The Healing Journey

December 20, 2025

The following reflection by Laura Brennan is in honor of her late grandmother Margaret Marusa of St. Thomas Aquinas Parish in Fairfield.

Matching Smiles

By Laura Brennan

I walk this hallway every day, many times every day. But today I paused in the upstairs hallway of my home and focused my eyes on the bust of the Blessed Mother holding the Christ Child. It is ivory with gold accent lines and a few chips that it acquired before it was mine. This beloved statue belonged to my Grandma, and it sits atop her hope chest in a spot it has occupied for so long that the wood beneath is permanently discolored.

Beside Blessed Mother is a frame with a childhood photo of Grandma and me on Christmas; I’m clutching the Cabbage Patch that Santa had left under the tree. In a year when Cabbage Patch dolls were elusive, Santa must have worked overtime to find the “preemie in a pink Christening gown, with a binky, and a tuft of blonde hair,” that my 5-year-old self had detailed in my letter to him. Grandma and I wore matching smiles, but the photo isn’t quite clear enough to see our matching hazel eyes. Remembering the love we shared, so innocent and pure, I felt a single tear form in my eye.

Grandma was easy to love. When we got stuck in the elevator in her apartment complex and realized that we might be there a while, she suggested we eat the ice cream in our shopping bag before it melted. She was the first to put black olives on all ten fingers. She was always up for another game of cribbage or another hand of penny poker. Her hugs enveloped you. She watched daily Mass on TV and called our house at the Sign of Peace.

Summers meant sleepovers at Grandma’s. She began every day with the Rosary and her morning prayers. I tried so hard to emulate — I prayed for everyone I knew twice over, but her prayers continued through another cartoon or two. When the hour hand circles after daily Mass, as I remain in prayer with so many intentions to bring to the Lord, I feel her closeness and gratitude for her example. Grandma prayed for the Red Sox for decades, not living long enough to see her prayers answered when they broke the curse and won the World Series.

A second tear followed the first down my cheek. I really miss her. I remember her faith, her playfulness, her sorrows, her love, and her gentle counsel. I felt sadness and longing. Then came a surprise: joy! Joy in the realization that, 20-plus years after her death, I still love my Grandma enough to cry from missing her.

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