Seraphina, you are not forgotten and in Heaven, it just may be that your crown of glory has a few more jewels in it than we married folks will have.
The second half of my post disappeared! Maybe it timed out? The story ends with the old man being directly to Heaven because of his faithfulness in religious as well as earthly matters.
I’ve at times struggled with being single in the world, but not as much as I did when in my 30’s. At church, the women my age were all married, most with children. Making friends among them went no farther than coffee and donuts after Mass and an occasional babysitting job so Mom and Dad could have a date night! That’s fine, but otherwise, the women were suspicious that I might be after their husbands, or maybe, they were having trouble in their marriage and didn’t trust their husbands not to get too friendly with me. The other single women were high school and early college kids. Then there were a couple of widows with their adult kids and grandkids, much older than me. There was one widower in his 80’s who’d sometimes come to Mass in a wheelchair pushed by his nurse’s assistant. He had dementia. The only single men were school kids who lived with their parents, NOT marriage material.
I was offered a teaching job once, but the pay was $35 per week while I boarded around with different families. No benefits like medical or pension. I’d be on my own for long holidays, summers, Christmas and Easter breaks. My permanent address was that of my parents who were expected to provide me with a car, associated costs, medical insurance, clothing and personal item stipend, plane tickets at Christmas and Easter, etc. Let’s just say it was unsuitable for woman who’d been on her own since age 18! Maybe at ages 18-21, it’d be fine for a young lady who’d never been out of the family nest, someone whose life had been relatively sheltered. That wasn’t me, not even at 18. At 16 I still lived at home, went to school, worked nearly full-time, bought a car and paid for it. I helped with home expenses and did my share of chores. Except for one semester’s tuition, a graduation gift, I worked my way through college and grad school. Seriously, which young family wants a 30-60 something year old woman accustomed to her independence living in their house long term? In one home, the teacher slept on the living room couch! Since $35 week couldn’t pay for my car expenses, I’d have to be working an extra job or two, probably at night. Talk about disturbing the family! Coming in at 1:30 AM, setting up the bed and couch, showering in the middle of the night, cooking or preparing food at odd hours, and if I needed to catch a nap between teaching and my night job, where? Require an hour of silence in a house with four children under age 10?
I’d soon become the guest from H-E-double hockey sticks!
So I kept my job at a “nondenominational” International Christian Academy despite the occasional condemnations and one “excommunication” from a couple who kept their child back from grade 2 catechism the two weeks I filled in for the regular teacher. To the best of my knowledge, no child became novus ordo or Protestant! I was never tempted to leave the Faith or forced to teach or practice heresy or apostatize, either. In fact, quite the opposite!
Topic: Dating outside the resistance (Read 293341 times)