Today I was at her grave and in the Office of Readings for the door found a moving reading from St Columban, Abbot.
He says: "My brethren, let us follow this call. We are called to the source and fountain of life, by the Life who is not just the fountain of living water but also the fountain of eternal life, the fountain of light, the fountain and source of glory. From this Life comes everything: wisdom, life, eternal light. The Creator of life is the fountain from which life springs; the Creator of light is the fountain of light. So let us leave this world of visible things. Let us leave this world of time and head for the heavens. Like fish seeking water, like wise and rational fish let us seek the fountain of light, the fountain of life, the fountain of living water. Let us swim in, let us drink from the water of the spring welling up into eternal life ..."
I read this and was even so feeling such a sense of emptiness and hopelessness. I was looking at her grave and feeling like my heart would burst ... and then read St Columban's prayer to Our Lord Jesus Christ:
"Therefore we beg you that we should come to full knowledge of the thing that we love; for we pray to be given nothing other than you yourself. You are everything to us, our light, our light, our health and strength, our food, our drink, our God. Jesus, our Jesus, I beg you to fill our hearts with the breath of your Spirit. Pierce our souls with the sword of your love so that each of us can say truthfully in his heart, 'Show me the one with whom my soul is in love, for by love I am wounded.' Lord, let me bear such wounds in my soul. Blessed is the soul that is wounded by such love and, thus wounded, seeks the fountain and drinks, thirsts even while it drinks: it seeks by loving, and the very wound of love brings it healing. May Jesus Christ, our righteous God and Lord, our true and healing doctor, deign to wound our innermost hearts with that healing wound. With the Father and the Holy Spirit he is one, for ever and for ever. Amen."
What a wonderful privilege to be given such a Wound in the Heart. St John of the Cross speaks of the same Wound and so does the Song of Solomon.
Don't get me wrong, I am definitely not a big fan of pain. Yet if the pain comes from love, what can it be but the Gift of God, an Image (Icon) of the Pain in His Own Sacred Heart, Pierced by the Spear as He hung on the Cross.
Later on today, after afternoon Mass, I went back to her grave to pray Evening Prayer from the Office for the Dead, and felt that same pang, horrible in one sense, but such a Gift in another: the Image of the Pierced Sacred Heart of Christ. What could be better?
And here my mother is teaching me yet one more lesson from her grave ... "sic transit gloria mundi" ... and as St Paul says, perhaps feeling that Wound in his own great heart, "Far be it from me to glory except in the Cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, by which I have been Crucified to this World."
What to do then but ... if crucified to this World ... Follow Christ Crucified ... and pray "Lead Kindly Light" as He Goes before us ...
In Christ,
Charles Delacroix
Thursday, August 30, 2007
"Lead Kindly Light"
A friend shared this and it meant so much to me in this time of tragedy and desolation and despair ... "The Pillar of the Cloud" by John Henry Cardinal Newman ... perhaps more popularly known as the hymn, "Lead, Kindly Light":
Lead, Kindly Light, amid the encircling gloom Lead Thou me on!
The night is dark, and I am far from home— Lead Thou me on!
Keep Thou my feet;
I do not ask to see The distant scene—one step enough for me.
I was not ever thus, nor pray'd that Thou Shouldst lead me on.
I loved to choose and see my path, but now Lead Thou me on!
I loved the garish day,
and, spite of fears, Pride ruled my will:
remember not past years.
So long Thy power hath blest me, sure it still Will lead me on,
O'er moor and fen, o'er crag and torrent, till The night is gone;
And with the morn those angel faces smile
Which I have loved long since, and lost awhile.
How lovely and how comforting in this time of darkness ... thank you Lord! And thank you for brothers and sisters in Christ who encourage and support us in time of need.
Charles Delacroix
Lead, Kindly Light, amid the encircling gloom Lead Thou me on!
The night is dark, and I am far from home— Lead Thou me on!
Keep Thou my feet;
I do not ask to see The distant scene—one step enough for me.
I was not ever thus, nor pray'd that Thou Shouldst lead me on.
I loved to choose and see my path, but now Lead Thou me on!
I loved the garish day,
and, spite of fears, Pride ruled my will:
remember not past years.
So long Thy power hath blest me, sure it still Will lead me on,
O'er moor and fen, o'er crag and torrent, till The night is gone;
And with the morn those angel faces smile
Which I have loved long since, and lost awhile.
How lovely and how comforting in this time of darkness ... thank you Lord! And thank you for brothers and sisters in Christ who encourage and support us in time of need.
Charles Delacroix
Regrets
I think I previously said that I had no regrets. That's not true. I do have regrets.
Not many specific regrets, to be honest; and not many at all for the past 5 months. On the whole, I feel grateful, very grateful, that God provided for both of us during this very, very difficult period.
Still, I regret not having taken Mom to the Olive Garden for dinner this summer. On her birthday, June 24, I said I would. They wouldn't take reservations and for some reason, we didn't go at the time. Perhaps her health forbade it then. But we agreed to go when we could. And didn't.
And before this 5 months had begun ... at least, before the period of decline began about 11 months ago ... O I do wish I had spent more time with her. And in the past, we more often than not lived together, I living in her home and in her apartments. I am deeply, deeply grateful for this time together. Yet I wonder how many opportunities were lost by my doing other things, perhaps legitimate things, of an individual and personal or professional nature, but other things nonetheless.
In her final time at home, Mom really didn't want those oxygen posts in her nostrils. Was I too strong in encouraging them? And did I give her too much Morphine? Or too little? I followed the Hospice nurse's instructions. Still I wonder. And I regret.
Oh Mom, please, please forgive any way in which I failed you as a son. Oh Mom I love you and miss you so much.
Not many specific regrets, to be honest; and not many at all for the past 5 months. On the whole, I feel grateful, very grateful, that God provided for both of us during this very, very difficult period.
Still, I regret not having taken Mom to the Olive Garden for dinner this summer. On her birthday, June 24, I said I would. They wouldn't take reservations and for some reason, we didn't go at the time. Perhaps her health forbade it then. But we agreed to go when we could. And didn't.
And before this 5 months had begun ... at least, before the period of decline began about 11 months ago ... O I do wish I had spent more time with her. And in the past, we more often than not lived together, I living in her home and in her apartments. I am deeply, deeply grateful for this time together. Yet I wonder how many opportunities were lost by my doing other things, perhaps legitimate things, of an individual and personal or professional nature, but other things nonetheless.
In her final time at home, Mom really didn't want those oxygen posts in her nostrils. Was I too strong in encouraging them? And did I give her too much Morphine? Or too little? I followed the Hospice nurse's instructions. Still I wonder. And I regret.
Oh Mom, please, please forgive any way in which I failed you as a son. Oh Mom I love you and miss you so much.
Wednesday, August 29, 2007
Mom, John the Baptizer, & Office for the Dead
A week after the death of my mother, and 2 days after her funeral, I'm feeling very, very alone and empty. One moment I'm crying and shouting and screaming and the next minute just sort of staring and putting one foot in front of the other and wondering what the point is. Then God reminds me that Answers really aren't my department. He tells me nicely, I mean, more nicely than that, but basically He seems to be reminding me what we all know that Why isn't a question for which I as a mortal really need an answer. "What is that to thee? Follow thou me."
Following Him these days seems to involve lots of Tears of Sorrow and Tears of Gratitude and Resignation and Acceptance. And Obedience. And more Gratitude.
Because really although I really, really, really, really do NOT like (at a gut level) to acknowledge this ... Mom was, like everything and everyone else, a Gift.
A sheer Gift. God's Gift.
I did nothing to deserve her. I did nothing ro buy her or her time. I did nothing to earn her. Like God's Grace, she came with no strings attached and although, like all Grace bestowed on us mortals, she was sometimes not what I expected at all, she was, like all Grace, God's Blessing for me and for others ... for a time ... and she belonged not to me but to Another. Like all mortal Gifts, she was here for a time and then gone.
But oh God I miss her so much. So, so, so much. Oh God.
Fortunately God in His Mercy seems sometimes to be arranging things to give little Charles Delacroix comfort in the midst of this loss.
She was buried Monday; and I'm still very grateful that her burial was on the Feast of St Monica: what a wonderful gift, as a mother she was to St Augustine, whose feast we celebrated just yesterday. Well, yesterday I visited her grave and just cried and cried; and felt that Mary and Jesus and all the saints and angels were there crying too. But I couldn't seem to pray. So I asked them to pray for me. I have no doubt they did as they do for all of us. And I am so grateful. But what a gift that today God gave me courage to first say the Office for the Dead at her grave. I just plain couldn't get myself to go to this Office till today. Not even on Monday could I get myself to say this Office. But today God did for me what I could not do for myself as always and by His Grace I was able to pray this Office. And this Office ... mumbled through tears though it was ... was such a wonderful blessing. I've always loved this Office for the Dead: it is at once full of boldness and comfort and forthrightness and honesty and truth. That is, it is full of Christ.
Then, after I said the Office for the Dead this morning, as the sun rose, I said Morning Prayer for the Feast of the Beheading of John the Baptizer who we celebrate today. This too was such a comfort. For my mother's birthday is June 24: the Feast of the Birth of St John the Baptizer. John the Baptizer, who leapt in Elizabeth's womb in the Presence of Christ in the Womb of Our Blessed Lady. John the Baptizer,the great Proto-Martyr for Christ. John the Baptizer, he who shows us the Lamb of God. A rough, rough man ... who reminds me that the Way of Christ, the Way to Christ, is a Way of Poverty of Spirit, a Way of rough ways and byways, and often a very Solitary Way.
Later today I visited an art gallery here in town that has long enjoyed the benefits of a great benefactor who endowed the gallery with a collection of Italian art that is simply amazing. Of course to the gallery it's art; to you and me, though, these would be Icons, and sacred art, through which God speaks to us in His "sacra conversazionis". There were an extraordinary, to me, or to me especially under the circumstances, range of paintings and Ikons of Madonna and Child. And historically, icons with depictions of the Holy Mother with Her Child so often included, in one way or another, John the Baptizer.
I take all these things very much to heart as a real comfort. OK, so I realize it may seem a stretch. But hey. I am told that There Are No Coincidences; nothing happens "by accident." What I take away from all this is therefore to me neither more nor less nor other than the Voice of God saying to little Charles Delacroix that although I am in sorrow now, everything's OK ... "all will be well and all will be well and all will be most well". My earthly mother was an Icon or an earthly reflection of an Icon of all of our mothers; and all are reflections of saintly mothers like St Monica and St Elizabeth and of course Mary Most Holy. I take it that it's OK for me to sorrow, as St Augustine sorrowed deeply upon the death of his dear mother. It's OK for me to hurt and to feel pain and suffering in some pale reflection of the pain and suffering of the Proto-Martyr John the Baptizer who died for declaring the Presence of the Lamb of God in the Womb and out of the Womb of Mary the Mother above all Mothers. And it's OK for me to celebrate my own mother as a reflection of a reflection of the Mother of God.
I forgot to mention that there was a painting also of Mary emerging from her Dormition, and being escorted by angels and saints to Heaven, where Jesus stood to Crown her Queen of Heaven and Earth. A beautiful, moving painting. And my mother was given the grace of dying on the the Feast of Mary's Queenship last Wednesday.
So yes I do miss my mother so very very very much ... yet it is such a blessing to have had her give birth to me and rear me and nurture me and be with me for a time. Now God has Called her home, and I dare Hope in Christ that, God willing, I might get to see her once again, free of her suffering in this world.
In the meantime, if God gives me the grace to do so, I plan to go to her graveside once again tomorrow and pray the Office for the Dead for her. I ask also for the prayers of St Monica and St Augustine, of St Elizabeth and St John the Baptizer, the prayers of all the angels and saints, and especially of Mary Most Holy Mother of God.
And may Our Lord Jesus Christ, Who leads us all on our Way of the Cross in this world, . embrace His Own Who die in Him. May He in Whom we live and move and have our being, provide us with whatever we need in order to Follow Christ. And may our world, washed by the tears of the Sorrowful Mother, cleansed by the Blood of Christ, provide good things to mothers everywhere.
Love in Christ,
Charles Delacroix
Feast of the Beheading of St John the Baptizer
Following Him these days seems to involve lots of Tears of Sorrow and Tears of Gratitude and Resignation and Acceptance. And Obedience. And more Gratitude.
Because really although I really, really, really, really do NOT like (at a gut level) to acknowledge this ... Mom was, like everything and everyone else, a Gift.
A sheer Gift. God's Gift.
I did nothing to deserve her. I did nothing ro buy her or her time. I did nothing to earn her. Like God's Grace, she came with no strings attached and although, like all Grace bestowed on us mortals, she was sometimes not what I expected at all, she was, like all Grace, God's Blessing for me and for others ... for a time ... and she belonged not to me but to Another. Like all mortal Gifts, she was here for a time and then gone.
But oh God I miss her so much. So, so, so much. Oh God.
Fortunately God in His Mercy seems sometimes to be arranging things to give little Charles Delacroix comfort in the midst of this loss.
She was buried Monday; and I'm still very grateful that her burial was on the Feast of St Monica: what a wonderful gift, as a mother she was to St Augustine, whose feast we celebrated just yesterday. Well, yesterday I visited her grave and just cried and cried; and felt that Mary and Jesus and all the saints and angels were there crying too. But I couldn't seem to pray. So I asked them to pray for me. I have no doubt they did as they do for all of us. And I am so grateful. But what a gift that today God gave me courage to first say the Office for the Dead at her grave. I just plain couldn't get myself to go to this Office till today. Not even on Monday could I get myself to say this Office. But today God did for me what I could not do for myself as always and by His Grace I was able to pray this Office. And this Office ... mumbled through tears though it was ... was such a wonderful blessing. I've always loved this Office for the Dead: it is at once full of boldness and comfort and forthrightness and honesty and truth. That is, it is full of Christ.
Then, after I said the Office for the Dead this morning, as the sun rose, I said Morning Prayer for the Feast of the Beheading of John the Baptizer who we celebrate today. This too was such a comfort. For my mother's birthday is June 24: the Feast of the Birth of St John the Baptizer. John the Baptizer, who leapt in Elizabeth's womb in the Presence of Christ in the Womb of Our Blessed Lady. John the Baptizer,the great Proto-Martyr for Christ. John the Baptizer, he who shows us the Lamb of God. A rough, rough man ... who reminds me that the Way of Christ, the Way to Christ, is a Way of Poverty of Spirit, a Way of rough ways and byways, and often a very Solitary Way.
Later today I visited an art gallery here in town that has long enjoyed the benefits of a great benefactor who endowed the gallery with a collection of Italian art that is simply amazing. Of course to the gallery it's art; to you and me, though, these would be Icons, and sacred art, through which God speaks to us in His "sacra conversazionis". There were an extraordinary, to me, or to me especially under the circumstances, range of paintings and Ikons of Madonna and Child. And historically, icons with depictions of the Holy Mother with Her Child so often included, in one way or another, John the Baptizer.
I take all these things very much to heart as a real comfort. OK, so I realize it may seem a stretch. But hey. I am told that There Are No Coincidences; nothing happens "by accident." What I take away from all this is therefore to me neither more nor less nor other than the Voice of God saying to little Charles Delacroix that although I am in sorrow now, everything's OK ... "all will be well and all will be well and all will be most well". My earthly mother was an Icon or an earthly reflection of an Icon of all of our mothers; and all are reflections of saintly mothers like St Monica and St Elizabeth and of course Mary Most Holy. I take it that it's OK for me to sorrow, as St Augustine sorrowed deeply upon the death of his dear mother. It's OK for me to hurt and to feel pain and suffering in some pale reflection of the pain and suffering of the Proto-Martyr John the Baptizer who died for declaring the Presence of the Lamb of God in the Womb and out of the Womb of Mary the Mother above all Mothers. And it's OK for me to celebrate my own mother as a reflection of a reflection of the Mother of God.
I forgot to mention that there was a painting also of Mary emerging from her Dormition, and being escorted by angels and saints to Heaven, where Jesus stood to Crown her Queen of Heaven and Earth. A beautiful, moving painting. And my mother was given the grace of dying on the the Feast of Mary's Queenship last Wednesday.
So yes I do miss my mother so very very very much ... yet it is such a blessing to have had her give birth to me and rear me and nurture me and be with me for a time. Now God has Called her home, and I dare Hope in Christ that, God willing, I might get to see her once again, free of her suffering in this world.
