Lossiness

Too bad! Now that you’ve encountered that unlikely phrase, you can no longer concatenate those words into an uncrackable password. It actually means something important to me. Years ago, I read a strange news account. One day, a man was frying up some salami for breakfast, and he noticed the burn marks formed the image of the face of Christ. He interpreted this as a miracle, a sign from God. Reading the full news account, you learned further that his family ate fried salami for breakfast every day for the previous 20 years. Aha! This immediately brought two thoughts to mind. First, as a matter of basic math, that means over 7,000 instances of serving fried salami, and unclear how many servings for how many different family members. But after that many iterations of frying salami, it stands to reason that eventually you’ll encounter a burn mark that resembles a face, possibly resembling Jesus Christ as popularly conceived. Second, basic intuition tells you this. Anyo...

A couple of years ago right after losing Aidan, we were holed up in my mother in-law’s condo apartment down the road, dazed, traumatized, and not yet ready to return to our home. We had the priest come over to help us plan the funeral mass. He arrives in his street clothes while my mother in-law is out running a few errands. You have to understand, she is a very old-fashioned Irish Catholic raised in an ethnically exclusive parish in Detroit. Even with the pedophilia scandal, and even with the virulent anti-semitism of Father Coughlin during the Depression when she grew up, she has a deep, unshaken reverence for priests. She arrives, was unaware the priest would be visiting, and so is somewhat surprised. But luckily, she never goes anywhere outside her bedroom without being impeccably dressed, complete with tasteful necklace, so she’s good. As always, she’s prepared for company. After the introductions and pleasantries are over, she sits down on the couch with the pr...