I was going through old photo albums of my Mom's, and kept feeling an ache that I thought comprised mostly the pangs of grief mixed with thanksgiving and wishing (yet again) that she was still here.
Then I suddenly realized that at least a small part of my pain of recollection had to do with remembrance of past pain. Old, old pain ... from within my very own family way back then ...
After all, my family was not perfect. Neither was my upbringing. Neither was my character or my behavior. Far, far from it.
Oh my. Memories of past hurts and past sufferings have certainly waned over the years. But bringing the memories back to mind definitely brings back some of the troubles and unhappiness of those days as well.
All this was partly ... not entirely ... connected with the very real weaknesses in our whole family enterprise. Severe dysfunctionality in fact ... severe enough to lead eventually to the splintering of our little nuclear family. Mom and Dad were divorced. Their daughter, my sister, followed a path leading to estrangement. She married and had two children, then divorced; then she remained substantially estranged, and her children remain completely estranged. I myself was married then divorced, with no children. All in all, it wouldn't be hard to argue that the family enterprise undertaken by my mother proved (well) unsuccessful.
But then I think back to that movie, "Perfect Storm." Yes: things didn't, ultimately work out. But looking back, I think she ... and our little family ... "had a hell of a run" in the words of the movie. In fact, maybe my sister and her children will carry on a legacy of their own for our little family.
But of course even their legacy will at some point die out. For all legacies (again) fail. All families die out. Ultimately nothing and no one is successful, if the measure of success is survival. Death comes for us all.
In the mean time ... hey, we do what we can, don't we?
And looking back my own memory of Mom and our family is that whatever else took place back then, something good definitely took place as well. And for much of that good Mom herself was unquestionably responsible. I am off course qualified to be no one's judge, much less Mom. But I was there; I saw; I heard; I experienced ... enough to affirm unequivocally that Mom did much good. In so many many ways. The photo albums of course only tell part of this story. But there's Mom getting me and my sister out for a field trip to Sabratha. There's that piano ... for which Mom paid for me having lessons. Nope, they didn't "take", but that's hardly for lack of support from Mom. She paid for me having a French tutor in Libya. And when I saw the movie "Transformers" I suddenly remembered that she was our very own Tooth Fairy, who exchanged a few coins for our baby teeth that we offered up. I found some of those teeth the other day: she had saved and treasured these, and other memories of our childhood. Then of course she fed us, clothed us, wiped our bottoms, sat up at night with us when we were sick, took us to Sunday School, hunted for things we lost, took us to our friends, and many many many things she did for us besides.
And of course all of these things add up to her having given us a mother's love.
She did many things wrong, I have no doubt. But she had the courage to form, along with my father, a family, and she gave it a go.
And she gave it one hell of a run.
Something good did take place back then.
And for that I am deeply, deeply grateful.
I can never say it enough, but I'll say it anyway: Thank you Mom
And thank you Lord for my Mom.
May she Rest In Peace.
Love in Christ,
Charles Delacroix
Eve of the Feast of St Therese de Lisieux
Sunday, September 30, 2007
Saturday, September 29, 2007
Salvifici Doloris
I started reading this tonite and although I don't think I will be able to finish this tonite, I am deeply grateful for what seems to me to be a courageous examination of the problem of suffering ... one that really looks very practical, God willing, for me ... for which I am in turn deeply grateful.
So much speaks to my heart so deeply ... here's what really struck me most ... so far ... starting with a quoted passage from the very beginning of Pope John Paul II the Great's extraordinary treatment of Suffering:
1. Declaring the power of salvific suffering, the Apostle Paul says: "In my flesh I complete what is lacking in Christ's afflictions for the sake of his body, that is, the Church"(1).These words seem to be found at the end of the long road that winds through the suffering which forms part of the history of man and which is illuminated by the Word of God. These words have as it were the value of a final discovery, which is accompanied by joy. For this reason Saint Paul writes: "Now I rejoice in my sufferings for your sake"(2). The joy comes from the discovery of the meaning of suffering, and this discovery, even if it is most personally shared in by Paul of Tarsus who wrote these words, is at the same time valid for others. The Apostle shares his own discovery and rejoices in it because of all those whom it can help—just as it helped him—to understand the salvific meaning of suffering.
This follows the ongoing Catholic thesis that Pain and Suffering, far from being things to avoid at all costs, rather see in this something positive, something deeply meaningful, and in particular, something that is at the very core of what it means to be human.
In No. 2, the Pope goes on to say flatly that Suffering accompanies us all, everywhere, always; and is something that not only is at the heart of what it means to be human, it is a challenge and an appeal to go beyond the human, to transcend and pass into the divine, joined so mysteriously but unmistakably in the supreme suffering of the Crucifixion of Christ.
In No. 3, the Holy Father says that 'in Christ "every man becomes the way for the Church"(4). It can be said that man in a special fashion becomes the way for the Church when suffering enters his life.' There is, then, in my own suffering, not only *not* something that divides me from Christ and Christ's Church, but something that in a special way connects me to the Church of Christ. This is so moving as to bring tears to my eyes and an ache to my heart. I am not alone; I am not estranged; I am in a special way embraced by the Church precisely in so far as I am in suffering.
In No. 3 again, "suffering seems to be, and is, almost inseparable from man's earthly existence." This may be blunt, but it's the honest truth, isn't it? To be is to be in pain. To walk in this world is to walk the Way of the Cross in this world.
Salvifici Doloris goes on to consider the kinds and nature of suffering, and declares with an almost bland abandon, in No. 6, "Sacred Scripture is a great book about suffering." A catalog of the kinds of situations in which suffering is a tragic feature is provided, and this catalog includes death of one's children, as one species of bereavement.
Suffering in the Old Testament is discussed, and Job, in particular, is explored. And, to my delight, in No. 9, the question of Why? is explicitly raised, and explicitly endorsed, as an inevitable question arising from the whole world of suffering.
But it's time for me to go to bed. All this really does help me feel connected to Our Lord Jesus Christ, Who Is, of course, here and now; and to Our Lord's Church, His Body, which is, once again, Here and Now; and to the angels of God, who are, yet again, Here and Now.
Thank you so much, O Lord, for ... everything ... even, and perhaps especially, my own and everyone's sufferings that give us opportunities to participate in You, O Lord ... and to Fill Up waht is Lacking in Your Sufferings, O Lord.
Charles Delacroix
F of the Holy Archangels
So much speaks to my heart so deeply ... here's what really struck me most ... so far ... starting with a quoted passage from the very beginning of Pope John Paul II the Great's extraordinary treatment of Suffering:
1. Declaring the power of salvific suffering, the Apostle Paul says: "In my flesh I complete what is lacking in Christ's afflictions for the sake of his body, that is, the Church"(1).These words seem to be found at the end of the long road that winds through the suffering which forms part of the history of man and which is illuminated by the Word of God. These words have as it were the value of a final discovery, which is accompanied by joy. For this reason Saint Paul writes: "Now I rejoice in my sufferings for your sake"(2). The joy comes from the discovery of the meaning of suffering, and this discovery, even if it is most personally shared in by Paul of Tarsus who wrote these words, is at the same time valid for others. The Apostle shares his own discovery and rejoices in it because of all those whom it can help—just as it helped him—to understand the salvific meaning of suffering.
This follows the ongoing Catholic thesis that Pain and Suffering, far from being things to avoid at all costs, rather see in this something positive, something deeply meaningful, and in particular, something that is at the very core of what it means to be human.
In No. 2, the Pope goes on to say flatly that Suffering accompanies us all, everywhere, always; and is something that not only is at the heart of what it means to be human, it is a challenge and an appeal to go beyond the human, to transcend and pass into the divine, joined so mysteriously but unmistakably in the supreme suffering of the Crucifixion of Christ.
In No. 3, the Holy Father says that 'in Christ "every man becomes the way for the Church"(4). It can be said that man in a special fashion becomes the way for the Church when suffering enters his life.' There is, then, in my own suffering, not only *not* something that divides me from Christ and Christ's Church, but something that in a special way connects me to the Church of Christ. This is so moving as to bring tears to my eyes and an ache to my heart. I am not alone; I am not estranged; I am in a special way embraced by the Church precisely in so far as I am in suffering.
In No. 3 again, "suffering seems to be, and is, almost inseparable from man's earthly existence." This may be blunt, but it's the honest truth, isn't it? To be is to be in pain. To walk in this world is to walk the Way of the Cross in this world.
Salvifici Doloris goes on to consider the kinds and nature of suffering, and declares with an almost bland abandon, in No. 6, "Sacred Scripture is a great book about suffering." A catalog of the kinds of situations in which suffering is a tragic feature is provided, and this catalog includes death of one's children, as one species of bereavement.
Suffering in the Old Testament is discussed, and Job, in particular, is explored. And, to my delight, in No. 9, the question of Why? is explicitly raised, and explicitly endorsed, as an inevitable question arising from the whole world of suffering.
But it's time for me to go to bed. All this really does help me feel connected to Our Lord Jesus Christ, Who Is, of course, here and now; and to Our Lord's Church, His Body, which is, once again, Here and Now; and to the angels of God, who are, yet again, Here and Now.
Thank you so much, O Lord, for ... everything ... even, and perhaps especially, my own and everyone's sufferings that give us opportunities to participate in You, O Lord ... and to Fill Up waht is Lacking in Your Sufferings, O Lord.
Charles Delacroix
F of the Holy Archangels
Novena booklet for Mary Mother of Sorrows
I ran across a booklet put out by the Daughters of St Paul and titled Prayers and Novenas in Honor of the Mother of Sorrows, by Rev James Alberione, SSP, STD. This collection of prayers and meditations on the Mother of Sorrows is concluded by a Way of the Cross for Every Day, containing brief and very focused meditations and prayers for the Way of the Cross written, I'm guessing, by Fr Alberione.
A beautiful resource that I know I obtained years ago ... probably 2 decades ago ... and I know I used this little booklet back then; perhaps, God willing, I will find use for it once again.
Thank you so much O Lord for your Sorrowful Mother.
Mary, Mother of God, Mother of Sorrows, pray for us.
Charles Delacroix
Feast of the Holy Archangels
A beautiful resource that I know I obtained years ago ... probably 2 decades ago ... and I know I used this little booklet back then; perhaps, God willing, I will find use for it once again.
Thank you so much O Lord for your Sorrowful Mother.
Mary, Mother of God, Mother of Sorrows, pray for us.
Charles Delacroix
Feast of the Holy Archangels
Fr Curley's A Way of the Cross for the Bereaved
I just happened to encounter this on my bookshelves while I was looking to see if I had a copy of Salvifici Doloris.
The full citation is Rev. Terence P. Curley, D.Min., A Way of the Cross for the Bereaved and it looks like a wonderful resource. There is a passage in the Introduction that really caught my eye: "This booklet is an invitation to the bereaved to let go of the urge to flee the grief they cannot seem to face. It is an invitation to express it, rather, and to begin to accept it in the light of faith. This is the beginning of the healing process which will end ultimately one day when we meet out departed loved ones again in the Kingdom of God. We live in hope as we walk with the Lord in this Way of the Cross for the Bereaved."
So I am once again called to embrace the pain and suffering of my bereavement, just as we are all called to embrace the pain and suffering of our many, many Crosses, as we Follow Christ on the Way of the Cross to which each of us is called.
Earlier today I had been trying to breathe in the pain and breathe out the pain once again. To find in my loneliness a chance to join Jesus in Gethsemani; to find in my pain an opportunity to open myself up to a small place in His Calvary. And although the pain of course did not abate, I was finding in my own desolation a new sense of the Presence of God. For wherever there is suffering, there is the Cross of Christ, and there is Christ.
The full citation is Rev. Terence P. Curley, D.Min., A Way of the Cross for the Bereaved and it looks like a wonderful resource. There is a passage in the Introduction that really caught my eye: "This booklet is an invitation to the bereaved to let go of the urge to flee the grief they cannot seem to face. It is an invitation to express it, rather, and to begin to accept it in the light of faith. This is the beginning of the healing process which will end ultimately one day when we meet out departed loved ones again in the Kingdom of God. We live in hope as we walk with the Lord in this Way of the Cross for the Bereaved."