In the meantime, if God gives me the grace to do so, I plan to go to her graveside once again tomorrow and pray the Office for the Dead for her. I ask also for the prayers of St Monica and St Augustine, of St Elizabeth and St John the Baptizer, the prayers of all the angels and saints, and especially of Mary Most Holy Mother of God.
And may Our Lord Jesus Christ, Who leads us all on our Way of the Cross in this world, . embrace His Own Who die in Him. May He in Whom we live and move and have our being, provide us with whatever we need in order to Follow Christ. And may our world, washed by the tears of the Sorrowful Mother, cleansed by the Blood of Christ, provide good things to mothers everywhere.
Love in Christ,
Charles Delacroix
Feast of the Beheading of St John the Baptizer
Tuesday, August 28, 2007
Settin' a Spell
One thing Mom and I really enjoyed in the last month, when she no longer felt up to getting out in the morning after breakfast. Instead, we started "settin' a spell".
I would raise the garage door and bring the dog out and fasten her to the front lamp post. I would bring Mom out in her wheelchair and then set up a chair beside her. She would drink coffee or tea as I drank my diet coke. And we would watch the cars go by and talk. About the trees, about the weather, about the things we could see from there, about the things we could see only in memory.
She told me about Uncle Chris and Aunt Lillie B, who "set a spell" on their from porch every day, and in fact, almost all day. About her Uncle Ed Edwards who she stayed with while she was going to Draughon's Business College in Paducah in her late teens or very early 20s when they too would "set a spell". I would remember those days that Mom and I used to take walks together in Limberg Forest (sp?) in Knoxville, Tennessee, when she was living on Taliwa Gardens there. What wonderful walks when we would talk and talk and talk. This we did all our lives wherever we lived. And when I read St Augustine and his talks with his own dear mother St Monica, I realize what wonderful, wonderful gifts such talks are. Settin a spell.
On the day of the funeral, yesterday, I set out front in the driveway her wheelchair and my chair and the little table between us with my diet coke and her coffee cup. The chairs are empty now. Never again in this world.
Oh Momma how I miss you and love you.
Charles Delacroix
Feast of St Augustine
St Augustine and St Monica, please pray for me and my Mom
I would raise the garage door and bring the dog out and fasten her to the front lamp post. I would bring Mom out in her wheelchair and then set up a chair beside her. She would drink coffee or tea as I drank my diet coke. And we would watch the cars go by and talk. About the trees, about the weather, about the things we could see from there, about the things we could see only in memory.
She told me about Uncle Chris and Aunt Lillie B, who "set a spell" on their from porch every day, and in fact, almost all day. About her Uncle Ed Edwards who she stayed with while she was going to Draughon's Business College in Paducah in her late teens or very early 20s when they too would "set a spell". I would remember those days that Mom and I used to take walks together in Limberg Forest (sp?) in Knoxville, Tennessee, when she was living on Taliwa Gardens there. What wonderful walks when we would talk and talk and talk. This we did all our lives wherever we lived. And when I read St Augustine and his talks with his own dear mother St Monica, I realize what wonderful, wonderful gifts such talks are. Settin a spell.
On the day of the funeral, yesterday, I set out front in the driveway her wheelchair and my chair and the little table between us with my diet coke and her coffee cup. The chairs are empty now. Never again in this world.
Oh Momma how I miss you and love you.
Charles Delacroix
Feast of St Augustine
St Augustine and St Monica, please pray for me and my Mom
The Day After
Today I am resolving to stop going to McDonald's. Partaking a little, I hope, or my mother's courage in doing so.
For since she died, I have been running up to McDonald's and getting what (usually) we - and Spooky, her dog - ate for breakfast. That was our "morning routine". She and I rose about 7 AM. I would pick her up from her bed or the big chair where she slept, and move her to her wheelchair. Then I would move her to the back window where she could look out at the back yard. I would check her blood pressure and pulse. Then I would prepare her meds. And set out a cup of steaming tea - Earl Grey tea, by preference, though plain Lipton's too could be her joy. Then I would fetch her a wet washcloth and a dry hand towel. She would use these to clean her hands and face and wet her hair, and then she would groom herself in a small pink mirror on the side table. And while she did this, I would run down to McDonald's.
I would get two Egg McMuffins and a large diet coke for me and a small coffee for her. We ate together. She would take off the piece of round ham: that was for the dog, her first "bitesey". I would hand it to Spooky through the door to the garage. Then Mom would take a bite or two or even three of her McMuffin and say, "I can't eat anymore. Save it or give it to Spooky." Usually I'd give it to Spooky, since she rarely ate a saved item like this later.
Well, since she's died, I still keep going to McDonald's and getting our two sandwiches and my coke and her coffee.
This morning I think I must stop. It is so hard. I must stop O Lord.
I love you Momma.
Charles Delacroix
Feast of St Augustine
For since she died, I have been running up to McDonald's and getting what (usually) we - and Spooky, her dog - ate for breakfast. That was our "morning routine". She and I rose about 7 AM. I would pick her up from her bed or the big chair where she slept, and move her to her wheelchair. Then I would move her to the back window where she could look out at the back yard. I would check her blood pressure and pulse. Then I would prepare her meds. And set out a cup of steaming tea - Earl Grey tea, by preference, though plain Lipton's too could be her joy. Then I would fetch her a wet washcloth and a dry hand towel. She would use these to clean her hands and face and wet her hair, and then she would groom herself in a small pink mirror on the side table. And while she did this, I would run down to McDonald's.
I would get two Egg McMuffins and a large diet coke for me and a small coffee for her. We ate together. She would take off the piece of round ham: that was for the dog, her first "bitesey". I would hand it to Spooky through the door to the garage. Then Mom would take a bite or two or even three of her McMuffin and say, "I can't eat anymore. Save it or give it to Spooky." Usually I'd give it to Spooky, since she rarely ate a saved item like this later.
Well, since she's died, I still keep going to McDonald's and getting our two sandwiches and my coke and her coffee.
This morning I think I must stop. It is so hard. I must stop O Lord.
I love you Momma.
Charles Delacroix
Feast of St Augustine
Courage and Fear and Claremore
Mom was very greatly challenged by fear over the past year or so; and even more, reaching back over a decade or so.
This was in so many ways very out of character for her. I remember her in the 1960s and 1970s and 1980s even as an outgoing, confident woman with exceptional social skill and grace and good humor. She was President of the Women's Society at her church in the 1960s, after all, and in the years we spent overseas - my father worked for an oild company and had been transferred from Tulsa, our home, to Tripoli, Libya, our new home, in 1967 - she seemed, well, without fear, except of the kind that most of us would consider good, prudent watchfulness. Her sister and my cousins remember her back then the same way.
I myself think that things began changing for her sometime around the time of her divorce from my father (mid 1970s) and estrangement of her daughter, my sister (mid or late 1980s).
I had the privilege while looking at her things to read some of what she had written to her first grandson. It was not completed but made clear two things: her deep, deep love for her family; and her approach to "family things" with a "frame" that was all traditional, all family. The things pertaining to my father and my sister that ultimately destroyed her ties with them were things that made no sense, that were unthinkable, incomprehensible. She did not know how to live as a divorced woman. She did not know how to live as a mother who was estranged from her daughter, and as a grandmother who could not see, except on rare occasion, her beloved grandchildren. The world that proposed such things to her was a world that had become unmoored and strange. To that extent she truly found herself a stranger in a strange land. And the earth became fearful and strange indeed at times.
Yet for this very reason I am so very, very, very deeply impressed by her courage. She kept on, in this strange land, and acted as best she could under enormously difficult circumstances. In speaking with my aunt and cousins, courageous is their characterization of her as well. Courageous she was to the end.
For example, she was often very fearful of getting out of the house. She was often very reticent to get out at all. When we did, she could suddenly turn to me with fear across her face, and say, "Oh let's go home. Let's go home now." And would sit beside me in the car withdrawn, her head down, as I drove her home.
Yet about a month ago (I think?) I had need to go to Claremore Indian Hospital, where I am treated for diabetes. I simply needed to get a quick dental check. I think, looking at my book, that it was on Friday, July 13. I asked Mom to go with me ... she had hinted that she wanted to go "to support me." And so we drove from Tulsa to Claremore together.
It was a pleasant drive. She chose to wait in the car, in the shade, while I went to the Dental Clinic. My appointment was brief, and when I came out, she seemed relaxed and said that she had been looking at the large, lovely trees. I proposed that we go up to the Will Rogers Memorial ... just up the street ... and look around a little; and then get lunch on the way back to Tulsa. To my surprise, she agreed.
So we parked at the Will Rogers Memorial, and I got out her wheelchair, and in we went. The Memorial is, to me, unusual for a museum in that it is so very inviting in its layout, and certainly in its staff. Open, friendly, relaxed. I pushed Mom down hallways and we looked at memorabilita, posters, etc with the smiling, relaxed face of Will Rogers ... and we talked and she so seemed to enjoy being there. We sat in the back of a theater showing the last part of one of his films, and I sat beside her, her in her wheelchair, me in a theater seat. It wasn't a large theater, again, small and old-fashioned, perhaps very familiar from her childhood and the Hornersville Cinema of her youth. Still, she had become very frightened in Tulsa theatres we had "tried out" a couple of times over that past 4-5 months, and I was surprised at her seemingly easy adaptability.
We left and I suggested stopping someplace to eat, since it was lunchtime. She said Yes. The first place didn't look wheelchair accessible. So I suggested looking elsewhere. Often in those days she would have said, "Oh, let's go on home." One try would be enough. Not this time, though. She said, "OK." We stopped at Mazzio's for lunch. It was crowded and a very kind waitress helped us find a table. We ate and talked through the din. The table top was high for Mom, so I pepared her a plate with pizza and things, and she held it on her lap under the table as she ate. Despite the circumstances - crowded, tight spaces could be very frightening - she was on this occasion relaxed and enjoyed her meal and afterward said it was nice to get out places sometimes (!).
We returned to Tulsa and I look on this as a wonderful time of freedom for her, temporary freedom, but freedom nonetheless; and ascribe to her courage her coming with her dear son to Claremore, to support me, and her willingness to try things unfamiliar while there.
There were other times that she would be experiencing terrible confusion and ask, "what should I do? What should I do?" I would say, "Do what you want, Mom ... do what you can ... can I help you with something ... ?" And she would then look at me and then do something, small things, perhaps, to some of us, but to her very, very big things indeed. Toward the end folding small hand towels and washcloths could be difficult ... and yet she wanted to do something, and did these things, with courage and fortitude knowing that this she could do even though there were so many things she would like to do that she could not.
Today I can hope that she is in a place where there is no fear; where courage is not needed as an active virtue though I have no doubt that she wears her courage as a garment she wove with amazing tenacity and perseverance and love during her life.
I love you Mom ... and miss you and your courage so much.
Charles Delacroix
Feast of St Augustine
This was in so many ways very out of character for her. I remember her in the 1960s and 1970s and 1980s even as an outgoing, confident woman with exceptional social skill and grace and good humor. She was President of the Women's Society at her church in the 1960s, after all, and in the years we spent overseas - my father worked for an oild company and had been transferred from Tulsa, our home, to Tripoli, Libya, our new home, in 1967 - she seemed, well, without fear, except of the kind that most of us would consider good, prudent watchfulness. Her sister and my cousins remember her back then the same way.
I myself think that things began changing for her sometime around the time of her divorce from my father (mid 1970s) and estrangement of her daughter, my sister (mid or late 1980s).
I had the privilege while looking at her things to read some of what she had written to her first grandson. It was not completed but made clear two things: her deep, deep love for her family; and her approach to "family things" with a "frame" that was all traditional, all family. The things pertaining to my father and my sister that ultimately destroyed her ties with them were things that made no sense, that were unthinkable, incomprehensible. She did not know how to live as a divorced woman. She did not know how to live as a mother who was estranged from her daughter, and as a grandmother who could not see, except on rare occasion, her beloved grandchildren. The world that proposed such things to her was a world that had become unmoored and strange. To that extent she truly found herself a stranger in a strange land. And the earth became fearful and strange indeed at times.
Yet for this very reason I am so very, very, very deeply impressed by her courage. She kept on, in this strange land, and acted as best she could under enormously difficult circumstances. In speaking with my aunt and cousins, courageous is their characterization of her as well. Courageous she was to the end.
For example, she was often very fearful of getting out of the house. She was often very reticent to get out at all. When we did, she could suddenly turn to me with fear across her face, and say, "Oh let's go home. Let's go home now." And would sit beside me in the car withdrawn, her head down, as I drove her home.
Yet about a month ago (I think?) I had need to go to Claremore Indian Hospital, where I am treated for diabetes. I simply needed to get a quick dental check. I think, looking at my book, that it was on Friday, July 13. I asked Mom to go with me ... she had hinted that she wanted to go "to support me." And so we drove from Tulsa to Claremore together.
It was a pleasant drive. She chose to wait in the car, in the shade, while I went to the Dental Clinic. My appointment was brief, and when I came out, she seemed relaxed and said that she had been looking at the large, lovely trees. I proposed that we go up to the Will Rogers Memorial ... just up the street ... and look around a little; and then get lunch on the way back to Tulsa. To my surprise, she agreed.
So we parked at the Will Rogers Memorial, and I got out her wheelchair, and in we went. The Memorial is, to me, unusual for a museum in that it is so very inviting in its layout, and certainly in its staff. Open, friendly, relaxed. I pushed Mom down hallways and we looked at memorabilita, posters, etc with the smiling, relaxed face of Will Rogers ... and we talked and she so seemed to enjoy being there. We sat in the back of a theater showing the last part of one of his films, and I sat beside her, her in her wheelchair, me in a theater seat. It wasn't a large theater, again, small and old-fashioned, perhaps very familiar from her childhood and the Hornersville Cinema of her youth. Still, she had become very frightened in Tulsa theatres we had "tried out" a couple of times over that past 4-5 months, and I was surprised at her seemingly easy adaptability.
We left and I suggested stopping someplace to eat, since it was lunchtime. She said Yes. The first place didn't look wheelchair accessible. So I suggested looking elsewhere. Often in those days she would have said, "Oh, let's go on home." One try would be enough. Not this time, though. She said, "OK." We stopped at Mazzio's for lunch. It was crowded and a very kind waitress helped us find a table. We ate and talked through the din. The table top was high for Mom, so I pepared her a plate with pizza and things, and she held it on her lap under the table as she ate. Despite the circumstances - crowded, tight spaces could be very frightening - she was on this occasion relaxed and enjoyed her meal and afterward said it was nice to get out places sometimes (!).
We returned to Tulsa and I look on this as a wonderful time of freedom for her, temporary freedom, but freedom nonetheless; and ascribe to her courage her coming with her dear son to Claremore, to support me, and her willingness to try things unfamiliar while there.
There were other times that she would be experiencing terrible confusion and ask, "what should I do? What should I do?" I would say, "Do what you want, Mom ... do what you can ... can I help you with something ... ?" And she would then look at me and then do something, small things, perhaps, to some of us, but to her very, very big things indeed. Toward the end folding small hand towels and washcloths could be difficult ... and yet she wanted to do something, and did these things, with courage and fortitude knowing that this she could do even though there were so many things she would like to do that she could not.
Today I can hope that she is in a place where there is no fear; where courage is not needed as an active virtue though I have no doubt that she wears her courage as a garment she wove with amazing tenacity and perseverance and love during her life.
I love you Mom ... and miss you and your courage so much.
Charles Delacroix
Feast of St Augustine
Monday, August 27, 2007
Mom ... Free At Last?
I was reflecting on my Mom's passing a bit more.
She died on Wednesday, August 22, at about 5:45 a.m. I was privileged to be with her in her final moments. She died at home, as was her wish. She appeared to be very peaceful.
Still, her loss is devastating. There's just no other word for it. And while crying and crying and crying, I cursed God, man, and the universe almost all day Wednesday and Thursday.
Fortunately, God, Who Loves me even when I am doing my best to drive Him away, just held me and loved me while I wailed and screamed and called Him everything I could think of. Jesus and His Mother, Our Lady of Sorrows, seemed to cry and weep more than me. And seemed to remind me that Job proves beyond doubt that God is on the side not of those who try to make out that "everything's OK", like Job's "Comforters", but rather on the side of Job and those who cry out at the pain of the seering wound in the side of the universe, the gash lanced into the Side of Christ on the Cross.
And the loss of my Mom is simply more than I can bear. But then the horror of the slash across the Body of Christ is more than anyone can really bear isn't it. The Crucifixion is something far more than even Christ could bear. Yet we are all called to take up our Crosses and Follow Him.
