Fast Times

today is the anniversary of the pope's death. i remember clearly where i was this time last year. cooped up in the vatican press room for the previous 48 hours. no need to go into what i was thinking or feeling. a lot of it had nothing to do with the pope. and i was living on pure adrenalin. and grateful for it. not sure it even matters what people may think or say about JPII, catholic or not, anti-clerical or not. all i do know is that for whatever reason, today i re-read his last testament and burst into tears in pretty much the same way i had back then amid the unbecoming mob of cannibalistic journalists scratching and pulling at the handful of copies being distributed of the aformentioned text. am silently thankful that today i find myself in my room, alone, far away from the madding crowds.

it's in the last line., i think. because he got something right. in the end all we have are our memories. some we find. some we lose. yet they are all that is left of us.

"As the end of my life approaches I return with my memory to the beginning, to my parents, to my brother, to the sister (I never knew because she died before my birth), to the parish in Wadowice, where I was baptized, to that city I love, to my peers, friends from elementary school, high school and the university, up to the time of the occupation when I was a worker, and then in the parish of Niegowic, then St. Florian’s in Krakow, to the pastoral ministry of academics, to the milieu of ... to all milieux ... to Krakow and to Rome ... to the people who were entrusted to me in a special way by the Lord.''

“In manus tuas, Domine, commendo spiritum meum.”