Beautiful! God bless you, Kyle! 🙏🏻💗🙏🏻

The mundane childishness of ninth and tenth grade bantering and silliness seemed pointless. The purity of innocence was shattered. We were thrown into the grown-up world, by tragedy, by default, by necessity.

We did not know it then but we were changed in many ways; many ways that would take years to discover and fully understand what took place that day in Dallas, in 1963.

November 22nd
how green the grassy knoll
was

Sr. Sheila tapped the microphone. “Girls, girls…now girls, we have to be strong and pray for the departed soul of our fallen President, for his wife, his children, and our saddened country. Father Booth will not be available for Mass at this time so please return to your homerooms for further instruction and information.”

She then excused herself, her long black veil rhythmically flying up in an angry breeze that was powered by her hurried exit back to the privacy of her office.

Stunned into silent weeps, we filed out of the chapel, past the nurse who was tending to the bump on Elizabeth’s head, back down the stairs to the lower court and up the second set of
stairs, without complaint, holding hands and comforting each other as we returned to our homerooms to listen on the PA system to the sparse details of what had gone so wrong in Texas.

“Girls. I have some disturbing news...” Sr. Sheila hesitantly said.

The pause was almost unbearable for Patricia. She closed her eyes and bit down on her lower lip.

regret
remembering the moment
just before

“Girls. The President…our President…”

Patricia opened her eyes.

“President Kennedy…….has been……shot and killed.”

Pat turned her head towards us and let out a scream then quickly covered her mouth. Yvette’s face went pale as Gabby gathered our three bodies together and cried. Two boarder students from Venezuela fell to their knees and started praying the Hail Mary out loud. Elizabeth from Connecticut fainted. One by one bursts of tears and gasping screams emerged from each pew and flooded the chapel as tenth grade girls comforted ninth grade girls. Elaine Bronson threw up.

“You should be expelled too!” A tenth grader from the front pew stood up and pointed a finger towards Pat.

“Shut-up candy-ass or you’re gonna get pants’d during lunch.” Pat shouted back.

Shouts of blame echoed all the way up to the exposed antiquated wooden beams of the tiny chapel when Sr. Sheila, the principal, finally came in and slowly walked up to the podium.

“You’re a goner now, Pat,” Yvette whispered and then made the sign of the cross and sat back in the pew.

Sr. Ursula and Sr. Sheila scanned the chapel from front to back with solemn faces of disbelief, seemingly searching for someone to blame, someone to scream at. Gads, had we been that loud?

The chapel went completely silent.

Pat Crumley came in late, as usual, and sat in the pew in front of us next to Elaine. She was detained in Sr. Leo’s office with a verbal warning about her skirt being too short…again. Sr. Leo did not know that Patricia was with the two tenth graders in The Cave under the ramp; Pat gave us a quick glance of relief as she knelt down in prayer. The first year at the Academy, a prestigious all-girl college prep school, was a challenge. If you were called into the office three times you were expelled, never to return. That was Patricia’s second offense.

It was almost eleven o’clock and Mass had not yet started. Sr. Ursula told us to read our prayer books or quietly say the rosary while she went to see what was delaying Father Booth. As soon as she was out the door both classes started accusing each other of snitching about the marijuana incident.

Sr. Ursula stood at the foot of the alter, arms sternly folded at her chest and hidden under the bib of her black habit, waiting to reprimand both classes and warn us of the perils of cannabis and mortal sin.

Gabby, Yvette and I sat on the ninth grader’s side, in the back pew next to the stained-glass window that had the most purple in it. The morning sun filtered through the windows on the east side of the chapel and beamed their brilliant colors over to us, making rainbow fairies on the wall just above Elaine Bronson’s ratted Bubble hairdo. Why we thought that was so funny, I don’t know, but we sat there and giggled about it until Elaine turned around and told us to shush. She was holier than we were, silently kneeling and praying for forgiveness before she would receive communion, so we followed her example and knelt down.

innocence
even the rainbow fairies
laughed

Thank you for this HOPE, dear Veronica! We love you!❤️🙏❤️

❤️Love it! Chills!

GO GETTUM!!!!

https://t.me/CallingASpade...

Neither have I....

Brilliant!❤️💛💙🇺🇸

Here....

God bless this beautiful Patriot Sister ❤️🙏

Hub just got a bonus...HALF of it went to taxes! I've been out of work because of the lockdown for almost a year....could have desparately used that other half to catch up on.....last year's taxes! LOLOLOL Not going to pay this years or last year's...ever! As soon as everyone else stops paying the sooner we can crush the illegal slave tax!

GREAT photo!

Not one bit!

❤️

Love 'em all! ❤️❤️❤️

❤️

Beautiful Soul through and through...Thank you for all you do for US!

Exactly!!! 🐑🐑🐑

Thank you, General Flynn!