NLS Summer Memoir Contest
Contest Entry: The Twentieth Summer of My Human Existence.
One of the greatest changes in my life.
Today is Friday, September thirteen. As I look at the television, feeling the high vibration in the Shrine of Fatima and see Our Lady of Fátima, which I was named after, Anniversary Celebrations, and see how beautiful it all is with a variety of different flowers instead of the traditional all roses or all lilies tradition, I imagine how Mother Mary must be happy to feel like she’s walking on Earth amidst her integrative, colorful garden.
The clouds in the sky and the gentle cold breeze announcing autumn take me back twenty-two years, a life-changing day, and also a Friday. I was melancholically enjoying my last days of that summer’s vacation on my home island, before going to Lisbon to start my third year of college.
My mom had taken me out of bed to my wheelchair with her arms in that seemingly effortless embrace that she told everyone was God’s strength given to her to take care of her physically disabled kids.
My sister-in-law came to visit. “So early?” I thought, “Why isn’t she at work?”. She came to announce that my physically disabled brother had just died after a bad night. According to her, he called several times for our…
