THE TRIQUETRA OF LIFE: Wisdom, Wealth, and Wellness

Path Perilous:My Search for God and the Miraculous

Chatper Seven Excerpt, A Lesson from Loss

Childhood loss shapes us in ways we understand only years later. When my dad had to abandon the stray dog I had grown to love, I kept waiting to hear its bark echo down the alley or to feel its warm body brush against my legs. Instead came a cold, heavy silence—day after day. That emptiness lingered like a hollow ache, an early lesson in how fragile love can be.

Not long after, the nuns at Holy Redeemer prepared us for First Holy Communion. I came with a child’s awe and a hunger I didn’t yet understand. I needed a best friend who would never leave me again. In the years to come, I would discover that companion in God—who alone could fully satisfy that ache. Have you ever carried such a hunger, not knowing its source, only that it needed to be filled?

We marched into the pews, the hush broken only by a sneeze or a shuffle of shoes. Black-clad nuns shepherded us into a dim chapel, their whispers slicing the air, their rosary beads clicking like an abacus tallying untold sins. They said I must fast twelve hours to share Christ’s suffering. I thought hunger would hardly matter. I was wrong. By morning, my stomach growled as loud as my prayers.

That dawn, my mother scrubbed me hard, as if to wash clean the very fabric of my soul. Dressed in a white suit, I stood at the altar like an unblemished lamb. My confession had been almost laughable—two dollars “found” at the corner bar, not stolen.

What steadied me wasn’t ritual alone but Aunt Mary. Her lavender embrace, her gentle insistence that I keep attending Mass—even with donuts afterward—stitched faith into my fabric. Years later, she pressed a St. Benedict medal into my palm. Tarnished now, it still beckons—an undying reminder that love endures.

This passage is part of my forthcoming memoir, Path Perilous: My Search for God and the Miraculous (publication pending). In these pages, I trace the losses, longings, and quiet interventions that shaped my life’s journey. If this glimpse speaks to you, stay tuned here for future excerpts and news of release.