Every story has to have a starting point, and this is a logical one for me.
This is Washington Dulles International Airport. Like so many other fixtures of DC (The Pentagon, Arlington Cemetary, Reagan National airport...), it is not actually located in DC but in Virginia.
It came to a sad notoriety on September 11th, 2001. It was from this airport that American Flight 77 departed. That flight crashed into the Pentagon. My new job has me passing the Pentagon each day as I drive to work in Washington DC, a constant reminder of that awful day.
Except for a period of about 9 years, I have lived somewhat near Dulles Airport for almost all my life. Yet, I have been inside it only once.
That occurred in late 1985 or early 1986. The exact month and date escapes me. I know that it was in the early part of my first year of marriage. I know also that I was a naive 21-year-old who had no idea what life held for me. Our first child, Melissa, would not be born for another year.
The first (and to this day, only) flight of my life was a round trip to Newark Airport in New Jersey. If I recall correctly, the flight up was out of National Airport (now called Reagan National, for the man who was the President at that time.) and the return flight was into Dulles. I could have that backwards, who knows?
Newark Airport has a new name as well. It is now called Newark Liberty Airport. Since I arrived there and departed there, it is the only airport I have been inside of twice. On that tragic day in September of 2001, a plane full of heroes (United flight 93) left that airport and after a ferocious and valiant combat with terrorists on board, those heroes perished in a field in Shanksville, Pennsylvania.
The purpose of our trip was to meet my new in-laws. My wife's mother and her stepfather. Little could I have imagined then how my marriage, now in its infancy, was on a collision course with destruction and we would one day send that monster to prison for a 20-year sentence that he served 17 of.
The reason I am providing all this context is so that you will understand that there is no part of this trip that is small to me. All of this trip is about connection, catharsis and healing. It is healing of wounds that have been caused since that day and even before. The wounds that shatter a person sometimes reverberate through a whole lifetime.
In December of 1985, I married a girl I was deeply in love with. In October of 2017, she left me the day before her 50th birthday. I remember vividly laying on the kitchen floor of an empty house, bawling my eyes out for hours.
A few months later, my kids, exasperated from my desperate attempts to reunite the family, decided they needed to be separated from me as well. Friday, December 7th, 2024, I came across a picture of two of them with their new large families. My ex-wife was in the picture. Seeing Bobby and Megan and the grandkids I am not allowed to be in the life of, was obviously devastating and it wrecked my whole weekend and put me in a tailspin.
What shocked me- really shocked me- was my reaction to seeing my ex. I felt nothing for her, nothing at all. It made me sick inside because I began to think I had become cold.
I called my friend Deacon Pete.
The conversation went something like this-
Me: Pete, I know you are always honest with me even when I'm not ready to hear it. I need you to tell me the truth about something.
Pete: Ok. Go ahead.
Me: Pete, when I looked at the picture of her it was as if I was looking at a picture of someone I had never known.
Pete: That's because you were.
Me: Come again?
Pete: You have finally accepted that she was someone who you never knew. Your entire marriage with her was an Illusion.
Me: That's what the Catholic counsellors Jordan and Noni said and that is what Father Fasano and Father Cozi said. They all told me that she knew, from the very start, who that man was and what he was. They all told me that there is no chance she did not know the crimes were occurring. They all 4 told me that an annulment was a 'slam dunk".
Pete: Yes. But what has changed is that you have finally accepted that as truth.
Me: Yes. but what can I do about it now?
Pete: You get the annulment.
Me: I don't really see the point now. It's not like I ever intend to remarry.
Pete: The annulment is about healing. You need to do it.
Me: Tell me why. How does it help me at this point?
Pete: because it is a full admission that you never had a valid sacramental marriage and as such, the graces that you needed for one were never available.
Me: I still have reservations.
Pete: Why?
Me: because I know I made mistakes. I made huge mistakes for which I carry great guilt. It feels like getting the annulment is running from my responsibility for those failures.