So I am once again called to embrace the pain and suffering of my bereavement, just as we are all called to embrace the pain and suffering of our many, many Crosses, as we Follow Christ on the Way of the Cross to which each of us is called.
Earlier today I had been trying to breathe in the pain and breathe out the pain once again. To find in my loneliness a chance to join Jesus in Gethsemani; to find in my pain an opportunity to open myself up to a small place in His Calvary. And although the pain of course did not abate, I was finding in my own desolation a new sense of the Presence of God. For wherever there is suffering, there is the Cross of Christ, and there is Christ.
Cardinal BARRAGÁN on Pain and Suffering
I ran across EXCERPTS OF THE LECTUREGIVEN BY CARD. JAVIER LOZANO BARRAGÁN's Pain, an enigma or a mystery? THE THINKING AND THEOLOGY OF JOHN PAUL IIA Christian understanding of pain and suffering http://www.vatican.va/roman_curia/pontifical_councils/hlthwork/documents/rc_pc_hlthwork_doc_20050629_barragan-aachen_en.html
I just started reading it. It is in part a commentary on John Paull II's Salvifici doloris. I had plain forgotten about this latter. I really need to go over it. I'll bet there will be much there that by God's Grace I can use. Salvifici doloris is at http://www.vatican.va/holy_father/john_paul_ii/apost_letters/documents/hf_jp-ii_apl_11021984_salvifici-doloris_en.html
Both of these look really good ... I will try to get into them a bit later today ...
Thank you Lord for our Holy Catholic Church in which the Suffering of the Cross is loved and embraced along with the loving and suffering Christ Who Is Our Lord.
Charles Delacroix
Feast of the Archangels Michael, Gabriel & Rafael
I just started reading it. It is in part a commentary on John Paull II's Salvifici doloris. I had plain forgotten about this latter. I really need to go over it. I'll bet there will be much there that by God's Grace I can use. Salvifici doloris is at http://www.vatican.va/holy_father/john_paul_ii/apost_letters/documents/hf_jp-ii_apl_11021984_salvifici-doloris_en.html
Both of these look really good ... I will try to get into them a bit later today ...
Thank you Lord for our Holy Catholic Church in which the Suffering of the Cross is loved and embraced along with the loving and suffering Christ Who Is Our Lord.
Charles Delacroix
Feast of the Archangels Michael, Gabriel & Rafael
Fr Carlo Cremona on Pain and Suffering
I've been looking for more Catholic resources on dealing with and responding to bereavement; and ran across this by
http://www.vatican.va/roman_curia/pontifical_councils/hlthwork/documents/rc_pc_hlthwork_doc_05101997_cremona_en.html#top
It's titled "Care for the Sick and the Fathers of the Church," but really treats pain and suffering ina broader context.
Fr Cremona's work here may have suffered in translation, and definitely has serious problems regarding style, but of course that hardly begins to provide a fair response to this work. Because he writes with such depth of faith and breadth of enthusiasm that I for one found this to be enormously helpful.
As with others in our Faith, he emphasizes that Pain and Suffering are not to be simply resisted, but must ultimately be entered into, as Jesus Chose the Way of the Cross to Calvary.
So ... Pain ... I bid thee welcome.
Breathe in and breathe out. Breathe pain in, and breathe pain out. In and out till I become saturated with the pain that is the pain of the Cross, or rather the pain that is one microcosmic part of the Pain of the Cross, the Cross of Christ.
http://www.vatican.va/roman_curia/pontifical_councils/hlthwork/documents/rc_pc_hlthwork_doc_05101997_cremona_en.html#top
It's titled "Care for the Sick and the Fathers of the Church," but really treats pain and suffering ina broader context.
Fr Cremona's work here may have suffered in translation, and definitely has serious problems regarding style, but of course that hardly begins to provide a fair response to this work. Because he writes with such depth of faith and breadth of enthusiasm that I for one found this to be enormously helpful.
As with others in our Faith, he emphasizes that Pain and Suffering are not to be simply resisted, but must ultimately be entered into, as Jesus Chose the Way of the Cross to Calvary.
So ... Pain ... I bid thee welcome.
Breathe in and breathe out. Breathe pain in, and breathe pain out. In and out till I become saturated with the pain that is the pain of the Cross, or rather the pain that is one microcosmic part of the Pain of the Cross, the Cross of Christ.
Holy Archangels be my Advocates, now & at the hour of my death
I just returned from her Grave ... and until I opened my Office this morning, I plain didn't realize that today is the Feast of the Holy Archangels, Michael, Gabriel, and Raphael.
Praying their Office left me with some real comfort in the midst of all the pain and desolation.
The Invitatory is "Come, let us worship the Lord in the company of his angels;" and the Hymn opening OOR is "They come, God's messengers of love ..." That wonderful word of anticipation, of longing, of yearning ... come ... in this Office on this Holy Day has always seemed to me almost an early "taste" of Advent, with such a strong yearning for the Coming of Emmanuel.
And O Lord ... we are invited to worship not just the Lord, but the Lord in the company of his angels. Of course the Lord is surrounded by not only His angels but by His Holy Church Triumphant. O my Lord ... I too, mortal though I be, in this vale of tears find myself surrounded ... as are we all here below ... by this gladsome company. I am not so alone after all it seems as sometimes I may feel in my bereavement.
But here's more from the Hymn for OOR ...
"They come, to watch around us here,
To soothe our sorrow, calm our fear"
Thank you, Lord, for the comfort of these your spirits who come to help us in our sorrow.
The angels, the Hymn goes on, give us much help while we are here ... both now and at the hour of our death. Here's the supplication of the Hymn regarding this matter ...
"To us an angel-guard supply,
When on the bed of death we lie."
Yes, Lord, please ...
Then OOR's Psalm 97 gives us once more this picture of God and his angels ... and, we think, our true home, and, I hope and pray, my Mother's true home ... there with God, where "cloud and darkness are his raiment / his throne, justice and right."
Ps 103 offers no illusions as to our condition here in this valley of tears ...
"For he knows of what we are made,
he remembers that we are dust.
As for man, his days are like grass;
he flowers like the flower of the field;
the wind blows and he is gone
and his place never sees him again."
Indeed. O Lord ... O Momma ... O Angels and Saints ... I know this is true but Ohhhh ...
Then Ps 103 offers our only hope:
"But the love of the Lord is everlasting ..."
It's true isn't it. His Love is everlasting. And the only things that will last partake of His Love. O Lord, I offer in Hope and prayerful petition my love for my dear mother; and her dear love for me. In these I see pale Ikons of your everlasting Love and ask that our love may find eternal rest in reflecting Your eternal Love, now and forever, Amen.
Love always,
Charles Delacroix
F of the Archangels Michael, Gabriel & Raphael
Praying their Office left me with some real comfort in the midst of all the pain and desolation.
The Invitatory is "Come, let us worship the Lord in the company of his angels;" and the Hymn opening OOR is "They come, God's messengers of love ..." That wonderful word of anticipation, of longing, of yearning ... come ... in this Office on this Holy Day has always seemed to me almost an early "taste" of Advent, with such a strong yearning for the Coming of Emmanuel.
And O Lord ... we are invited to worship not just the Lord, but the Lord in the company of his angels. Of course the Lord is surrounded by not only His angels but by His Holy Church Triumphant. O my Lord ... I too, mortal though I be, in this vale of tears find myself surrounded ... as are we all here below ... by this gladsome company. I am not so alone after all it seems as sometimes I may feel in my bereavement.
But here's more from the Hymn for OOR ...
"They come, to watch around us here,
To soothe our sorrow, calm our fear"
Thank you, Lord, for the comfort of these your spirits who come to help us in our sorrow.
The angels, the Hymn goes on, give us much help while we are here ... both now and at the hour of our death. Here's the supplication of the Hymn regarding this matter ...
"To us an angel-guard supply,
When on the bed of death we lie."
Yes, Lord, please ...
Then OOR's Psalm 97 gives us once more this picture of God and his angels ... and, we think, our true home, and, I hope and pray, my Mother's true home ... there with God, where "cloud and darkness are his raiment / his throne, justice and right."
Ps 103 offers no illusions as to our condition here in this valley of tears ...
"For he knows of what we are made,
he remembers that we are dust.
As for man, his days are like grass;
he flowers like the flower of the field;
the wind blows and he is gone
and his place never sees him again."
Indeed. O Lord ... O Momma ... O Angels and Saints ... I know this is true but Ohhhh ...
Then Ps 103 offers our only hope:
"But the love of the Lord is everlasting ..."
It's true isn't it. His Love is everlasting. And the only things that will last partake of His Love. O Lord, I offer in Hope and prayerful petition my love for my dear mother; and her dear love for me. In these I see pale Ikons of your everlasting Love and ask that our love may find eternal rest in reflecting Your eternal Love, now and forever, Amen.
Love always,
Charles Delacroix
F of the Archangels Michael, Gabriel & Raphael
She had the softest skin
For some reason, I've been remembering my Mom's skin ... especially from the last days but long before of course as well.
She had such soft, soft skin. She loved to hold hands and her hands were old, wizened, thin, spotted with age ... and so, so soft. The skin on her arms was soft. And her hair ... so soft. Even after she died, that Wednesday morning, she was still warm and her skin ... and her hair ... were so, so soft. I remember I just kept stroking her lovely white hair and holding her hands and caressing her arms.
Her back was spotted with age, and she had dark "keratotas" (I'm sure that's the wrong spelling but something like that) all over her back and sides and shoulders. She loved back massages ... which we called "back rubby-down's". It wasn't just the massage that she loved, I think, although she did like that very much. But it was part of our history for as long as I can remember. She says she taught me, as a very young child, to crawl up and down her back as she lay face down on the floor. This was partly a game in which I delighted and she delighted ... but, as she never failed to point out, it sure felt good too. I don't remember the crawling up and down myself.
She said that one time I had been crawling up and down her back and she had dozed off. She woke up, startled, when I had pulled up on one of her eyelids in order to open one of her eyes. She said that I had said that I wanted "to see if you're in there." We both laughed every time she told this story, and she told it many times when I rubbed her back.
I just remember giving her "back rubby downs" and "foot rubby downs" back as long as I can remember.
"Foot rubby downs" for her feet ... she loved those. One of her feet had once developed what we both called a "funny toe." This was the toe next to her big toe, and for some reason, it tended to lay across her big toe. Eventually she had surgery, in Knoxville, that brought the recalcitrant toe back into line with the others. But until then, I never failed, when giving her a "foot rubby down", to gently move this toe back into place and saying something like, "OK, now you stay there!" She would laugh and so would I, since we knew it wouldn't stay there.
While doing "rubby downs" we would chuckle over these things ... and I would ask her, "How's that feel? Is that OK?" and she would smile and say, "Oh yes, that feels so good," or something like that.
These are happy memories of my mother. And I am truly more grateful than I can begin to express that I was able to give her a "rubby-down" the night before she died. I gave her a "foot rubby down", the best I could too, I think; and she was rolled over onto her side so I could give her a "back rubby down" too. She was semi-conscious at the time, really more unconscious, I think, than otherwise, but I definitely remember a wan smile on her face as I rubbed. And I think I asked her, "How's that, does that feel good?" I don't remember her answering; she may have said a soft "yes". But at least she nodded a little. That was how she responded to Yes and No questions toward the end.
I could look back to see but just am not up to it right now. It's all in this blog. I've been afraid to look back, though, because I know things were pretty rough for her toward the end, and I tried to blog as honestly as I could, so I'm sure all that's there too.
But oh the pleasure ... in my memory ... of the last night's "rubby-downs". And oh how soft her hair and how soft her hands and how soft her skin. Soft and warm as I stroked and stroked while waiting for Hospice, and then the funeral home personnel, to arrive.
And by now I can't stop crying. But these are good tears I think. I hope so at least.
But Oh Mom ... OHHHHHHH ... how I miss you ... so so so much. What I wouldn't give to touch your soft white hair and your soft old hands one more time.
I love you and will always always love you Mom.
Your Son,
Charles
She had such soft, soft skin. She loved to hold hands and her hands were old, wizened, thin, spotted with age ... and so, so soft. The skin on her arms was soft. And her hair ... so soft. Even after she died, that Wednesday morning, she was still warm and her skin ... and her hair ... were so, so soft. I remember I just kept stroking her lovely white hair and holding her hands and caressing her arms.