The Sacred Text doesn't really require us to find the Cross bearable, does it? It only calls us to bear the Cross, bearable or not. Fortunartely He who can bear all things leads us on the Way of the Cross.
I'm sure no Job, but when he looks around the earth and seems to see it devoid of any vestige of God, I can only bow my head and gulp: because that is certainly how it feels very often even right now.
But like Job "I know that my Redeemer lives, and at last He will stand upon the earth."
In the meantime, I leave Mom's teacup ready and her packet of Earl Grey tea beside it ready for her; though she is not here. And the dog keeps looking in through the back window, whining and looking for her; but she is not here.
I did get some relief on Saturday by God's grace.
I was taking the dog for a walk in the park. And I was crying and crying. For Mom and I have been taking this dog for a walk every morning for so long. Since Mom lost her mobility, "walking the dog" has meant that Mom has sat in the car, or sometimes I pick her up and put her in her wheelchair in the park, and she watches with a smile on her face as the dog and I walk across the grass under the trees. Anyway, I was walking the dog ... with no Mom watching ... and crying and crying ... and suddenly had a strong feeling that the dog and I were walking with Mom beside us. I know, I know; I said this was just a feeling, not a vision, not a "ghost", nothing of the sort. But I really had the sense all the same that Mom was walking - free of her wheelchair, free of her scoliosis and osteoarthritis and all her pain and suffering - walking free and easy, laughing as the dog romped before us. Free ... "If the Son therefore shall set you free, you shall be free indeed" ... and I really felt like Jesus was walking with us, laughing and wathcing the dog carrying on. Then I felt like Mary was there and all the Saints ... all strolling boldly and easily, even jauntily, across the grass, playing with the dog.
Of course where Christ is, there is the Body of Christ; where the Body of Christ is, there is the Church; where the Church is, there is the Communion of Saints. So if Christ is there ... and where is He not? ... then it's really true, isn't it: the park through which little Charles Delacroix was walking with this dog was almost swarming with Jesus and Mary and Saints. And (I truly Hope) my Mom might be there too.
Free of her suffering, free of her disabilities, walking, walking with the dog and me. Free.
Well, a few hours later, I went to Confession, and the next day, Sunday, I went to Mass, and on Sunday night I was able to sit watching "As Time Goes By", a British sitcom that Mom and I always loved to watch together.
And now I'm wondering if Jesus and Mary and Mom and the Saints were all sitting there with me watching and smiling at the wry humor on the tube?
In any event, the thought of my Mom free at last from her horrible suffering really does help.
And also I take very great comfort in God's Providence that arranged that her death should take place on the Feast of Mary, Queen of Heaven and Earth; and that her funeral should take place on the Feast of St Monica.
Holy Mary, Mother of God, and St Monica, mother of St Augustine, you who are among the most wonderful of mothers, please pray for my own dear Mother ... and for me.
Amen.
She died on Wednesday, August 22, at about 5:45 a.m. I was privileged to be with her in her final moments. She died at home, as was her wish. She appeared to be very peaceful.
Still, her loss is devastating. There's just no other word for it. And while crying and crying and crying, I cursed God, man, and the universe almost all day Wednesday and Thursday.
Fortunately, God, Who Loves me even when I am doing my best to drive Him away, just held me and loved me while I wailed and screamed and called Him everything I could think of. Jesus and His Mother, Our Lady of Sorrows, seemed to cry and weep more than me. And seemed to remind me that Job proves beyond doubt that God is on the side not of those who try to make out that "everything's OK", like Job's "Comforters", but rather on the side of Job and those who cry out at the pain of the seering wound in the side of the universe, the gash lanced into the Side of Christ on the Cross.
And the loss of my Mom is simply more than I can bear. But then the horror of the slash across the Body of Christ is more than anyone can really bear isn't it. The Crucifixion is something far more than even Christ could bear. Yet we are all called to take up our Crosses and Follow Him.
The Sacred Text doesn't really require us to find the Cross bearable, does it? It only calls us to bear the Cross, bearable or not. Fortunartely He who can bear all things leads us on the Way of the Cross.
I'm sure no Job, but when he looks around the earth and seems to see it devoid of any vestige of God, I can only bow my head and gulp: because that is certainly how it feels very often even right now.
But like Job "I know that my Redeemer lives, and at last He will stand upon the earth."
In the meantime, I leave Mom's teacup ready and her packet of Earl Grey tea beside it ready for her; though she is not here. And the dog keeps looking in through the back window, whining and looking for her; but she is not here.
I did get some relief on Saturday by God's grace.
I was taking the dog for a walk in the park. And I was crying and crying. For Mom and I have been taking this dog for a walk every morning for so long. Since Mom lost her mobility, "walking the dog" has meant that Mom has sat in the car, or sometimes I pick her up and put her in her wheelchair in the park, and she watches with a smile on her face as the dog and I walk across the grass under the trees. Anyway, I was walking the dog ... with no Mom watching ... and crying and crying ... and suddenly had a strong feeling that the dog and I were walking with Mom beside us. I know, I know; I said this was just a feeling, not a vision, not a "ghost", nothing of the sort. But I really had the sense all the same that Mom was walking - free of her wheelchair, free of her scoliosis and osteoarthritis and all her pain and suffering - walking free and easy, laughing as the dog romped before us. Free ... "If the Son therefore shall set you free, you shall be free indeed" ... and I really felt like Jesus was walking with us, laughing and wathcing the dog carrying on. Then I felt like Mary was there and all the Saints ... all strolling boldly and easily, even jauntily, across the grass, playing with the dog.
Of course where Christ is, there is the Body of Christ; where the Body of Christ is, there is the Church; where the Church is, there is the Communion of Saints. So if Christ is there ... and where is He not? ... then it's really true, isn't it: the park through which little Charles Delacroix was walking with this dog was almost swarming with Jesus and Mary and Saints. And (I truly Hope) my Mom might be there too.
Free of her suffering, free of her disabilities, walking, walking with the dog and me. Free.
Well, a few hours later, I went to Confession, and the next day, Sunday, I went to Mass, and on Sunday night I was able to sit watching "As Time Goes By", a British sitcom that Mom and I always loved to watch together.
And now I'm wondering if Jesus and Mary and Mom and the Saints were all sitting there with me watching and smiling at the wry humor on the tube?
In any event, the thought of my Mom free at last from her horrible suffering really does help.
And also I take very great comfort in God's Providence that arranged that her death should take place on the Feast of Mary, Queen of Heaven and Earth; and that her funeral should take place on the Feast of St Monica.
Holy Mary, Mother of God, and St Monica, mother of St Augustine, you who are among the most wonderful of mothers, please pray for my own dear Mother ... and for me.
Amen.
Mom's Funeral Day
Mom's funeral was today and I dare Hope that she is home, with God, now.
I'm feeling emotionally and physically exhausted but spiritually there's been some measure of consolation and for that I am very grateful.
For one thing, I am so glad that God arranged, in His Providence, for Mom's funeral to take place today, on the Feast of St Monica. What a wonderful Feast of a wonderful mother for my mother's homecoming to be celebrated on.
In fact, every year I re-read (in OOR) the story of St Monica's Death as told by St Augustine in his Confessions. And every year I feel my heart wrenched and moved. This year is no different, but I am this time so very moved in a special way because almost everything that Augustine says about his dear mother, and his experience of her death, seems so very very like my own very recent experience with the death of Mom. This is an enormous comfort to me ... once again the Church puts before me that which reminds me that I'm not alone, that my own experience of this loss, and this blessing, is niether more nor less nor other than that common in the Church the Body of Christ.
The story of the Death of St Monica is the 2nd Reading in the OOR for this Feast Day: and can be found at http://www.universalis.com/20070827/readings.htm
What a wonderful testimony to the love of a mother, the love of a son, and their joint love of God at her death.
Also ... there is a very, very beautiful full moon here tonite. When I was looking at the moon I thought of George MacDonald's wonderful depiction of the Moon in Phantastes. For anyone not familiar with MacDonald, he's old time Scots Presybterian but his storied Moon - full of love and compassion and observance and care for us mortals who wind our way over the landscapes of this world and which may seem harsh indeed during the daytime, but bathed in Moonlight at night. This has always made me think of Mary. A sort of peace amid the desolation came over me and at the moment although I feel so empty and lonely, I feel inwardly bathed in Mary's Moonlight of peace amid the desolation and think of Dame Julian of Norwich: "all will be well, and all will be well, and all will be most well."
Therefore ... Thy will not mine be done, O Lord.
Hail Mary Full of Grace
The Lord is with thee
Blessed art thou amongs women
And blessed is the Fruit of thy womb, Jesus
Holy Mary Mother of God
Pray for us sinners
Now and at the hour of our death
Amen.
Love in Christ,
Charles Delacroix
Feast of St Monica
I'm feeling emotionally and physically exhausted but spiritually there's been some measure of consolation and for that I am very grateful.
For one thing, I am so glad that God arranged, in His Providence, for Mom's funeral to take place today, on the Feast of St Monica. What a wonderful Feast of a wonderful mother for my mother's homecoming to be celebrated on.
In fact, every year I re-read (in OOR) the story of St Monica's Death as told by St Augustine in his Confessions. And every year I feel my heart wrenched and moved. This year is no different, but I am this time so very moved in a special way because almost everything that Augustine says about his dear mother, and his experience of her death, seems so very very like my own very recent experience with the death of Mom. This is an enormous comfort to me ... once again the Church puts before me that which reminds me that I'm not alone, that my own experience of this loss, and this blessing, is niether more nor less nor other than that common in the Church the Body of Christ.
The story of the Death of St Monica is the 2nd Reading in the OOR for this Feast Day: and can be found at http://www.universalis.com/20070827/readings.htm
What a wonderful testimony to the love of a mother, the love of a son, and their joint love of God at her death.
Also ... there is a very, very beautiful full moon here tonite. When I was looking at the moon I thought of George MacDonald's wonderful depiction of the Moon in Phantastes. For anyone not familiar with MacDonald, he's old time Scots Presybterian but his storied Moon - full of love and compassion and observance and care for us mortals who wind our way over the landscapes of this world and which may seem harsh indeed during the daytime, but bathed in Moonlight at night. This has always made me think of Mary. A sort of peace amid the desolation came over me and at the moment although I feel so empty and lonely, I feel inwardly bathed in Mary's Moonlight of peace amid the desolation and think of Dame Julian of Norwich: "all will be well, and all will be well, and all will be most well."
Therefore ... Thy will not mine be done, O Lord.
Hail Mary Full of Grace
The Lord is with thee
Blessed art thou amongs women
And blessed is the Fruit of thy womb, Jesus
Holy Mary Mother of God
Pray for us sinners
Now and at the hour of our death
Amen.
Love in Christ,
Charles Delacroix
Feast of St Monica
Thursday, August 23, 2007
Courage
First, I felt enormously better when by God's Grace I stopped fighting the very idea of the outrage of my being bereft of my Mom. Because I suddenly realized that in cold, bald fact, it *is* an outrage. That this amazing woman should undergo the tortures of her physical decline, and that she and I should be torn apart, is really, royally fucked up. It's not a sort of uniquely horrible injustice though. It's a universal injustice in this world. It is the torn flesh in the side of Christ writ large. The Original Faultline running through our souls is real and devastating and it's here and now, but it's also there and then ... in every way Original Sin rips apart our walk here. And oh I miss her ... and that bespeaks in itself the presence of Original Wrong that has become our lot.
But second and far more importantly is that I'm just so, so, so deeply impressed by Mom's guts, her sheer courage in the face of debilitaing and humiliating decline. Today I spent most of the day making arrangements for an obituary in The Tulsa World. We're on track for a similar obituary for the Dunklin Daily Democrat, the newspaper serving Southeast Missouri where my mother was born. And then I went through her desk and papers. Which reminded me of how much this lady's guts carried her through the remainder of her life.
The plaintive, heartbreaking appeals that became more and more insistent ... "Just help me ... help me." "You'll have to tell me what to do." This amazing strong, confident lady suddenly finds herself be gradually stripped of her abilities ... yet she has the courage, the guts, the humility to try to do the best she can and not simply give up. She was and is sheer courage.
Oh Im' feeling overwhelmed by sleepiness ... I"m going to hit the sack. Whew I keep falling asleep. Goodnight gang
But second and far more importantly is that I'm just so, so, so deeply impressed by Mom's guts, her sheer courage in the face of debilitaing and humiliating decline. Today I spent most of the day making arrangements for an obituary in The Tulsa World. We're on track for a similar obituary for the Dunklin Daily Democrat, the newspaper serving Southeast Missouri where my mother was born. And then I went through her desk and papers. Which reminded me of how much this lady's guts carried her through the remainder of her life.
The plaintive, heartbreaking appeals that became more and more insistent ... "Just help me ... help me." "You'll have to tell me what to do." This amazing strong, confident lady suddenly finds herself be gradually stripped of her abilities ... yet she has the courage, the guts, the humility to try to do the best she can and not simply give up. She was and is sheer courage.
Oh Im' feeling overwhelmed by sleepiness ... I"m going to hit the sack. Whew I keep falling asleep. Goodnight gang
Empty Nest ... WTF, Lord?
Last night I ran into Walmart to get a phone card ... and as I walked through the displays, I kept looking over at the women's clothing wondering, I wonder if they might have gotten in that kind of jean skirt that they didn't have before and that Mom liked so well? I looked over at the Depends section of the pharmacy and wondered if I needed to get some more. I looked over at the wipes and wondered the same thing. I glanced down at the furniture section and wondered if they might have the kind of side table that would be the right height for her in her wheelchair.
I kept looking and wondering and thinking the same kinds of things I've been thinking when she was here. But she's gone. And there's no point to my thinking those things anymore.
She's gone. ANd I guess I'm feeling a little of the Empty Nest Syndrome. But honestly ... you know ... I honestly can't think of any reason at all, in this world, why I should even exist today. Don't get me wrong I'm not suicidal at all. But I wonder what in the wolrd I'm doing here. She's gone. Why am I still here? What's the point? I don't have anything to do.
And OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO I miss her so MUCH .....................
Hail Mary full of Grace the Lord is with you
blessed art thou amongst women and blessed is the Fruit of thy womb Jesus
Holy Mary mother of God pray for us sinners
Now and at the hour of our death
amen
I kept looking and wondering and thinking the same kinds of things I've been thinking when she was here. But she's gone. And there's no point to my thinking those things anymore.
She's gone. ANd I guess I'm feeling a little of the Empty Nest Syndrome. But honestly ... you know ... I honestly can't think of any reason at all, in this world, why I should even exist today. Don't get me wrong I'm not suicidal at all. But I wonder what in the wolrd I'm doing here. She's gone. Why am I still here? What's the point? I don't have anything to do.
And OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO I miss her so MUCH .....................
Hail Mary full of Grace the Lord is with you
blessed art thou amongst women and blessed is the Fruit of thy womb Jesus
Holy Mary mother of God pray for us sinners
Now and at the hour of our death
amen
"Peace is in the Grave; the Grave holds all things beautiful"
She looked peaceful as she died; and she looked peaceful in her death. Yet I know that her path this past week has been far from peaceful; and her path over the past year has been especially difficult. And indeed her life has had many, many rough spots, to say the least.
Looking at her old pictures ... at this confident, smiling young woman in 1940s Jefferson City; or this good-humored, poised lady in a newspaper photo from the 1960s - accompanying an article from when she was President of the Women's Christian Service Society of Memorial Drive Methodist Church ... and then thinking of her path to the Grave ... leaves me utterly horrified and mystified and confused. Surely it's true that we are born to die; that this life is a "dream-crossed twilight between birth and dying"; that we are, from the very moment we are born, in "preparatio mori." But oh oh oh oh ooooooooooooooooooooo .... something seems so horribly wrong and I don't know what it is here. "The Lord Giveth, and the Lord taketh away; blessed be the Name of the Lord" Yes, yes, yes, Father Job was right. But OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOo ..... the pain ... I don't know what to say ... I'm about to go get my breakfast and I looked at the garage door that won't raise ever again to allow Mom and me to "set a spell" watching the cars go by ... and I think ... NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO .... Never again? Never? Never? My mother's tea is still set on teh countet in the kitchen. Her packet of Earl Grey tea is ready to be torn open and the bag dropped. The kettle is on the stove waiting for me to turn on the gas to boil it for her tea. But never again? Never ??? I don't understand I just don't understand. I know, I know, it's not really for me to understand. "What is that to thee? Follow thou Me." Yes Lord yes Lord I will follow but fucking shit I don't know why. But OK I'll fucking Follow. By Your Grace. You'll have to do this one Lord. I just can't do it fucking at all with out You. OK. But please. Help me.
