One Year Later

Today is the first anniversary of my wife Dymphna’s death. The future Baron is here, and he and I are going to venture out into the rain and pick some flowers from her flowerbeds (I see coreopsis, coneflower, butterfly weed, and various other blooms I don’t know the names of). We’re planning to meet some friends at the churchyard and put the flowers on her grave.

So posting may be light today.

I posted a photo of Dymphna during last month’s fundraiser, and said I thought it would be the last one. However, I decided to add one more, and you can see it at the top of this post.

The occasion was the baptism of the future Baron in the late 1980s, when he was still a rug rat. He held up pretty well until his mother lowered him over the font to get sprinkled. He got a little upset, but never started to cry. At the left is the late Bishop Charles Vaché.

The original is blurry, since it was taken indoors without a flash. I couldn’t make it any sharper than that.

Dymphna probably told the you following story at some point, but I’ll tell it again. It happened in the parish hall after the baptism. The bishop was filling out the entry in the baptism book. He wanted to enter the date, and said, “What day is it?”

Dymphna was nearby, and, being a good Catholic girl, responded promptly: “St. Joseph’s Feast Day.”

The bishop waited politely, holding his pen poised. And waited. And waited. Dymphna had moved on into the kitchen, not realizing that she had baffled the bishop.

Finally, someone else told him it was March 19.

*   *   *   *   *   *   *   *   *   *   *   *   *   *   *

And that was my wife. There was no one else quite like her.

Have a blessed day, everyone.

23 thoughts on “One Year Later

  1. I wish you to live long and remember your good wife,and i wish with all my heart health and good luck to little Baron.I have two little grandaughters,and my heart aches for the world they are going to live in. God bless them all little ones.

  2. My deepest condolences to you. Monday, 6/15, was the first anniversary of my own wife’s passing. I still remember reading the Gates of Vienna blog shortly after and being shocked that your wife had also died. I have been told that the grief and pain never completely vanishes, but that the intensity of it lessens with time. May God bless you for your love for your wife and family and for the witness you bear against the troubles of the world.

  3. Baron,
    You experienced a very rare colour of Life. For a year I have that feeling. A man and a women only can do marvels when they love each other. Remain as you are. In Earth, life is the greatest richness and it begins with conception and ends with death. But Life has no end.

    «A man is not made for defeat. A man can be destroyed but not defeated [Ernest Hemingway].

    Excuse my bad English.
    Don’t bother with the name of my mail box.

  4. The photo may be “technically” imperfect, but in all other respects it’s exactly right.

  5. “Have a blessed day, everyone.”

    Thank you!
    God bless you and your family!

  6. Blessings and prayers to you💙 Behind every strong and confident man is a strong woman, and your Dymphna must have been exactly this!

  7. Well, he’s a bishop, right? He ought to know what day St. Joseph’s feast falls on. I know a good Catholic woman like that. I think she’s got the entire liturgical calendar memorized, and she follows every word and movement of it.

    Thanks for continuing to run GoV. I don’t comment too much lately, but I’m here and reading. Hope your visit with Dymphna is good.

    • He was an EPISCOPAL bishop — the Anglican church in the USA. They don’t pay as much attention to the saints’ days as Catholics do.

      • I recall a Woody Allen film, in which he’s asked whether his family was religious, and he says somethng like “not really, we’re episcopalians”.

        Mind you, as with Anglicanism, ther’es a lot to be said for a religion no-one is likely to kill anyone over.

  8. That was a lovely event to remember. Thank you so much for sharing it! I hope all manner of things are well with you, dear Barron. We will always miss our deaer departed spouses but I have found that time does ease the pain.

    Sincerely,

    Maria

  9. The 80s were solid gold. How things have changed and not for the better.
    The safety über alles world gets stale and boring.
    At least Baron the younger got to see some of the good old days.
    Maybe these are those times.

  10. Condolences to you and your family Baron. Please remember also that there is no one quite like you..
    Deepest Sympathy

  11. wow 1 year already? time flies… may she rest in peace, and lots of health and happiness to your son

  12. God bless you and yours.
    Thanks for continuing with GoV. Not always easy…ALWAYS appreciated!

  13. “Whenever I hear old chronicles of love, its age-old pain,
    Its ancient tale of being apart or together.
    As I stare on and on into the past, in the end you emerge,
    Clad in the light of a pole-star piercing the darkness of time:
    You become an image of what is remembered forever.”
    -Tagore

  14. Again, my condolences. A year already…

    I don’t remember my baptism. I’ve been raised Roman Catholic. I was baptized, I think, on the day after I was born. My mother wasn’t even there, I’m told. She was still recovering. In the RC, baptism takes place as early as possible.

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