Good Night!

I was just scrolling through some of my posts and came across the one about the night terrors. Dreams do come true! In Night #4, I described a dream where some of my students were ill and I was feeling helpless. This happened last week - one of my kids was sick in class and stood up to call her mom, and passed out. While not as serious as allergies, etc., that type of thing is still an issue and we take care of it, obviously. Our administrators arrived there quickly, but that intense feeling came over me, initially. Since my career began, I have had quite a few medical incidents with students. I think it comes with the territory.

I was telling my nan about it this week and she was telling me how she was saying prayers for me (she says them for her whole family and everyone else, not just me in particular like I'm a devil or something), so she said she would add in my students, and she also said that she has so many children, grandchildren and great-grandchildren now that prayers are taking an extra long time. She says she has to take a break so that she can actually have meals and visit with family.

I told her she should just pick a few prayers, and tell God, Jesus, Mary and all the Angels and Saints that she is combining her prayers for practical time management. I'm sure they would understand - she's an old woman and it can't really be fair that she spends her current time continuously praying because she doesn't go anywhere to commit sin. And as for the praying itself, she isn't a nun - she had 24 kids, for the love of God.

by Peek a Boo tattoo

Anyway, she said she can't put all of her prayers together because she prays to each of them for different things. I would need a computer system or something to keep it all straight. And she is asking the Saints to intercede on her behalf to God! That's an awful lot of backdoors and stepping stones, if you ask me.

I was raised Catholic, and I understand the principles and I appreciate that my grandmother is supremely devout, but I think and hope God & His Crew would not mind if my nan just put a few of the prayers together for the sake of saving some time.

I used to say prayers while I walked to and from school - what better way to clear your mind, meditate, let go of anxiety and become focused than to pray when you have time to yourself? I don't walk to school anymore but I still like to get away sometimes, take a drive to Gregoire Lake or just to the Snye, to just sit and meditate. I don't want to live in the woods, but sometimes I like to sit there.

My mom and my nan still live "in the woods" / in rural NL - they are the ones who taught me 'my prayers' and who  still pray for me and encourage me to "keep saying your prayers; don't forget them!" My nan makes me laugh - I don't think you just forget something that has been so deeply ingrained into you like that. I always tell my nan to say extra prayers for me so I don't have night terrors, and she said she does. That's bad because it's adding to her time.

She's basically in Prayer Jail.

My nan makes me laugh so much - sometimes she sounds like Batman due to a throat operation she had. Once, I got her to say, "I don't wear hockey pads!" (a Batman line) on video and I crack up laughing every time I watch it. She didn't think I was recording. Funny. She said she would pray for my soul for tricking her. That's me, the trickster (she really didn't mind).

As I get ready for bed, though, I remember one of the prayers that my mom and nan tried to teach me when I was a kid, one I just couldn't accept very well:

Now I lay me down to sleep
I pray the Lord my soul to keep
If I should die before I wake
I pray the Lord my soul to take

Kind of brutal for a kid, don't you think? Where were the rainbows and bunnies? Not death and souls being taken! No wonder I dreamed about monsters and stuff.

Or, "Sleep tight, don't let the bedbugs bite."

Stress. Bugs in my bed?

*shakes head* Just let me go to sleep.

"Good night" works for me. There's nothing creepy there.