Pete: You know that is pride talking, right?
Me: How so? I thought part of being a Catholic is admitting my failures, being contrite for them and learning from them. What am I missing here? How am I being prideful?
Pete: Admitting your mistakes and being contrite over them is the right thing to do but you still believe that you could have saved your marriage if you hadn't made those mistakes. You have already had 2 priests tell you that you never had a valid marriage, so you never had access to the graces you needed to make one work. It was doomed from the start. Getting the annulment is the acknowledgment that you accept that.
Me: So you think that I have to get the annulment, or I cannot heal?
Pete: There is absolutely no possibility you can heal and no possibility of a relationship with your children until you get the annulment. After you file for the annulment, write a letter to them. Tell them that you accept that almost everything they said was true and that you admit that you didn't really know her or yourself. When they understand that you are ready for a life with them that has her as no part of it, things will start to change. If you don't get the annulment, they never will.
His words cut me to the quick. He is right. My kids were right. I don't love her anymore. I don't hate her anymore. The person I loved never existed and the person I hated is a self-imprisoned lost soul in desperate need of prayer. My prayers for her now have the coldness of duty rather than the warmth of personal, emotional attachment. Nevertheless, I will force myself to pray for her as often as I may remember to.
My journey of catharsis has also been an apprehension of who I am and how grace really works. I am genuinely thankful for the suffering that has helped sanctify me, clear my vision and helped me have the truest sense of awe of what is holy and purely beautiful. I am so grateful that I now understand the path to conquering addiction has nothing to do with therapists and pills and everything to do with submission and grace.
Some of the secular counselors are the most mentally unbalanced people of all because they see people as nothing more than physical impulses and chemical reactions. Dollar driven psychotherapy often is driven by a false promise of lasting happiness that can eventually be achieved by enough severed relationships, enough office visits and the right maintenance medicine.
My world view finds this approach repugnant.
On the other hand, to those with a worldly view, love thy neighbor and pray for those who persecute you must sound pretty absurd. Even more crazy sounding is take up thy cross and follow me. The idea of enduring redemptive suffering as a path to eventual salvation and joy doesn't sell well.
It does happen to be the true path, however.
Saint John of the Cross called this journey the Dark night of the Soul while his contemporary- Saint Theresa of Avila, called it the way of perfection and the interior castles. Those 3 books affected me deeply during this 7 year purgatory. I cannot fathom that on September 27th, 2025, I will be in the city of Avila, birthplace to those Catholic classics.
The layers of connection are so vast and so deep that they can only be attributed to an unsearchable God who orchestrates all things. It is kind of hard not to form the image of a castle wall when you are there looking at one and I will be overwhelmed by the deep consolation of the words of Saint Theresa of Avila in that moment.
When the devil reminds you of your past, remind him of his future.
~Saint Theresa of Avila
The story repeats itself over and over. The miracle of Christmas was sullied by my family to the point where I couldn't even recognize the day. Wholly divorced from Christ, it became meaningless and empty and even repulsive to me. A day of avarice and even revenge. It was awful.
That first Christmas away from my kids was something I desperately needed. I received Our Lord in the Eucharist kneeling on a communion rail right in front of the Creche. Grace washed over me like healing balm. Secular Santa driving his Lexus was a million miles away.
On September 19th, I will see the very place where Jesus was born. I will stand in the very field where Angels appeared to quaking shepherds with those words that echo through my memory.
Fear not, for behold I bring you tidings of great joy which is to be for all people. For unto you is born this day, in the city of David, a Savior, which is Christ the Lord.
Every single day and every single step of this journey will be something new and something fulfilled. It will be a vision of my entire life fulfilled, all my hopes, all my dreams, in 17 days. My fulfillment is God. My hope is heaven. My dream is that I may become holy.
It will commence exactly 9 months from today on a plane leaving Dulles airport. I intend to publish an article on every 14th of the month up to and including September 14th when the plane leaves Dulles.
In each post, I will focus on part of the trip in the context of my past, present and future.