Her back was spotted with age, and she had dark "keratotas" (I'm sure that's the wrong spelling but something like that) all over her back and sides and shoulders. She loved back massages ... which we called "back rubby-down's". It wasn't just the massage that she loved, I think, although she did like that very much. But it was part of our history for as long as I can remember. She says she taught me, as a very young child, to crawl up and down her back as she lay face down on the floor. This was partly a game in which I delighted and she delighted ... but, as she never failed to point out, it sure felt good too. I don't remember the crawling up and down myself.
She said that one time I had been crawling up and down her back and she had dozed off. She woke up, startled, when I had pulled up on one of her eyelids in order to open one of her eyes. She said that I had said that I wanted "to see if you're in there." We both laughed every time she told this story, and she told it many times when I rubbed her back.
I just remember giving her "back rubby downs" and "foot rubby downs" back as long as I can remember.
"Foot rubby downs" for her feet ... she loved those. One of her feet had once developed what we both called a "funny toe." This was the toe next to her big toe, and for some reason, it tended to lay across her big toe. Eventually she had surgery, in Knoxville, that brought the recalcitrant toe back into line with the others. But until then, I never failed, when giving her a "foot rubby down", to gently move this toe back into place and saying something like, "OK, now you stay there!" She would laugh and so would I, since we knew it wouldn't stay there.
While doing "rubby downs" we would chuckle over these things ... and I would ask her, "How's that feel? Is that OK?" and she would smile and say, "Oh yes, that feels so good," or something like that.
These are happy memories of my mother. And I am truly more grateful than I can begin to express that I was able to give her a "rubby-down" the night before she died. I gave her a "foot rubby down", the best I could too, I think; and she was rolled over onto her side so I could give her a "back rubby down" too. She was semi-conscious at the time, really more unconscious, I think, than otherwise, but I definitely remember a wan smile on her face as I rubbed. And I think I asked her, "How's that, does that feel good?" I don't remember her answering; she may have said a soft "yes". But at least she nodded a little. That was how she responded to Yes and No questions toward the end.
I could look back to see but just am not up to it right now. It's all in this blog. I've been afraid to look back, though, because I know things were pretty rough for her toward the end, and I tried to blog as honestly as I could, so I'm sure all that's there too.
But oh the pleasure ... in my memory ... of the last night's "rubby-downs". And oh how soft her hair and how soft her hands and how soft her skin. Soft and warm as I stroked and stroked while waiting for Hospice, and then the funeral home personnel, to arrive.
And by now I can't stop crying. But these are good tears I think. I hope so at least.
But Oh Mom ... OHHHHHHH ... how I miss you ... so so so much. What I wouldn't give to touch your soft white hair and your soft old hands one more time.
I love you and will always always love you Mom.
Your Son,
Charles
Friday, September 28, 2007
"Braided Cord of Humanity"
From Russell Baker's Growing Up, a memoir excerpted in a magazine I read last night. The book is said to be a memoir relating, among other things, his mother's life that he had at one time found to be "uninteresting", and later felt to deserve far better sentiments ...
"These hopeless, end-of-the-line visits with my [increasingl senile] mother made me wish I had not thrown off my own past so carelessly. We all come from the past, and children ought to know what it was that went into their making, to know that life is a braided cord of humanity stretching up from time long ago, and that it cannot be defined by the span of a single journey from diaper to shroud."
Yes, yes, yes, yes ... oh Lord. How very simple and ordinary my own mother's life was, at one level. And how deeply, deeply grateful I am for that simple and ordinary life. Except of course it was not simple and was not ordinary ... really nothing is. An individual's life is indeed part of a braided cord reaching far back into the mists of time.
Likewise Pope John Paul II's Theology of the Body places any individual's life squarely in the midst of a family tree stretching back to primordial Eden and forward to prospective New Heavens and New Earth. We are truly all "in" Adam; and by God's Grace "in" Christ; and what that means ... and will mean ... won't perhaps be revealed truly till the End of Time. In the meantime, though, O Lord, help me to know indeed that my life ... and my mother's life ... like all lives ... has a depth and a character of enormous ... indeed, eternal ... value.
I love you Mom ... now and always ...
Charles Delacroix
Son of my Mother
Son of Adam and Eve
Feast of St Wenceslaus
"These hopeless, end-of-the-line visits with my [increasingl senile] mother made me wish I had not thrown off my own past so carelessly. We all come from the past, and children ought to know what it was that went into their making, to know that life is a braided cord of humanity stretching up from time long ago, and that it cannot be defined by the span of a single journey from diaper to shroud."
Yes, yes, yes, yes ... oh Lord. How very simple and ordinary my own mother's life was, at one level. And how deeply, deeply grateful I am for that simple and ordinary life. Except of course it was not simple and was not ordinary ... really nothing is. An individual's life is indeed part of a braided cord reaching far back into the mists of time.
Likewise Pope John Paul II's Theology of the Body places any individual's life squarely in the midst of a family tree stretching back to primordial Eden and forward to prospective New Heavens and New Earth. We are truly all "in" Adam; and by God's Grace "in" Christ; and what that means ... and will mean ... won't perhaps be revealed truly till the End of Time. In the meantime, though, O Lord, help me to know indeed that my life ... and my mother's life ... like all lives ... has a depth and a character of enormous ... indeed, eternal ... value.
I love you Mom ... now and always ...
Charles Delacroix
Son of my Mother
Son of Adam and Eve
Feast of St Wenceslaus
Book Reviews: Books on Grief
I've already posted some reflections on some of the books I've run into.
Sr Joyce Rupp's Praying Our Goodbyes I liked so much that I bought my own copy after borrowing a copy from a local hospice program. I had already mentioned this and said I'd add a few more thoughts on it. There are a number of things I like about it. For one thing, it is very very gentle. That automatically goes a long way with me these days. It does not shy away from confronting the question of Why. It strongly connects grieving with suffering more generally and approaches this in a very Christian, though not always explicitly Catholic, manner. It is almost poetic ... one chapter is poetically titled "The Ache of Autumn within Us." That just goes right to my heart in so many ways. Last but not least, the book provides a series of prayers for all kinds of Goodbyes, and these are beautiful and faith-filled prayers.
Thomas R. Golden and James E. Miller, When a Man Faces Grief I've already talked about, but just want to add a couple of things. One is that I've gone ahead and ordered my own copy, I like it so much. Costs about $7 on Amazon.com, and that's a price that's hard to beat. Yet this slim volume is packed with such wisdom. It provides a concise, and practical approach to the topic. Oh and if you flip the book over, you get a slightly different title - A Man You Know is Grieving - addressed of course to family and others concerned about a grieving man.
James Bryan Smith's Room of Marvels is a bit different from other books I've run into. For one thing, its a fictionalized story-like novel rather than non-fiction. The book was loaned to me by a hospice worker after I said that I like stories very much. Alas, this particular story didn't appeal to me much at all. Rather than a narrative-type story, it's really an imagined dialog between a persona representing the author, a monk, and various heavenly and deceased personages. Think of CS Lewis' Pilgrim's Regress or his story about a bus trip to hell and heaven ... I don't recall the title. Similar as well are some of Peter Kreeft's books. Alas I don't really get into this kind of thing ordinarily. And I positively dislike the author's dialog with "Jack" - C.S. Lewis himself who appears in one of the dialogs. I love C.S. Lewis, but this author tries basically to claim him for Evangelical Protestantism, and puts words in his mouth that are really simply not representative of Lewis at all. Room of Marvels is in fact very Protestant. I can definitely see how this might be a good book for many, it just doesn't appeal to me either as a Catholic or as a Lewis-fan or as a grieving man.
Wayne Simsic's Praying Through Our Losses is published by The Word Among Us Press, ordinarily a very reliable Catholic Charismatic publishing house, but I haven't read too far in it yet, so I think I'll defer any other thoughts on this till later.
Charles Delacroix
Feast of St Wenceslaus
Sr Joyce Rupp's Praying Our Goodbyes I liked so much that I bought my own copy after borrowing a copy from a local hospice program. I had already mentioned this and said I'd add a few more thoughts on it. There are a number of things I like about it. For one thing, it is very very gentle. That automatically goes a long way with me these days. It does not shy away from confronting the question of Why. It strongly connects grieving with suffering more generally and approaches this in a very Christian, though not always explicitly Catholic, manner. It is almost poetic ... one chapter is poetically titled "The Ache of Autumn within Us." That just goes right to my heart in so many ways. Last but not least, the book provides a series of prayers for all kinds of Goodbyes, and these are beautiful and faith-filled prayers.
Thomas R. Golden and James E. Miller, When a Man Faces Grief I've already talked about, but just want to add a couple of things. One is that I've gone ahead and ordered my own copy, I like it so much. Costs about $7 on Amazon.com, and that's a price that's hard to beat. Yet this slim volume is packed with such wisdom. It provides a concise, and practical approach to the topic. Oh and if you flip the book over, you get a slightly different title - A Man You Know is Grieving - addressed of course to family and others concerned about a grieving man.
James Bryan Smith's Room of Marvels is a bit different from other books I've run into. For one thing, its a fictionalized story-like novel rather than non-fiction. The book was loaned to me by a hospice worker after I said that I like stories very much. Alas, this particular story didn't appeal to me much at all. Rather than a narrative-type story, it's really an imagined dialog between a persona representing the author, a monk, and various heavenly and deceased personages. Think of CS Lewis' Pilgrim's Regress or his story about a bus trip to hell and heaven ... I don't recall the title. Similar as well are some of Peter Kreeft's books. Alas I don't really get into this kind of thing ordinarily. And I positively dislike the author's dialog with "Jack" - C.S. Lewis himself who appears in one of the dialogs. I love C.S. Lewis, but this author tries basically to claim him for Evangelical Protestantism, and puts words in his mouth that are really simply not representative of Lewis at all. Room of Marvels is in fact very Protestant. I can definitely see how this might be a good book for many, it just doesn't appeal to me either as a Catholic or as a Lewis-fan or as a grieving man.
Wayne Simsic's Praying Through Our Losses is published by The Word Among Us Press, ordinarily a very reliable Catholic Charismatic publishing house, but I haven't read too far in it yet, so I think I'll defer any other thoughts on this till later.
Charles Delacroix
Feast of St Wenceslaus
Alone in Gethsemani
I'm feeling horribly alone ... lonely ... this morning. Everything seems so bleak. So forlorn.
Seems of course is the key word.
Oh well.
Sr Rupp recommends that when feeling lonely and alone, to unite oneself with Christ in the Garden of Gethsemani.
Bleak & forlorn would seem to go along with that too. That and the Crucifixion itself - especially "My God, my God, why hast Thou forsaken Me?"
Lord Jesus Christ may I by Your Grace join myself with Your Sacred Presence in the Garden of Gethsemani on that horrible, lonely Holy Thursday night. And may I by Your Grace join myself to Your Sacred Presence on Calvary on that horrible, lonely, bleak, forlorn Good Friday afternoon.
And let me breath in the Pain. Breathe in, breathe out, breathe in, breathe out. It's just Pain. No more, no less, no other. Oh how I miss you Momma. Oh how I miss you. Lord Jesus, help me. Pain in, pain out, pain in, pain out; in Gethsemani; on Calvary.
Seems of course is the key word.
Oh well.
Sr Rupp recommends that when feeling lonely and alone, to unite oneself with Christ in the Garden of Gethsemani.
Bleak & forlorn would seem to go along with that too. That and the Crucifixion itself - especially "My God, my God, why hast Thou forsaken Me?"
Lord Jesus Christ may I by Your Grace join myself with Your Sacred Presence in the Garden of Gethsemani on that horrible, lonely Holy Thursday night. And may I by Your Grace join myself to Your Sacred Presence on Calvary on that horrible, lonely, bleak, forlorn Good Friday afternoon.
And let me breath in the Pain. Breathe in, breathe out, breathe in, breathe out. It's just Pain. No more, no less, no other. Oh how I miss you Momma. Oh how I miss you. Lord Jesus, help me. Pain in, pain out, pain in, pain out; in Gethsemani; on Calvary.
