When the Walls Start Crumbling Down

“Letting go doesn’t mean giving up, but rather accepting that there are things that cannot be.” ~ Anonymous


Christmas Eve was the day for a little home-building at the Carrington-Smiths. As we do every year, we purchased three gingerbread house kits – one for each child – extra icing and candy, and plenty of little extras to add to the decorations.

Thursday morning, the kids could hardly wait through breakfast to get started. We set all the supplies out on the kitchen table and proceeded to open the kits. To our disappointment, the walls in one of the kits were broken. “No fear,” I told the kids feeling more ambitious than normal, “we can try to fix the walls with a little icing before we set them up.” It sounded like a fun project to tackle…my son held the broken pieces and I squirted icing in between them; we then pushed the pieces together and waited until they dried out. By the time we had “glued” all the walls – each was broken in three or four pieces – I was halfway glued together myself, and certainly wore enough icing to be certifiably decorated for the holidays.

We finally set our fixed walls on the tray. It took but a handful of seconds for the whole structure to collapse. My kids looked at the house and then at me in horror, and tried to guess my next reaction. Indeed, my thoughts battled between throwing the blistered thing into the trash and trying again; finally I made a decision: Was there really a point in forcing together something that obviously was not meant to work? I could try to glue the pieces together one more time, but if they fell out once, they were probably going to crumble under the weight of the roof again. It was time to count my losses and go back to the store.

When I pulled into the parking lot, I was immediately reminded of the reason why I never go to the store on Christmas Eve – the parking lot was full and people were acting as if we were storing bunkers in preparation for a nuclear explosion. After being blessed with a parking spot – compliments of a lady who left when I got there – I made my way into the store. I went straight to the table where the gingerbread house kits were displayed, picked one up and headed toward the cash register. As I got ready to get in line, the automatic doors of the store opened to allow a lady in. She took a few steps toward the produce section, and then she thunderously yelled: “Happy Holidays, everybody!”

Serial killers could have been shopping that day, yet she didn’t care – her spirit was just too full of joy to be selective about the people she sent good wishes to. Watching that display of pure and unconditionally positive energy made me smile and it made my trip to the store quite special. If I had stayed home and continued to force together pieces that no longer fit, I would have missed this beautiful moment.

Sometimes we feel that by letting go of something that no longer works we are giving up on it, but in reality we are only accepting the fact that some things are just not meant to work. When the cracks are too deep, and efforts to fix the situation have failed, it is best to let go and make room for something new. The new gingerbread house only took a few minutes to put together since the walls were healthy and strong, and once the kids finished decorating it, it turned into a little masterpiece. The walls we weren’t able to use also went to serve a good purpose – we spread peanut butter and sprinkled birdseed on them for the wild animals living behind our house. What started as a disaster turned into a fun lesson to learn, and in the end we all had a wonderful time.

Happy Holidays!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Good morning everybody!

We are ready to get on the road to go celebrate Christmas with our family, but I just had to stop by a moment to wish everyone a wonderful holiday.

I hope that each of you will find comfort and joy on this day. We readily assume that this is a day everyone will spend with family and friends, but for some who don't have family nearby - or are alone due to other reasons or circumstances - holiday celebrations can be a little tough. Especially to those alone today, I wish you that somehow, the spirit of the season will finds its way to you and will hold you into a warm embrace.

Have a wonderful Christmas everybody. :-)

The Angel Who Left Before Christmas

Lucia Salanti Venturi – an honorary consul with the General Italian consulate in Philadelphia – was laid to rest yesterday. Her death came as a shock to her friends and family, when she passed away at Duke Hospital on Sunday, after having fallen ill just a few days before.

Her funeral mass was held on Wednesday at Our Lady of Lourdes Catholic Church in Raleigh, and it was a memorable event. There is something to be said about the beauty and depth of a Catholic service, even when the time comes to say goodbye to a lovely lady who touched the lives of so many people.

I sat in one of the back pews with my daughter, and had to swallow tears a few times. Here was a wife, mother, grandmother, sister and friend who had made Christmas plans with her family, had looked forward to seeing her grandchildren after Santa’s visit, and had probably planned to cook for an army the way Italian women always do; nothing had prepared her, or her family, for this untimely departure, and yet before anyone could even wrap their minds around the thought, she was gone.

When I saw her two weeks ago, I gave her a small Poinsettia for Christmas, and I remember she didn’t even want to accept it, and told me I shouldn’t have gone through the trouble; now, I am glad she accepted it, for it was the last chance I had to do something nice for her, even if at the time I had no way of knowing her journey was coming close to its end.

Most of us make long-term plans, and often postpone things we would enjoy until the time is right, but that time might never come – this moment might be our greatest asset, and the last chance we have to kiss our children, to tell someone we love them, to take a small vacation somewhere, or to smile to a complete stranger.

I know it has been discussed many times before, but I can’t stress enough just how important it is to forgive and forget, to live and be happy, to reach out to others and be happy for them, regardless of circumstances. So many things seem important when we weigh them on a scale of pride and ego, but in reality they have no substance.

During the mass, I couldn’t help noticing that many of the pews were empty on two sides of the massive church. It wasn’t because there weren’t enough people who had come to pay their last respects, but because during painful moments humans tend to be drawn to one another, and they instinctively pull together. This innate closeness is something we crave any time we face sadness and pain; anyone can probably think back about personal or public tragedies, when people who had never even met before hugged and held one another, finally able to overcome that unnecessary distance we normally, somehow, set between ourselves and others.

We shouldn’t have to only come together during times of sorrow. We have the ability to reach out and reconnect on any given day, if we can just get past unimportant issues. Today is what we have; no sense in wasting it, waiting for a tomorrow which might never come.