In this heartwarming episode, we embrace the spirit of the holiday season in a way you've never experienced before. We bring you a collection of extraordinary stories, each one filled with heavenly signs that emerge during the holy season, bringing layers of deeper meaning and pure joy.
Do you have a topic you'd like us to discuss? Please email us at podcast@clecem.org!
Please feel free to "Connect With Us" via our website at www.clecem.org.
Follow us on:
Facebook: @catholiccemeteriesassociation
Twitter: @CLECatholicCems
Instagram: @clecatholiccems
Blog: @clevelandcatholiccemeteries
Podcast: "CCAirwaves" on your favorite streaming platform!
In this heartwarming episode, we embrace the spirit of the holiday season in a way you've never experienced before. We bring you a collection of extraordinary stories, each one filled with heavenly signs that emerge during the holy season, bringing layers of deeper meaning and pure joy.
Do you have a topic you'd like us to discuss? Please email us at podcast@clecem.org!
Please feel free to "Connect With Us" via our website at www.clecem.org.
Follow us on:
Facebook: @catholiccemeteriesassociation
Twitter: @CLECatholicCems
Instagram: @clecatholiccems
Blog: @clevelandcatholiccemeteries
Podcast: "CCAirwaves" on your favorite streaming platform!
Love, peace, peace and peace. Hello everyone, welcome to CC Airwaves. My name is Paige Matillo and I'm here with my co-host, joel Hansel.
Speaker 2:How's it going today? Paige.
Speaker 1:It's going good, joel. How are you doing?
Speaker 2:I am excited because the holiday season is upon us, and that means for me lots of vacation time.
Speaker 1:Yeah, same here, and I am very excited to take a well needed break. But we didn't want to leave our listeners hanging without any new episodes of CC Airwaves to listen to. So here we are. So this episode focuses on hope for the holidays. We understand that the holidays are a really difficult time for many who have missed or lost their loved ones, and we want to offer comfort and a gentle reminder in today's episode that, even if your loved one is not here physically, they still watch over us from heaven. The bond that we have with them remains unbroken and we cherish the hope of the reunion that is to come. So we're going to dive into these stories about finding hope during the holidays.
Speaker 1:This first story was submitted by Kim W when I was 17, a fire destroyed my home and took my father's life. As Christmas approached, we were constantly reminded of what we had lost. We moved to a modest apartment to get our lives back on track. In early December, a package arrived. It was an advent calendar with no return address. We opened the first compartment and the notes said bake cookies and share them with your neighbors. Though our kitchen was a fraction of what we once had, we made a small batch of cookies and distributed them.
Speaker 1:The smiles and gratitude we received warmed our hearts in ways we hadn't felt in months. Each day brought a new act of kindness Donate warm clothes, help shovel snow for the elderly, write a thank you note to local firefighters, etc. Through these acts, not only did we find a community, but we also began to see our father and everything. He had always been a pillar of kindness and this calendar seemed to echo his teachings and his spirit. By the time Christmas arrived, our apartment was filled with thank you cards, gifts and invitations, but, more importantly, our hearts were filled with love, gratitude and purpose. This calendar, this mysterious gift, was more than just an advent of kindness. It was our father guiding us from heaven. Have you ever really used an advent calendar before Joel?
Speaker 2:Oh, many times, many times.
Speaker 1:See, I have used them and I've never seen one that has given me tasks to do for other people. It's always been Christmas socks, candy, other sorts of things. I think that's really a nice advent calendar to have to give to others.
Speaker 2:Well, it's also been a very long time since I was a father with young children at home where we used the advent calendar, or was a child myself and we had the advent calendars. But I do remember one in particular. I believe it had you open it up and it had like little scripture passages. Oh, that's nice that kind of led up to the whole birth of Christ. I do remember that.
Speaker 1:That's a good one, and what a beautiful gift for this family to receive an advent calendar that not only helped them create a community around them that they didn't have, but also come closer together and remember their father.
Speaker 2:Well, and it also truly, truly illustrates the saying that you know, it's best to give than to receive. And they, this family, obviously received as a result of their giving, but they didn't receive like what most of us expect giving to be, especially at Christmas time. So their, their gift was really having their hearts filled with with joy and purpose and meaning.
Speaker 1:It was a special gift and, some would say, the true meaning of Christmas.
Speaker 2:Story number two was submitted by Lydia H. The day after my mom passed away, my dad, in what seemed to be a blind rage of grief, began discarding her belongings. He had two categories donate and throw away. There was no other option. There was one particular item I had desperately hoped to keep a unique brooch my mom always wore in special occasions, with her initials engraved on the back. Before I could save it, it was gone. I was unsure if it had been thrown out by my dad or donated, and he didn't know either. I was devastated.
Speaker 2:When I moved out, the distance between me and my dad grew, filled with years of silence and pain. I tried to move forward, but there was always a void. Right before Christmas, I was shopping for last minute presents. I was exhausted and I wanted to go home. While I was stopped at a stoplight, I saw the new goodwill that had just opened and decided to go look inside. As I was browsing, I saw something familiar. It was the brooch. My heart raced as I flipped it over and there were her initials. It felt like God was giving me a second chance.
Speaker 2:I bought the brooch and dialed my father's number. After a few rings he answered. I told him about finding the brooch, and there was a long pause. For the first time in years, we talked. He shared how he felt guilty, about how he acted and how he should never, ever, erase her memory. This brooch was not just a bridge to my mother, but also a bridge between a father and a daughter who had lost their way. I realized that my mom, in her own special way, had gifted us the greatest Christmas miracle reconciliation.
