All Saints Day

Ah, November 1st, All Saints Day. Being Catholic, I’m no stranger to asking these extraordinary people to pray for me. It’s like having friends on the inside, putting a in good word for me.

I’ve had experiences where it was apparent the saints are on my side. My favorite, by far, is my run in with St. Theresa of Lisieux.

My mom used to subscribe me to a great daily devotional called The Word Among Us. It had the readings for the day and a short reflection to go along with the theme. In addition to the daily readings, there were personal stories or biographies of the saints.

One month, the feature biography was about St. Theresa. At that point, I had never really heard much about her. The story told of how she desperately wanted to be a saint, and tried to obtain sainthood by doing small things of holiness. She is referred to as The Little Flower, and it is said that if you are close to her she’ll send you flowers.

At the time of my encounter, I was only a mother of four. My brother-in-law was our basement dweller, as he finished Culinary School. So, technically I still had 5 kids. Adam had recently upped his time at work, leaving me home with the kids more than usual. I felt really alone and unappreciated.

One particularly long day, after Adam had left before I woke up and still wasn’t home at 10 at night. I tried desperately to plunge the toilet of the worst clog in history. I remember thinking to myself as I broke a sweat, (I’m telling you, it was THE WORST clog of all time!) “This is what my life has come to? I’m a smart person. Why am I standing here overexerting myself on a toilet when no one here appreciates a darn thing I do? The kids treat me like crap and I take it. I’ve taken on some of Adam’s chores and he doesn’t seem to care.....I wanted to change the world dang it!”

Just then, the toilet gave way. I watched the water swirl down the big hole feeling relieved, yet unfulfilled. I was about to walk away when I noticed something pink coming out of the small hole on the other side of the toilet.

“Oh my gosh! I broke the toilet!” I said to myself. (Yes, I talk to myself. Don’t judge!)

I quickly ran and got the phone to call Adam.

“What do you mean you broke the toilet?” he asked.

“I think I plunged too hard and the insides are coming out. It’s pink and coming out the small hole across from the big one.” I told him.

“The insides? Honey, there are no insides. You’ve seen me take that toilet off twice and clean the whole thing, inside and out. There should not be anything pink inside of it. Don’t worry, you didn’t plunge so hard that it broke. I’m almost home. I’ll check it when I get there,” he reassured me.

When he got home we went up to the bathroom so I could show him the weird pink thing.

“What the heck is that?” he asked. “Did the kids flush something down there?”

I looked at him for a long while waiting for him to catch on, but he didn’t. “Honey, it’s pink! We don’t own…pink,” I told him.

“Oh yeah.”

This was very true. I’ve never been a girly girl. At the time, I owned more shoes with skulls on them than high heels. So, even with me in the house, it was very unlikely they could have found anything pink to flush.

Oh, of course……

Lesson 29: mom with skull shoes = white trash

“Get me a hanger,” Adam instructed, still hunched over looking perplexed at the mysterious pink thing.

After retrieving the hanger, Adam poked it and tried to get it to come out. A few seconds later the pink thing came loose and floated to the top.

“Is that a flower?” he asked.

Sure enough. There floating in the toilet was the top of a little flower. He got it out and put it in the garbage. Going back over to the toilet, he peered inside and realized there was now something thin and green. He stabbed at it with the hanger, but nothing happened. He finally went and got some forceps. He pulled and pulled. After a few minutes the green string gave way and a whole bouquet of pink plastic flowers pulled through the little hole of my toilet.

Adam held the forceps as the flowers dripped over the potty. “Did I just pull a bouquet of flowers out of my toilet?” he asked skeptically.

We both burst out in laughter. Adam peeked back into the toilet bowl, “You don’t think a rabbit is next do you? I’m telling you, if Sigfreid and Roy come out of there with a white tiger I’m out of here!”

Lesson 30: plunging your toilet so hard you make flowers appear = white trash

Seeing the little bouquet of flowers in my garbage can made me smile. They appeared right when I felt the most unappreciated for the small things I had been doing for my family. It was nice of St. Theresa to remind me that God found the things I believed to be insignificant, meant something to Him . It was also nice to know St. Theresa actually understands how I work. She knew I would enjoy a nice toilet bouquet to a real one any day. I needed the laugh!

So, today, I would like to personally thank all those saints who pray for me every day. I really appreciate and need it! You guys rock!