Hail Mary full of Grace
The Lord is with thee
blessed art thou amongst women
and blessed is the Fruit of thy womb
JESUS CHRIST CRUCIFIED ... O Lord let me take up my little Cross and follow You as you carry your very, very, very BIG cross. I can't do it without you I can't. You know. Only you know why. Help me lplease.
Holy Mary Mother of God
pray for us sinners
now and at the hour of our death
Amen
Looking at her old pictures ... at this confident, smiling young woman in 1940s Jefferson City; or this good-humored, poised lady in a newspaper photo from the 1960s - accompanying an article from when she was President of the Women's Christian Service Society of Memorial Drive Methodist Church ... and then thinking of her path to the Grave ... leaves me utterly horrified and mystified and confused. Surely it's true that we are born to die; that this life is a "dream-crossed twilight between birth and dying"; that we are, from the very moment we are born, in "preparatio mori." But oh oh oh oh ooooooooooooooooooooo .... something seems so horribly wrong and I don't know what it is here. "The Lord Giveth, and the Lord taketh away; blessed be the Name of the Lord" Yes, yes, yes, Father Job was right. But OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOo ..... the pain ... I don't know what to say ... I'm about to go get my breakfast and I looked at the garage door that won't raise ever again to allow Mom and me to "set a spell" watching the cars go by ... and I think ... NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO .... Never again? Never? Never? My mother's tea is still set on teh countet in the kitchen. Her packet of Earl Grey tea is ready to be torn open and the bag dropped. The kettle is on the stove waiting for me to turn on the gas to boil it for her tea. But never again? Never ??? I don't understand I just don't understand. I know, I know, it's not really for me to understand. "What is that to thee? Follow thou Me." Yes Lord yes Lord I will follow but fucking shit I don't know why. But OK I'll fucking Follow. By Your Grace. You'll have to do this one Lord. I just can't do it fucking at all with out You. OK. But please. Help me.
Hail Mary full of Grace
The Lord is with thee
blessed art thou amongst women
and blessed is the Fruit of thy womb
JESUS CHRIST CRUCIFIED ... O Lord let me take up my little Cross and follow You as you carry your very, very, very BIG cross. I can't do it without you I can't. You know. Only you know why. Help me lplease.
Holy Mary Mother of God
pray for us sinners
now and at the hour of our death
Amen
How Mom Died
On Wednesday, August 22, the Feast of the Queenship of Mary, Mom died. From about 3 AM till about 5:45 AM, Mom appeared to be sleeping peacefully and quietly. A couple of times she murmured something, and I leaned over and said, "I'm here. Is there anything I can get for you? I love you" but she didn't respond. Her breathing became slower and slower and stopped at about 5:45 AM. I listened for breathing and tried to feel her breath but could find none. I tried to find a pulse and could find none. I tried checking her blood pressure with the automated meter and both times it returned a zero reading. Her arm was listless as I moved it.
I cried and cried and kissed her and called Hospice at about 6 A.M. A nurse called back and said she'd come over. She arrived about half an hour later. When she came in she looked at Mom and said, "Yes, she's gone." She checked with her stethoscope and then told me she was dead and would take care of things.
I couldn't seem to stop crying and crying. I called my aunt and my sister and told them. And I cried and cried some more. I kept stroking my mother's beautiful white hair and kissing her beautiful peaceful face and holding her hand and caressing her arms, and I cried and cried and cried. I held her and touched her and told her I loved her until the funeral home hearse took her away at about 8. By then my nose felt raw from all the kleenex I had used, and from paper napkins, after the kleenex ran out.
I agreed to meet the funeral home persons at about 11 AM and my aunt and I agreed to go together. Meanwhile I drove over to McDonald's to get my own breakfast as usual; and got her breakfast as usual too. I brought them back and set them beside the packet of Earl Grey tea I had laid out for her 2 days before, beside the teacup she was to drink her tea from, as usual. I was wailing and crying and knew that she would never drink this tea again, that she would never have breakfast with me again, but I couldn't stop myself from fixing things just as if we were to have tea and breakfast.
I just sort of wandered through the empty house screaming and crying and using up it seemed. I talked with Aunt Edna again on the phone and went to buy some more kleenex at Drug Mart. I drove down the street going the same route Mom and I always took and will never take again; I parked and went into Drug Mart like we always did and will never do again. I bought 6 boxes of kleenex and kept seeing things that I had bought with her or talked with her about, never to do so ever ever again.
Aunt Edna and Cousin Charlotte went to the funeral home with me and we made arrangements. We bought 2 plots, one for Mom and one for me, only a few feet from the Zakharians' plot where Uncle Arthur is buried and where Aunt Edna and Cousin Rosanna expect to be buried. I frankly blubbered throughout this whole process and if Aunt Edna and Charlotte hadn't been there, I don't think anything could have been done.
Pastor Sharon of Memorial Drive Methodist Church agreed to officiate and we arranged a graveside service for 10 AM on Monday morning.
I returned home ... and walked in the door ... and looked at her deathbed, and walked out again. I thought I'd try to go see a movie and get my mind off things. It didn't work. I sat through the previews and left just as the movie started. I was driving and blubbering going nowhere in particular when my aunt called. She asked me how I was doing. I told her I just couldn't believe it that it just can't be true and started wailing and blubbering. She listened and said she had no words to stop the pain but said she knows things will get better. she asked me what I was going to do now. I said I thought I'd go get Mom's dog and take her for a walk, like all three of us did so many times, every day we did this in the late afternoon or early evening. Aunt Edna encouraged me to do so. I went and got Spooky, her dog, and we went to Woodward Park like we so often did, but this time without Mom. We sat in the same place in the Rose Garden where all three of us sat so many times together; only this time it was only us two. I felt like I was immersed in pain but had stopped crying and Spooky and I walked and looked and I told her again and again, "It's just us now ... I know, I know, but she's gone ... "
Finally I returned home and while sitting looking at Mom's deathbed, Cousin Annette called. She wanted to pay for a really good obituary, which is something that had come up earlier in the day, and something I really wanted to do. So I spent the rest of the evening, almost happy and certainly grateful, writing up a draft of Mom's obit.
I got to sleep about 11 PM and dozed till 3 AM when I got up and started working on the obit again. And I started looking through her pictures. Amazing pictures, what an amazing woman and what an amazing life. I wasn't crying so much now, although every now and then the tears and wailing would start again; but stopped after a few minutes. I know I need a photo for the obit, but also thought many of these could be part of a display or retrospective for the reception after the funeral. I think that's something I would like to do.
Frankly now, a day after she has died, nothing really seems real at all. I keep seeing things and wonder why they exist or why I exist or what the fucking point of anything is. I know God is here present with me - I have been bending His ear and asking why she's gone and why in the world anything at all anywhere should exist if she's not in this world. I know at some point I'll feel differently but don't know why I should feel differently.
Yet I am really so very very very very very grateful for my Mom. The past year especially, the time when her health was declining so fast, and the past 6 months of full-time caregiving, and the past few nights of being with her while she was dying ... all this to me was truly the hardest thing by far I've ever been through in my life. But I would not trade a single second of it for a fortune. I am so grateful for her; and grudgingly but sincerely admit that her Creator deserves my deepest gratitude not only for Mom, but for granting me the privilege of being with her during this time, and especially the wonderful gift of being with her as she died. I know she wanted this with all her heart, to be allowed to die at home with her son, and am more grateful than I can begin to say that God's Providence arranged things so.
Requiescat in pace, my dearest Mother ... but O OOOOOO why did you have to go????
I cried and cried and kissed her and called Hospice at about 6 A.M. A nurse called back and said she'd come over. She arrived about half an hour later. When she came in she looked at Mom and said, "Yes, she's gone." She checked with her stethoscope and then told me she was dead and would take care of things.
I couldn't seem to stop crying and crying. I called my aunt and my sister and told them. And I cried and cried some more. I kept stroking my mother's beautiful white hair and kissing her beautiful peaceful face and holding her hand and caressing her arms, and I cried and cried and cried. I held her and touched her and told her I loved her until the funeral home hearse took her away at about 8. By then my nose felt raw from all the kleenex I had used, and from paper napkins, after the kleenex ran out.
I agreed to meet the funeral home persons at about 11 AM and my aunt and I agreed to go together. Meanwhile I drove over to McDonald's to get my own breakfast as usual; and got her breakfast as usual too. I brought them back and set them beside the packet of Earl Grey tea I had laid out for her 2 days before, beside the teacup she was to drink her tea from, as usual. I was wailing and crying and knew that she would never drink this tea again, that she would never have breakfast with me again, but I couldn't stop myself from fixing things just as if we were to have tea and breakfast.
I just sort of wandered through the empty house screaming and crying and using up it seemed. I talked with Aunt Edna again on the phone and went to buy some more kleenex at Drug Mart. I drove down the street going the same route Mom and I always took and will never take again; I parked and went into Drug Mart like we always did and will never do again. I bought 6 boxes of kleenex and kept seeing things that I had bought with her or talked with her about, never to do so ever ever again.
Aunt Edna and Cousin Charlotte went to the funeral home with me and we made arrangements. We bought 2 plots, one for Mom and one for me, only a few feet from the Zakharians' plot where Uncle Arthur is buried and where Aunt Edna and Cousin Rosanna expect to be buried. I frankly blubbered throughout this whole process and if Aunt Edna and Charlotte hadn't been there, I don't think anything could have been done.
Pastor Sharon of Memorial Drive Methodist Church agreed to officiate and we arranged a graveside service for 10 AM on Monday morning.
I returned home ... and walked in the door ... and looked at her deathbed, and walked out again. I thought I'd try to go see a movie and get my mind off things. It didn't work. I sat through the previews and left just as the movie started. I was driving and blubbering going nowhere in particular when my aunt called. She asked me how I was doing. I told her I just couldn't believe it that it just can't be true and started wailing and blubbering. She listened and said she had no words to stop the pain but said she knows things will get better. she asked me what I was going to do now. I said I thought I'd go get Mom's dog and take her for a walk, like all three of us did so many times, every day we did this in the late afternoon or early evening. Aunt Edna encouraged me to do so. I went and got Spooky, her dog, and we went to Woodward Park like we so often did, but this time without Mom. We sat in the same place in the Rose Garden where all three of us sat so many times together; only this time it was only us two. I felt like I was immersed in pain but had stopped crying and Spooky and I walked and looked and I told her again and again, "It's just us now ... I know, I know, but she's gone ... "
Finally I returned home and while sitting looking at Mom's deathbed, Cousin Annette called. She wanted to pay for a really good obituary, which is something that had come up earlier in the day, and something I really wanted to do. So I spent the rest of the evening, almost happy and certainly grateful, writing up a draft of Mom's obit.
I got to sleep about 11 PM and dozed till 3 AM when I got up and started working on the obit again. And I started looking through her pictures. Amazing pictures, what an amazing woman and what an amazing life. I wasn't crying so much now, although every now and then the tears and wailing would start again; but stopped after a few minutes. I know I need a photo for the obit, but also thought many of these could be part of a display or retrospective for the reception after the funeral. I think that's something I would like to do.
Frankly now, a day after she has died, nothing really seems real at all. I keep seeing things and wonder why they exist or why I exist or what the fucking point of anything is. I know God is here present with me - I have been bending His ear and asking why she's gone and why in the world anything at all anywhere should exist if she's not in this world. I know at some point I'll feel differently but don't know why I should feel differently.
Yet I am really so very very very very very grateful for my Mom. The past year especially, the time when her health was declining so fast, and the past 6 months of full-time caregiving, and the past few nights of being with her while she was dying ... all this to me was truly the hardest thing by far I've ever been through in my life. But I would not trade a single second of it for a fortune. I am so grateful for her; and grudgingly but sincerely admit that her Creator deserves my deepest gratitude not only for Mom, but for granting me the privilege of being with her during this time, and especially the wonderful gift of being with her as she died. I know she wanted this with all her heart, to be allowed to die at home with her son, and am more grateful than I can begin to say that God's Providence arranged things so.
Requiescat in pace, my dearest Mother ... but O OOOOOO why did you have to go????
Wednesday, August 22, 2007
Never Again
I got several hours of sleep last night. Mom’s asleep now, breathing slowly but evenly. That's good I think.
Today is the Feast of the Queenship of Mary, Mother of God and Queen of Heaven and Earth. Somehow I think it would be appropriate if God called Mom home today. But will He? I do not know. All is in His Hands.
The Hospice nurse came to do an “intake” on Mom yesterday. My Mom’s sister and I were both there; as was Mom, although she was, as she is almost all the time now, asleep. The nurse was really nice, but I was (once again) shocked when she said how little time Mom has left. She says a week at most; and she could go at any moment. She said her blood pressure is falling and she could simply stop breathing anytime. And she probably won’t regain consciousness.
I cried and cried again. My aunt and I hugged. I had laid out my mother’s favorite skirt, a denim skirt, and a favorite green blouse, along with her shoes and socks … I honestly thought she would be getting up with my assistance this morning. Her wheelchair was ready as usual; I had her hot water for her tea on, and a packet of Earl Grey sitting beside her tea cup. I had her meds ready. Everything was ready for our usual morning. A morning that will never come again.
In fact of course in a sense nothing every happens “again.” Every moment is new, unique, irreduceable. Everything that happens in each new moment is new, unique, irreduceable. “Ne plus jamais” is true of everything. Only now I’m forced to be more conscious of this fact. And O … how it hurts. Because of course there is also much blessed repetition in things and that blessed repetition is so often the vehicle of love in this world. Every day I would tell Mom I love her; every day she would say the same to me. Every morning I would ask her if she would like her tea now. Every morning she would say, “O I would love a cup of tea.” And now: never again. I can’t bear it; but I know One Who Can bear it. O but it hurts so much. Never to make Mom her tea again: I can’t even think of this without crying. But that’s the way it is. It’s over: never again.
All day Mom’s been in bed, sleeping, never regaining full consciousness although there’s been a word or two here and there. Every now and then she licks her lips that sometimes look so dry; and I say, “Mom, you want a drink of water?” And sometimes she nods or even says, very very softly, “Yes.” Then I hold a cup of water with a straw to her lips and she sucks the water and then raises a hand to push away the cup when she’s done.
After the hospice nurse and my aunt were gone, I kissed Mama and told her I loved her. She didn’t respond, and I asked her if she would like a foot ruby-down. This is what we always called a foot massage. I have given her foot massages all my life; as young as I can remember this is one of the little things I have been able to do for her. This and “back rubby downs”: back massages.
I pulled back the covers and took off her socks and put lotion on first one foot and then the other. I rubbed the lotion into her feet, and I thought I saw a faint smile on her lips. I rubbed the lotion up her lower legs as so often I would do since she developed her edema: her skin often gets so dry on her lower legs. I rubbed the lotion in and again thought I saw a faint smile.
I repositioned her and asked if she would like a back rubby down. She didn’t say anything but I massaged her back and again I thought I saw a faint smile. Her back has scoliosis and rubbing along her bent spine always seems to be so relaxing for her; and when I did this again, her face looked relaxed again.
All this was really part of our “normal morning routine.” For the rest: never again. This seems so very, very painful to me. All day I thought of things that Mama and I have done so many times before … but would never do together ever again. Never again will we go to the store together. Never again will we sit out front and watch the cars go by. Never again will we take the dog in the car to the park for a walk. Never again.
Or again I would see something to remind me of things that we were planning to do together … things we will never be able to do. I saw a brochure I had picked up for Woolaroc … a museum ranch Mom and I were planning to see together. But of course this will never happen now. I saw a puzzle that Mom and I had been working on together. We will never finish it now. I thought of the State Fair. Never again for us.
The Bible is surely right: all of our plans are dust and ashes. We can build up this or that. But now all I can think of is the Voice in the Gospel: “Thou fool: this night thy soul is required of thee.”
Mom looks like she’s resting peacefully now. Her eyes are closed and her breathing seems steady and even. She really looks very young now, with the wrinkles of her face almost gone. She is very beautiful … but she is always very beautiful to me … and I miss her wrinkles … but am glad to see her looking so lovely and peaceful.
