My tomato plants in the front yard have produced lots of tomatoes this summer, cherry, roma and regular tomatoes. Now they are tired; there are fewer tomatoes and the plants are now slowly dying. Branches are turning brown and there are fewer and fewer tomatoes for picking each day. We had an early hot summer, the tomato plants were well watered and the soil in the raised garden in the front yard is rich, homemade soil. Also I kept the tomato plants pruned so the tomatoes came faster. Tired old tomato plants are better than very green ones with green tomatoes this time of year.

I thought of my tired old tomato plants today since I felt like a tired old guy. My body and mind feel just tired out. I thought that once I finished the three research essays The Catholic Church in North Central Milwaukee I would feel reinvigorated for other projects. But just the opposite has happened.

Maybe at the graduation of my African niece from Sierra Leone from a Master degree program at Loyola tomorrow will help get me inspired again. Pat and I have known her since the day 14 years ago when she arrived with another girl and the girl’s mother in Milwaukee as war refugees from the terrible civil war in Sierra Leone. We watched as she went through high school, college, struggling with employed and now her finishing graduate school. Despite all odds, discrimination, lack of money yet expectations she paid for her brothers and sister education in Freetown, Sierra Leone, educational debt in USA, cultural shock, illnesses, lost of jobs she has survived.

Maybe I am tired since tomorrow is the second anniversary of my son, Peter. His sudden death really changed me and my awareness of death and dying has followed me ever since. Time has not healed the hurt of his death.

No matter what the causes of this great tiredness that has descended on me I know from experience how to cure it, rest, silence, relaxation and focusing my mind on fresh and alive realities.

I may or may not write my daily posting on next week. It does not matter but I will be back Labor day or soon after rested and quiet, ready to write more. Like the tired tomato plants I am too tired to write more.

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