It’s long past time I wrote about Kim.

First, the background. Craig and I were married the weekend between exams and graduation. That summer, we moved a solid 1,000 miles away from our families. We knew no one; our closest contact was my graduate program director, with whom I had had a couple of phone conversations.

We met Kim through our church. She was a recent convert to Catholicism, and a single mother of five children, ranging in age from early twenties (roughly our own age) down to four.

Kim invited us to her house for dinner. Almost immediately, this became a standing date. Every Tuesday was Kim’s house, and Kim’s house meant board games with the nine year old, non-grad-student conversation, cloth napkins, and always a steaming pot of tea.

We often say that our family’s emphasis on hospitality stems from reading so much Dorothy Day, and her writings (and Peter Maurin’s, of course) do provide much of the philosophy behind our way of life. But the person in whom this ideal of hospitality took on flesh in our lives was Kim.

Every week for nearly a year she fed us, but her influence went much deeper than that. There were the little things: Would I have ever thought to use cloth napkins for everyday if I hadn’t known Kim? Is it any wonder that, when we decided we needed a teapot, the one I picked out is a close cousin to the round, earthy brown one from which she poured every time we visited? There were also some big things — like how to offer what you have and how to listen with all you are.

The joy and welcome we found at Kim’s house went a long way towards grounding us in the radically new situation we found ourselves in that year. That hospitality is something we’ve tried to replicate our whole marriage. She planted a seed, showed us a way of life open to seeing and caring for whoever crossed our paths. I’m sure we thanked her before we left, but we couldn’t have known then just how much we would have to thank her for. Fifteen years later, her little seed is still bearing fruit.

It has been a week of visitors.  We managed to have someone over for a meal every day last week.  After Taylor’s wedding, my mom and brother came over, so they were here Sunday, Monday, and Tuesday.  (Their visit also included a shopping trip to the French Quarter and a trip to the Aquarium.)  On Wednesday Craig’s brother and his girlfriend came for dinner and so that Craig could help Sean with calculus.  Thursday’s dinner included some of the usual suspects, Theresa and Paige.  (Eric Parrie – I am calling you out publicly for standing us up!)  Friday Fr. R.B. spent the night.  Which I guess means I could count Saturday breakfast, too, but then Theresa brought a little girl she was babysitting over to play and have lunch.  Seven days in a row!

After which, Craig took Lucy to Baton Rouge and I stayed home with Samantha and slept.

Our other exciting event of the last week or so is that a litter of kittens has taken up residence in the back yard.  I first discovered them, just starting to walk, in the shed.  Since then they have moved the bushes on the other side of the yard and they were last seen under the house this morning.  The mama is black with a few white features, and the five kittens run a full range of color: one almost white, one grey, one calico with a lot of brown, one mostly black calico, and one almost all black.  Needless to say, the girls are enthralled.

While I’ve been writing this, Samantha has managed to color significant parts of both of us with blue marker, and is now very upset about the color on her hands, so I’m done.