A couple of times yesterday, I put a MASH DVD. This is from a collection of the MASH TV series. Mom and I loved to watch MASH together. I said to her, “Mom, is it OK if I put on MASH?” She gave a small smile and nodded but said nothing; her eyes were still closed. Then I held her hand while I (we?) watched a few MASH programs. She never opened her eyes and she didn’t say anything. Once I thought I felt slight squeeze of her hand, but this might be wishful thinking.
At another point, I had Bonanza on TV. We both loved to watch Bonanza. I don’t know if she was aware of it or not; but I held her hand while I played it for both of us.
Mostly though I could do so little for her. I sometimes wandered around the room, praying Please Please Please Lord. Sometimes I feel nothing at all and just want it to be over. How brutal. But it’s not always like that. Mostly I know that I don’t want it to be over until it’s the right time. And so often I just can’t stop crying and wishing that it never be over … that Mom and I could go back and be together the way we were. Oh Mama. Please, please don’t go. But I know that the time has come. She said so herself on Sunday.
At one point, in her delirium yesterday, Mom rasped out, “Let me go … let me go … let me go …” I said, “Go when you want, Mama. Go whenever you want. Go when you’re ready. I love you. I love you and I’m right here.” I don’t know if she heard me, or if she did, what she did or didn’t understand. Then she said, “Let me stay … let me stay … O please let me stay …” I said, “Stay as long as you want, Mama. Stay as long as you want. I’m here. I love you and I’m right here.”
A few times I heard her murmuring something to “Grandma.” I’ve heard her say things like this in her sleep before. When she does this she is talking to Grandma Rust, her maternal grandmother, my great-grandmother. Grandma Rust died many, many years ago; and Mom was very very close to her. “Grandma please …” Mom said a couple of times. I said, “Mom, I think you will be able to see Grandma very soon. I think very soon. I love you and I’m here …”
She became very agitated several times last night and complained of pain. I asked her if she wanted some medicine and she whispered “yes” and I gave her some more Morphine. It took a lot of Morphine before she was able to become calm; and then, of course, she droused off to sleep.
Yet … what a lady. A very ordinary woman and mother and homemaker at one level. At another level, this woman is a very extraordinary lady indeed. An ikon of Our Lady. A queen of this home, this hearth, this house, who reflects in very truth the Eve and the New Eve, both of whom are in her. The woman who lies here dying is a queen who at death’s door summons the homage of all who do honor to the Queen of Heaven and Earth. I know that the Saints and Angels of Holy Church are here present, weeping and wailing in this passing of this queen from this veil of tears. Jesus and Mary are here present as well, leading the mourning for this simple mother who reflects so much that is in all mothers, and in the Mother of God.
Hail Holy Queen
Mother of Mercy
Our life, our sweetness, and our hope.
To thee do we cry, poor banished children of Eve
To thee do we send up our sighs,
Mourning and weeping in this Valley of Tears.
Turn then most gracious advocate
Thine eyes of mercy upon us
And after this our exile
Show unto us the Blessed Fruit of thy womb
JESUS
O clement, O loving, O sweet virgin, Maria
Pray for us O Holy Mother of God
That we may be made worthy of the promises of Christ.
Today is the Feast of the Queenship of Mary, Mother of God and Queen of Heaven and Earth. Somehow I think it would be appropriate if God called Mom home today. But will He? I do not know. All is in His Hands.
The Hospice nurse came to do an “intake” on Mom yesterday. My Mom’s sister and I were both there; as was Mom, although she was, as she is almost all the time now, asleep. The nurse was really nice, but I was (once again) shocked when she said how little time Mom has left. She says a week at most; and she could go at any moment. She said her blood pressure is falling and she could simply stop breathing anytime. And she probably won’t regain consciousness.
I cried and cried again. My aunt and I hugged. I had laid out my mother’s favorite skirt, a denim skirt, and a favorite green blouse, along with her shoes and socks … I honestly thought she would be getting up with my assistance this morning. Her wheelchair was ready as usual; I had her hot water for her tea on, and a packet of Earl Grey sitting beside her tea cup. I had her meds ready. Everything was ready for our usual morning. A morning that will never come again.
In fact of course in a sense nothing every happens “again.” Every moment is new, unique, irreduceable. Everything that happens in each new moment is new, unique, irreduceable. “Ne plus jamais” is true of everything. Only now I’m forced to be more conscious of this fact. And O … how it hurts. Because of course there is also much blessed repetition in things and that blessed repetition is so often the vehicle of love in this world. Every day I would tell Mom I love her; every day she would say the same to me. Every morning I would ask her if she would like her tea now. Every morning she would say, “O I would love a cup of tea.” And now: never again. I can’t bear it; but I know One Who Can bear it. O but it hurts so much. Never to make Mom her tea again: I can’t even think of this without crying. But that’s the way it is. It’s over: never again.
All day Mom’s been in bed, sleeping, never regaining full consciousness although there’s been a word or two here and there. Every now and then she licks her lips that sometimes look so dry; and I say, “Mom, you want a drink of water?” And sometimes she nods or even says, very very softly, “Yes.” Then I hold a cup of water with a straw to her lips and she sucks the water and then raises a hand to push away the cup when she’s done.
After the hospice nurse and my aunt were gone, I kissed Mama and told her I loved her. She didn’t respond, and I asked her if she would like a foot ruby-down. This is what we always called a foot massage. I have given her foot massages all my life; as young as I can remember this is one of the little things I have been able to do for her. This and “back rubby downs”: back massages.
I pulled back the covers and took off her socks and put lotion on first one foot and then the other. I rubbed the lotion into her feet, and I thought I saw a faint smile on her lips. I rubbed the lotion up her lower legs as so often I would do since she developed her edema: her skin often gets so dry on her lower legs. I rubbed the lotion in and again thought I saw a faint smile.
I repositioned her and asked if she would like a back rubby down. She didn’t say anything but I massaged her back and again I thought I saw a faint smile. Her back has scoliosis and rubbing along her bent spine always seems to be so relaxing for her; and when I did this again, her face looked relaxed again.
All this was really part of our “normal morning routine.” For the rest: never again. This seems so very, very painful to me. All day I thought of things that Mama and I have done so many times before … but would never do together ever again. Never again will we go to the store together. Never again will we sit out front and watch the cars go by. Never again will we take the dog in the car to the park for a walk. Never again.
Or again I would see something to remind me of things that we were planning to do together … things we will never be able to do. I saw a brochure I had picked up for Woolaroc … a museum ranch Mom and I were planning to see together. But of course this will never happen now. I saw a puzzle that Mom and I had been working on together. We will never finish it now. I thought of the State Fair. Never again for us.
The Bible is surely right: all of our plans are dust and ashes. We can build up this or that. But now all I can think of is the Voice in the Gospel: “Thou fool: this night thy soul is required of thee.”
Mom looks like she’s resting peacefully now. Her eyes are closed and her breathing seems steady and even. She really looks very young now, with the wrinkles of her face almost gone. She is very beautiful … but she is always very beautiful to me … and I miss her wrinkles … but am glad to see her looking so lovely and peaceful.
A couple of times yesterday, I put a MASH DVD. This is from a collection of the MASH TV series. Mom and I loved to watch MASH together. I said to her, “Mom, is it OK if I put on MASH?” She gave a small smile and nodded but said nothing; her eyes were still closed. Then I held her hand while I (we?) watched a few MASH programs. She never opened her eyes and she didn’t say anything. Once I thought I felt slight squeeze of her hand, but this might be wishful thinking.
At another point, I had Bonanza on TV. We both loved to watch Bonanza. I don’t know if she was aware of it or not; but I held her hand while I played it for both of us.
Mostly though I could do so little for her. I sometimes wandered around the room, praying Please Please Please Lord. Sometimes I feel nothing at all and just want it to be over. How brutal. But it’s not always like that. Mostly I know that I don’t want it to be over until it’s the right time. And so often I just can’t stop crying and wishing that it never be over … that Mom and I could go back and be together the way we were. Oh Mama. Please, please don’t go. But I know that the time has come. She said so herself on Sunday.
At one point, in her delirium yesterday, Mom rasped out, “Let me go … let me go … let me go …” I said, “Go when you want, Mama. Go whenever you want. Go when you’re ready. I love you. I love you and I’m right here.” I don’t know if she heard me, or if she did, what she did or didn’t understand. Then she said, “Let me stay … let me stay … O please let me stay …” I said, “Stay as long as you want, Mama. Stay as long as you want. I’m here. I love you and I’m right here.”
A few times I heard her murmuring something to “Grandma.” I’ve heard her say things like this in her sleep before. When she does this she is talking to Grandma Rust, her maternal grandmother, my great-grandmother. Grandma Rust died many, many years ago; and Mom was very very close to her. “Grandma please …” Mom said a couple of times. I said, “Mom, I think you will be able to see Grandma very soon. I think very soon. I love you and I’m here …”
She became very agitated several times last night and complained of pain. I asked her if she wanted some medicine and she whispered “yes” and I gave her some more Morphine. It took a lot of Morphine before she was able to become calm; and then, of course, she droused off to sleep.
Yet … what a lady. A very ordinary woman and mother and homemaker at one level. At another level, this woman is a very extraordinary lady indeed. An ikon of Our Lady. A queen of this home, this hearth, this house, who reflects in very truth the Eve and the New Eve, both of whom are in her. The woman who lies here dying is a queen who at death’s door summons the homage of all who do honor to the Queen of Heaven and Earth. I know that the Saints and Angels of Holy Church are here present, weeping and wailing in this passing of this queen from this veil of tears. Jesus and Mary are here present as well, leading the mourning for this simple mother who reflects so much that is in all mothers, and in the Mother of God.
Hail Holy Queen
Mother of Mercy
Our life, our sweetness, and our hope.
To thee do we cry, poor banished children of Eve
To thee do we send up our sighs,
Mourning and weeping in this Valley of Tears.
Turn then most gracious advocate
Thine eyes of mercy upon us
And after this our exile
Show unto us the Blessed Fruit of thy womb
JESUS
O clement, O loving, O sweet virgin, Maria
Pray for us O Holy Mother of God
That we may be made worthy of the promises of Christ.
Tuesday, August 21, 2007
My Dying Mom
An update on Mom: after an intensive series of tests today, the doctors decided that Mom's condition is so severely deteriorated that she will proabably have only "days or weeks" to live. She has been brought home from the hospital because she has strongly indicated that she wants to die at home. She is receiving wonderful assistance from Hospice, which for anyone who doesn't know is a service specifically designed to support terminally ill patients in their final days, and helps patients end their days in their own homes in situations like ours.
As for how old Charles is holding up: by God's grace and your prayers, I'd say as well as can be under the circumstances. I carry my breviary everywhere and just having it at hand seems to remind me that God is here. I cry and cry and cry some more ... and by God's Grace am convinced that Jesus is crying with me and His Mother is crying with me and for her and all the saints of Holy Church are weeping at the passing of this very ordinary, and therefore very extraordinary, lady. I am so grateful that our Lord Jesus Christ is Wholly God and Wholly Man, that He understands all our sufferings better than we do.
As I am typing this, I am sitting in a chair across from my mother, asleep in a hospital bed on loan through Hospice. I am exhausted and every time I think there is no more room for tears find that in fact there are more. Yet I know that this room is filled with all the Saints and Angels of Holy Church, watching over my mother as she slumbers. They weep as Christ Here Present weeps; as Our Sorrowful Mother weeps. I have been told that every man who dies is an Ikon of Christ Who dies; and that every woman who dies is an Ikon of the Dormition of Mary; and know by God's Grace that this is a time of great horror and pain and also a time of great Love. God in His Love has made of this little room an Ikon of Calvary.
I truly believe that my Vocation today is to Watch with Christ as He prays and sweats Blood in the Gethsemani here present. I think my Vocation is to wipe the excrement of a dying woman and empty her urine bag as often as it needs to be emptied. My Vocation today is to Cry and to Weep and thereby to honor the passing of this woman. My Vocation today is to do my little part in this little home to let Christ work through me to uphold the Dignity of this Human Person, Imago Dei, overflowing with Christ and with the Mother of God, "alive with worth till the very end" as one of the Encyclicals celebrating Life says. I am so deeply grateful for this woman who is dying in front of me; and I am so deeply grateful for the Body of Christ that subsists in the Roman Catholic Church that always and everywhere upholds the worth and Dignity of every human life, from conception till death ... and beyond. Your prayers and your kindness speak to me of a Church that stands with anyone, anywhere who is suffering, for anyone anywhere who is suffering is an Ikon of the Suffering Christ.
And I am grateful for the gifts of God here Present. Reminding me that Here I have no lasting place: My Mom is passing through a door after all that I, and all of us, will pass through at our appointed time. I look at this woman and am reminded that the time will come when our time of Exile here will come to an end. I look at her and remember that I too was born to die. Life in this world is after all nothing more nor less nor other than preparatio mori. I look at her knowing that my life in this world is so brief, "like grass in the summer and then it is gone," as the Psalmist says. Looking at the dying face of the Image of the Mother of God, what much matters in this life? "All things are full of weariness, a man cannot utter it. The eye is not satisfied with seeing nor the ear filled with hearing" as Qoheleth says.
If this life is at least in large part a "preparatio", a School of Love, my Mom is still teaching me a thing or two. You know what Mom said to me today, after we had hugged and cried after the news from the doctors? I was there and so was her sister and two of her nieces; ours is not a big family. But she said, through eyes dimmed with pain, and with a mind not entirely clear at all times, "Thank you all. I have loved you all so much. But it's time for me to go. It's time to go and it's alright." We had just prayed the Our Father and she clearlly meant that she was ready to go to her true Home. To her True Father. There are so many lessons here for me. So here is my Mom, even as she's dying, still teaching her son. She taught me how to live. Now she is teaching me how to die. With deep Gratitude, for all the gifts of God in this life, which are after all simply on loan to us. "The Lord giveth, and the Lord taketh away. Blessed be the Name of the Lord."
Wow this is long. Thanks for listening. I needed to talk with someone I guess and it's late at night here and no one else is up now on this Dark Night of the Soul, this Holy Saturday in the Tomb. I think I may get a few hours of sleep now unless Mom calls again. And if she does, what a privilege it will be to respond and serve her. As she prepares, with the assistance of Christ and Mary and all the Angels and Saints, to go her way.
Hail Mary, full of Grace, the Lord is with thee.
Blessed art thou amongst women,
And blessed is the Fruit of they womb, Jesus.
Holy Mary, Mother of God,
Pray for us sinngers,
now and at the hour of our death.
Amen.
Charles Delacroix
Feast of St Bernard of Clairvaux
Eve of Pope St Piux X
As for how old Charles is holding up: by God's grace and your prayers, I'd say as well as can be under the circumstances. I carry my breviary everywhere and just having it at hand seems to remind me that God is here. I cry and cry and cry some more ... and by God's Grace am convinced that Jesus is crying with me and His Mother is crying with me and for her and all the saints of Holy Church are weeping at the passing of this very ordinary, and therefore very extraordinary, lady. I am so grateful that our Lord Jesus Christ is Wholly God and Wholly Man, that He understands all our sufferings better than we do.
As I am typing this, I am sitting in a chair across from my mother, asleep in a hospital bed on loan through Hospice. I am exhausted and every time I think there is no more room for tears find that in fact there are more. Yet I know that this room is filled with all the Saints and Angels of Holy Church, watching over my mother as she slumbers. They weep as Christ Here Present weeps; as Our Sorrowful Mother weeps. I have been told that every man who dies is an Ikon of Christ Who dies; and that every woman who dies is an Ikon of the Dormition of Mary; and know by God's Grace that this is a time of great horror and pain and also a time of great Love. God in His Love has made of this little room an Ikon of Calvary.
I truly believe that my Vocation today is to Watch with Christ as He prays and sweats Blood in the Gethsemani here present. I think my Vocation is to wipe the excrement of a dying woman and empty her urine bag as often as it needs to be emptied. My Vocation today is to Cry and to Weep and thereby to honor the passing of this woman. My Vocation today is to do my little part in this little home to let Christ work through me to uphold the Dignity of this Human Person, Imago Dei, overflowing with Christ and with the Mother of God, "alive with worth till the very end" as one of the Encyclicals celebrating Life says. I am so deeply grateful for this woman who is dying in front of me; and I am so deeply grateful for the Body of Christ that subsists in the Roman Catholic Church that always and everywhere upholds the worth and Dignity of every human life, from conception till death ... and beyond. Your prayers and your kindness speak to me of a Church that stands with anyone, anywhere who is suffering, for anyone anywhere who is suffering is an Ikon of the Suffering Christ.
