A Story I wanted to share

I'm one day late with this post I know but I wanted to share a story and I wanted somebody's permission before I shared it:0)

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My Dad is 75 years old. He and my Mum married late and thought after losing their first child they would never have any more. Then I came along! So there's a few years between us.

The feast of the assumption has always been very important to my father.

When he was a young man there was such a thing as National Service in England. My Dad had been a pupil at a Benedictine school called Downside in Somerset.

As with a number of his peers of the same age it was assumed that he would go onto university instead of enlisting for the three years of national service which was mandatory for all those not attending higher education.

My Dad has always loved Horticulture, plants and the outdoors, he could never have worked in an office. He was planning to take a degree in Botany and horticulture, but only after he had served his three years.

He didn't want to distinguish himself from those who maybe wouldn't have had the chance of going to University as an alternative. In those days very few working class people had the opportunity to receive a higher education.

Besides he had a spirit of adventure! He was sent to Egypt at first which to this day he has good memories (and stories) of.

During manoeuvres on Salisbury Plain under the heat Mid Summer something went wrong. A tank accidentally rolled over one of my fathers friends.

Suffering from severe heat stroke he fired his weapon into the sky and was forced to the ground.

He fell unconscious and was in a coma for 6 weeks! In those days they used ECT as therapy. Still nothing worked. It was assumed that he would either be severely damaged or would die. My devout catholic Grandparents were devastated, he was their only son.

Then suddenly, without warning on the morning of August the fifteenth 1956 my Dad woke up speaking with them almost as if nothing had happened.

Even the doctors called it a miracle.

Last night I picked my Dad up all dressed up in his three piece suit Shillelaugh in hand ( His Mum was Irish) and took him to evening mass.

Above us in the sky was a small rainbow about the size of a large full moon. It wasn't arched it was round. The strange thing is that there had not been a drop of rain in the county that whole day. The sky was a pure silvery blue dotted with a few fluffy white clouds. It made me recall the rainbow after the Flood, how it symbolised hope. Which is exactly what the assumption of Our Lady symbolises.

The hope in the belief of Christan's that someday we will be with Our Lord body and soul, completely united and whole.

In this world it is easy to forget that the body is sacred, made in the image and likeness of God. We are all God's children.

On the way home from Mass a beautiful full golden moon slowly appeared through the sky.

Which made me think again of Our Lady and why the assumption is so special. She is the link between us and her son. She reflects the light of the sun like the moon. Even in the deepest darkness that light always shines for us.

Ready to gently awaken us and bring us through the night into a new day, full of hope.