A Love Deeper than Any of Us Can Imagine

By Allison Salerno 

Morning came too early for me; I had stayed up very late at a neighborhood block party and had to rise with the rest of my family as we scattered in different directions - my husband to lector at an early Mass, and our 10-year-old son to a Little League baseball playoff game. That left G. and me at home, where I attempted to supervise his remaining homework before the 11 a.m. Mass, where he was an altar server.

This was a morning of poor parenting; my frustration with his disorganization devolved into my raising my voice, speaking to him harshly, and then  dissolving into tears of regret and exhaustion. Mass and the Penitential Rite ("I confess to almighty God, and to you, my brothers and sisters, that I have sinned through my own fault...") could not come soon enough.

My husband had church and baseball and work commitments, which meant I was home most of the day without him or the car and with the children and our new yelping puppy and the pouring rain. My mood lifted after Mass and a long nap. When my husband returned last night, we ate a quick meal and I left to go grocery shopping. I drove home bone tired, the van filled with bags of groceries.

As I pulled up to our home, I could see no lights on and I figured everyone had gone to bed. As it turned out, my husband and our younger son were asleep. G. padded downstairs when he heard me come in. "Mom," he said. "Let me get the rest of the bags out of the car." I thanked him and I sat down. He brought every bag in and then said, "Let me put these away for you."

I logged onto the family computer to check emails as he put away cans of chick peas and black beans, a carton of ice cream,  boxes of whole wheat pasta, and bags of grapes, apples and bananas. Then he asked if he could try the coconut milk I had purchased. And while he sipped it, he talked  to me about his progress on his PowerPoint on nuclear proliferation for social studies class. Except for the light in the kitchen, the house was dark. Except for our conversation, the world had the quiet sound it does after much rain.

I thought last night about how God showers us with blessings all through our lives. He gave my husband and me this extraordinary boy-turning-man to raise and the little one sleeping upstairs. He gave us these boys to raise not because we were especially good or deserving. He did so because He loves us all more deeply than any of us is capable of knowing this side of Heaven.