And I am grateful for the gifts of God here Present. Reminding me that Here I have no lasting place: My Mom is passing through a door after all that I, and all of us, will pass through at our appointed time. I look at this woman and am reminded that the time will come when our time of Exile here will come to an end. I look at her and remember that I too was born to die. Life in this world is after all nothing more nor less nor other than preparatio mori. I look at her knowing that my life in this world is so brief, "like grass in the summer and then it is gone," as the Psalmist says. Looking at the dying face of the Image of the Mother of God, what much matters in this life? "All things are full of weariness, a man cannot utter it. The eye is not satisfied with seeing nor the ear filled with hearing" as Qoheleth says.
If this life is at least in large part a "preparatio", a School of Love, my Mom is still teaching me a thing or two. You know what Mom said to me today, after we had hugged and cried after the news from the doctors? I was there and so was her sister and two of her nieces; ours is not a big family. But she said, through eyes dimmed with pain, and with a mind not entirely clear at all times, "Thank you all. I have loved you all so much. But it's time for me to go. It's time to go and it's alright." We had just prayed the Our Father and she clearlly meant that she was ready to go to her true Home. To her True Father. There are so many lessons here for me. So here is my Mom, even as she's dying, still teaching her son. She taught me how to live. Now she is teaching me how to die. With deep Gratitude, for all the gifts of God in this life, which are after all simply on loan to us. "The Lord giveth, and the Lord taketh away. Blessed be the Name of the Lord."
Wow this is long. Thanks for listening. I needed to talk with someone I guess and it's late at night here and no one else is up now on this Dark Night of the Soul, this Holy Saturday in the Tomb. I think I may get a few hours of sleep now unless Mom calls again. And if she does, what a privilege it will be to respond and serve her. As she prepares, with the assistance of Christ and Mary and all the Angels and Saints, to go her way.
Hail Mary, full of Grace, the Lord is with thee.
Blessed art thou amongst women,
And blessed is the Fruit of they womb, Jesus.
Holy Mary, Mother of God,
Pray for us sinngers,
now and at the hour of our death.
Amen.
Charles Delacroix
Feast of St Bernard of Clairvaux
Eve of Pope St Piux X
Monday, August 20, 2007
She's Dying
She's dying. And with that has come a day like no other in my life. In fact in my present emotionally exhausted state it looks to me like this has been a day of strangely fast-paced darkness. A woman is said to be dying; darkness seems to be everywhere; but activity that now seems to be little more than whistling in the dark has filled this day.
The day started with what seemed to be intimations that Mom would be returning home, impaired but on meds of some kind or other to help her function for an indefinite period ... as before, in fact. Then a doctor told me that Mom seems to have only 20% - 30% heart capability; and since she can't tolerate the degree of Lasix needed to drive the necessary fluids from her lungs - Lasix now drives her blood pressure far too low - she could die at any time. "This is a serious life-threatening condition. You should tell any relatives who want to see her to come now." said the Doc.
I burst into tears and frankly didn't stop crying for what seemed aeons ... but which probably was only 10 minutes or so. I was able to find a space of lucidity and told Mom ... who said that she understood and that this was just the way things are. Frankly, Mom's demeanor astonished me all day. Things she said included: "When you've done everything and seen everything, it's time to move on" and compliments to me on how I've fixed up the house, and grateful words to others for all they've done. And she restated that she wanted to go home to die.
I called my sister ... who lives a few states away .. who after a number of phone calls ultimately decided not to come to see my Mom before she died; although she willingly talked with her on the phone. I heard my Mom say several times "I understand".
I called my aunt, my mother's sister. She and two of my cousins came over. We had a family conference with several doctors again who in effect reiterated what had been said. Ultimately, as my mother's health care proxy, with agreements from Mom, my aunt, and my sister, I signed a DNR order and requested on my mother's behalf that she be discharged home as soon as possible with a request that Hospice be assigned. These things were carried out with dispatch and kindness by everyone at the hospital. And now my Mom is at home. I am looking at her now laying in a hospital bed on loan from Hospice. She is expected to live, according to docs, "days or weeks" under present conditions: namely, she's on oxygen and little more.
I'm oddly, though, focused at this point. I think my initial denial and horror and overwhelming sense of sadness has given way to a sense of a new, though very temporary, Vocation: to help make my mother's passing a time of love, of honor, of respect, of dignity.
But O God the aching void. The sudden recogntion again and again during the day that so many things I hoped to do with or for her are simply no longer options. No going together to the State Fair. No more Halloweens together. No more Thanksgivings. No more Christmases together. No trip together to Hornersville. No more stories of her own life or the lives of our ancestors that have dwelt in her memory.
All over, all gone, all done. No more. "It is finished."
Hail Mary full of Grace the Lord is with thee
Blessed art thou amongst women
And blessed is the Fruit of thy womb Jesus
Holy Mary Mother of God
Pray for us sinners
Now and at the hour of our death
Amen.
The day started with what seemed to be intimations that Mom would be returning home, impaired but on meds of some kind or other to help her function for an indefinite period ... as before, in fact. Then a doctor told me that Mom seems to have only 20% - 30% heart capability; and since she can't tolerate the degree of Lasix needed to drive the necessary fluids from her lungs - Lasix now drives her blood pressure far too low - she could die at any time. "This is a serious life-threatening condition. You should tell any relatives who want to see her to come now." said the Doc.
I burst into tears and frankly didn't stop crying for what seemed aeons ... but which probably was only 10 minutes or so. I was able to find a space of lucidity and told Mom ... who said that she understood and that this was just the way things are. Frankly, Mom's demeanor astonished me all day. Things she said included: "When you've done everything and seen everything, it's time to move on" and compliments to me on how I've fixed up the house, and grateful words to others for all they've done. And she restated that she wanted to go home to die.
I called my sister ... who lives a few states away .. who after a number of phone calls ultimately decided not to come to see my Mom before she died; although she willingly talked with her on the phone. I heard my Mom say several times "I understand".
I called my aunt, my mother's sister. She and two of my cousins came over. We had a family conference with several doctors again who in effect reiterated what had been said. Ultimately, as my mother's health care proxy, with agreements from Mom, my aunt, and my sister, I signed a DNR order and requested on my mother's behalf that she be discharged home as soon as possible with a request that Hospice be assigned. These things were carried out with dispatch and kindness by everyone at the hospital. And now my Mom is at home. I am looking at her now laying in a hospital bed on loan from Hospice. She is expected to live, according to docs, "days or weeks" under present conditions: namely, she's on oxygen and little more.
I'm oddly, though, focused at this point. I think my initial denial and horror and overwhelming sense of sadness has given way to a sense of a new, though very temporary, Vocation: to help make my mother's passing a time of love, of honor, of respect, of dignity.
But O God the aching void. The sudden recogntion again and again during the day that so many things I hoped to do with or for her are simply no longer options. No going together to the State Fair. No more Halloweens together. No more Thanksgivings. No more Christmases together. No trip together to Hornersville. No more stories of her own life or the lives of our ancestors that have dwelt in her memory.
All over, all gone, all done. No more. "It is finished."
Hail Mary full of Grace the Lord is with thee
Blessed art thou amongst women
And blessed is the Fruit of thy womb Jesus
Holy Mary Mother of God
Pray for us sinners
Now and at the hour of our death
Amen.
Recognition and Representation
Earlier this morning, Mom woke up and we talked. She recognized me, told me that she had "missed me terribly" ... she hadn't remembered anything from the night at all ... and oh how good it felt to hear these words after last night.
This recognition - in the Here and Now - does feel so, so, so good. Don't get me wrong, I know that recognition or no recognition, the Truth is the Truth. I am her son, she is my Mom. Still this recognition helps me in a Representation process that humanly speaking I seem to need so much. I'm not sure that this need is a good thing at all, but I'm very sure it's human. And nothing that is human is foreign to My Mother the Church, as the Popes have said more than once.
To me one of the by far greatest challenges is, on a daily basis, in the Here and Now, to Recognize God's Presence. To Recognize allows a Re-Presentation to me that He is Here and He is Now. But I walk through my days with cars whizzing past and groceries to buy and radios and TV's blaring ... and Recognizing the Ground of Being beyond all these beings is so hard.
The hospital where my Mom is at is a Catholic Hospital. This provides lots of typically Catholic opportunities to Remind, to Recognize, and to Re-Present. There are Crucifixes everywhere. There are pictures of a nun in the lobby, of saints here and there throughout the building, and, in my Mom's case, last night, a CNA who is a Sister, and who wore, God's blessings be upon her, a full habit. I love seeing Nuns and Brothers and Priests in full clericals. To me they Remind and they help me Recognize that, or who, they Re-Present.
There's also a Chapel with the Blessed Sacrament in full exposition. For there is a Perpetual Adoration here. I availed myself by God's Grace of a brief visit to the Chapel several times during the night. Someone was always there praying before the Blessed Sacrament. Each time I entered I knelt and prayed and rose and left, without any semblance of "Sensation" at all. This lack of Sensation meant that the RePresentation wasn't as immediate to my senses. But Christ was and is There. If He is There, then He is Here: Here and Now.
She's dying. That's what they said. O God.
This recognition - in the Here and Now - does feel so, so, so good. Don't get me wrong, I know that recognition or no recognition, the Truth is the Truth. I am her son, she is my Mom. Still this recognition helps me in a Representation process that humanly speaking I seem to need so much. I'm not sure that this need is a good thing at all, but I'm very sure it's human. And nothing that is human is foreign to My Mother the Church, as the Popes have said more than once.
To me one of the by far greatest challenges is, on a daily basis, in the Here and Now, to Recognize God's Presence. To Recognize allows a Re-Presentation to me that He is Here and He is Now. But I walk through my days with cars whizzing past and groceries to buy and radios and TV's blaring ... and Recognizing the Ground of Being beyond all these beings is so hard.
The hospital where my Mom is at is a Catholic Hospital. This provides lots of typically Catholic opportunities to Remind, to Recognize, and to Re-Present. There are Crucifixes everywhere. There are pictures of a nun in the lobby, of saints here and there throughout the building, and, in my Mom's case, last night, a CNA who is a Sister, and who wore, God's blessings be upon her, a full habit. I love seeing Nuns and Brothers and Priests in full clericals. To me they Remind and they help me Recognize that, or who, they Re-Present.
There's also a Chapel with the Blessed Sacrament in full exposition. For there is a Perpetual Adoration here. I availed myself by God's Grace of a brief visit to the Chapel several times during the night. Someone was always there praying before the Blessed Sacrament. Each time I entered I knelt and prayed and rose and left, without any semblance of "Sensation" at all. This lack of Sensation meant that the RePresentation wasn't as immediate to my senses. But Christ was and is There. If He is There, then He is Here: Here and Now.
She's dying. That's what they said. O God.
The Tomb
Really sitting in the quiet darkness of this hospital room is almost like sitting in a Tomb. And being in a Tomb is, I'm told, like being in the Dead Heart of Jesus, on Holy Saturday.
There's an extraordinarily moving series of portraits of life in the Dead Heart of Jesus by the Monk-Guestmaster of the Trappist Monastery of the Holy Spirit in Conyers, Georgia.
Oh my. Mom just pulled out the oxygen tubing. Back in place now. Thank God.
I wonder, though, if that old Guestmaster is still living. But like Hans Urs von Balthasar, he clearly saw in our life in this world something of a lifelong Holy Saturday ... living in the Tomb with the Dead Jesus. In the Dead Heart of Jesus that is also His Sacred Heart. Finding in Death the paradoxical nurturance that is of course at the Heart of Christianity.
When Mom awakes, Mary awakes with her from her Dormition. When Mom wakes, Jesus awakes from His Sleep of Death. When Mom wakes, an Ikon of the Resurrection is placed before me.
And when she dies, an Ikon of the Death of Christ and the Dormition of Mary will be placed before me.
Hail Mary full of Grace the Lord is with thee
Blesed art thou amongst women
And blessed is the Fruit of thy womb, Jesus
Holy Mary, Mother of God, pray for us sinners
Now and at the hour of our death
Amen
There's an extraordinarily moving series of portraits of life in the Dead Heart of Jesus by the Monk-Guestmaster of the Trappist Monastery of the Holy Spirit in Conyers, Georgia.
Oh my. Mom just pulled out the oxygen tubing. Back in place now. Thank God.
I wonder, though, if that old Guestmaster is still living. But like Hans Urs von Balthasar, he clearly saw in our life in this world something of a lifelong Holy Saturday ... living in the Tomb with the Dead Jesus. In the Dead Heart of Jesus that is also His Sacred Heart. Finding in Death the paradoxical nurturance that is of course at the Heart of Christianity.
When Mom awakes, Mary awakes with her from her Dormition. When Mom wakes, Jesus awakes from His Sleep of Death. When Mom wakes, an Ikon of the Resurrection is placed before me.
And when she dies, an Ikon of the Death of Christ and the Dormition of Mary will be placed before me.
Hail Mary full of Grace the Lord is with thee
Blesed art thou amongst women
And blessed is the Fruit of thy womb, Jesus
Holy Mary, Mother of God, pray for us sinners
Now and at the hour of our death
Amen
The Unknown
I think one of the hardest things about all this ... meaning what's going on with my Mom, and therefore what's going on with me ... is the Uncertainty. So much is Unknown. So much of me wants to speculate. How much longer? What will she be able to do? How much of her will be left? To be really brutal.
And I just don't know and won't know. I don't even know what the prognosis is or what the doctors plan for the day. Maybe they don't either.
Then again of course really what do I really know about anything anyway? What do I know about what's going to happen to me today or to her or to anyone? "Vous ne savez ni l'heure ni le jour." I can't count the hairs on my head. All I really know is that God sends both sunshine and rain on both the Just and the Unjust. All is in God's Hands Who Alone Knows.
Who was it who spoke of the Unknown sailing into the Unknown? Porphyry? Plotus? There's a lot to that isn't there? The Via Negativa comes close to seeing God as "ganz anders", Wholly Other. Therefore Unknown, Unknowable. Therefore ... says Dionysius, and St John of the Cross ... we can Know Him only to the extent that we surrender Knowledge.
Maybe that's true for Mom as well. I mean, what do I really Know about her? She is my Mother and I have known her for as long as I've been alive. But what have I known about her? Contingencies; acts; deeds; speech. What do these have to do with Mom herself, at her core, in her very inner being that is an Imago of God, an Imago of Mary?
Well, they do have something to do with her of course, they are themselves Images and Imagos and Reflections. But they aren't really her at her very center are they? The Dignity of the Human Person of which the Church speaks goes so far beyond any of these things. By their fruits you shall know them; but of course we have to know the fruits and understand them to really understand their source. The Type reveals the Archetype but that takes interpretation and understanding. In a way that Dionysius and St John of the Cross, the Type conceals the Archetype as much as it Reveals the Archetype.
The nurse just came in and introduced herself. April. She seems so very young. So many of the medical personnel here seem so very young. But very kind and very good. April seems such herself. What a blessing to my Mom; and to me.
But the Unknown. There's so much I would like to know about my Mom that I will never know; at least in this life. And there's so much I'd still like to do with her. We were planning on going to the State Fair together. It's about a month away, and we always have enjoyed going, not for the rides and the fun things to do so much as to see the animals. The rabbits, the chickens, the pigs. Mom would always explain to me the difference between a Bantam rooster and another; and talk about how her mother liked Buff Orfingtons. Now I wonder: will be able to go this years? Or ever again? Will we be able to celebrate Halloween or Thanksgiving or Christmas? Ever again? I don't know.
The Aide just came through. Wanda. Very nice person. Took Mom's blood pressure. A little low, but on the whole OK. God grants us this knowledge, at least. Thank you Lord. I think ... !
But actually isn't everything in this world really on a Need to Know Basis? Why not. Do I really need to know about the State Fair and Christmas and Mom this year? Probably not. What Jesus said to Peter applies to us all doesn't it: "What is that to thee? Follow thou Me."
O God Who Are Present Here and Now, O God who I can only Know through Your Son Jesus Christ, for only in seeing the Son can I see the Father, O Lord Who Know all and Who Know I know nothing except you reveal it to me, please watch over my Mom and me today.
St Bernard de Clairvaux, whose Feast we celebrate today, of your courtesy, pray for me and my Mom.
Hail Mary full of Grace
The Lord is with thee
Blessed art thou amongst women
And blessed is the Fruit of thy womb, Jesus
Holy Mary, Mother of God
Pray for us sinners
Now and at the hour of our death
Amen.
