Our LIfe With a Saint - Part 11 - Brick by Brick (2024)

Boys "sledding" on the sand in 2008

As the delivery truck rumbled down the drive I stood staring at an enormous pile of gravel and an
equally large pile of sand; 13 tons of each to be exact. To my right, beside the sand and gravel, 3060 bricks and 200 retaining wall stones stared back at me with blank expressions from their wooden pallets. This was going to be a job, a summer-long job, I hoped. These enormous piles of sand and stone appeared to me to be giant piles of hot, sweaty, back braking work. To the boys it was the largest sand pile they’ve ever played in, a mound of rocks, possibly filled with fossils, and real life Lego blocks.

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It’s funny how people can look at the exact same thing and experience completely different feelings and emotions. Friends, family, and co-workers look at our family situation and wonder how we manage. I look at theirs and wonder the same. In the end, it’s just life. You adapt to your situation and grow, hopefully. What’s normal for you is foreign to me and so when I look at your situation, imagining myself in your place, it seems impossible for me. People looking in on our family from the outside, through their own lens, see it as an impossible situation. However, looking at it this way ignores the fact that it was crafted one child at a time, one prayer at a time, one painful event and one joyful event at a time. Our tapestry of life isn’t created all at once, it’s thread by thread, minute by minute, day by day, or, if you will, brick by brick.

With Catherine taking up a somewhat permanent residence at Nationwide Children’s Hospital, I decided that the boys and I needed a project. The constant dependence on family to look after the boys while we sat with Catherine was beginning to take a toll on all involved. Our parents were happy to help but a change needed to be made to adjust to our new life circ*mstances.

Moving the gravel pile

I was blessed to be working for the Church and a School at the time and so I had my summers free. Nicole and I decided to visit with Catherine on alternating days. On the days I spent at home, the boys and I began the enormous project of moving all of the delivered material into some sort of organized
pattern to create our patio.

The patio was to be just outside of our basem*nt doors directly under the deck above. We began by cleaning up the toys that had been used to explore, excavate, and create cities, roads, and kingdoms in the bare dirt. Ropes and swings were removed from the deck temporarily and with shovels in hand, we began digging a base for the retaining wall stones. After the wall was created we, meaning I, began hauling loads of gravel for a base and then sand. After the sand was in place we began hauling bricks and placing them upon the sand bed.

There is something satisfying about a project like building a patio out of bricks. The vision I had in my head slowly took shape over the course of the summer. The stacks of bricks, ugly on their pallets, seemed to find a pleasure in the work too. Their cold loneliness stacked upon one another changed to a warm glow as each one was placed close to the next and their patterns began to form. Each new brick helped to hold the previously placed brick in position as though supporting one another through the creation process. Some were cut and ground to fit well with others when nearing deck posts or other obstacles.

Retaining wall for the patio

I think that’s how God works with us too. Over time, with grace, our experiences make us well-rounded and we begin to find our proper place in our family and in our world. The times of pain and suffering wear down our rough edges and can smooth out our imperfections. The times of joy add a nice polish to both our exterior and interior dispositions. St. Peter says, “like living stones, let yourselves be built into a spiritual house..” Working with thousands of bricks was difficult. I can’t imagine what it must be like for God to work with “living stones”. Stones that squirm in the hand of the builder. Stones that push and shove one another. Stones that complain about where and how they are placed.

If Catherine has taught me nothing else, it’s how to be a more docile living stone. This is a teaching that I’m still learning 16 years later. I still squirm, push, and complain but He is patiently teaching me through her. At 16, Catherine still puts up a fight when changing her diaper, brushing her teeth, dressing her, or well, anything. For years I would lose my patience, become angry, rage in my mind against her and God. Over time though, I’ve found that God is whispering to me, “this is you almost every day. This is you not cooperating with My grace. This is you fighting all that I send you.”

Finished patio, working on painting.

Catherine is a living stone too. She is a stone that is for the most part rejected by the world. Rejected because the world today finds value in people only insofar as they are useful. She is not “useful” in our modern understanding. She cannot work a job or create art. She cannot have children or cure diseases. Yet, we find her value in who she is and, maybe selfishly, what she does for us. She causes us to move past our own selfishness. Catherine grows our patience. She reflects more clearly to us the fact that we are made in His image and likeness and we are all valued for this fact rather than for our “usefulness”.

She is in fact a living stone like the rest of us though she may be more polished, perfect, and docile than we in the hands of the Master Builder. She is in fact a stone rejected by the world but she and God have become the cornerstone of our family and it is a marvel in our eyes!

My new bookDid Jesus Have a Puppy?is now available.