The Souls of the Faithful Departed ...

This year, All Souls’ Day hits a little differently.

Standing at the foot of my in-law’s gravesites, the reality of the day was unavoidable. 

Coming face-to-face with mortality in the death of both of my husband’s parents in the last six months in addition to my own health issues and those in my family, the brevity and sanctity of life has been on my mind for a while.

Today, we remember the faithful departed – entrusting them to God’s mercy. 

As my family stood looking at my father-in-law’s grass-covered plot and my mother-in-law’s freshly dug grave … joined together under the same earth, I thought about that very thin veil between this life and the next. 

Yesterday, our priest challenged us on All Saints’ Day to remember that common people can and do become saints. It is our goal in life to become saints – to live our vocation as asked of us and to continuously strip away the things that prevent us from growing in our relationship with Christ. 

I took a walk around the cemetery, stumbling across names I recognized, looking at dates on tombstones and saying a prayer for those I stopped before. The quiet stillness of the cemetery drew me toward peace, but it was God’s hand that made me contemplate the beauty of this life – despite the struggles, despite the pain. In the Midwest, the leaves are vibrant and colorful – seemingly full of life. They had neatly covered the cold ground – nearly masking the reality of death by coloring the cemetery with all the beauty of their radiant tints. But their warm autumn hues belied a secret. 

Those leaves are already dead – separated from their life source.

So it is with us. We long to be united with God  … we are on a similar journey as those leaves. Their existence – the lavish colors and vibrant presence – will be short-lived. So, too, our lives, when placed next to the eternal also are short-lived.

The Catholic church does not shy away from death. We know that death is not the end. But we also know that we must be purified before entering heaven – purgatory could be a real step in our journey.  So, while our goal is to align our hearts to God’s will and continuously rid ourselves of bad habits and the things that separate us from God, we also are called to help each other reach heaven as well! Today, we are reminded to pray for those who have gone before us

Today, we pray for those in purgatory – in particular, we pray for those who have no one to pray for them. It is a little thing for us, but an enormous gift to others. Take a walk through a cemetery. Stop by a headstone -- pick anyone to pray for. What a gift we have in the communion of saints!

Let us pray that for all the faithful departed...

Eternal rest grant unto them, O Lord, and let perpetual light shine upon them.

The Perfect Burial Day

 I am so grateful for the people who show up in the difficult times.

God blessed me with truly wonderful in-laws. All of my sisters-in-law would agree – my father-in-law was funny, protective, fiercely loving, and genuinely dedicated to bringing family together – and welcoming new members all the time. With an already large family, he just kept opening his heart.

He let me come in and work on his sink one time – he thought we were joking, but he let me (under my husband’s supervision …). 

He was having trouble with his computer and couldn’t figure out why the sound wasn’t working. My husband was looking, too. I asked if I could look … he rolled his eyes … but I found a volume dial ~ and we laughed a lot. 

He taught my husband how to be a good father. He taught him to be strong in his faith. He taught him to be patriotic. I’m thankful that he was my husband’s father.

In his last days, God allowed me to bring the Eucharist to my father-in-law. In those precious moments, I had the honor of seeing his reverence and his quiet and steadfast faith. He always stood up, no matter how much pain he was in. He stood up to receive the Eucharist and he remained standing in silent prayer. 

In the last few weeks, when I visited him alone … I appreciated how we could just talk. 

After they moved back home, our conversations were … slower. They were thoughtful. They were so very patiently fatherly.

Today, we buried him – on a beautiful, sunny Thursday – Saint Joseph’s Day. 

While his funeral Mass was on Monday … during a blizzard warning, the cemetery was unable to open the grave, so we had to wait until today – which turned out to be an absolutely beautiful day. 

Our very dear priest friend reminded me that today was a good day – St. Joseph, such a strong father figure and loving spouse is celebrated today. And, so, it seemed fitting. 

So many people that I work with showed up to his funeral Mass, and friends from so many walks of life came to his visitation – hugging me and my family when we needed that love. The night of the funeral, a friend stopped by unexpectedly – just to give me a hug. One of my friends sent flowers, several sent cards.

