Seven years | Meet cute | PPK
A birth story, a love story and some field notes
Hello friends, and welcome to Issue #12 of Peregrino! This week at Cantú Chateau, we celebrated our oldest’s 7th birthday, St. Valentine’s day, and we’re getting ready for Ash Wednesday next week. Here we go!
Seven years
Diana and I were confident we’d have a honeymoon baby, but this wasn’t the case. However, about eight months later, I returned from the gym on a Saturday morning to news that would change my life forever.
Diana shook a pregnancy test in my face as I crossed the threshold into our apartment. “Is this positive!?” Unfortunately, the second line in the pregnancy test was a bit faint. She didn’t want to get our hopes up. So I drove to Walgreens in haste and bought the fancy pregnancy tests that, instead of lines, either say “Pregnant” or “Not Pregnant.”
We waited for three very long minutes until we saw the word “pregnant” on the tiny screen of the test. I was over the moon.
As soon as we knew we were having a boy, we started calling Oliver by name. I would talk to him through Diana’s belly at night before he went to sleep. He would kick or poke in response. Listening to his heartbeat at the doctor’s office was awe-inspiring. We would scrutinize the sonogram pictures to identify whose nose he has. People said he looked like me when he was a baby, but the Resendiz side in him has come out as the years passed.
My phone rang while I was at work. Diana, very calmly, told me that her water had broken. It was “go time.” At the hospital, we shared our birth plan with Diana’s nurse. No epidural was a big one. You see, we had taken a husband-coached childbirth class for several months in preparation for labor. This method has the husband help the wife relax and work with her body as the labor progresses.
Labor went on for thirty hours. Diana had to get medication to induce contractions because she wasn’t progressing fast enough, and Oliver was not where he was supposed to be. We had nurses and Diana’s doctor, but, at times, it felt like it was just Diana and me. It was one of the most intense situations I have been in, and I didn’t push a human out of my body. I had a lot of respect for Diana before this, but after seeing what she went through, I was in awe of what she did. And I got a front-row seat to see her become a wonderful mother.
The night he was born, while the nurses cleaned and put a diaper on him, he started crying. I was standing next to him, called out his name, and told him everything would be alright and that I was there. He looked up at me and stopped crying.
Now a seven-year-old, as of this week, he finds these stories about him amusing. Diana and I think about all the first-timer things we did while learning on the job. It’s crazy to think that Oliver’s crib is now Lucia’s bed, and we’re still using the same twenty-dollar Ikea high chair.
Oliver and I have similar personalities, which has been challenging for me. Luckily, my wonderful bride has helped me navigate fatherhood, and I’ve made strides toward becoming the father he needs. But it’s a work in progress.
Meet cute
I started going to St. Joan of Arc a couple of months after I moved to Phoenix. I started attending some of the young adult events at the parish. One day, the youth minister asked me if I was interested in helping him with the youth group. I checked my calendar, and since it was wide open, I said yes.
Around the same time, a husband and wife had moved from California to Arizona for the husband, Carlos, to be the youth minister at a parish in Scottsdale. His wife, Elissa, worked at St. Joan of Arc. She was in charge of the Jr. High youth group.
Part of the volunteer formation included a retreat. It was a wonderful experience, full of prayer and fellowship, where we got to talk about how God had been acting in our lives until then. Around that time, I had experienced a more profound conversion, and now being part of a community of people my age that was serious about becoming saints was the answer to my prayers.
Elissa and I sometimes would bump into each other at the perpetual adoration chapel, and we would casually chat on youth group nights. Until one day, she asked me if I was seeing anyone. I said no. She proceeded to mention this friend of hers, back in California, that she wanted me to meet. I said I’d be open to that if she ever came to visit her. Elissa said she’d talk to her friend and let me know. Maybe for Thanksgiving, she said.
Back in California, Elissa told her friend, Diana, about this guy who volunteered with the youth group, an engineer, that she sometimes would bump into in the adoration chapel, that she thought it would be a good match for her. So Elissa invited Diana to Arizona for Thanksgiving. Diana said she would consider it.
She didn’t go to Arizona for Thanksgiving. Then, during Christmas and New Year’s that same year, Elissa insisted that she come to Phoenix and meet this guy. Diana agreed. Elissa wanted a date. Diana said February. Elissa followed up with her constantly until Diana bought her plane tickets.
She landed in Phoenix on a Friday night. We all agreed to meet, of all places, at Toby Keith’s I Love This Bar & Grill. Even though it was a blind date, it was a group outing, so it was slightly less stressful. I remember trying to talk to Diana over the loud music, being intimidated by the fact that she was drinking a gin and tonic and the sacred heart tattoo on her forearm. I asked her to dance, and she said yes. Two-step is not our forte. Holding her hand on the way to the dance floor felt like a Hallmark movie moment.
I spent the whole ride home telling my roommate how awesome this girl was.
We spent all Saturday together, and by we, I mean Diana and I and our chaperones. Diana had several friends from California that lived in Arizona at the time, so we all hung out. First, we had breakfast at LGO. Then, we walked around Desert Ridge mall and had a drink alone while everyone else shopped. Later that day, we went to vigil Mass, and we closed the day by having dinner at a fancy Scottdale restaurant.
I knew she had plans for Sunday and Monday and was leaving Tuesday, so I asked her out on a date on Monday night. She said yes. I didn’t have a car then, so I asked my roommate if I could borrow his. So I picked Diana up at Elissa’s in my roommate’s car and headed to “The sweet tooth fairy,” unfortunately, it was out of business. We ended up going to Starbucks and talking for a long time.
We dated long-distance for the rest of 2013. In November 2013, I took Diana to Mexico for my cousin’s wedding and proposed to her on the same trip —but that’s another story. We got married in California in 2014, twenty months after we met.
We’ve been married for eight years and have four children. Elissa is Lucia’s godmother, and soon Diana and I will become Elissa and Carlos’ youngest boy’s godparents. There are no coincidences.
Priest, Prophet, and King
Two weeks ago, I had the opportunity to listen to Dr. Tim Gray speak at the Phoenix Men’s Conference. He said we have a crisis of weak men but that whoever follows Christ, the perfect man, becomes a better man. But how exactly do we do this?
We, the laity, have a universal call to holiness, not mediocrity. As part of the baptismal rite, the priest or deacon declares, “Just as Jesus was anointed priest, prophet, and king, so may you live always as a member of his body sharing everlasting life.” We, the baptized, have a share in these three offices.
Let’s start with being a king. If we are to be rulers, we will need rules and boundaries. We ought to be rulers over our bodies, emotions, and passions. The habitual dispositions of the will, a.k.a. the virtues, will come in handy for this. Practice and grow in justice, temperance, fortitude, and prudence.
Secondly, being a priest. A priest’s job is to offer sacrifice. We ought to offer sacrifices at the altar of our hearts. Just like Christ emptied himself on the cross for our salvation, we ought to empty ourselves in service of others. However, you can’t give yourself if you don’t possess yourself. We must fight against an inordinate desire for entertainment, play, and comfort, which is predominant in our world today.
Thirdly, being a prophet. We ought to be witnesses to the truth. Live the Gospel by example everywhere you go. Be the same man everywhere.
If you made it this far, thank you for reading. I have some questions for you:
Are you a first born? And if so, do you feel like your parents practiced on you? Provide examples.
Do you remember your first date with your spouse? Where did you go?
Would you trust your friends to set you up on a blind date?
How do you live the shared offices of priest, prophet and king in your life?
Have you thought about what you're giving up or taking on for Lent?
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See you next week.
-W