Thursday, September 27, 2007
Taking Stock at One Month
I was at my hospice-sponsored Grief Support Group today and was asked how I felt. I answered that I felt Hopeless; that everything looked Hopeless and Pointless, even though I know at some level that this isn't so.
Don't get me wrong. Faith and Hope in God I embrace although, I'll admit, I may not "feel" such Faith and Hope very much these days. Yet I choose such Faith and Hope by Your Grace, as a matter of bare intention, just for today.
The problem is that I really plain don't see a way forward in this world. It would be different, I would think, if I had the resources of Family or Friends, Work or Church, with which to support me as I lurched forward after Christ. But I don't. In my Grief Support Group, everyone seems to have friends, family, and more, to help them on their way. I thank God for this, and for them, and recognize that they without question are showing a degree of fidelity and confidence in God's Providence that I can at this point only dream about. But can one pilgrim traveling alone follow suit?
Definitely the answer is Yes ... if you are an Ignatius Loyola, if you are a John the Baptizer, if you are a Romuald or Bruno or one of the Desert Fathers who Followed Christ in solitude. These wonderful saints to me are ikons of the via solitaire in Christ. But they are also, it seems to me, made of a rock-ribbed toughness, matched to their solitary condition, that is not part of my character at all, to say the least. I learned long ago that the austerities of the Via Negativa were episodically accessible to me, by God's Grace; but also that the Via Negativa simply could not be my ordinary "Way to the Way" exactly because I plain didn't have, and don't have, the requisite hardiness of character and spiritual stamina, if those are the right terms. A more humble and more widely accessible Via Positiva is my ordinarily best Way in Christ.
But that Via really does take some plain old natural sources of support, either by way of family or friends in Christ. And of this kind of support, this kind of life, I am at this point, absent my mother, very deeply in Despair.
Now as I said in my last entry, this kind of Despair isn't necessarily a bad thing at all. Despair of this world coupled with Hope and Faith in God are usually strongly recommended as a very good thing indeed. This coupling appears in Thomas à Kempis' Imitatio Christi, and in Lawrence Scupoli's Spiritual Combat and Jean-Pierre de Caussade's Abandonment to Divine Providence and in the Apophthegmata Patrum. To name a few.
The problem for me is that although I do honestly believe that God will not send us temptations without giving us the strength and means to resist (1 Cor 10:13), as a practical matter, I just plain haven't shown the kind of Stuff you see in folks like (say) St Ignatius Loyola, living as one dead on a daily basis. Like the Via Negativa, the Via stripped of natural support of friends or family doesn't seem like a good match for Charles as a sheerly practical matter.
Yes Lord I choose to pick up my little cross and Follow You as You bear your Great Cross. But I am very, very feeble. What can I say.
What to do? I plain don't know.
I guess I don't have to know today though. God knows. And perhaps He will reveal this in His Time.
I can, though, in the meantime, pray "Lead Kindly Light" and Wait for the Lord. As in Ps 130 in the Office for the Dead.
Meanwhile, for now, I plan to continue my little Vocation of Mourning, in Sr Rupp's words.
That means:
* Visit Mom's Grave twice daily. Say OOR from the Proper and MP from the Office for the Dead at my Morning Visit. Say EP from the Office for the Dead at my Evening Visit. On major Feasts, I will use MP and probably EP from the Feast instead in accordance with Deacon's suggestion. Talk to Mom as well as to God on Visits.
* Take care of the Dog. Walk her daily, in the Morning and in the Evening. As per my promise to Mom.
* Keep in touch with Aunt Edna. As best we can.
* Keep blogging. This sort of public "telling my tale" is said to be an important part of grief healing.
* Keep looking for and using resources, especially those specifically Catholic resources.
* Keep up Grief Support Group on Thursdays.
* Keep trying the RCIA on Wednesday's. Per Deacon, I'm now on the RCIA Team. They seem like nice people. I need to try to allow them to be nice, and try to serve as best I can.
* Slowly ... as in *slowly* ... work on setting Mom's things. Especially I need to work on her memory books and the like. The issue here is Anamnesis and it's really very, very important to me personally to remember and stay as close to Mom as I can in her Death as in her Life.
* Need to slowly start the "business" end of things next week. Oh God. But just got to.
* Keep seeing movies when need to keep stress down.
* Keep doing diabetes managment thing.
But bottom line ... the only thing I really have to do is die, in due time. This I think I can manage. By simply living until then. Not of course by any self-injury; I'm not a bit suicidal. One can, clearly, Despair of this life and not be in the least suicidal. That's where, by God's Grace, I'm at.
Enough for now .. time for me to hit the sack.
I love you and miss you Mom ... please Sleep the Sleep of Death in Peace. And may God send to me as well a good night's Sleep in Him.
Love in Christ,
Charles Delacroix
Feast of St Vincent de Paul
Don't get me wrong. Faith and Hope in God I embrace although, I'll admit, I may not "feel" such Faith and Hope very much these days. Yet I choose such Faith and Hope by Your Grace, as a matter of bare intention, just for today.
The problem is that I really plain don't see a way forward in this world. It would be different, I would think, if I had the resources of Family or Friends, Work or Church, with which to support me as I lurched forward after Christ. But I don't. In my Grief Support Group, everyone seems to have friends, family, and more, to help them on their way. I thank God for this, and for them, and recognize that they without question are showing a degree of fidelity and confidence in God's Providence that I can at this point only dream about. But can one pilgrim traveling alone follow suit?
Definitely the answer is Yes ... if you are an Ignatius Loyola, if you are a John the Baptizer, if you are a Romuald or Bruno or one of the Desert Fathers who Followed Christ in solitude. These wonderful saints to me are ikons of the via solitaire in Christ. But they are also, it seems to me, made of a rock-ribbed toughness, matched to their solitary condition, that is not part of my character at all, to say the least. I learned long ago that the austerities of the Via Negativa were episodically accessible to me, by God's Grace; but also that the Via Negativa simply could not be my ordinary "Way to the Way" exactly because I plain didn't have, and don't have, the requisite hardiness of character and spiritual stamina, if those are the right terms. A more humble and more widely accessible Via Positiva is my ordinarily best Way in Christ.
But that Via really does take some plain old natural sources of support, either by way of family or friends in Christ. And of this kind of support, this kind of life, I am at this point, absent my mother, very deeply in Despair.
Now as I said in my last entry, this kind of Despair isn't necessarily a bad thing at all. Despair of this world coupled with Hope and Faith in God are usually strongly recommended as a very good thing indeed. This coupling appears in Thomas à Kempis' Imitatio Christi, and in Lawrence Scupoli's Spiritual Combat and Jean-Pierre de Caussade's Abandonment to Divine Providence and in the Apophthegmata Patrum. To name a few.
The problem for me is that although I do honestly believe that God will not send us temptations without giving us the strength and means to resist (1 Cor 10:13), as a practical matter, I just plain haven't shown the kind of Stuff you see in folks like (say) St Ignatius Loyola, living as one dead on a daily basis. Like the Via Negativa, the Via stripped of natural support of friends or family doesn't seem like a good match for Charles as a sheerly practical matter.
Yes Lord I choose to pick up my little cross and Follow You as You bear your Great Cross. But I am very, very feeble. What can I say.
What to do? I plain don't know.
I guess I don't have to know today though. God knows. And perhaps He will reveal this in His Time.
I can, though, in the meantime, pray "Lead Kindly Light" and Wait for the Lord. As in Ps 130 in the Office for the Dead.
Meanwhile, for now, I plan to continue my little Vocation of Mourning, in Sr Rupp's words.
That means:
* Visit Mom's Grave twice daily. Say OOR from the Proper and MP from the Office for the Dead at my Morning Visit. Say EP from the Office for the Dead at my Evening Visit. On major Feasts, I will use MP and probably EP from the Feast instead in accordance with Deacon's suggestion. Talk to Mom as well as to God on Visits.
* Take care of the Dog. Walk her daily, in the Morning and in the Evening. As per my promise to Mom.
* Keep in touch with Aunt Edna. As best we can.
* Keep blogging. This sort of public "telling my tale" is said to be an important part of grief healing.
* Keep looking for and using resources, especially those specifically Catholic resources.
* Keep up Grief Support Group on Thursdays.
* Keep trying the RCIA on Wednesday's. Per Deacon, I'm now on the RCIA Team. They seem like nice people. I need to try to allow them to be nice, and try to serve as best I can.
* Slowly ... as in *slowly* ... work on setting Mom's things. Especially I need to work on her memory books and the like. The issue here is Anamnesis and it's really very, very important to me personally to remember and stay as close to Mom as I can in her Death as in her Life.
* Need to slowly start the "business" end of things next week. Oh God. But just got to.
* Keep seeing movies when need to keep stress down.
* Keep doing diabetes managment thing.
But bottom line ... the only thing I really have to do is die, in due time. This I think I can manage. By simply living until then. Not of course by any self-injury; I'm not a bit suicidal. One can, clearly, Despair of this life and not be in the least suicidal. That's where, by God's Grace, I'm at.
Enough for now .. time for me to hit the sack.
I love you and miss you Mom ... please Sleep the Sleep of Death in Peace. And may God send to me as well a good night's Sleep in Him.
Love in Christ,
Charles Delacroix
Feast of St Vincent de Paul
One Month Since the Funeral
She was buried on August 27, the Feast of St Monica; and today is the 1 month anniversary.
Oh Lord may she rest in peace.
As for me ...
Mornings are still the worst time of the day.
This morning I woke up crying. I looked over at her chair. She's not there. I could not say, "Good morning, Mom." I could not hear her say in reply, "Good morning, my son."
"My son." She loved to say those words. And I loved to hear them.
When I took the dog for a walk this morning, though, I had an interesting experience with my envy / grass-is-greener-on-the-other-side temptation.
As we walked up the street bordering Woodward Park on the east side, I saw through the early morning mist a couple walking in the other direction. My first thought was something like, "here's another happy couple ... and I am alone. Je suis seul."
As I and this couple, neared one another, I heard their conversation, though. I couldn't help overhearing. It was heated, bickering, nasty. It sounded like the kind of thing that can grow up between two people who know each other very, very well ... and know each other's vulnerabilities very, very well ... and know what to say and how to say it in order to cause great pain.
And I thought of Sartre's "Hell is other people."
Maybe that's going a little far ... but ... hey, maybe there are worse things than being alone.
The grass is not necessarily greener on the other side.
Still I see no path forward for me personally. That hurts but hurts less. Nowhere to go, nothing to do, no reason to do it. Not such a good place for me I think but that's where I am.
Legacy ... I used to never ever think about such things, but since Mom's death, it's been such a challenge ... such a painful, painful challenge. There is no one, and nothing, to pass on, or pass on to, for me.
Yet ... again, the grass is not necessarily greener on the other side.
For one thing, if there is much to have, there is much to lose, even as Legacy. Who was it ... a French King? ... yes, Googles says Louis XV... who said "Après moi, le déluge". Well, for me, "Après moi, rien; après moi, rien du tout." Is leaving behind "rien" better or worse than "le déluge"?
And even for those who see themselves leaving great Legacy and great Memory ... Keats' Ozymandias may be sufficient answer.
You know ... actually ... I was thinking the other day that there is great wisdom in the Libyan Arab saying "mahlesh" = (roughly) "it doesn't matter." Mahlesh could be said for just about anything in this world.
All in all, then, hope for Legacy may be in some sense natural, but it also appears to be at best a mirage.
So there is no hope in Legacy anyway.
Should this mean that I should despair? Maybe so, in a way. Maybe so. If so, well, maybe there's something to be said for Despair. The clarity Despair affords can't be such a bad thing, can it?. Despair of the things of this world that is.
Here I have no hope; I leave behind no hope. In this world, it is truly fair enough to say that I have no hope.
Very well then. All my hope therefore must be in God.
You alone O Lord you alone are my hope.
Mom's Psalm that she wanted at her Funeral ... and that was read by the Pastor a month ago over her casket ... was Psalm 121. "I look unto the hills from which comes my hope."
She was right. That's where the Hope is. In You and You alone O Lord.
Thy will not mine be done. Amen.
Mom ... I love you. Rest in peace.
Your son ... your son always and forever,
Charles Delacroix
F of St Vincent de Paul
Oh Lord may she rest in peace.
As for me ...
Mornings are still the worst time of the day.