My VFW Post 5040 Honor Guard friends collaborated with the U.S. Navy to ensure military honors were provided. Davenport Funeral Home was truly kind, helpful, and caring throughout. 

People are good. 

My father-in-law was good.

I pray that my children will remember the goofiness he brought … and the values he instilled in those who knew him. I pray they carry his love with them … knowing how much he loved them.

The Impact of Friendship as we enter into 2026

Family has always been important to me. It has shaped the fiber of my being, it has rooted me, it has sustained me. Family drew me closer to my faith, encouraged me, and gave me a launching pad to begin my own family.

In college and early on in our marriage, game nights with friends, group dinners, events with our young adult group at church, and nights of grading papers over mugs of coffee in bookstores were the staple as we started building our friend support system. 

When we began our own family, our focus was inward and friend gatherings were not as frequent because most of them did not have children yet. As a homeschooling family, though, we grew together, learned together, and focused on one another. We kept family traditions, and our friendships looked different. They were peripheral. Important, but peripheral.

We lived through an isolating pandemic. We continued to focus on family and our children. In 2025, though, life felt different. 

We had been through significant health issues with our parents, there were job issues, car issues, our own health issues, and deaths in our circle. Our children were getting older and doing more things on their own with friends. Their concerns were becoming more like the adult concerns and needs we experienced in our dating years.

In the midst of it, though, our family life organically began to change.

You might recall a show from a few years ago where a group of young twenty-somethings, out on their own, became one another’s family, celebrated holidays and accomplishments together, mourned together, and walked through life together.

Despite everyone’s longing for a reboot, in 2019 the creators were credited with saying that could never happen – because the show centered around a very specific time in the characters’ lives where friends were their family. And, once they began to start their own families, that powerhouse dynamic that made the show so popular would never work again. 

Whenever my mind drifted to nostalgia in the midst of the stresses and loneliness of parenting, I remembered that quote, and it resonated with me.

But, this year, the statement hit different. 

As our extended family traditions have waned due to changing family dynamics, the bonds that once grounded us felt … looser.

We started gathering with a friend on random days throughout the spring and summer. It started to become more regular, and then our children’s friends began to join. (Now that they drive and are becoming adults, they just show up – and it is such a joy!) These nights started to evolve into a more regular occurrences and others slowly began to be a part of it. And it felt right. Dinners around a table, different generations sharing a meal, starting in prayer, and sharing our day. Conversations flowed easy, games were played, and lives became intertwined in a palpable way.

In a way, as we all dealt with the stresses of life that were evolving in similar ways … aging family, work, and trying to hold on to a peace within our own lives that seems so difficult in the prime of social media, we have slowly and purposefully been creating a family.

I’ve long had friends who are like family. Those friends will pick up a phone call or text or enjoy an in-person visit as though no time has passed. We will show up in the critical moments without hesitation. We genuinely love one another. We are family.

Slowly but surely, these table-gathering friends, from different walks of life, rapidly became the same. Cherished, true, genuinely deep friendships. 

And there were new friends made this year. One has become a staple in my life … just because our lives intertwined by happenstance and we instantly felt a bond. I couldn’t imagine life without her.

So, when I think about what the creators of that hit sitcom said said, I understand what they meant, but, I think their statement was painted with too broad a brush stroke, and too rashly.

I think it can find its way back.

As the family we once relied on begins to age or our children begin to start their own “friends who become family,” life begins to look different for us. The value of friendships is insurmountable.

These friends will walk through life with us, they will celebrate with us, they will mourn with us, they will encourage us, and they will support us when the family we would have experienced these things with might not be able to. These friendships remind us that, even as we experience family loss, and, in particular, the loss of the family who has loved us despite all of our rough edges, there is hope for us to be loved unconditionally on this earth. These friends see us as God sees us.

And, because of that, we can be less self-conscious, less fearful, and more fully alive as St. Catherine of Siena reminds us, to “be who you were meant to be, and you will light the world on fire.”

Sometimes being vulnerable is scary. But my 2026 advice is, "Don't be afraid to gather at the table -- wherever it may be."