This Week’s Hard Thing

Flora is receiving her First Holy Communion this year.

Dan and I attended a meeting regarding Reconciliation (the sacrament that comes before Holy Communion). Glancing over the page of dates, I felt a little drop seeing Saturday April 27 as the day of her event.

We usually go to Cook Forest the last weekend in April, and we had been scheduled to do it this year, too.

And now we’re not going to. I’m a little sad. My Twitter friend @SecretAgentL tweeted: “Remember, Jesus trumps vacation. :-)”

I KNOW.

I’ve been going to Cook Forest on and off since my mid-20s, with college-era friends. The last time I didn’t go, Kate was a newborn. Dan stayed home with M when he was a newborn, and I went up with the girls.

Ah, well, as my friend Jen says (not on Twitter, on the phone), “The great thing about Cook Forest is there’s always next year!”

I know it’s also a bummer for Jen, who is Flora’s godmother. But we can arrange for her to do something special to acknowledge the rite of passage at a different time. (Jen is the reason that Cook Forest happens at all; she cannot bail!) Dan and I haven’t told the kids yet. Michael doesn’t know what’s going on yet, anyway (last year was his first trip to CF); Flora will probably be sad but copacetic; Kate’s probably going to hate it. Maybe we won’t say anything until they ask.

What do you do when two big things in your life conflict?