Monday, October 5, 2020
Gillian Aguilar
Remember
The word "REMEMBER" conjures up many different thoughts: Remember our childhoods, our lives thus far, remember loved ones who are no longer with us, remember those who died in the service of our country or those who gave so much to enhance our lives who have left this world. In my case, I will choose to remember some of the major influences in my life and how I finally came to find a spiritual home at St. John's
Three years ago, I joined a writing class and wrote a memoir. It struck me as I was writing about growing up near London during World War II how much that influenced my life.- I will never forget how night after night, when we heard the siren, we raced down to our underground shelter at the bottom of our garden until the All-Clear sounded. That lead to a fear of loud noises, guns and thunderstorms that still stays with me today. However, this period was eventually replaced by a happy outdoor childhood with much freedom and no "helicoptering" parents. Sadly, though, my father was an alcoholic who could be quite frightening at times.
My parents never went to church, but at age 16, I became very interested in religion and was received into the Methodist Church in Pinner, Middlesex, I don't remember my parents ever stepping into a church until my mother gave me away at my wedding in St. Paul's Roman Catholic church in Cambridge, Massachusetts.
At age 25 I came to America after studying at the University of Innsbruck in Austria for two years. While working as a secretary at Harvard Business School, I met and married a young aspiring professor, Francis Joseph Aguilar. We spent many happy years with our family of two boys and two adopted girls. Wherever we were living we attended the local Catholic church every Sunday. This would not have been my choice, but for marital and family unity it was indeed the best course to follow..
In 2013, when my beloved husband died of gallbladder cancer, I knew I needed to find a church of my own choosing. The children had left, married and now had children of their. own. On a snowy Christmas Eve, I walked across Bow Street and braced myself to enter St. John's Church. The first person I saw greeting people in the doorway was a lovely woman I had met a few weeks earlier at the Krempels Center, only this time she was clothed in beautiful Christmas robes. "A Woman Priest!" I said to myself, "I must have found my spiritual home!" And indeed I had - and for the last seven years, I have been enjoying very much the weekly ten o'clock Sunday service, the coffee hour that follows and several other church activities. It has indeed become my "spiritual home" and I hope it won't be too long before we can all gather in this beautiful church once again.