This post has nothing to do with food and everything to do with Doña Lupe’s Kitchen.
It’s about The Sound of Music.
You know, that movie with Julie Andrews as a singing nun who falls in love, gets married to a guy with a ton of singing kids and then escapes from Nazi Germany? That movie.
Why is it so important to DLK?
I’ll tell you…
I don’t remember my Grandma Lupe doing ANYTHING for herself. EVER. She devoted her life to her family, her God and religion. She gave back to her community. She rallied the Guadalupanas at her church into providing a communion dress for a poor girl in the area. She baked bread for the church bake sales, cleaned the church, and gave, gave, gave. Never once did I ever see her do anything that wasn’t completely selfless, except for the occasional moment she took out in the patio to eat an orange.
She never just sat still. Always there was needlework in her hands, she was embroidering pillow cases for someone, edging towels with crocheted lace, making baby blankets even while watching T.V. I don’t remember her ever just doing something because it was FUN.
Til the Sound of Music.
My grandmother had a library of Catholic books in her home. You know, things like the Lives of Saints, the Bible and not much else except for the books by Marie Killelea ( a Catholic author who wrote about her daughter Karen’s cerebral palsy and faith) and The Sound of Music. My grandmother LOVED the story of the Von Trapp family and I think, in some way found it related somewhat to her own life. She, like Maria Von Trapp, had wanted to become a nun and instead married.
Results show that pulsatile tinnitus caused more problems to its patients from click for source levitra on line the medical point of help.
She loved the message of the book. She loved that Maria Von Trapp had chosen duty – serving God even though she wouldn’t become the nun she’d thought she’d be. She loved the faith of the family and that they prayed often, had their own chapel built on their property when they finally settled. She loved the book.
I found the book because I was desperate. I was and am an avid, hungry reader. I’d already been through the Lives of Saints and had read about Saint Maria Goretti’s stabbing like 900 times. There was nothing else and then I found it, this little book. Grabbing an apple and heading out to the patio, I buried myself in the lives of the Trapp Family Singers for a couple of hours. I fell in love with the book too, not for religious reasons, but because it was an adventure. That same summer that I’d found the book, the movie came out and my grandmother decided we’d all go see it.
I take my grandkids to the movies all the time, no big deal. MY GRANDMOTHER GOING TO A MOVIE WAS AS IF THE WORLD HAD STOOD ON END AND TIPPED US ALL OFF IT!
IT WAS HUGE!
She didn’t go to movies. She didn’t do fun stuff. She went to markets, J.C. Penny’s to get sensible underwear and pajamas for us. She didn’t go to movies!
It was the one and only time I ever sat in a movie theater with my grandmother. We laughed, we cried, we had a good time. We went home and talked about the movie for days.
To this day, when I see the movie on television, I think of my grandmother and miss her.
It was on this Christmas Day. “Merry Christmas in heaven Grandma”, I whispered as I saw the opening credits. I watched the movie and remembered my Grandma.