James had drawn me down

to sit on his lap, and I was looking over his shoulder through the hall

into the living room, and he was looking over my shoulder, into the trees

through the open window, I imagine,

and we sat like that for a few minutes, without saying much of anything,

my cheek pressed lightly

against his cheek, and my brother John was dead.

Suddenly close and distinct, it seemed finished, as if time were a room

I could gaze clear across—four years since I’d lifted his hand from

the sheets on his bed and cooled it in my hand.

A light breeze through the open window, James’s warm cheek,

a brightness in the windy trees as I remember, crumbs and dishes still

on the table, and a small glass bottle of milk and an open jar of

raspberry jam.

Such a tender, quiet moment that Howe describes—full of great love and sorrow, simultaneously.  You really can’t have one without the other.  The morning of her brother’s death, Howe sits on James’s lap, pressing her face to his stubbled cheek.  It’s a moment anchored by small, domestic details—the bottle of milk and open container of raspberry jam and the light breeze—as the poet tries to endure the daily normalcy of life after the loss of a life.  

I understand the grief and relief Howe is describing.  I loved my sister, Sally, deeply.  For close to 20 years, I worked with/for her at an outpatient surgery center.  We spent eight, nine, ten hours a day together for almost two decades.  When Sally died, my profound love for her morphed into profound sorrow.  Like Howe, I found myself missing the small intimacies we shared—the Dove chocolates stashed in her desk drawer or her ever-present cans of Diet Coke.  Tiny, ridiculous things.

Last weekend, I reveled in tiny and ridiculous things with the people I love most in this world—my wife, son, daughter, and daughter’s significant other.  We went out to eat, played games, watched a movie.  Against my better judgement, we did and escape room, an experience designed to create anxiety and panic.  However, I was surrounded by really smart people, so we managed to solve the puzzles in almost record time.

All weekend long, I was so happy and relaxed.  Following my kids into a pizza place to order dinner, I felt my heart opening up like the Grinch’s at the end of How the Grinch Stole Christmas—as if I couldn’t contain the amount of love I was experiencing.  It was a physical sensation, starting in the center of my chest and radiating outward, as if my veins and arteries were injected with sunlight. 

Nothing big happened last weekend.  Just a series of tiny, ridiculous domestic joys.  Brightness in the windy trees, as Howe says in her poem.  I’ve held onto that feeling all week long, not willing to give up my happiness hangover.  If I could bottle and sell this feeling, in liquid or tablet form, I’d be richer than the person who rigged the 2024 U.S. presidential election.  

Saint Marty wrote a poem about this love medicine . . . 

You’ll never be broke

by: Martin Achatz

my dad used to say when I asked

for my allowance.  He thought he was

funny as hell, everyone did, but

everyone didn’t grow up in a house

where expressions of love were doled

out like bowls of cabbage broth

during the Great Depression.  This afternoon,

standing in a rest area by Lake Michigan,

I watched my son reach down to rub

our dog’s head generously while my wife

let her lap and lap as much water

as she wanted from her bowl, and I felt

myself crushed by love for them,

as if my dad had just opened his wallet

and finally made good on everything he owed me.