As I am now exactly 9 months from this monumental trip, I must start with an inventory of my life and the miracles God has worked.
The period from 2013- to 2018, my life was a working contradiction. Never had I experienced such professional success or made so much money. The success spread to my kids who were marrying, having children and succeeding.
It seemed to me that it was a time of celebration and that we finally had a chance to rise from the ashes. Exactly the opposite happened.
The anxiety caused by a very stressful job and a ludicrously overpriced house was wearing me down. I didn't cope well. My entire family was in utter turmoil. Only in hindsight can I see and appreciate what an utter psychological mess I was.
My oldest daughter Melissa had worn me down to bare metal by years of the most visceral behavior towards me. This hatred was particularly manifested at the times I tried most to reason with her, console her and support her. She hated literally everything and everyone I loved and held sacred, and she held sacred literally everyone I loathed and despised. It seemed like the more supportive I became, the more spiteful and vindictive she was. It is not an exaggeration to say that she became positively toxic.
Megan, her sister, kept trying to convince me that it was her mother, not me, who Melissa had such animosity towards. She told me this for months. The problem was that literally zero of the evidence I was seeing supported this.
All of Melissa's attacks- all of them- were on me, my faith, my conservative opinions etc.
About 2015 that changed abruptly, and I started seeing visible manifestations of Melissa's outright hostility towards her mother. A couple of times it erupted into violence. I did not see this as a transference but as an expansion, Melissa's visceral behavior towards me continued but now I saw her in open combat with her mother.
In virtually every instance I saw Melissa as the instigator.
In July of 2015, I lost my brother Fred. In September, I lost my brother Mike. In November, I was hospitalized for a week nearly losing my own life. After emerging from the hospital, I was informed that Melissa had decided to cut her mother out of her life. I tried frantically to dissuade her from this cold and heartless action, but she would not see reason.
On December 9th, 2015, Melissa made the decision to end her relationship with her mother. I spend the next 2 years trying to convince Melissa that her mother was not the monster she thought she was while her mother did everything she could to show me that she was exactly the monster Melissa said she was and perhaps worse.
On October 29th, 2017, she walked out.
I bought a house in Front Royal and plunged $10,000 in improvements into. I won Jones Lang Lasalle's Mid Atlantic engineer of the quarter award before landing the Chief position at the prestigious Twin Towers in Rosyln- a million+ square foot, trophy class property.
I plodded on praying and believing that peace and reconciliation were right around the corner.
In May, I lost my job combatting a Senior Property manager over an ethical issue where he was clearly wrong. I handled it wrong. I exploded rather than going through proper channels.
I went from a $130K a year job to unemployment in one angry outburst.
I was literally one of the highest paid Chief Engineers in the entire Washington DC area in two 450 foot tall, trophy class buildings in maybe the most prestigious are in the whole DMV.
and then I wasn't.
I spent the next 4 years riding the emotional roller coaster of hope and letdown, wondering where God was in this horror and each time that I reached out to my kids for reconciliation, I got venom in return.
On Christmas Day, 2022, I was at my lowest. I had nothing. It was 6 degrees outside and all I had for Christmas was a heat Pump and a stove that I hoped would stay on so I didn't freeze to death. I lost my income, my truck, my house and my hope.
It was only the generosity of the Knights of Columbus that got me a beat up used car so I could accept a job. One thing led to another.
I have a really nice newer car, I make more money than I ever have- by a lot-, I have a place to live and I am about to go on a trip that was unthinkable even at my most prosperous. This trip is over $10,000 and I owe less than $1200.
How far God has brought me materially in less than 2 years is so miraculous it doesn't even make sense. Where He has brought me psychologically and spiritually is an even greater miracle.
That is where this journey starts. It starts now, not 9 months from now.
The job I just left was running me into the ground with all the overtime- weekends, holidays, different shifts. It was too much. This next week, I begin the transition. I work a week on the so-called graveyard shift before transitioning to 3:00 PM- 11:00 PM Monday- Friday.
