#189 Detour
My life with Janne was full of detours. Meeting her was the luckiest of my diversions. We rarely took the straight boring road. Instead, we knew that we had to go off the beaten path. Even getting lost was beautiful with her.
While in Rome, I took the boys for a walk. We passed by several familiar places. When we were done exploring, I told them that we would go back to the hotel. I thought of which route to take. The shortest one was to go up a set of stairs to come down on the other side of the monument to Vittorio Emanuele II. Crossing the street to reach those was complicated. So we took a detour.
I noticed a long staircase just next to the monument. At the top, I saw that they connected to the same monument so I told the boys we would go up. We made it up the 124 steps. I realized then that, yes, they connected to the monument, but there was a locked gate.
Those stairs led to a church, the Basilica di Santa Maria in Ara Cœli. Daniel told us he wanted to go in so we followed. It was a beautiful church which I know now it’s special.
Daniel asked me: “Dad, do you believe in God?” I replied, “no, but what do you believe?” Daniel said, “I do believe there is a God. I also think there is a heaven” (he didn’t know that “Ara Coeli” means literally “Altar in Heaven”). I told him that it’s great that he knows what he believes in.
What he told me next was a surprise: “Mom told me also that she’d didn’t believe in God”. Yesterday, I asked him again about that. Daniel said, “well, Mom didn’t really say that she didn’t believe, but it was more like she didn’t know. She told me that she was 50/50 about it”. That “50/50” was one of Janne’s trademarked expressions. As a friend told me today, she is still talking to me.
We stayed in the church for a few more minutes. Daniel asked us to go sit for a bit in one of the benches. They both were asking questions such as who was the lady above the altar, what was the altar for, and what is a priest. I answered everything I knew.
In my ranking of detours, this is among the best. We shared a special moment. I plan to keep finding paths leading us off the straight road. By doing this, I might learn something new about Janne.