This morning I woke up crying. I looked over at her chair. She's not there. I could not say, "Good morning, Mom." I could not hear her say in reply, "Good morning, my son."
"My son." She loved to say those words. And I loved to hear them.
When I took the dog for a walk this morning, though, I had an interesting experience with my envy / grass-is-greener-on-the-other-side temptation.
As we walked up the street bordering Woodward Park on the east side, I saw through the early morning mist a couple walking in the other direction. My first thought was something like, "here's another happy couple ... and I am alone. Je suis seul."
As I and this couple, neared one another, I heard their conversation, though. I couldn't help overhearing. It was heated, bickering, nasty. It sounded like the kind of thing that can grow up between two people who know each other very, very well ... and know each other's vulnerabilities very, very well ... and know what to say and how to say it in order to cause great pain.
And I thought of Sartre's "Hell is other people."
Maybe that's going a little far ... but ... hey, maybe there are worse things than being alone.
The grass is not necessarily greener on the other side.
Still I see no path forward for me personally. That hurts but hurts less. Nowhere to go, nothing to do, no reason to do it. Not such a good place for me I think but that's where I am.
Legacy ... I used to never ever think about such things, but since Mom's death, it's been such a challenge ... such a painful, painful challenge. There is no one, and nothing, to pass on, or pass on to, for me.
Yet ... again, the grass is not necessarily greener on the other side.
For one thing, if there is much to have, there is much to lose, even as Legacy. Who was it ... a French King? ... yes, Googles says Louis XV... who said "Après moi, le déluge". Well, for me, "Après moi, rien; après moi, rien du tout." Is leaving behind "rien" better or worse than "le déluge"?
And even for those who see themselves leaving great Legacy and great Memory ... Keats' Ozymandias may be sufficient answer.
You know ... actually ... I was thinking the other day that there is great wisdom in the Libyan Arab saying "mahlesh" = (roughly) "it doesn't matter." Mahlesh could be said for just about anything in this world.
All in all, then, hope for Legacy may be in some sense natural, but it also appears to be at best a mirage.
So there is no hope in Legacy anyway.
Should this mean that I should despair? Maybe so, in a way. Maybe so. If so, well, maybe there's something to be said for Despair. The clarity Despair affords can't be such a bad thing, can it?. Despair of the things of this world that is.
Here I have no hope; I leave behind no hope. In this world, it is truly fair enough to say that I have no hope.
Very well then. All my hope therefore must be in God.
You alone O Lord you alone are my hope.
Mom's Psalm that she wanted at her Funeral ... and that was read by the Pastor a month ago over her casket ... was Psalm 121. "I look unto the hills from which comes my hope."
She was right. That's where the Hope is. In You and You alone O Lord.
Thy will not mine be done. Amen.
Mom ... I love you. Rest in peace.
Your son ... your son always and forever,
Charles Delacroix
F of St Vincent de Paul
Wednesday, September 26, 2007
Ups & Downs
Sometimes I've been feeling some kind of equanimity over the past day or so. This frankly frightens me at times. Will sheer complacency overwhelm my memory and my feelings for my mother? Please God no ... whatever else grief recovery means, let it not mean this, I implore you ...
This morning I was watching TV and on the news, there was a human interest story about a teenage girl who had a goat for a pet. This is exactly the kind of thing that Mom and I would have watched and talked about ... because the goat was so (well!) cute. If I had seen this first, I would have said, "Mom, there's a baby goat on TV ... and he's so cute!" and she would have wanted me to push her wheelchair over right away so she could see him. If she had seen him first, she would have sang out, "Oh Charles, come see, there's a baby goat and he's so cute ... !"
Later I was at the grave, and saw these little bitty purple flowers scattered in some of the lawn. These flowers have a golden center and she would have said something as soon as she saw them. We both would have talked about them, and either she, or I, would have remarked that they must be "shy" flowers, since they are so close to the ground.
I burst into tears at both the scene of the baby goat and of the little purple flowers ... because, who is there to share these treasures with ...?
As soon as I ask the question I know the answer:
I can share them with Mom. Or I can share them with God. Or with the Saints.
But gone ... gone gone, gone, gone is any conversation back and forth between me and Mom.
Oh how I miss you Mom.
I love you. May you rest in peace my beloved, beloved Mother.
In Christ,
Charles Delacroix
F of Ss Cosmas & Damian
This morning I was watching TV and on the news, there was a human interest story about a teenage girl who had a goat for a pet. This is exactly the kind of thing that Mom and I would have watched and talked about ... because the goat was so (well!) cute. If I had seen this first, I would have said, "Mom, there's a baby goat on TV ... and he's so cute!" and she would have wanted me to push her wheelchair over right away so she could see him. If she had seen him first, she would have sang out, "Oh Charles, come see, there's a baby goat and he's so cute ... !"
Later I was at the grave, and saw these little bitty purple flowers scattered in some of the lawn. These flowers have a golden center and she would have said something as soon as she saw them. We both would have talked about them, and either she, or I, would have remarked that they must be "shy" flowers, since they are so close to the ground.
I burst into tears at both the scene of the baby goat and of the little purple flowers ... because, who is there to share these treasures with ...?
As soon as I ask the question I know the answer:
I can share them with Mom. Or I can share them with God. Or with the Saints.
But gone ... gone gone, gone, gone is any conversation back and forth between me and Mom.
Oh how I miss you Mom.
I love you. May you rest in peace my beloved, beloved Mother.
In Christ,
Charles Delacroix
F of Ss Cosmas & Damian
Tuesday, September 25, 2007
St Braulio on Hope and Discouragement in Death
I ran across what to me is a very moving, very encouraging, and very realistic reading in the Office of Readings from the Office for the Dead. The reading is from St Braulio ... here's one paragraph:
“Let the hope of resurrection encourage us, then, because we shall see again those whom we lose here below. Of course, we must continue to believe firmly in Christ; we must continue to obey His commandments. His power is so great that it is easier for Him to raise the dead to life that it is for us to arouse those who are sleeping, As we are saying all these things some unknown feeling causes us to burst into tears; some hidden feeling discourages the mind which tries to trust and to hope. Such is the sad human condition; without Christ all of life is utter emptiness."
Yes, yes, and yes ... I do believe in the Resurrection; and I hope that she and I are both granted the opportunity to see one another again in Heaven. But even thinking this actually brings tears to my eyes ... and not tears of anticipated hope, but tears of grief, and discouragement, for her loss. And still that feeling that I miss her, and miss her very, very deeply. Like the Saint says, "such," indeed, "is the sad human condition." And this along with St Augustine's reflection that our heart won't rest till resting in God; and along with the reflection that (indeed) "The grave holds all things beautiful" leads to what really is an inescapable conclusion: "without Christ all of life is utter emptiness."
Lord, let me place all my thoughts, feelings, and actions into Your Hands. For there alone is my Hope.
Charles Delacroix
Eve of the Feast of Ss Cosmas & Damian
“Let the hope of resurrection encourage us, then, because we shall see again those whom we lose here below. Of course, we must continue to believe firmly in Christ; we must continue to obey His commandments. His power is so great that it is easier for Him to raise the dead to life that it is for us to arouse those who are sleeping, As we are saying all these things some unknown feeling causes us to burst into tears; some hidden feeling discourages the mind which tries to trust and to hope. Such is the sad human condition; without Christ all of life is utter emptiness."
Yes, yes, and yes ... I do believe in the Resurrection; and I hope that she and I are both granted the opportunity to see one another again in Heaven. But even thinking this actually brings tears to my eyes ... and not tears of anticipated hope, but tears of grief, and discouragement, for her loss. And still that feeling that I miss her, and miss her very, very deeply. Like the Saint says, "such," indeed, "is the sad human condition." And this along with St Augustine's reflection that our heart won't rest till resting in God; and along with the reflection that (indeed) "The grave holds all things beautiful" leads to what really is an inescapable conclusion: "without Christ all of life is utter emptiness."
Lord, let me place all my thoughts, feelings, and actions into Your Hands. For there alone is my Hope.
Charles Delacroix
Eve of the Feast of Ss Cosmas & Damian
Why? ... as Expression of Anger or Sorrow
One more thing ... I think sometimes ... especially in Job ... a question like "Why?" doesn't necessarily mean "Why?" but is rather a shorthand way of saying "I'm hurting and I can't believe this is happening to me and I miss my loved ones and I'm so pissed off I can hardly see straight."
Maybe another way of saying "Why?" in this sense would be "WTF"?
Frankly I don't see anything at all wrong with using "Why?" in this sense; and as far as I can see, God doesn't see any problem with this very, very human "cri de coeur" either - as witness His condemnation of the Job's "Comforters" and His embracing at the end of Job what Job had said about Him.
Thank You so much God for being a God Who embraces all who are poor in spirit and all who mourn, even when we say things that might be less than polite in other company.
Thank You Lord for bowing down to earth to receive the cries of the poor.
Thank You for embracing "la conditione humaine" in all its abject poverty with such Love (Phil. 2).
Charles Delacroix
Eve of the Feast of Ss Cosmas & Damian
Maybe another way of saying "Why?" in this sense would be "WTF"?
Frankly I don't see anything at all wrong with using "Why?" in this sense; and as far as I can see, God doesn't see any problem with this very, very human "cri de coeur" either - as witness His condemnation of the Job's "Comforters" and His embracing at the end of Job what Job had said about Him.
Thank You so much God for being a God Who embraces all who are poor in spirit and all who mourn, even when we say things that might be less than polite in other company.
Thank You Lord for bowing down to earth to receive the cries of the poor.
Thank You for embracing "la conditione humaine" in all its abject poverty with such Love (Phil. 2).
Charles Delacroix
Eve of the Feast of Ss Cosmas & Damian
Why? So ... What's the Answer?
Well ... on my better days ... which may be few and far between but which God's Grace allows me from time to time ... here's my own take on "Why?"
As far as the "Why we exist?" question goes, I sure don't know the answer. The Baltimore Catechism's First Q&A comes as close to anything I know of that goes there.
As far as "Why is there suffering in the world?" there are a lot of "theodicies" written seeking to explain, or explain away, this terrifying question. But C.S. Lewis' The Problem of Pain seems to me to provide as good an answer as I'm aware of.
As far as "Why this suffering here and now?" ... in my case, "Why did my Mom die?" I think there may be a thousand answers and more, or none, but am also sure that God tends to provide me with answers and information on a "Need to know" basis. And I guess this is one of those things I really don't need to know in order to Follow Him. "What is that to thee? Follow thou me." John 21:22.
Another way to get at the same thing for me is something I once heard years ago in an Alanon meeting. Someone said, "Why? Why not?"
That may sound flippant but it wasn't meant that way, and to me really expresses some very great wisdom. Namely, it expresses to me the unassailable truth that I just plain don't know, and don't know anything like enough to know what's good for anyone at anytime. "Why? Why not?" I don't have the calculus to know whether, if Mom had stayed alive, she might have experienced such severe suffering as to lose her very faith. I don't know but what it might have simply been time for her to go. That is certainly what she thought; that is what she said, in fact, two days before she died. Would it have been better to live another week? Or year? Or decade? I don't know and don't know of any way that I could know. So why did she die on August 22? As opposed to August 30 or August 22, 2008 or August 22 2018? Well ... why not?
At another level though ... at the level of my gut ... I'll tell you why not. Because I miss her so much: I wanted her here with me. I still want her here with me. I miss her so very, very much. But even through my tears I have to admit that really my motives in this are very, very selfish. Because I don't know what's good for her. I only know what I wanted. And I wanted her here, with me.
Would that have really been best for me much less for her? Again I really don't know.
And I'm back to "Why leave Aug 22? Why not?'
This goes back to that "Grass is Greener on the Other Side" syndrome.
I'm hurting like hell and my gut says to me, "Oh God ... Oh Mom ... Oh I wish you were here."
But would that be better? I really don't have any basis at all for thinking it would really. The grass is not necessarily greener on the other side.
So why am I here alone? I don't know ... why not?
Why am I living in Tulsa, Oklahoma? And not in Nome, Alaska?
I don't know ... why not?
I mean ... suppoose I liveed in Nome, would things be better somehow? Is the grass greener on the other side of the world?
I don't know. I just plain don't know.
