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.