I feel particularly blessed this year. I firmly believe God is always at work, even in bad years, but it is nice to have years where things seem to go well for the most part.
The only major setback was that my mom, brother, and I spent a lot of time planning to move to Columbus, MS, but it didn’t work out for various reasons. I think it’s for the best; Jackson/Byram has always been home for me, and our neurology appointments are all here. But it would have been nice to be closer to some family and friends that live in that area, not to mention my alma mater Mississippi State.
I also had pneumonia at one point in the summer. It was not fun but didn’t end up being a big deal.
On the good news front, here are a few highlights of this year. I’m sure I’ve left something out, but this is some of what comes to mind.
As I’ve written previously, Julio and I resurrected the decade-long project of his biography. We had talked a lot over the years, but especially in the last three, and one night in November of 2024, it came up that we should finish what we started with the book. I started recording most of our conversations in an attempt to collect his stories and memories. It was something that I always wished I had done with my grandfather. He used to tell all kinds of stories, and I could kick myself for not recording them or at least writing more of them down. I’m grateful to have had this opportunity with Julio to record when I did, because he passed away unexpectedly on July 12 of this year. I miss talking to him and still can’t believe he’s not here.
Since his passing, I’ve begun revisiting the recordings, transcribing them, and interviewing several of Julio’s friends and family. I’ve been overwhelmed by the reponse, not only by their support but also by the magnitude of the effect Julio had on so many people’s lives. He was truly a larger-than-life character.
That being said, this book when finished will surely be incomplete. It’s impossible to capture everything, but I have more information available than I ever thought I would.
Enrique Flores, a poet and one of Julio’s long-time friends, is working with me on this project. I think with our forces combined, we can create something beautiful, something that will lift people up. Because that was what Julio was good at.
A few years ago, I began listening to a show called “Conectados en Familia” on EWTN’s Spanish radio. At first, I was just trying to find something to keep up my Spanish, but the more I listened, the more at peace I felt. So I just kept tuning in, for years. The podcast, which is also livestreamed on YouTube, is produced by nuns of the Eucharistic Communicators of the Heavenly Father (CEPC — “Comunicadoras Eucarísticas del Padre Celestial”), a religious community based out of Colombia. They have an incredibly calming presence.
I ended up becoming more involved with their community this year, which has a location in Arizona and laypeople around the world who connect over Zoom and WhatsApp for various online prayer events and retreats the sisters organize. They do so much in addition to their radio show that I didn’t even know about before. Having this avenue for prayer with other people online has been a surprising blessing this year, especially during times when I’m stuck at home because of my disability.
I always feel bad at the end of the year for not meeting my reading goals. This year is no different. But here are at least a few things I’ve read or started reading:
Killers of the Flower Moon (audiobook) — The first audiobook I’ve been able to force myself to listen to all the way through. It tells the story of a conspiracy in the 1920s to kill Osage Indians for their oil rights and was recently made into a movie by Martin Scorsese. I really liked David Grann’s style and attention to detail. He’s really good at giving context and setting the scene and goes into a lot of interesting background about how law and order and detective work looked back then in the 1920s.
I’ve started reading the Youcat (Youth Catechism of the Catholic Church) and the Youcat Bible, an abridged version of the Bible meant to teach young people the major biblical stories. While these are meant for children and youth, I think they can be helpful to anyone wanting to break down the Catechism or the Bible, which are both dense and can be rather daunting.
The Final Empire: Mistborn Book 1 by Brandon Sanderson (audiobook). I haven’t quite finished this one, but I only have a few more hours left. My brother convinced me to listen to it. I’m really impressed by the narrator Michael Kramer, but I’ve just never been a big fan of fantasy unfortunately.
Another book I just started reading in the last week is Desde el dolor a ti grito: El sufrimiento como punto de encuentro con el Amor (“From pain I shout to you: Suffering as a point of encounter with Love”) by Juan Encío Avello. The first part is a short story about a boy who grows up caregiving for his father with ALS. The second part is a series of letters written by the author, who has cerebral palsy, to this fictional character. So far, I finished the short story and have read the first one or two letters. I thought the author did a really good job of showing the complex emotions around caregiving and disability and how it affects people’s faith.
My friend Jack got me into Advent of Code over the past weekend. Now that they’ve reduced the number of days from 24 to 12, I may actually finish it.
I have been stumped a few times, but drawing diagrams and doodling with Excalidraw has been the key for me to be able to visualize solutions.
It’s definitely a good programming exercise. It always amazes me how easy it is to do a task in your head, but getting a computer program to do the same thing is so very hard.
For example, day 1 involved turning a dial that goes from 0 to 100 based on a list of instructions. So if the instructions tell you to start on 50 and turn the dial left 100 notches, you would go past 0 and be back around on 50. You have to take a list of instructions and calculate how many times following those instructions involves passing the zero mark. With a small list of instructions, it’s very easy to count this. But making a computer program do it so that you can process the larger list of instructions is extremely difficult. At least for me.
As of this post, I have officially blogged once a month for a year. This is a record. Yay me! 👏
That’s a smattering of what I’ve been up to lately. If you’ve read this far (or even if you haven’t), I hope you’re having a Merry Christmas Season and a Happy New Year’s Eve.
¡Salud! 🥃