Speaker 1:Oh, my goodness, that story warms my heart. It just makes me think about something that we always talk about, and it's how different people grieve in different ways. So the father obviously was in what she stated as a blind rage of grief, and he just wanted everything gone. He didn't want any reminders. I think that he was just in so much pain he didn't give any thought to if his daughter maybe would want to keep any of those items, or if she maybe wants to keep the brooch and then give it to her child and pass along the memory of her mother for years to come. It's really sad, though, that it just caused them to have such a divide that they didn't speak for years.
Speaker 2:It's not uncommon for two people to have an argument on such a scale that it does result in years going by and those are years that you just can't get back.
Speaker 1:I have no doubt that the mother saw this from heaven, said enough is enough. You two need each other. There's obviously a void in both of your lives and this year we're getting together for the holidays because, in her own special way, she was there.
Speaker 2:For sure.
Speaker 1:So this next story was submitted by Cynthia H. My grandma and I had a special Christmas ritual We'd wake up early, make a pot of her famous cocoa and decorate the Christmas tree together. Last year was my first Christmas without her, and the idea of decorating the tree by myself made me sad. I almost didn't do it, but my mom kept insisting. I continue the tradition.
Speaker 1:Reluctantly, I opened the old decoration box. As I looked through the familiar trinkets, my hand brushed against something I didn't recognize A delicate glass ornament shaped like an angel with a shimmering gold halo. In all of our years of decorating I'd never seen it before. I don't know what it was, but when I touched the ornament it felt like my grandma was there with me as I decorated the tree. I felt warmth and comfort instead of sorrow. The tree looked more beautiful than ever. I placed the angel ornament at the very top, letting it shine brightly. I knew that, while my grandma might not be with us physically, her spirit was alive and well, guiding us toward healing, and that was the greatest gift I could have ever received.
Speaker 2:I don't know about you, paige, but I have at home a box of my ornaments from my lifetime. My wife has a box of ornaments from her lifetime and my son has his ornaments. And every year, as we decorate the Christmas tree with these ornaments and you pull out each ornament, there's a story and it's fun to tell those stories and to remember the stories. And have those memories and, it's true, it's like my grandparents are still there with us because, lord knows, there's a good two, three dozen ornaments in that box that came from them and my grandmother always put our name in the year on the bottom and a lot of these ornaments were made by my grandfather, who was very good at woodworking.
Speaker 2:So yeah, I mean, so, yeah, I do believe that you know. For those of you that you know might be reluctant to decorate that Christmas tree, decorate it. Go through those ornaments. There's stories in those ornaments.
Speaker 1:And you also have to think about it as keeping up with the tradition. Even though you lose someone that you love, it's easy to say you know what this person has passed. They're no longer with us. It's just too sad to continue the tradition without them, but that's not what they would want. They'd want you to continue to the tradition and remember them, and obviously Cynthia is going to keep decorating the tree. Maybe she'll do it with her children, her grandchildren, and then kind of what Joel was saying maybe they'll have special ornaments that remind them of those moments with those special people. And so it's important to keep those traditions alive and well.
Speaker 2:Our last story also keeps traditions alive and well, and it was submitted by Chris T. Chris writes. Each Thanksgiving, my mom would always prepare dinner when she passed. I decided to try cooking for my family. It was a terrible decision. I was completely overwhelmed.
Speaker 2:Preparing the turkey was proven to be more difficult than anticipated. I tried, recalling the countless times I had watched my mom move gracefully around the kitchen and expertly prepared each dish. Feeling frustrated, I closed my eyes and whispered a short prayer. Instantly, I felt a sense of peace. I felt as though invisible hands were guiding me, directing me through each task. Hours later, as the family gathered around the table, they were amazed. Every dish tasted just as it used to when mom made it. The turkey was perfectly roasted, the cranberry sauce had the right blend of sweet and tart, and the pumpkin pie was a dream. As we sat down to eat, I looked around the room, grateful for the family that surrounded me and the presence I had felt guiding me throughout the day. The empty chair at the head of the table was a reminder of our loss, but in our hearts and through the meal we shared, mom was very much with us.
Speaker 1:Chris is braver than me, because I cannot cook a whole Thanksgiving dinner. I am just not. I don't think I could handle the stress of it, but I applaud him for taking on that tradition into his own hands and continuing the memory of his mother.
Speaker 2:Absolutely.
Speaker 1:I remember last year during the holiday season, there was a Coca-Cola commercial and it had a similar vibe. There was a grandmother who had passed away, or you're watching this young man cooking and the grandmother's helping him, but at the end of the commercial you learned that she had passed away the year prior and that the family's eating and just recalling her memory, and I think it's a beautiful story. I liked it.
Speaker 2:I don't remember that commercial page, you don't? It was um.
Speaker 1:I have to look it up now. It was. It was really great.
Speaker 2:But it definitely what you described fits the scene that Chris painted so well for us.
Speaker 1:Yeah, Chris, I hope that you have a lovely Thanksgiving with your family this year and that maybe preparing the Thanksgiving dinner will be a little bit easier. Thank you so much for joining us, you guys. That is the end of the episode. If you have received a message from heaven and you would like to share it with us, you can email us at podcast at CLE C-E-M dot org, or you can send us a message on our social media. Have a great Thanksgiving and Christmas and have a blessed holiday.