St Patrick's Day Eve

I am a Patrick. I was named after the first William Patrick, my Father,
who was named after the Saint, Saint Patrick, the Patron Saint of Ireland.
My Grandmother, God Rest Her Soul, was first generation American.
Her Mother, Brigid McCarthy, was from the Emerald Isle. She came here,
to America when she was twelve and settled in or near, Boston, MA.
That is where my Grandfather, Henry Cannon found his Mary.
Henry was a sailor and as sailors tend to do, he was want to fall in love-
in every port he was fortunate enough to visit. A sailor's love is always in
season, for they know not they're fate or they're future, so get it while
you can is often their creed. Henry was not out for a fling. And
when he found his Mary, he knew he had found his future Mrs. Cannon.
He somehow wooed her away from her family in Boston and convinced
her to travel with him to the other end of the country. A place Mary would
forever refer to as the "wilderness"--Mount Vernon, Alabama.

Together they carved out a place and started a family. Many other Cannon's--
Irish immigrants themselves, had settled in Mount Vernon.
A good Catholic bunch, they flourished and brought forth many offspring
to carry on the name. Henry was the first to
carry on his father's name was actually born in Boston. The next was my father,
William Patrick, then Brigid and the last child, a son, was Uncle Neal.
Only Brigid and my Father survive to this day and neither of them live in Mount Vernon.
They, like many others of theirs and subsequent generations have gone. They left
for greener pastures and brighter futures in places other than this wilderness I
call home.

My father moved our family away from here in 1971, a year after his mother, Mary,
had passed away. Dada, as we called her, was on her way into mass at St Cecilia's
on Sunday morning. She fell backwards down the front steps of the church
and broke her hip. She never recovered and died a few weeks later. My father was on
a new job in Washington, D.C., his first day on the new job, when he got the news of his
mother's death and he rushed back here to bury her. We were all over come with grief.
Her loss meant we were all the lesser, I was only eleven years old, but I knew we had lost
more than just a grandmother, we had lost a part of our very own souls. Dada kept us
on the right path and in church. Without her, who knows what heathen we would have
become.

At this time of year--every year--I am reminded of the Irish in me. I know our patron saint,
Patrick, would be proud of the Cannon and McCarthy clans for having some semblance of dignity remaining. I am the last Cannon living here in Mount Vernon though. There are many near by, but doubt any of them will ever return here to live. The lands on which my Grandparents
lived and raised their family is in danger of being sold off and that will mean
an end to the promised land as I have always known it. I own nothing here and likely,
never will. I squandered my most productive years and have no future to speak of.
I work everyday and have nothing to show for my labors. I rent a property that will more
than likely be sold out from under me at anytime.

My greatest ambition in life is to become a monk, live a monastic life for the rest of my life
and die in peace and harmony with God. I will have to spend the rest of my life anyway,
begging for forgiveness for wrecking his temple. I feel like I deserve no better life for
myself and have come to believe, that God is calling me. For I am alone, but not alone,
I have Christ in my life and that ought to be good enough for me. Is this why God has
kept me all alone? I have come to believe it is. I am praying to the angels and the saints
to guide me down the right path and I am sure they are.

I have began the process of becoming a Benedictine. A letter of inquiry has been written and sent to the monastery in Oxford, MI. I will also send a copy of that same letter to my parish priest here at St Cecilia and to the Archbishop of the diocese of Mobile. From there, this is all be left in God's hands and the hands of the men who serve God. I have some debts I will have to clear up, but other than that, I have no other obligations to anyone other than
myself and my God.