What I do know is that if I am to see God's Will in the Present Moment, and the Present Circumstances ... if I am to see God's Will in the Here and Now as it is, not as it "might be" ... then I think I am going to have to trust that although I sure don't have the calculus to figure out what's best, He sure does. He's omnipotent and omniscient and all-loving after all. Not just as abstract terms, but as really concrete features of Who He Is. That means that whatever is going on right here and right now is, at some level, not only His Will ... even if His Permissive Will ... but what is, in some sense, Best.
I sure as hell don't know what's Best.
But He does.
And some day ... when "all things become known" ... then perhaps I will be given to understand what's Best, and what was Best, the day Mom died.
In the meantime ... I guess all I can really do is Trust in God.
And Thank God for the Gift of Mom while she was here.
As Job says ... "The Lord giveth and the Lord taketh away. Blessed be the Name of the Lord."
Amen. Amen.
Charles Delacroix
Eve of the Feast of Ss Cosmas & Damian
As far as the "Why we exist?" question goes, I sure don't know the answer. The Baltimore Catechism's First Q&A comes as close to anything I know of that goes there.
As far as "Why is there suffering in the world?" there are a lot of "theodicies" written seeking to explain, or explain away, this terrifying question. But C.S. Lewis' The Problem of Pain seems to me to provide as good an answer as I'm aware of.
As far as "Why this suffering here and now?" ... in my case, "Why did my Mom die?" I think there may be a thousand answers and more, or none, but am also sure that God tends to provide me with answers and information on a "Need to know" basis. And I guess this is one of those things I really don't need to know in order to Follow Him. "What is that to thee? Follow thou me." John 21:22.
Another way to get at the same thing for me is something I once heard years ago in an Alanon meeting. Someone said, "Why? Why not?"
That may sound flippant but it wasn't meant that way, and to me really expresses some very great wisdom. Namely, it expresses to me the unassailable truth that I just plain don't know, and don't know anything like enough to know what's good for anyone at anytime. "Why? Why not?" I don't have the calculus to know whether, if Mom had stayed alive, she might have experienced such severe suffering as to lose her very faith. I don't know but what it might have simply been time for her to go. That is certainly what she thought; that is what she said, in fact, two days before she died. Would it have been better to live another week? Or year? Or decade? I don't know and don't know of any way that I could know. So why did she die on August 22? As opposed to August 30 or August 22, 2008 or August 22 2018? Well ... why not?
At another level though ... at the level of my gut ... I'll tell you why not. Because I miss her so much: I wanted her here with me. I still want her here with me. I miss her so very, very much. But even through my tears I have to admit that really my motives in this are very, very selfish. Because I don't know what's good for her. I only know what I wanted. And I wanted her here, with me.
Would that have really been best for me much less for her? Again I really don't know.
And I'm back to "Why leave Aug 22? Why not?'
This goes back to that "Grass is Greener on the Other Side" syndrome.
I'm hurting like hell and my gut says to me, "Oh God ... Oh Mom ... Oh I wish you were here."
But would that be better? I really don't have any basis at all for thinking it would really. The grass is not necessarily greener on the other side.
So why am I here alone? I don't know ... why not?
Why am I living in Tulsa, Oklahoma? And not in Nome, Alaska?
I don't know ... why not?
I mean ... suppoose I liveed in Nome, would things be better somehow? Is the grass greener on the other side of the world?
I don't know. I just plain don't know.
What I do know is that if I am to see God's Will in the Present Moment, and the Present Circumstances ... if I am to see God's Will in the Here and Now as it is, not as it "might be" ... then I think I am going to have to trust that although I sure don't have the calculus to figure out what's best, He sure does. He's omnipotent and omniscient and all-loving after all. Not just as abstract terms, but as really concrete features of Who He Is. That means that whatever is going on right here and right now is, at some level, not only His Will ... even if His Permissive Will ... but what is, in some sense, Best.
I sure as hell don't know what's Best.
But He does.
And some day ... when "all things become known" ... then perhaps I will be given to understand what's Best, and what was Best, the day Mom died.
In the meantime ... I guess all I can really do is Trust in God.
And Thank God for the Gift of Mom while she was here.
As Job says ... "The Lord giveth and the Lord taketh away. Blessed be the Name of the Lord."
Amen. Amen.
Charles Delacroix
Eve of the Feast of Ss Cosmas & Damian
Why? And ... why not ask Why?
It has been a month since my mother’s death … and I sometimes continue to wrestle with the question of Why?
In a way I think this is the most natural question in the world. Not only in time of loss but at any time really. But perhaps especially in time of bereavement.
I’ve already mentioned that I didn’t like Bob Deits’ book Life after Loss. Well, there are a lot of ways in which this book seems very far from where I’m at. One of those ways is what seems to me to be its extraordinary arrogance in telling those of us who have lost loved ones exactly what to think. In particular, the book forbids asking “Why?” questions and tells us to ask “How?” questions. The reason for his preference for "How?" over "Why?" is that "How?" is easier to answer, more practical; has more utility. And this utilitarian book naturally prefers questions and thought processes that advance utility above all else, it seems.
In any event, I suddenly realized why this dictum (don't ask Why?) really gets under my skin. It's because it feels like such a brutally dehumanizing approach to human grieving, and to those of us humans who grieve.
What could be more human than to ask, “Why?”
Why did my loved one die?
Why is there suffering in this world?
Why are we even here?
Why? Why? Why?
Animals, in contrast, if they could speak, would probably stick to problem-solving questions like “How?” Animals after all are really quite practial. Or at least that's the view of reductionistic utilitarians, I guess.
But we are not animals. We are humans. With human dignity that is outraged when ignored, and violated in the most horrific fashion when we are forbidden to ask those hard, hard questions that challenge all of us sooner or later, especially when stripped of all those natural things that we so naturally cherish, that bring us such happiness as we can manage in this world.
When I was thinking about this I couldn’t help but remember this powerful scene in the movie, Spartacus.
Spartacus, and the other gladiators, have just been supplied with women for their sexual pleasure. The woman who is placed in Spartacus’ cell enters expecting to be used to satisfy his animal appetites. She has never before met Spartacus; he has never before met her; they are not friends, lovers, consorts. No matter to their owners, though: they have no thought that the man and woman won’t simply act according to their animal instincts.
However, Spartacus rebels. He refuses the sexual gift, and shouts at his owners, “I’m not an animal! I’m not an animal!”
Same with anyone who asks those hard, hard questions like Why. Insisting on the right to ask those tough questions like "Why?" is a way of shouting, "I'm not an animal! I'm not an animal!"
In Job, Chapter 3, he asks Why a lot. A good 6 or 8 times I think. No wonder. Job has been stripped of everything – his whole family has been killed, he is bereft of all of his possessions, his very home has been destroyed.
Job is miserable, grieving, and angry. He demands answers: Why? Why? Why? In a way, this is Job’s way of saying, “I’m not an animal! I’m not an animal! Why do you treat me so?”
Job’s “Comforters” … like the author(s) of Life after Loss … very rationally and reasonably point out that asking “Why?” doesn’t really “help” in the sense of restoring “utility” as soon as possible. "Why?" is really not a good “problem-solving question”. It’s hard to answer, maybe impossible to answer, in this life. Such difficult, challenging questions as “Why?” should be left aside for more practical matters.
But Job will have none of this nonsense. He denounces his “Comforters” in no uncertain terms, and insists on asking “Why?” In his anger and his sorrow, he cries, he shouts, he moans, he demands to know "Why" these things are as they are.
So who was right, Job or Job's Comforters? We know the answer because God tells us that answer at the end of Job. Job, and not his so-called Comforters, “has spoken rightly concerning Me.”
Jesus Christ Himself was not above asking that terrible question, “Why?” In words that continue to seer my heart whenever I see them … yet in words that to me confirm above all that He is True Man as well as True God … we see Him on the Cross stripped of everything ... dying and forlorn … and asking, “My God, My God, why has Thou forsaken me?”
To me, this is what it means to be a man: to find yourself stripped of whatever is most precious, and to be left with a universe that seems to be nothing but a mocking enigma. And to be a man is to ask of that universe, and of God, and of man … “Why?”
Of course it’s not just a question that Man asks when under severe trial. Who doesn’t ask an existential “Why?” at some time or another?
Maybe it’s possible to avoid the “Why?”s and stick to the nice, tame “How?” Somewhere there’s a wonderful story by C.S. Lewis. It’s really just a little vignette set during World War I. He said that he and another soldier were on a train talking about the war, and in effect they came to the conclusion that the results of the war were not really likely to bring happiness to either them or anyone else. Another soldier overheard them talking, and blurted out in astonishment something like, “Then what’s life bloody well all about?” Lewis said that he and his friend suddenly realized that this was a genuinely new question to this man. A question like this ... and the other big questions about life that most people have been wrestling with most of their lives ... somehow manage to evade some folks.
Maybe so. But surely not most? I don’t myself think I’ve met anyone who, if our conversation went in that direction, didn’t reveal that he or she has asked “Why?” at some time or another.
Anyway, bottom line, as impolite as it may seem, and as non-utilitarian as it may seem, I think I’ll take my stand with anyone, anywhere, who asks “Why?”
Because we are not animals. We are men. Even when stripped of everything, we are men bearing the Image of God and endowed with a dignity and a worth that cries out, in the face of the horrors of this world, "Why?"
In a way I think this is the most natural question in the world. Not only in time of loss but at any time really. But perhaps especially in time of bereavement.
I’ve already mentioned that I didn’t like Bob Deits’ book Life after Loss. Well, there are a lot of ways in which this book seems very far from where I’m at. One of those ways is what seems to me to be its extraordinary arrogance in telling those of us who have lost loved ones exactly what to think. In particular, the book forbids asking “Why?” questions and tells us to ask “How?” questions. The reason for his preference for "How?" over "Why?" is that "How?" is easier to answer, more practical; has more utility. And this utilitarian book naturally prefers questions and thought processes that advance utility above all else, it seems.
In any event, I suddenly realized why this dictum (don't ask Why?) really gets under my skin. It's because it feels like such a brutally dehumanizing approach to human grieving, and to those of us humans who grieve.
What could be more human than to ask, “Why?”
Why did my loved one die?
Why is there suffering in this world?
Why are we even here?
Why? Why? Why?
Animals, in contrast, if they could speak, would probably stick to problem-solving questions like “How?” Animals after all are really quite practial. Or at least that's the view of reductionistic utilitarians, I guess.
But we are not animals. We are humans. With human dignity that is outraged when ignored, and violated in the most horrific fashion when we are forbidden to ask those hard, hard questions that challenge all of us sooner or later, especially when stripped of all those natural things that we so naturally cherish, that bring us such happiness as we can manage in this world.
When I was thinking about this I couldn’t help but remember this powerful scene in the movie, Spartacus.
Spartacus, and the other gladiators, have just been supplied with women for their sexual pleasure. The woman who is placed in Spartacus’ cell enters expecting to be used to satisfy his animal appetites. She has never before met Spartacus; he has never before met her; they are not friends, lovers, consorts. No matter to their owners, though: they have no thought that the man and woman won’t simply act according to their animal instincts.
However, Spartacus rebels. He refuses the sexual gift, and shouts at his owners, “I’m not an animal! I’m not an animal!”
Same with anyone who asks those hard, hard questions like Why. Insisting on the right to ask those tough questions like "Why?" is a way of shouting, "I'm not an animal! I'm not an animal!"
In Job, Chapter 3, he asks Why a lot. A good 6 or 8 times I think. No wonder. Job has been stripped of everything – his whole family has been killed, he is bereft of all of his possessions, his very home has been destroyed.
Job is miserable, grieving, and angry. He demands answers: Why? Why? Why? In a way, this is Job’s way of saying, “I’m not an animal! I’m not an animal! Why do you treat me so?”
Job’s “Comforters” … like the author(s) of Life after Loss … very rationally and reasonably point out that asking “Why?” doesn’t really “help” in the sense of restoring “utility” as soon as possible. "Why?" is really not a good “problem-solving question”. It’s hard to answer, maybe impossible to answer, in this life. Such difficult, challenging questions as “Why?” should be left aside for more practical matters.
But Job will have none of this nonsense. He denounces his “Comforters” in no uncertain terms, and insists on asking “Why?” In his anger and his sorrow, he cries, he shouts, he moans, he demands to know "Why" these things are as they are.
