Once we made our way back to the United States, it was back to life as we knew it. Domenick and I started our junior years of college and continued to sporadically stay in touch every now and then. I was thrown into my core classes for student teaching and moved into a house with four other roommates that I was getting to know, so I definitely had a lot on my plate! It wasn’t a hugeeee priority to either of us to maintain our friendship, but it was nice when we happened to bump into each other on campus.

One of the places we seemed to keep bumping into each other was at Taize. Taize is a student-run prayer service on Wednesday nights. I was one of a few students who helped to set up for Taize each week, which mostly included lighting candles and setting out the pamphlets for that evening. I looked forward to this breath of fresh air, as it always seemed to provide the perfect time and place for me to exhale half way through my week and recenter myself. Taize services are lit by ONLY candles, and Loyola’s choir sings super relaxing chants during the service. It’s easily one of the things I miss the most about my day-to-day life at Loyola!

Anyways- one of my other jobs as a Taize leader was to find someone to read the short reading each time. Sometimes it would be easy to find a willing student, while other times I ended up doing it because everyone I asked said no. After returning from Rome, I noticed that Domenick and some of his friends would occasionally come to this prayer service. I started looking forward to them rolling in right at 8:58pm before it started because I knew I could always count on Dom to do the reading if I hadn’t found someone yet 😉

Sometimes we would chat for a few minutes when Taize ended, and Dom would offer to walk me home. I always took him up on this offer as it was late and I felt much safer having someone with me walking back. It was these brief little meetings and conversations that kept up our friendship and updated us on each other’s lives.

But naturally, our time at Loyola would come to an end. Next in The Story of Us: Our Graduation! Click here to read Part IV.

Back to the side by side pictures of us since we weren’t in any together! Here Domenick is outside Loyola’s library, and this is me at a dinner I attended.