Sisters

As I have mentioned in several preceding blog posts, one of the blessings of this semester has been joining a household.  Since some of you who are reading this post might not understand what a household is, I will give you a quick explanation.  In concept, a household is similar to a sorority or fraternity, but is rooted first and foremost in a life of prayer.  A household is a community of women (or men) who share prayer, fun, and all aspects of life together by living on the same wing in one of the dorms on Franciscan’s campus.  They commit to living out a common spirituality (a covenant) and support each other in becoming the fullest people that God wants them to be, saints. 

One joy that has come from joining my household has been getting to know the wonderful women in it, my sisters, better.  There is a particular person who I am so thankful to have gotten to know better over the course of the semester.  I am going to write this blog post about her.

I remember the first time I met this person.  It was at the end of fall semester last year and I was going to play floor hockey at Catholic Familyland with some friends (who are now my household sisters).  They had convinced this sister to come along with us to play, so we stopped by her “Height” (an on campus apartment) to pick her up.  From the conversation that went on in the car when she got in, I gathered that it had been “one of those days” for her.  But we had fun playing hockey together.  I thought this sister was a little intimidating, but I am not a super competitive person and she is. That is all I remember about meeting her for the first time and I don’t remember seeing (or re-meeting) her again for a long time because she left the next semester to study abroad in Austria.

This semester when she came back to campus (and I started visiting household), the person that I am writing this blog post about remembered me and I remembered her.  I am going to be honest – she still intimidated me.  But that didn’t last long.  Once I intented to household and started hanging out with her more, I realized that: 1) she has a soft heart and 2) she doesn’t like to show it very often.  Don’t be fooled…her teasing typically means that she likes you.  :) 

I saw a deeply sensitive and loving side of her after the death of her softball coach and a deeply faithful side of her during household retreat.  And earlier this week, when I wasn’t feeling well, she came to check on me.  This simple little action meant so much to me!  She also gives really good hugs. 

Basically, I am really thankful that I have gotten to know this household sister better this semester.  She is truly a big sister to me.  I am going to miss her soooo much while I am in Austria, but I hope we will be able to keep in touch through Skype and letters.

If you have lasted to the end of this long post, you are probably wondering who this person is.  In the words of a certain song written by another household sister about her, “Lauren Kuzma, that’s her name!”  The reason why I decided to write a blog post about her is because I was commenting this morning that I needed to write a blog post, but I didn’t know what to write about.  Lauren told me to write a blog post about her.  And so I did, because I love her.  Sorry that this blog post isn’t as good as the song that Dani wrote you, Lauren. ;)

To sum all of this up: Lauren Kuzma is a wonderful human being. 

Lauren and I at our household's ugly Christmas sweater party.  Unfortunately Lauren had already changed out of her sweater by the time we took this picture.  But she won the prize for ugliest sweater.  It was green with red bulbs and a shimmery garland stitched onto it.  It also had lights stuck into it, but unfortunately they weren't working.