Editor’s Note: Lisa-Marie Calderone-Stewart is a youth ministry pioneer and tireless advocate of adolescents. She has authored dozens of youth ministry books and articles, served as associate director of early adolescent ministry for the Archdiocese of Milwaukee, and founded a leadership development program for teens called Tomorrow’s Present. In spring of 2009 she was diagnosed with stage IV cancer and last October doctors told her she had six months to live. As we put this June 2010 newsletter together, Lisa’s work and her words continue to inspire us to pay attention to what is most important in life. Through her dying, she is teaching us how to live.

From Lisa’s Journal Entry, May 10, 2010:

Today is the birthday of my youngest niece, Barbara. She loves hearing family stories. She always asks me to remember something funny she said or did.

So this one is for Barbara… she turns 13 today! A true teenager!

When she was two, or maybe two and a half years old, I was visiting. She stood by the refrigerator and quietly asked what seemed to be, “Ah-Weesah wassah wemoway?” I had no idea what she was saying. I said, “Barbara, could you say that again?” She very politely repeated herself: “Ah-Weesah wassah wemoway.”

This didn’t help. I hated to ask her again, but I had no idea what she was saying. She turned her head to the side, and her eyes opened wide with obvious frustration and she cried out while banging a cup on the counter, “AH-WEESAH WASSAH WEMOWAY????!!!”

Lisa's CaringBridge Blog Information

To read the ongoing entries in Lisa’s blog, visit her CaringBridge page:

www.caringbridge.org/visit/lisacalderone

Lisa’s writings elicit laughter and tears, but most all, they are a source of profound insight and inspiration. One of her posts reads, “…it is often said a life has been well lived if one of three things are brought about: children who keep blessing, knowledge that keeps teaching, and charity that keeps giving”. Lisa has certainly blessed the world and the field of youth ministry with all three.

Lisa also continues to be a guest blogger for U.S. Catholic online.

I stood there, helpless. “Barbara, I’m sorry, I just don’t know what you are trying to tell me. Can you show me what you want?” She collapsed on the floor in front of the refrigerator and banged her cup on it. “Wemoway. Wemoway!!!!!! WEMOWAY!!!!!!!!!!!”

Heidi, her mother, came into the kitchen. I asked her, “Do you know what Barbara is trying to say?” We asked her to say it one more time. She sighed, looked up at the ceiling and repeated, “Ah-Weesah wassah wemoway.”

Heidi looked at me as if I were dumber than dirt. How could I not understand? “Aunt Lisa, want some lemonade?” Barbara jumped up, all smiles, and showed me her cup again. “Oh!” I said, feeling… dumber than dirt.

“She’s asking you if you want some because she wants some.”

“I would love some lemonade! Would you like me to pour you some lemonade, too?”

“Yes, Ah-weesah! Pweeze!”

This would not even be much of a story, except for all those times we drink lemonade, and we look at each other and say, “Ah-weesah wassah wemoway” and laugh ourselves silly . . . “Wemoway” . . . such a silly little thing . . .

There’s a famous bit of wisdom I’m sure you have heard, attributed to Robert Brault: “Enjoy the little things for one day you may look back and realize they were the big things.”

I’m dying to enjoy all those little things . . .