And I just don't know and won't know. I don't even know what the prognosis is or what the doctors plan for the day. Maybe they don't either.
Then again of course really what do I really know about anything anyway? What do I know about what's going to happen to me today or to her or to anyone? "Vous ne savez ni l'heure ni le jour." I can't count the hairs on my head. All I really know is that God sends both sunshine and rain on both the Just and the Unjust. All is in God's Hands Who Alone Knows.
Who was it who spoke of the Unknown sailing into the Unknown? Porphyry? Plotus? There's a lot to that isn't there? The Via Negativa comes close to seeing God as "ganz anders", Wholly Other. Therefore Unknown, Unknowable. Therefore ... says Dionysius, and St John of the Cross ... we can Know Him only to the extent that we surrender Knowledge.
Maybe that's true for Mom as well. I mean, what do I really Know about her? She is my Mother and I have known her for as long as I've been alive. But what have I known about her? Contingencies; acts; deeds; speech. What do these have to do with Mom herself, at her core, in her very inner being that is an Imago of God, an Imago of Mary?
Well, they do have something to do with her of course, they are themselves Images and Imagos and Reflections. But they aren't really her at her very center are they? The Dignity of the Human Person of which the Church speaks goes so far beyond any of these things. By their fruits you shall know them; but of course we have to know the fruits and understand them to really understand their source. The Type reveals the Archetype but that takes interpretation and understanding. In a way that Dionysius and St John of the Cross, the Type conceals the Archetype as much as it Reveals the Archetype.
The nurse just came in and introduced herself. April. She seems so very young. So many of the medical personnel here seem so very young. But very kind and very good. April seems such herself. What a blessing to my Mom; and to me.
But the Unknown. There's so much I would like to know about my Mom that I will never know; at least in this life. And there's so much I'd still like to do with her. We were planning on going to the State Fair together. It's about a month away, and we always have enjoyed going, not for the rides and the fun things to do so much as to see the animals. The rabbits, the chickens, the pigs. Mom would always explain to me the difference between a Bantam rooster and another; and talk about how her mother liked Buff Orfingtons. Now I wonder: will be able to go this years? Or ever again? Will we be able to celebrate Halloween or Thanksgiving or Christmas? Ever again? I don't know.
The Aide just came through. Wanda. Very nice person. Took Mom's blood pressure. A little low, but on the whole OK. God grants us this knowledge, at least. Thank you Lord. I think ... !
But actually isn't everything in this world really on a Need to Know Basis? Why not. Do I really need to know about the State Fair and Christmas and Mom this year? Probably not. What Jesus said to Peter applies to us all doesn't it: "What is that to thee? Follow thou Me."
O God Who Are Present Here and Now, O God who I can only Know through Your Son Jesus Christ, for only in seeing the Son can I see the Father, O Lord Who Know all and Who Know I know nothing except you reveal it to me, please watch over my Mom and me today.
St Bernard de Clairvaux, whose Feast we celebrate today, of your courtesy, pray for me and my Mom.
Hail Mary full of Grace
The Lord is with thee
Blessed art thou amongst women
And blessed is the Fruit of thy womb, Jesus
Holy Mary, Mother of God
Pray for us sinners
Now and at the hour of our death
Amen.
Watch with Me
"Watchman, what of the night?"
I'm back. It's now 5 AM and I just got a cup of vending machine cappucino and am settled back in to Watch with Mom. I guess that's my Vocation at the moment, to Watch. A very honorable Vocation in the Bible, the Watchman's Vocation. Hence when Jesus Called His Disciples to go a little distance into the Garden at Gethsemani, and Watch with Him, He was truly Calling them to a blessed Vocation indeed.
Mom is sleeping fitfully, with a little tremor in her hands. She's rubbing her hands together intermittently, and her mouth moves in what looks like an insensible conversation ... with who? with herself in her sleep? with her Guardian Angel? With Mary? With Jesus? Only God knows perhaps.
I started crying again, though, thinking about what this woman had been. I was looking at pictures of her in photo albums only a few days ago. There she was, smiling, laughing, as a young secretary working in Jefferson City, Missouri, just before World War II. She met my father at a USO-like function and they were married just before Dad was sent overseas with his unit. He landed in France about a month after D-Day, fought his way through the Battle of the Bulge (he was among the men trapped in Bastogne) and into Germany. He returned to the States in the late 1940s, went through college on the G.I. Bill, and he and my mother settled down to making a life in 1950s America. During the ensuing years, she worked as a secretary at a Methodist church, was a vivacious and active member, and president, of the Women's Society, had 2 children, made a home, raised us, all while being an active life-long member of her church choir. She was a Cub Scout Den Mother for 4 years, a period that, when we referred to it later, always resulted in my Mom humorously rolling her eyes: a Den Mother's role is a very demanding role indeed. But what a life she had. She was never perfect, of course, far far from it. Yet as far as I can see ... what a life she has had.
And now ... and now, this: a frail woman in a frail body with a frail mind, with tubes and wires coming out of her in a hospital bed and the end of her days perhaps approaching very, very fast. My Mom was a member of what Tom Brokaw famously termed the Greatest Generation; a generation fast disappearing around us into the mists of history. Almost everyone my Mom knew "from back then" is gone.
Sic transit gloria mundi. A few days ago, I was in our city's art museum, which has a wonderful collection of Italian artwork that celebrates the Faith in which, today, I live and move and have my being. I was struck by a painting of St Mary Magdalena. She is shown looking very young, and looking back into the mists of time, of her own history perhaps; and before her, she is depicted holding a skull, memento mori, facing her. I see my mother dying and am perhaps blessed to reflect with gratitude and honor on this very ordinary, and therefore in God very extraordinary, lady whose life ebbs away so fast and who is facing the gates of Death. Memento mori. Here indeed we have no lasting place.
And so perhaps the most basic, most humble, and most blessed Vocation any of us can have in this life is that of the Watch. "Watch with Me" is perhaps Christ's Call to us all. We are born to die. Why not, until that day, Watch and wonder and honor God's gifts. Of which we can only say The Lord Giveth and the Lord Taketh Away, Blessed be the Name of the Lord.
Hail Mary, Full of Grace, the Lord is with Thee
Blessed art thou amongst women
And blessed is the Fruit of thy womb, Jesus
Holy Mary, Mother of God, pray for us sinners
Now and at the hour of our death.
Amen.
I'm back. It's now 5 AM and I just got a cup of vending machine cappucino and am settled back in to Watch with Mom. I guess that's my Vocation at the moment, to Watch. A very honorable Vocation in the Bible, the Watchman's Vocation. Hence when Jesus Called His Disciples to go a little distance into the Garden at Gethsemani, and Watch with Him, He was truly Calling them to a blessed Vocation indeed.
Mom is sleeping fitfully, with a little tremor in her hands. She's rubbing her hands together intermittently, and her mouth moves in what looks like an insensible conversation ... with who? with herself in her sleep? with her Guardian Angel? With Mary? With Jesus? Only God knows perhaps.
I started crying again, though, thinking about what this woman had been. I was looking at pictures of her in photo albums only a few days ago. There she was, smiling, laughing, as a young secretary working in Jefferson City, Missouri, just before World War II. She met my father at a USO-like function and they were married just before Dad was sent overseas with his unit. He landed in France about a month after D-Day, fought his way through the Battle of the Bulge (he was among the men trapped in Bastogne) and into Germany. He returned to the States in the late 1940s, went through college on the G.I. Bill, and he and my mother settled down to making a life in 1950s America. During the ensuing years, she worked as a secretary at a Methodist church, was a vivacious and active member, and president, of the Women's Society, had 2 children, made a home, raised us, all while being an active life-long member of her church choir. She was a Cub Scout Den Mother for 4 years, a period that, when we referred to it later, always resulted in my Mom humorously rolling her eyes: a Den Mother's role is a very demanding role indeed. But what a life she had. She was never perfect, of course, far far from it. Yet as far as I can see ... what a life she has had.
And now ... and now, this: a frail woman in a frail body with a frail mind, with tubes and wires coming out of her in a hospital bed and the end of her days perhaps approaching very, very fast. My Mom was a member of what Tom Brokaw famously termed the Greatest Generation; a generation fast disappearing around us into the mists of history. Almost everyone my Mom knew "from back then" is gone.
Sic transit gloria mundi. A few days ago, I was in our city's art museum, which has a wonderful collection of Italian artwork that celebrates the Faith in which, today, I live and move and have my being. I was struck by a painting of St Mary Magdalena. She is shown looking very young, and looking back into the mists of time, of her own history perhaps; and before her, she is depicted holding a skull, memento mori, facing her. I see my mother dying and am perhaps blessed to reflect with gratitude and honor on this very ordinary, and therefore in God very extraordinary, lady whose life ebbs away so fast and who is facing the gates of Death. Memento mori. Here indeed we have no lasting place.
And so perhaps the most basic, most humble, and most blessed Vocation any of us can have in this life is that of the Watch. "Watch with Me" is perhaps Christ's Call to us all. We are born to die. Why not, until that day, Watch and wonder and honor God's gifts. Of which we can only say The Lord Giveth and the Lord Taketh Away, Blessed be the Name of the Lord.
Hail Mary, Full of Grace, the Lord is with Thee
Blessed art thou amongst women
And blessed is the Fruit of thy womb, Jesus
Holy Mary, Mother of God, pray for us sinners
Now and at the hour of our death.
Amen.
Oh God What a Night
It's 3:30 AM and I'm in the hospital room with my Mom. About 1/2 hour ago, the charge nurse was here, and I awoke to find him untangling heart monitor wires that Mom had managed to pull apart into disarray. He also had to help restore her oxygen breathing apparatus that she had apparently pulled away from her nose. I got up in time to hear her tell him to get the hell out of the room. He had been so kind and gentle and professional; and he responded with sort of a brief start and then went on about his business. I apologized and thanked him for all he's done and he told me that he's been glad to do it.
After he left, I talked with Mom a little. She didn't recognize me, at all. I said a couple of affectionate "inside-jokes" about this and that ...the kind I guess everyone has with those with whom they have some kind of close relationship ... and none of them registered; she looked at me with complete puzzlement. Yet when I said finally, "Can I give you a coo?" she said, "of course" and something like a ghost of a smile was on her lips. I kissed her on the top of her head and sat back down to watch. She has been sleeping fitfully, and her right hand went up to poke and admust her oxygen, but she hasn't tried to pull it out again, thank God.
Mom has a complicated version of Congestive Heart Failure (CHF) and I'm told that the hypoxia she's experienced during this latest bout may result in brain damage. The risk of this was said to be low, but it's there. That might not be what's going on tonite. She's acted a bit like this every now and then before over the past, say, 4 or 6 months. That lack of recognition has been rare, but has happened, always in the middle of the night like this. I wonder if she could have Alzheimer's. I'm told she's at risk for it.
Sitting here now I feel so cold, so alone, so empty. I don't feel like crying but I feel very, very sad and very, very hollow. I know God is here; I know Jesus is here; I know that Mary is here and all the Saints and Angels. But I feel like I'm sitting in a bleak and very cold desert ... like the Jebel Nefusa that I can remember sitting on as a Boy Scout in Libya many, many, many years ago. The Jebel was a high, windswept place and I was there with a troop of Scouts and parents, and felt very alone, and very afraid, and very isolated and alienated from everything then. I've felt that feeling every now and then .. I guess we all have at one time or another? Reading Hesse's Steppenwolf and Dostoyevsky's Man Underground I felt the same. That's how it feels now.
After he left, I talked with Mom a little. She didn't recognize me, at all. I said a couple of affectionate "inside-jokes" about this and that ...the kind I guess everyone has with those with whom they have some kind of close relationship ... and none of them registered; she looked at me with complete puzzlement. Yet when I said finally, "Can I give you a coo?" she said, "of course" and something like a ghost of a smile was on her lips. I kissed her on the top of her head and sat back down to watch. She has been sleeping fitfully, and her right hand went up to poke and admust her oxygen, but she hasn't tried to pull it out again, thank God.
Mom has a complicated version of Congestive Heart Failure (CHF) and I'm told that the hypoxia she's experienced during this latest bout may result in brain damage. The risk of this was said to be low, but it's there. That might not be what's going on tonite. She's acted a bit like this every now and then before over the past, say, 4 or 6 months. That lack of recognition has been rare, but has happened, always in the middle of the night like this. I wonder if she could have Alzheimer's. I'm told she's at risk for it.
Sitting here now I feel so cold, so alone, so empty. I don't feel like crying but I feel very, very sad and very, very hollow. I know God is here; I know Jesus is here; I know that Mary is here and all the Saints and Angels. But I feel like I'm sitting in a bleak and very cold desert ... like the Jebel Nefusa that I can remember sitting on as a Boy Scout in Libya many, many, many years ago. The Jebel was a high, windswept place and I was there with a troop of Scouts and parents, and felt very alone, and very afraid, and very isolated and alienated from everything then. I've felt that feeling every now and then .. I guess we all have at one time or another? Reading Hesse's Steppenwolf and Dostoyevsky's Man Underground I felt the same. That's how it feels now.
I cried almost constantly for hours after she went into the hospital on Saturday. Then the crying stopped and I fellt like this lead weight was on my chest. Then that wasn't there and I wasn't feeling anything at all; almost didn't care. Then the weeping and wailing again. I don't know what's worse, the feelings of horrible misery and sadness, or the not feeling anything at all.
Last night, before we went to sleep, Mom was weak and confused, but she knew me and I knew her. We kissed and held hands ... her hand so weak, so listless, with skin almost paper thin. I thought then that maybe when everything else goes, yet the relationship - mother and son - remains. Tonite even that seems gone.
But "seems" is the operative word isn't it. This life, this world is so full of "seeming". Beyond the "seeming" things in the Here and Now are the other things, the Real Things, the True Things, the Eternal Things. The Seeming things are all, at some level or another, Icons of the Real Things. Not to say that the Seeming things aren't themselves Real as far as they go; but the Things of God that underly the Seeming Things are so much more Concrete, True beyond True and Real beyond Real. Mom and her Seeming are very Real. They are Icons of ... of what? Of Mary, Mother of God and of the Church and of Mankind. Of the Alienation and Forlorness and Pain and Futility of Calvary. The Seeming of my mother and of me in this dark night are Icons of the Way of the Cross of Christ, and of the Dark Night of His Soul, of HIs Being as He cried out to His Father, "Why hast Thou forsaken me?"
Tomorrow ... that is today ... is the Feast of St Bernard, who was fond of seeing the Presence of God, and of God's Lessons, in (literally) everything. The Disconnected things, the Things Apart, they partake of Christ's Passion. Mom laying there in the bed, with her lips moving slightly and her expression of pain and worrying, her eyes closed in her fitful sleep ... she is Ikon of the Sorrowful Mother; and of Her Son. The Immaculate Heart of Mary and the Sacred Heart of Jesus, together in this world of pain and suffering.
In this way isn't it a real blessing and privilege that my Mom and I get to enact, in some way, this relationship of Mary and Her Son? Even now I know that inside I am weeping even when I can't feel my own feelings of sorrow. At the same time, Christ is weeping; and His Mother is weeping. All the Church is weeping and sorrowing. And I am not alone, and my mother is not alone, most especially when I feel alone.
Enacting the Way of the Cross ... and the Way of Job who is the Prototype of the Suffering Servant and of Christ Crudfied. What did Job say? "That which I greatly feared has come upon me." Yes; and upon me too, Father Job. "I am exhausted from mine weeping." I too, Father Job. And yet, "The Lord giveth and the Lord taketh away: blessed be the Name of the Lord." This I too can say not in my strength for I have none, but in You O Lord who give to me the same Strength by Your Grace that you gave to Father Job, to all of us in our times or trial.
Well, enough for now. She's stlll sleeping fitfully, but she hasn't pulled away her oxygen aparatus. We too, in this "dream-crossed twilight between birth and dying", in this vale of tears and this place of estrangement, we too, aliens and exiles, may sleep fitfully but we haven't thereby pulled away the Love and Grace of God and His Mother and His Holy Church.
Thank God Himself.
Hail Mary, Full of Grace, the Lord is with Thee.
Blessed art thou amongst women, and Blessed is the Fruit of thy womb, Jesus.
Holy Mary, Mother of God, pray for us sinners,
Now and at the hour of our death.
Amen.
Sunday, August 19, 2007
Mom and Rome
Mom is in the hospital tonite ... with a bout of CHF. I don't have a lot to say but needed to say something somewhere, somehow ... about this Here and Now that frankly has me feeling like an old rag twisted and pulled this way and that.