The shift looks to be perfect for me and should instantly result in at least 5 hours less per week stuck in traffic. The 5% shift differential doesn't hurt either. However, the biggest boon is going to be more time for daily mass, adoration, reading and contributing to the success of this apostolate. It is truly going to be a magnificent journey.
I wrestle with the conflict between honor thy father and mother with the knowledge that Melissa was telling me the truth about what her mother was. Melissa and Megan were both telling me but I was in her spell. I look back now and I marvel at the misdirection, the psychological manipulation, the emotional blackmail. It was all there in plain sight. I had to be blind not to see it.
Yet I didn't.
Worse, I couldn't. Even when I tried to.
I know what many people will say. see? You should have gone to the counsellors!
No. Even the well-meaning Catholic counselors hurt me far more than helped me. Far more!
In the gospels, we read very much about Jesus curing people and never once does He advise therapy or SRIs. Jesus very much saw things in the context of good and evil. In the end, that's the reality that truly matters and, in that context, suffering is not always a bad thing. The problem with profit-driven therapy is that counselors cannot tell people the hard truth or the pool of customers dries up.
Tammy's counsellor should have told her the truth- she is miserable because she is evil, and she deserves to suffer until she is willing to change. Melissa's counselor should have told her that she cannot raise the dead by shooting the wounded. Megan's counsellor should have told her that supporting Melissa's scorched-earth approach is not the way to heal the family. Bobby's counsellor (if he even has one) should have told him to give people a fighting chance to change before declaring them anathema.
Instead, they got "You deserve to be happy. Do whatever makes you happy". I'm not concerned with being happy as an end in itself. I want to be holy. In the end, the greatest cause of my misery was that I was unable to be holy no matter how hard I tried. I fell and fell and fell and each fall was more painful and devastating than the last.
My family suffered greatly because of that self-destructive whirlwind I was caught in. They described me as volatile. I have to accept the characterization as accurate. That volatility resulted from exasperation. That exasperation resulted from the chasm between the man I wanted to be and the man I was able to be. That chasm resulted from a dearth of grace. That dearth of grace resulted from the fact that what I thought was a sacramental marriage was, in fact, nothing more than a cage I was trapped in.
All of this- all of it- goes full circle.
The annulment application is step 1. Confirming who I wasn't. The trip is step 2. Confirming who I will be, all wrapped up in reality and symbolism.
The new job, the new shift, perhaps soon a new place to live. All steps. Then the journey begins.
Day 1- September 14th, 2025
My flight will probably leave Dulles Virginia in the afternoon. I would guess about 5 PM. My guess is that we will fly to JFK Airport in NYC first.
I expect that I will depart JFK for Tel Aviv at about 11:30 PM. If you look at the starting time, the way the time zones lay and the fact that we will be heading east at 600 miles per hour, I will accomplish something really weird. Not only will I enter a different time zone for the first time in my life (I turn 61 4 days before the flight) but will do so in a way that causes me to have a day that is less than 24 hours long as I will almost instantaneously jump from 23:30 on 14 September 2025 to 00:30 on 15 September 2025. That will be only the 2nd day of my life that was less than 24 hours. The first was the day I was born.
For a trip rife with symbolism, this is really cool to me.
On December 24th, 2 BC, shepherds in Bethlehem were keeping the night watch when Angels appeared to them at Midnight heralding a savior born on the new day. On this flight, a new day hits just about as soon as we hit the air.
At that point, it will have already been a pretty long day. From the time I wake for breakfast, go to church, etc.., it should be at least a 16 day by the time the plane leaves JFK. The flight will easily add another 10 or 11 to that.
I will arrive in Tel Aviv about 10:00 or 11:00 US Easten time which will be about 5 or 6 PM Tel Aviv time.
Check into the hotel, dinner, maybe a walk by the Mediterranean Sea or a swim in the pool. I have stepped into a new world. The greatest is yet to come.
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