For years now, I’ve had this mantra, “There’s a first time for everything.” Now, I keep thinking, “There’s a last time for everything.” Yesterday, my father and I had a conversation about one of his clients for whom I was going to start working. My father had a lot of things to say about this individual and tips on how to deal with this individual. It hit me kind of hard because I know I have a limited number of conversations like that left.

I’m sure I’ve said before how much I am going to miss his advice. There were points in my life I didn’t really appreciate his two cents on things. One example that comes to mind is when I got pregnant with my third child at the end of my first semester of law school. He and my mother were both furious and became even more furious when they found out I wasn’t taking any time off school. My third child is a huge blessing and easily my funniest and most outgoing child. I stand by my decisions on that. Before that though, I almost didn’t go to law school because I didn’t do as well on the LSAT as I had hoped. My father talked me into sticking with the plan though, and I’m very grateful for that. I do hate this profession sometimes, but overall it has been good for my family and I’ve made some great friends. He also talked me into going to my law school graduation. I really didn’t want to go because I had technically graduated in December and had failed the February bar exam, so I didn’t really want to go back to walk with my classmates that May. I’m glad he talked me into that though. It was a fun experience and now I have pictures to remember that moment with my father. He usually gives great advice. I honestly can only think of the one time I refused to take his advice.

Ash Wednesday was one week ago. I think that was when the, “There’s a last time for everything” mantra started hitting hard again. My father won’t be alive for another Ash Wednesday. Ash Wednesday is my favorite mass of the year. I went back to the church I grew up attending for mass this year because it was closest to my office. I usually go to the church closest to my house. The church is beautiful and it reminded me of growing up going to church there with my parents. My parents even paid for one of the statues in front of the church, which I believe has my maternal grandmother’s name on it. I had my youngest child with me and I showed him the statue.

This past Friday, our church youth group went to northwestern Missouri for what our wonderful youth group director has deemed a “Holy History Tour.” This is the second year she’s put this together for the youth group. I didn’t go last year, but I know they went to St. Louis. This year we visited parishes in Carrollton, Chillicothe, St. Joseph, Conception, and Gower. It was a very spiritual experience for me to see all the beautiful churches, learn about their rich history, and experience some of the more traditional styles of worship within the Catholic church. We attended a Latin mass on Sunday at a convent. I had never been to Latin mass before. I’m not a fan. It was beautiful and reverent, but having no idea what is being said distracts from that, in my opinion. I know Rome has decided to stop having Latin masses in parish sanctuaries and I’m sure that will be controversial, but I personally do not see the point in having readings being read in a language no one understands. That being said, I am glad I got to experience a Latin mass.

My daughter came with the youth group for the Holy History Tour. I feel like it was probably a spiritual experience for her as well. The second church we went in she said, “this is so much prettier than our church.” She was absolutely right and the pastor there was amazing. He was snarky and had a dark sense of humor that I absolutely loved. I would make the trip to Chillicothe again sometime just to attend one of his masses.

Getting my daughter to leave the house Friday was absolutely terrible though. I ended up in tears, so my husband went and talked to her for a while. More often than not she will have a panic attack if she has to leave the house. My husband and I both feel her depression is getting worse being home so much, so we are starting to make her participate in things. When she gets panicked though, she tends to lash out at me and decide that I am the problem (I make everything worse, I don’t do enough to help her, etc.). I know she doesn’t mean to be the way she is, but some days I have a really hard time just letting her unload on me. I finally told her if she didn’t get up and come with me I was going to have her father check her into a hospital while I was gone because I could not continue to take care of my parents, her brothers, run a business, and take her abuse. Probably not the greatest thing to say to a child, but it had the desired effect. She got up and we threw some stuff in her suitcase (I ended up needing to buy her clothes at Walmart in St. Joseph, but we managed). As soon as we got to church to pick up the other kids who were riding with us she was happy and acted happy the rest of the weekend. She didn’t have any complaints the whole time.

Today, we met with her pediatrician and got her a prescription for Prozac. Her therapist recommended medication well over a month ago, but I resisted. We tried some natural remedies that were recommended to me. I reached out to pediatric psychiatry, but they have a huge waiting list. We finally decided we needed to go to her primary care doctor to get her some help to just function. She has six classes, she’s failing all but one, and the one she isn’t failing is a D. She was doing excellent at the end of last semester so we know she’s smart enough. We think she’s just so down on herself lately she’s having trouble motivating to power through all the assignments. We’re hoping the medication may help with that too.

My father hasn’t been coming into the office much, but he came in yesterday and today. He looks very thin and very yellow. I told one of our paralegals he looks like the kind of person we would snicker about in juvenile court if they claimed they could pass a drug test. He definitely looks like someone who is over-using opiates. I know he’s using what he needs to make life tolerable and I do not fault him for that. It’s just shocking when you have a certain image in your head of what someone looks like, and when you haven’t seen a person in five days it seems kind of shocking to see that they’ve turned another color.

My father did tell me today that he still wants to go to Hot Springs with us next weekend. That makes me happy. I have been really hoping to get one more trip with him. I told him today I wasn’t worried about anything, but I’m just sad. I told him he’s experienced a lot of amazing things, but I feel like he’s going to miss a lot of things too. We shared a big hug. I know hugs like that are becoming more and more limited as well.

To end things on a slightly more positive note: while we were at Conception Abbey over the weekend one of the seminarians (from the town next to ours) ate lunch with us and walked around with us some. I had sat at the table with the kids during lunch and he sat with the other chaperones. When we were leaving the sanctuary, he asked me what grade I was in. I was so surprised by that question I just said, “I’m one of the adults.” I wasn’t quick-witted enough to say, “I’m fifteen years post-high school.” He followed up with, “so are you a mom?” “Yes, I’m here with my daughter, but I also lead the middle school youth group and teach 6^th grade PSR.” It felt like an odd interrogation. Later that night three of the other chaperones and myself were playing cards and I told them about that exchange. We all laughed really hard, which prompted one of our kids to say, “Is this what adults laugh about? I’ve never seen adults laugh like this.” That, of course, made us laugh harder. I’m glad we got to show the kids about some of the history, tradition, and beauty related to their Catholic faith, but I’m also glad we got to show them adults can have fun without drinking or taking drugs.