So who was right, Job or Job's Comforters? We know the answer because God tells us that answer at the end of Job. Job, and not his so-called Comforters, “has spoken rightly concerning Me.”
Jesus Christ Himself was not above asking that terrible question, “Why?” In words that continue to seer my heart whenever I see them … yet in words that to me confirm above all that He is True Man as well as True God … we see Him on the Cross stripped of everything ... dying and forlorn … and asking, “My God, My God, why has Thou forsaken me?”
To me, this is what it means to be a man: to find yourself stripped of whatever is most precious, and to be left with a universe that seems to be nothing but a mocking enigma. And to be a man is to ask of that universe, and of God, and of man … “Why?”
Of course it’s not just a question that Man asks when under severe trial. Who doesn’t ask an existential “Why?” at some time or another?
Maybe it’s possible to avoid the “Why?”s and stick to the nice, tame “How?” Somewhere there’s a wonderful story by C.S. Lewis. It’s really just a little vignette set during World War I. He said that he and another soldier were on a train talking about the war, and in effect they came to the conclusion that the results of the war were not really likely to bring happiness to either them or anyone else. Another soldier overheard them talking, and blurted out in astonishment something like, “Then what’s life bloody well all about?” Lewis said that he and his friend suddenly realized that this was a genuinely new question to this man. A question like this ... and the other big questions about life that most people have been wrestling with most of their lives ... somehow manage to evade some folks.
Maybe so. But surely not most? I don’t myself think I’ve met anyone who, if our conversation went in that direction, didn’t reveal that he or she has asked “Why?” at some time or another.
Anyway, bottom line, as impolite as it may seem, and as non-utilitarian as it may seem, I think I’ll take my stand with anyone, anywhere, who asks “Why?”
Because we are not animals. We are men. Even when stripped of everything, we are men bearing the Image of God and endowed with a dignity and a worth that cries out, in the face of the horrors of this world, "Why?"
Monday, September 24, 2007
Alone into the Alone
At one level, of course, this is exactly what does not happen. I ... and all of us ... are interconnected through the vast family tree that is truly God's Family Tree that extends throughout this world, in the Here and Now, and also far, far into the next world, that is in some ways the more real world, the more concrete, the more intensely existent world.
St Augustine's image of Time as a stream is so vivid. Add that image of the Tree and we get Time as a stream passing over this vast horizontally billowing Tree ... ancient Tree, very old, ever new ... seems even more vivid. The Pope's Theology of the Body and Von Balthasar's vision of the Church over time really paint such a vivid, engaging portrait of a truly Extended Family. CS Lewis says that we can't expect God, Who resides in Eternity, to look at our Time-Bound world as we do. I sit here and feel myself very alone, very isolated, very much the individual. But take away my narrow focus on the Here and Now, and of course the last thing I am is isolated. Dial back to 1954 ... when I was born ... and to my Mom I am seent to be intimately and even eternally connected. Dial back to 1953 ... when I was conceived ... and to my Dad I am seen to be intimately and eternally connected. Dial back to 1921 ... when both of them were born ... and I am seen to be intimately and eternally connected to my Grandparents. Dial back further yet ... and keep dialing back ... looking at not only lineal ancestry but collateral connections ... and I am seen to be intimately and eternally connected to ... literally Everyone. Not in some pantheistic sense; and not in some legalistic sense of entries in a genealogical table. But as living, eternally interconnected Persons in this vast biological ... and superbiological, supernatural ... Tree of Life extending back to Adam and Eve and to their Creator. I ... like all of us ... are in this sense truly "in" Adam, to use St Paul's simple preposition for this vast vision of humanity.
Likewise in the vast vision of Salvation and Renewal and Regeneration, I am "in" Christ Jesus; as we all are, in the Church, the Body of Christ; and in those collateral "ecclesial communities" and even beyond, who knows how far beyond ... for to be "in Adam" and to be "in Christ" are both vivid, concrete, existentially vast realities that God sees very clearly indeed, in His eternal Now.
I on the other hand still see in a glass darkly. I and all who mourn and weep in this Valley of Tears. But even in this existential Loneliness immersed in the Here and Now, we are not so Alone: Even Jesus in His Gethsemani, and on His Cross when in his loneliness He looked about Him and felt in His Aloneness that God the Father Himself had abandoned Him.
I can't see this in my glass that seems so murky and dark. But I don't have to see it. God sees it. And Sr Rupp and the Church are so right, I can by Prayer ... if not my own, if I am too weak to prya, then in the Prayer of the Holy Spirit, Who, St Paul tells us, prays for us in our weakness ... in this Prayer I can be with Jesus in His Gethsemane; and He can be with me in mine.
Oh how horribly lonely it is to sit in this room. I look over at my Mom's chair, and she is not there. Her chair is empty. I feel as if nothing is right when she is not here, in her chair. This room becomes a Gethsemani for my tears and my horrible, vast feeling of emptiness. The empty chair empties this room and I am left alone, and empty inside. Alone. Utterly Alone. Even if not Alone when seen from God's Eternal Now yet it feels so Alone in my miserable, isolated, existential Here and Now.
Oh God How Alone this feels. But You are here in my Aloneness even as You were there in the Aloneness of Job and even as You are there in the Aloneness of each and every one of us when we feel this horrendous Loneliness and Apartness.
What else is there to do than to go forth from this Aloneness into Your Aloneness.
Her chair is empty. And my heart is empty. And I feel ... I feel in my heart ... dead. And even in this I can by Your Grace go from my Alone into Your Alone. For today is I'm told Holy Saturday ... all days in this world are Holy Saturday. And as the Monk of Holy Spirit Monastery says, to be in Holy Saturday is to allow my own dead heart to find a place in the Dead Heart of Jesus in the Tomb of Holy Saturday. To allow my own dead heart to find a place in the Sacred Heart of Jesus. And in the Immaculate Heart of Mary in her Dormition.
Oh God Who In Gethsemane wept Tears of Blood in Your Aloneness and in Your Loneliness. You were stripped of everything and everyone. I feel stripped and empty as well. By Your Grace I add my tears to Your Own Tears and ask You to Wash me in Your Tears as well. Let Your Tears as well be joined to the Tears of Your Sorrowful Mother. May the Tears of God by my tears; and may my tears be the Tears of God.
Let us pray.
God, the Creator and Redeemer of all the faithful, grant to the souls of your servants and handmaids the remission of all their sins, that through our sincere prayers they may obtain the pardon they have always desired. Through Christ our Lord. Amen.
Lord, God, by the Precious Blood and Tears which Your Divine Son, Jesus, shed in the Garden, deliver the souls in Purgatory, especially those who are the most forsaken of all. Bring them into Your Glory, where they may praise and bless You forever. Amen.
Eternal rest grant unto them, O Lord, and let perpetual light shine upon them. May they rest in peace. Amen.
May their souls and the souls of all the faithful departed, through the mercy of God, rest in peace. Amen.
Charles Delacroix
Monday of the 25th Week of Ordinary Time
St Augustine's image of Time as a stream is so vivid. Add that image of the Tree and we get Time as a stream passing over this vast horizontally billowing Tree ... ancient Tree, very old, ever new ... seems even more vivid. The Pope's Theology of the Body and Von Balthasar's vision of the Church over time really paint such a vivid, engaging portrait of a truly Extended Family. CS Lewis says that we can't expect God, Who resides in Eternity, to look at our Time-Bound world as we do. I sit here and feel myself very alone, very isolated, very much the individual. But take away my narrow focus on the Here and Now, and of course the last thing I am is isolated. Dial back to 1954 ... when I was born ... and to my Mom I am seent to be intimately and even eternally connected. Dial back to 1953 ... when I was conceived ... and to my Dad I am seen to be intimately and eternally connected. Dial back to 1921 ... when both of them were born ... and I am seen to be intimately and eternally connected to my Grandparents. Dial back further yet ... and keep dialing back ... looking at not only lineal ancestry but collateral connections ... and I am seen to be intimately and eternally connected to ... literally Everyone. Not in some pantheistic sense; and not in some legalistic sense of entries in a genealogical table. But as living, eternally interconnected Persons in this vast biological ... and superbiological, supernatural ... Tree of Life extending back to Adam and Eve and to their Creator. I ... like all of us ... are in this sense truly "in" Adam, to use St Paul's simple preposition for this vast vision of humanity.
Likewise in the vast vision of Salvation and Renewal and Regeneration, I am "in" Christ Jesus; as we all are, in the Church, the Body of Christ; and in those collateral "ecclesial communities" and even beyond, who knows how far beyond ... for to be "in Adam" and to be "in Christ" are both vivid, concrete, existentially vast realities that God sees very clearly indeed, in His eternal Now.
I on the other hand still see in a glass darkly. I and all who mourn and weep in this Valley of Tears. But even in this existential Loneliness immersed in the Here and Now, we are not so Alone: Even Jesus in His Gethsemani, and on His Cross when in his loneliness He looked about Him and felt in His Aloneness that God the Father Himself had abandoned Him.
I can't see this in my glass that seems so murky and dark. But I don't have to see it. God sees it. And Sr Rupp and the Church are so right, I can by Prayer ... if not my own, if I am too weak to prya, then in the Prayer of the Holy Spirit, Who, St Paul tells us, prays for us in our weakness ... in this Prayer I can be with Jesus in His Gethsemane; and He can be with me in mine.
Oh how horribly lonely it is to sit in this room. I look over at my Mom's chair, and she is not there. Her chair is empty. I feel as if nothing is right when she is not here, in her chair. This room becomes a Gethsemani for my tears and my horrible, vast feeling of emptiness. The empty chair empties this room and I am left alone, and empty inside. Alone. Utterly Alone. Even if not Alone when seen from God's Eternal Now yet it feels so Alone in my miserable, isolated, existential Here and Now.
Oh God How Alone this feels. But You are here in my Aloneness even as You were there in the Aloneness of Job and even as You are there in the Aloneness of each and every one of us when we feel this horrendous Loneliness and Apartness.
What else is there to do than to go forth from this Aloneness into Your Aloneness.
Her chair is empty. And my heart is empty. And I feel ... I feel in my heart ... dead. And even in this I can by Your Grace go from my Alone into Your Alone. For today is I'm told Holy Saturday ... all days in this world are Holy Saturday. And as the Monk of Holy Spirit Monastery says, to be in Holy Saturday is to allow my own dead heart to find a place in the Dead Heart of Jesus in the Tomb of Holy Saturday. To allow my own dead heart to find a place in the Sacred Heart of Jesus. And in the Immaculate Heart of Mary in her Dormition.
Oh God Who In Gethsemane wept Tears of Blood in Your Aloneness and in Your Loneliness. You were stripped of everything and everyone. I feel stripped and empty as well. By Your Grace I add my tears to Your Own Tears and ask You to Wash me in Your Tears as well. Let Your Tears as well be joined to the Tears of Your Sorrowful Mother. May the Tears of God by my tears; and may my tears be the Tears of God.
Let us pray.
God, the Creator and Redeemer of all the faithful, grant to the souls of your servants and handmaids the remission of all their sins, that through our sincere prayers they may obtain the pardon they have always desired. Through Christ our Lord. Amen.
Lord, God, by the Precious Blood and Tears which Your Divine Son, Jesus, shed in the Garden, deliver the souls in Purgatory, especially those who are the most forsaken of all. Bring them into Your Glory, where they may praise and bless You forever. Amen.
Eternal rest grant unto them, O Lord, and let perpetual light shine upon them. May they rest in peace. Amen.
May their souls and the souls of all the faithful departed, through the mercy of God, rest in peace. Amen.
Charles Delacroix
Monday of the 25th Week of Ordinary Time
Sunday, September 23, 2007
Extended Family --> Nuclear Family --> Consequences
Actions have consequences; decisions have consequences. And the decisions, and actions, taken 2 generations ago ... at least ... have really had an enormous impact, for better or worse, on my own present situation.
How ... well, from what Mom said ... and from what her sister said ... both were encouraged to leave their ancestral home in Hornersville, MO, and seek both education and forture elsewhere.
That is, my maternal grandfather and maternal grandmother made decisions, and took actions, in the 1930s, that resulted in a transition of our family from an Extended Family configuration to a Nuclear Family arrangement.