I was sitting in the ER with my Mom unconscious, having just been told by the doctor that their tests say she has added new heart damage to her challenges ... I was sitting there crying and crying and wondering and waiting and thinking dark thoughts ... and then I looked up and saw the Crucifix. For this is a Catholic hospital, and the Crucifix is everywhere to be seen. And when I saw I realized that He is Here and He is Now in the Here and Now of this elderly lady on the point of death.
I thought of something else too .. I thought of Rome. I had been increasingly thinking to myself that I should set for myself a goal of a Pilgrimage to Rome. There's a wonderful collection of Italian art at our local art museum, and this Italian collection is replete with evocative reminders that this Other Place and Other Time is full of commentary on our Here and Now.
Oh it hurts so much, Lord, to be in this place in the Here and Now. Thank you, O Lord, for the Gift and Privilege of knowing this amazing old woman. And Please, O Lord, if it be according to your Will, grant that I might be granted one more gift: your Rome.
Oh but how this waiting and worrying tears at my heart. O Lord, "That which I greatly feared has come upon me."
I was sitting in the ER with my Mom unconscious, having just been told by the doctor that their tests say she has added new heart damage to her challenges ... I was sitting there crying and crying and wondering and waiting and thinking dark thoughts ... and then I looked up and saw the Crucifix. For this is a Catholic hospital, and the Crucifix is everywhere to be seen. And when I saw I realized that He is Here and He is Now in the Here and Now of this elderly lady on the point of death.
I thought of something else too .. I thought of Rome. I had been increasingly thinking to myself that I should set for myself a goal of a Pilgrimage to Rome. There's a wonderful collection of Italian art at our local art museum, and this Italian collection is replete with evocative reminders that this Other Place and Other Time is full of commentary on our Here and Now.
Oh it hurts so much, Lord, to be in this place in the Here and Now. Thank you, O Lord, for the Gift and Privilege of knowing this amazing old woman. And Please, O Lord, if it be according to your Will, grant that I might be granted one more gift: your Rome.
Oh but how this waiting and worrying tears at my heart. O Lord, "That which I greatly feared has come upon me."
Friday, August 17, 2007
Saying No to Nursing Homes
There's something else to how Mom and I got to where we are today. Namely, experiences and conversations we had about 40-45 years ago.
What happened was this. When I was about 16 or 17, my aunt (my mother's sister), after a difficult deliberations I knew nothing about at t the time, decided to place her father (and my mother's father) in a nursing home. This man, my maternal grandfather, had always been an independent, tough-minded carpenter who all his life had hunted and fished on his own. He had become older and lost his ability to function as well as he had in the past in a number of areas, though.
I was present when my aunt ... with Mom's concurrence at the time ... drove my grandfather to a nursing home. Before leaving, this proud, independent man literally begged me, with tears in his eyes, "Don't leave me here." I was very upset, but didn't know what if anything I could do. We left him there; and within months he had died. His death ... alone and abandoned as I then understood it to be; and still understand it to have been ... had an enormous impact on me. I talked about it with Mom; I read; I thought; I prayed; and finally came to the conclusion that I would never willingly be a party to forcing anyone into a nursing home ever again.
Several things I read in my early college years especially seemed to compel me to this conclusion. Plato's Republic in particular might seem like an unlikely source of counsel on this subject: but I was very impressed by the early dialog with old Glaucon, about how people deal with old age. Basically Glaucon and his companions made what seemed to me then, and seems to me know, very common-sense observations: that we do the best we can do as we age; we cope as best we can; and our attitude toward our gradual loss of function and ability in old age probably mostly mirrors our attitudes toward life in general as young and middle-aged adults.
Later I read The Aeneid, and was impressed by Aeneas' carrying of his aged father, Anchises, on his shoulder as they fled their home in doomed, flaming Troy. I guess a more calculating advisor to Aeneas might have said something like, "Look, Dude, you've got the Roman Empire to found; that old guy is doomed anyway, and hasn't got anything to bring with him out of Troy anyway; why not just move on, he's excess baggage, right?" Yet Aeneas, the Man of Destiny, didn't think Destiny should come before his filial devotion to Anchises.
Reading the Gospels, I was impressed by Christ's special love for anyone, it seemed, who seemed to be lacking in any way whatsoever. And later yet, as a Catholic convert, I was deeply impressed by the Church's commitment to upholding the Dignity of the Human Person, no matter what the person's physical or mental condition.
So during some conversations with Mom, we evolved an understanding that if and when the time came, I'd do whatever I could to return to her, in some small measure, what she gave to me as a caregiver.
This is not to say that there might not be circumstances under which a nursing home might still become necessary. However, I feel very, very strongly that an NH should only be a very last resort, for us, at least; and this is, I know from ongoing conversations with Mom, is her understanding as well. I honor her right to decide on her own path in these matters; and have told her again and again that I will, as best I can, support her in her choices in this regard. This I view as a promise to her; a promise I naturally want to keep.
To finish up a bit on the rest of our family: I have a sister, who lives a few states away from where I and my Mom live, in the Southwest USA. My Dad died years ago, of Alzheimer's Disease. And yes: this means that I am at risk for Alzheimer's. So, for that matter, is my Mom, but that's another story.
What happened was this. When I was about 16 or 17, my aunt (my mother's sister), after a difficult deliberations I knew nothing about at t the time, decided to place her father (and my mother's father) in a nursing home. This man, my maternal grandfather, had always been an independent, tough-minded carpenter who all his life had hunted and fished on his own. He had become older and lost his ability to function as well as he had in the past in a number of areas, though.
I was present when my aunt ... with Mom's concurrence at the time ... drove my grandfather to a nursing home. Before leaving, this proud, independent man literally begged me, with tears in his eyes, "Don't leave me here." I was very upset, but didn't know what if anything I could do. We left him there; and within months he had died. His death ... alone and abandoned as I then understood it to be; and still understand it to have been ... had an enormous impact on me. I talked about it with Mom; I read; I thought; I prayed; and finally came to the conclusion that I would never willingly be a party to forcing anyone into a nursing home ever again.
Several things I read in my early college years especially seemed to compel me to this conclusion. Plato's Republic in particular might seem like an unlikely source of counsel on this subject: but I was very impressed by the early dialog with old Glaucon, about how people deal with old age. Basically Glaucon and his companions made what seemed to me then, and seems to me know, very common-sense observations: that we do the best we can do as we age; we cope as best we can; and our attitude toward our gradual loss of function and ability in old age probably mostly mirrors our attitudes toward life in general as young and middle-aged adults.
Later I read The Aeneid, and was impressed by Aeneas' carrying of his aged father, Anchises, on his shoulder as they fled their home in doomed, flaming Troy. I guess a more calculating advisor to Aeneas might have said something like, "Look, Dude, you've got the Roman Empire to found; that old guy is doomed anyway, and hasn't got anything to bring with him out of Troy anyway; why not just move on, he's excess baggage, right?" Yet Aeneas, the Man of Destiny, didn't think Destiny should come before his filial devotion to Anchises.
Reading the Gospels, I was impressed by Christ's special love for anyone, it seemed, who seemed to be lacking in any way whatsoever. And later yet, as a Catholic convert, I was deeply impressed by the Church's commitment to upholding the Dignity of the Human Person, no matter what the person's physical or mental condition.
So during some conversations with Mom, we evolved an understanding that if and when the time came, I'd do whatever I could to return to her, in some small measure, what she gave to me as a caregiver.
This is not to say that there might not be circumstances under which a nursing home might still become necessary. However, I feel very, very strongly that an NH should only be a very last resort, for us, at least; and this is, I know from ongoing conversations with Mom, is her understanding as well. I honor her right to decide on her own path in these matters; and have told her again and again that I will, as best I can, support her in her choices in this regard. This I view as a promise to her; a promise I naturally want to keep.
To finish up a bit on the rest of our family: I have a sister, who lives a few states away from where I and my Mom live, in the Southwest USA. My Dad died years ago, of Alzheimer's Disease. And yes: this means that I am at risk for Alzheimer's. So, for that matter, is my Mom, but that's another story.
How Mom and I Got to This Point
So how did Mom and I arrive at this point? Well, here's the short story.
About 10-11 months ago, what I and my Mom have come to think of as the Great Change took place. I was at work (I'm a clinical social worker / therapist by profession) and I came home from work to find Mom sitting on the floor in front of her chair. She had tried to stand up, and ended up not falling, but sliding off into the floor. She was very frightened; as was I when I arrived. For the next few days, we went through a process that involved an assessment by her doctor and a cortisone shot to one of her knees; but basically, since that fateful day, she has generally lost her mobility. She becamse (generally) chair-bound / wheelchair bound. Prior to that point, she relied on a walker, and although I helped with this and that, she was largely independent inside her home. After that point, things changed radically.
I tried to maintain full-time employment until last March, when it became clear that nearly full-time assistance would be necessary. Mom and I had many conversations about this, and bottom line, I agreed to give up my job in order to provide full-time care. There was the possibility of my continuing to do part time work, but this just wasn't feasible as a practical matter, although I continue to provide clinical supervision for one social worker who is seeking licensure. Otherwise, I'm no longer active in my profession.
Regarding Mom's ailments: she's 87 years old, and has scoliosis and osteo-arthritis which continue to undermine her ability to walk and restrict her ability to use her hands and arms. She also has congestive heart failure (CHF) which landed her in the hospital last March, just before I gave up my job. She has very tender, very thin skin, which has resulted in a number of very slow-to-heal skin tears, for which home health nurses come out weekly to help her with wound care.
Mom also has experienced a range of cognitive declines involving confusion, sometimes disorientation, and delusion.
Things could of course be much worse, but frankly, I knew next to nothing about any of these things prior to the developments of the past year. I'm learning. But each day is a challenge.
By the way, one of the real blessings of this I guess is that I finally get to find out what it's like to be a real, live full-time caregiver. This is a first for me. I'm 53 years old, am divorced, no children, and have never served as a caregiver. My Mom, of course, was a caregiver: for me; and for my sister. In many ways, I am only repaying ... in a very small way, comparatively speaking ... what Mom has long since given me. And I am finding out, in a small way, what she went through as a full time caregiver. Frankly, I think I've grown enormously in my respect and honor for parents and caregivers in general through my experience.
I really do have so much to be grateful for. If I can only remember that, by God's Grace, through all this.
About 10-11 months ago, what I and my Mom have come to think of as the Great Change took place. I was at work (I'm a clinical social worker / therapist by profession) and I came home from work to find Mom sitting on the floor in front of her chair. She had tried to stand up, and ended up not falling, but sliding off into the floor. She was very frightened; as was I when I arrived. For the next few days, we went through a process that involved an assessment by her doctor and a cortisone shot to one of her knees; but basically, since that fateful day, she has generally lost her mobility. She becamse (generally) chair-bound / wheelchair bound. Prior to that point, she relied on a walker, and although I helped with this and that, she was largely independent inside her home. After that point, things changed radically.
I tried to maintain full-time employment until last March, when it became clear that nearly full-time assistance would be necessary. Mom and I had many conversations about this, and bottom line, I agreed to give up my job in order to provide full-time care. There was the possibility of my continuing to do part time work, but this just wasn't feasible as a practical matter, although I continue to provide clinical supervision for one social worker who is seeking licensure. Otherwise, I'm no longer active in my profession.
Regarding Mom's ailments: she's 87 years old, and has scoliosis and osteo-arthritis which continue to undermine her ability to walk and restrict her ability to use her hands and arms. She also has congestive heart failure (CHF) which landed her in the hospital last March, just before I gave up my job. She has very tender, very thin skin, which has resulted in a number of very slow-to-heal skin tears, for which home health nurses come out weekly to help her with wound care.
Mom also has experienced a range of cognitive declines involving confusion, sometimes disorientation, and delusion.
Things could of course be much worse, but frankly, I knew next to nothing about any of these things prior to the developments of the past year. I'm learning. But each day is a challenge.
By the way, one of the real blessings of this I guess is that I finally get to find out what it's like to be a real, live full-time caregiver. This is a first for me. I'm 53 years old, am divorced, no children, and have never served as a caregiver. My Mom, of course, was a caregiver: for me; and for my sister. In many ways, I am only repaying ... in a very small way, comparatively speaking ... what Mom has long since given me. And I am finding out, in a small way, what she went through as a full time caregiver. Frankly, I think I've grown enormously in my respect and honor for parents and caregivers in general through my experience.
I really do have so much to be grateful for. If I can only remember that, by God's Grace, through all this.
Why This Blog
Basically, the purpose of this blog is to give me a chance to get some things off my chest and process them and even share them with someone ... even if someone is in effect anyone.
I live with, and am the primary caregiver for, my aged mother. I don't get out much at all these days; and my outside forays are pretty much governed by circumstance, happen "on the fly", and tend to involve things like getting groceries and gasoline and medicine and adult diapers and wipes and the million and one things that caregivers in general have to do in order to give care. So I don't get to talk to many people, and don't get much face-to-face "support". However, I do have (thank God!) a computer. I am at this moment sitting in my mother's bedroom, where she is asleep, and where I am staying as well due to her very uncertain health. Sometimes, I feel like I just plain want to run out of the house, and scream and yell at God and man and anyone in my neighborhood who will listen even for a moment. So this blog is my chance to yell and yell and yell.
Also, I really need someplace I can sort things out and try to piece things together and understand what is going on in my little neck of the woods. Maybe this can help in that regard as well.
A lot of what I'm going through, and therefore a lot of what I'm guessing will be in this blog, will be me going through Grief. When I think about this I can't help but think about C.S. Lewis, who has long been one of my heroes and mentors through his many writings. He wrote "A Grief Observed" and writing it apparently did him good. I'm a zillion miles from Lewis in so many ways, but maybe this very small, very distant mirror of his great work will do me good as well.
By God's Grace, that is. I will admit that I'm one who for all kinds of reasons, especially when in pain, tends to be (to say the least) very self-centered. Conversely, when I can recognize God's Presence, and when I can therefore find some reason to believe that there is some kind of meaning to my own experience, as to everyone else's; and when I can therefore find some reason to be Grateful; then I can move out of my own misery and self-focus and into something like the broad Noon of Calvary, when the Sun of Heaven shone on Christ on the Cross and Revealed Something beyond the extreme pain of the Crucifixion.
I hereby acknowledge therefore that my own little way of the Cross is nothing either more or less or other than an Icon or Ikon of Our Lord's Great Way of the Cross. This blog is my way of trying to find my way on the Way. By God's Grace, One Day at a Time.
I live with, and am the primary caregiver for, my aged mother. I don't get out much at all these days; and my outside forays are pretty much governed by circumstance, happen "on the fly", and tend to involve things like getting groceries and gasoline and medicine and adult diapers and wipes and the million and one things that caregivers in general have to do in order to give care. So I don't get to talk to many people, and don't get much face-to-face "support". However, I do have (thank God!) a computer. I am at this moment sitting in my mother's bedroom, where she is asleep, and where I am staying as well due to her very uncertain health. Sometimes, I feel like I just plain want to run out of the house, and scream and yell at God and man and anyone in my neighborhood who will listen even for a moment. So this blog is my chance to yell and yell and yell.
Also, I really need someplace I can sort things out and try to piece things together and understand what is going on in my little neck of the woods. Maybe this can help in that regard as well.
A lot of what I'm going through, and therefore a lot of what I'm guessing will be in this blog, will be me going through Grief. When I think about this I can't help but think about C.S. Lewis, who has long been one of my heroes and mentors through his many writings. He wrote "A Grief Observed" and writing it apparently did him good. I'm a zillion miles from Lewis in so many ways, but maybe this very small, very distant mirror of his great work will do me good as well.
By God's Grace, that is. I will admit that I'm one who for all kinds of reasons, especially when in pain, tends to be (to say the least) very self-centered. Conversely, when I can recognize God's Presence, and when I can therefore find some reason to believe that there is some kind of meaning to my own experience, as to everyone else's; and when I can therefore find some reason to be Grateful; then I can move out of my own misery and self-focus and into something like the broad Noon of Calvary, when the Sun of Heaven shone on Christ on the Cross and Revealed Something beyond the extreme pain of the Crucifixion.
I hereby acknowledge therefore that my own little way of the Cross is nothing either more or less or other than an Icon or Ikon of Our Lord's Great Way of the Cross. This blog is my way of trying to find my way on the Way. By God's Grace, One Day at a Time.
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