Exacto Moments

Sebastopol, August 2, 2026

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Years ago, I worked as a caregiver in a care home facility, and one of the residents in my care was a woman named Anita. I took care of her the way I would take care of my own mother. I fed her, I sat with her, I listened to her stories, and I prayed with her.

Her daughter Dannie made two collages of her mother’s life — old photographs gathered from across the years. Anita as a young woman with a beautiful smile, right at the center. Anita as a young mother with her children beside her. Anita out in the woods in her orange sweater. Anita holding her babies, and later her grandchildren, all the way to her silver hair. One collage Dannie framed and put on her mother’s windowsill. The other one she gave to me.

On the back of mine, she wrote in pencil:

John —

You are my mom’s hero. Thank you for caring for her and nurturing her. Most of all, thank you for helping keeping God in her heart.

— Dannie

I have kept that paper for five years.

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This July, two days before my talk on healing at Holy Spirit Parish in Fresno, I was told that Dannie was in Fairfield. I called her.

She was surprised. Then she told me that out of the blue, she had just been remembering me.

On Saturday, July 25, I gave the talk in Fresno. I shared about my three numbers — 714, 741, and 471 — and how they keep appearing at the turning points of my life. Even on the drive down, the exit for Avenue 9 was Exit 147 — the same three digits.

The following Sunday, August 2, we served at San Sebastián Church in Sebastopol. On the hymn board, the gathering song was number 471. There it was again.

I thought, this is the best day to visit Anita. When I looked up the address, she was only eighteen minutes away from the church.

Hmmm. God is so good.

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When I walked into her room, there on the windowsill, in its gold frame, was the collage — the twin of the one I have kept all these years. The same young woman with the beautiful smile, still watching over her room.

Anita was sitting up in her bed eating a little glass dish of rainbow sherbet — orange, pink, and cream — taking one small spoonful at a time, with the afternoon light coming in through the window.

I sat with her just like before. I prayed the Hail Mary, and she followed along with me. Then I asked her if she had any message for Mother Mary.

She said, “I love Jesus.”

Another Exacto Moment.

Woven by God.