In February of 2016, I received a phone call from my cousin JoAnn. As children, JoAnn and I saw each other \u00a0often, because our mothers were sisters. She and her family lived upstairs from my grandmother, and my family lived five miles away, but we visited my grandmother\u00a0and JoAnn’s family\u00a0often. Even though JoAnn\u00a0is four years older than I, we were fairly close. I followed in her footsteps to Queens College, and we both became teachers. \u00a0As time passed, the typical things happened in our family that happen in most extended families: the cousins married, \u00a0moved away, and were occupied by their jobs and\u00a0the families they created. We \u00a0saw each other at weddings and funerals.<\/p>\n
JoAnn had recently suffered life’s most unimaginable pain,\u00a0the loss of a child. \u00a0Her son Gregg passed away in November 2015.\u00a0\u00a0One year \u00a0earlier, \u00a0someone was set to accompany Gregg, age 37, to Medjugorje,\u00a0Bosnia, the site of apparitions of the Blessed Virgin Mary, where the ill and others\u00a0go to pray for \u00a0a miracle. Gregg\u00a0was terminally ill. \u00a0Just weeks before their departure date, \u00a0Gregg’s travel buddy\u00a0\u00a0cancelled\u00a0and\u00a0JoAnn stepped in. That wasn’t easy because she didn’t have a passport, but emergency arrangements were made, and the two of\u00a0them set off on their journey.<\/p>\n
JoAnn \u00a0shared with me that the \u00a0emotions she and Gregg had in Medjugorje were \u00a0inspirational and life-changing. They both \u00a0experienced peace \u00a0and joy in their hearts and souls. JoAnn had lost these feelings after Gregg’s passing; she wanted to return to Medjugorje to find them again, but she didn’t want to go alone. Her husband wasn’t able\u00a0 to go with her\u00a0and her son’s widow couldn’t take the time away from her job. Then she thought of me.<\/p>\n
JoAnn\u00a0thought I would be a good candidate to accompany her for a few\u00a0reasons. \u00a0I’ve had experience at airports, getting local currency, and learning many of \u00a0the\u00a0skills\u00a0travelers develop. \u00a0We didn’t really talk about religion during our phone calls through the years, but I had recently told her that I became a Eucharistic minister at my church.\u00a0So, she asked me if I might like to join her.<\/p>\n
I spent a month thinking about JoAnn’s invitation. I love the many cultural experiences that are part of travel, such as visiting \u00a0museums and eating local foods. \u00a0However, Medjugorje has no museums, and I had no idea what the food is like there.\u00a0The focus\u00a0of each day would be prayer. Did I want to spend a week at prayer? And then there was the cost. I had\u00a0been saving for a trip to California to visit my son, whom I only see for a few days at Christmas each year since he \u00a0relocated there. Did I really want to postpone visiting \u00a0him?<\/p>\n
At the beginning of March, I decided to accept JoAnn’s invitation.<\/p>\n
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In February of 2016, I received a phone call from my cousin JoAnn. As children, JoAnn and I saw each other \u00a0often, because our mothers were sisters.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-694","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-medjugorje-2016"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/pisarro.org\/aboutnick\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/694","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/pisarro.org\/aboutnick\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/pisarro.org\/aboutnick\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pisarro.org\/aboutnick\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pisarro.org\/aboutnick\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=694"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/pisarro.org\/aboutnick\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/694\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":701,"href":"https:\/\/pisarro.org\/aboutnick\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/694\/revisions\/701"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/pisarro.org\/aboutnick\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=694"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pisarro.org\/aboutnick\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=694"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pisarro.org\/aboutnick\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=694"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}