Written on May 31, 2018

Carmel is such a beautiful, peaceful, holy place. We say good-bye again, but our hearts are not heavy. Sister struggled, but she is good. It was a very good visit. Sometimes I worry that all of our sharing and showing makes Sister sad. This time it was ballet and jitterbug dances and the boys’ soccer act from the talent show. We even brought costumes. We can be loud and silly and rambunctious inside the speak room. She delights in it all!

We also talked about hard things and hard times and cried way too much. So inspired by her great sacrifice, we left wanting to be better people, better parents, better siblings, better friends, to do harder things. She is amazing. They all are. We told her how proud we are of her and how beautiful she is. We tried to remember all of the messages people told us to tell her. A very holy priest simply told her to persevere.

So persevere, dear daughter. You answered God’s call to do something incredibly hard. You said yes and you keep saying yes. Your great sacrifice will continually be in front of us as we go back to our day to day. And we’ll start planning our next trip where we will all be together once again.