My grandparents without question meant their actions for the best. The 1930s, in the midst of the Depression Era ... they didn't have much money, but scraped together enough to pay for my mother's business education at Draughon's Business College in Paducah, Kentucky; and for my aunt's nursing education in Memphis, Tennessee. My mother went on to Jefferson City, Missouri, and my aunt went on to a Poplar Bluff hospital, and both found husbands and started families far from tiny Hornersville.
Nuclear families, such as resulted among us, though, almost by definition, don't have elderly folks at home. Elders have to go to nursing homes, assisted living, etc in this kind of a system. So to this extent, Grandpa may have been reaping what he sowed when he ended his days in a hated nursing home. What a horrible tragedy. But how can we not say that this tragedy wasn't partly a result of his own decisions years ago to in effect move the family to a "nuclear model"? Not that he thought of it that way. And the economic situation ... and the social evolution of our country ... had an enormous impact on his decisions. Yet they were his decisions as well.
My mother didn't have to go into a nursing home. But her own decisions, along with her father's, really made such a course the most likely path forward. On the other hand, individual decisions ... mine and hers ... could and did overcome what would ordinarily have been the natural consequence of being in a Nuclear Family system. But you know Mom and I were really sort of the last fragement of a splintered Nuclear Family that now has dwindled to exactly one ... me. And now I sit and feel my aloneness very, very, very acutely. But isn't this really the natural and logical consequence of what my grandparents did, and what my parents did.
Oh well. I'll admit the grass sure looks greener on the other side from here. But that doesn't mean it is greener on the other side. Suppose our family had stayed interconnected, extended, large, spread-out ... in the traditional Extended Family model. Well, I wouldn't be alone. But that sure doesn't mean I wouldn't be immersed in one of the many follies and evils that have beset the Extended Family of the past just as other follies and evils attend the Nuclear Family today. Maybe it is God's sheer mercy that I'm not tempted to put my family first to the endangerment of my soul. The way I feel right now, if my last name were Sforza or Medici or Colonna back in Renaissance Italy, I'd be very, very tempted to do anything ... for the Family. Maybe God knows who among us mortals are most likely to make the Family into an idol, and in His mercy He makes sure that there's no family for which we can take that horrifying path.
So what instead. Well ... Sr Joyce Rupp is so right that when feeling the searing pangs of Loneliness, embracing Christ alone in Gethsemani in prayer is such a gift. And Duquin is right: today my Vocation is not to Advance the Interests of My Family, on the one hand; and on the other hand, it's not to make myself Economically Useful as soon as possible as an individual plugged into the great socio-economic enterprise. Today my Vocation is to be Alone, with Christ in Gethsemane; my Vocation is to Mourn the passing of my mother.
For whatever else happened, she did, I don't doubt, do the best she could according to her lights. She courageously seized the opportunities presented to her in Jefferson City, Missouri, and courageously set about forming a family, nuclear though it might be. She tried to make such a family and to help it move forward ... and it just was not to be. But that doesn't take away at all from my appreciation for what she did. If anything, I am even more deeply grateful: in the face of a fatal set of parameters laid upon her by circumstances, she tried to make a Family; and by God Himself she tried and tried and kept trying to make a Family in the face of what 20-20 hindsight says was a doomed attempt from the beginning. But what of that doom; she tried anyway. What more can anyone ask?
Well ... not me ... not just for today ... she tried, and even if things didn't pan out altogether, still she gave me many, many, many good things ... most of all she gave herself.
And what courage. What extraordinary courage. To try and try and keep trying to the very end. Of her place in her family, and of herself as an individual. Knowing that the end is death.
There's this wonderful place in the movie "Perfect Storm" ... at the end, when the boat is going down, the captain and Mark Wahlberg's character are scrambling together in the water, both knowing that they are minutes away from being dragged to the bottom of the sea. The Wahlberg character shouts at the captain something like, "Hey, it was a good run wasn't it? Wasn't it? Yeah!"
Mom, it was a good run ... a very, very good run. I cannot begin to express right now how deeply, deeply, deeply grateful I am for you ... and for your very, very good run.
God bless you Mom. May you rest in peace. Oh I miss you so very, very much. But thank you for your gift of life to me. Thank you for your gift of yourself to me. Thank you for being here for me for so many years, Mom. Thank you, Mom, for everything
And thank you, Lord, for ... well, for everything.
For everything and for everyone. For truly everything and everyone is your gift. Your gift to us, Oh Lord.
And when you lead us to Follow Christ by bearing our little Crosses after Him and His great Cross ... that too is your gift to us, Oh Lord.
And when you lead us into aloneness, into loneliness, into Gethsemane with Christ, that too is your gift Oh Lord.
Thank you God for all your gifts. And help me to remember that your gifts are Yours to give and yours to withdraw, at any time, according to Your Great Wisdom.
The Lord taketh and the Lord taketh away. Blessed be the Name of the Lord.
Love in Christ always,
Charles Delacroix
25th Sunday in Ordinary Time
How ... well, from what Mom said ... and from what her sister said ... both were encouraged to leave their ancestral home in Hornersville, MO, and seek both education and forture elsewhere.
That is, my maternal grandfather and maternal grandmother made decisions, and took actions, in the 1930s, that resulted in a transition of our family from an Extended Family configuration to a Nuclear Family arrangement.
My grandparents without question meant their actions for the best. The 1930s, in the midst of the Depression Era ... they didn't have much money, but scraped together enough to pay for my mother's business education at Draughon's Business College in Paducah, Kentucky; and for my aunt's nursing education in Memphis, Tennessee. My mother went on to Jefferson City, Missouri, and my aunt went on to a Poplar Bluff hospital, and both found husbands and started families far from tiny Hornersville.
Nuclear families, such as resulted among us, though, almost by definition, don't have elderly folks at home. Elders have to go to nursing homes, assisted living, etc in this kind of a system. So to this extent, Grandpa may have been reaping what he sowed when he ended his days in a hated nursing home. What a horrible tragedy. But how can we not say that this tragedy wasn't partly a result of his own decisions years ago to in effect move the family to a "nuclear model"? Not that he thought of it that way. And the economic situation ... and the social evolution of our country ... had an enormous impact on his decisions. Yet they were his decisions as well.
My mother didn't have to go into a nursing home. But her own decisions, along with her father's, really made such a course the most likely path forward. On the other hand, individual decisions ... mine and hers ... could and did overcome what would ordinarily have been the natural consequence of being in a Nuclear Family system. But you know Mom and I were really sort of the last fragement of a splintered Nuclear Family that now has dwindled to exactly one ... me. And now I sit and feel my aloneness very, very, very acutely. But isn't this really the natural and logical consequence of what my grandparents did, and what my parents did.
Oh well. I'll admit the grass sure looks greener on the other side from here. But that doesn't mean it is greener on the other side. Suppose our family had stayed interconnected, extended, large, spread-out ... in the traditional Extended Family model. Well, I wouldn't be alone. But that sure doesn't mean I wouldn't be immersed in one of the many follies and evils that have beset the Extended Family of the past just as other follies and evils attend the Nuclear Family today. Maybe it is God's sheer mercy that I'm not tempted to put my family first to the endangerment of my soul. The way I feel right now, if my last name were Sforza or Medici or Colonna back in Renaissance Italy, I'd be very, very tempted to do anything ... for the Family. Maybe God knows who among us mortals are most likely to make the Family into an idol, and in His mercy He makes sure that there's no family for which we can take that horrifying path.
So what instead. Well ... Sr Joyce Rupp is so right that when feeling the searing pangs of Loneliness, embracing Christ alone in Gethsemani in prayer is such a gift. And Duquin is right: today my Vocation is not to Advance the Interests of My Family, on the one hand; and on the other hand, it's not to make myself Economically Useful as soon as possible as an individual plugged into the great socio-economic enterprise. Today my Vocation is to be Alone, with Christ in Gethsemane; my Vocation is to Mourn the passing of my mother.
For whatever else happened, she did, I don't doubt, do the best she could according to her lights. She courageously seized the opportunities presented to her in Jefferson City, Missouri, and courageously set about forming a family, nuclear though it might be. She tried to make such a family and to help it move forward ... and it just was not to be. But that doesn't take away at all from my appreciation for what she did. If anything, I am even more deeply grateful: in the face of a fatal set of parameters laid upon her by circumstances, she tried to make a Family; and by God Himself she tried and tried and kept trying to make a Family in the face of what 20-20 hindsight says was a doomed attempt from the beginning. But what of that doom; she tried anyway. What more can anyone ask?
Well ... not me ... not just for today ... she tried, and even if things didn't pan out altogether, still she gave me many, many, many good things ... most of all she gave herself.
And what courage. What extraordinary courage. To try and try and keep trying to the very end. Of her place in her family, and of herself as an individual. Knowing that the end is death.
There's this wonderful place in the movie "Perfect Storm" ... at the end, when the boat is going down, the captain and Mark Wahlberg's character are scrambling together in the water, both knowing that they are minutes away from being dragged to the bottom of the sea. The Wahlberg character shouts at the captain something like, "Hey, it was a good run wasn't it? Wasn't it? Yeah!"
Mom, it was a good run ... a very, very good run. I cannot begin to express right now how deeply, deeply, deeply grateful I am for you ... and for your very, very good run.
God bless you Mom. May you rest in peace. Oh I miss you so very, very much. But thank you for your gift of life to me. Thank you for your gift of yourself to me. Thank you for being here for me for so many years, Mom. Thank you, Mom, for everything
And thank you, Lord, for ... well, for everything.
For everything and for everyone. For truly everything and everyone is your gift. Your gift to us, Oh Lord.
And when you lead us to Follow Christ by bearing our little Crosses after Him and His great Cross ... that too is your gift to us, Oh Lord.
And when you lead us into aloneness, into loneliness, into Gethsemane with Christ, that too is your gift Oh Lord.
Thank you God for all your gifts. And help me to remember that your gifts are Yours to give and yours to withdraw, at any time, according to Your Great Wisdom.
The Lord taketh and the Lord taketh away. Blessed be the Name of the Lord.
Love in Christ always,
Charles Delacroix
25th Sunday in Ordinary Time
Saturday, September 22, 2007
"Grieving with the Help of Your Catholic Faith"
This afternoon, I went to our local Catholic bookstore and explored what they had available regarding Grieving and Bereavement.
One of the works I picked up is by Lorene Hanley Duquin, titled Grieving with the Help of Your Catholic Faith (Our Sunday Visitor, 2006). And am frankly absolutely delighted by this slim booklet (only 62 pages).
I was becoming more and more depressed and confused and agitated as the afternoon wore on, and took this work, along with a couple of other books I also got at the Catholic bookstore, all to Mom's grave. I prayed Vespers for the Office of the Dead, and then picked up this booklet ... and ended up reading it cover to cover at Mom's gravesite.
I was seeking something distinctively Catholic; and God in His mercy sent this to me. It's full of wisdom, Catholic tradition, quotations from Sacred Scripture and Sacred Tradition, and everything seemed to hit home for me.
It's all there: spending time at the grave; asking Why (unlike Bob Deits' Life after Loss, Duquin has no problems with asking such obvious questions); anger at God; prayer; telling the tale; missing Mass in time of Grief; Confession; keeping things that remind of the person who has died; candles and novenas; and Loneliness. It's all dealt with from a straightforward Catholic "personalist" standpoint.
I'm delighted.
OK. Here are my 5 favorite works at this time for helping with Grieving:
Job
Duquin, Grieving with the Help of Your Catholic Faith
Lewis, A Grief Observed
Miller & Golden, When a Man Faces Grief
Rupp, Praying Our Goodbyes
Thank you Lord ... and thank you once again for the Grace of having my Mother in my life for her short life, and for my short life. It's hard to believe that she died just 1 month ago today.
I love you Mom. And I miss you ... always ...
Eternal rest grant unto them, O Lord, and let perpetual light shine upon them.
May they rest in peace.
May their souls and the souls of all the faithful departed, through the mercy of God, rest in peace.
Amen.
Charles Delacroix
Eve of Sunday 25 in Ordinary Time
One of the works I picked up is by Lorene Hanley Duquin, titled Grieving with the Help of Your Catholic Faith (Our Sunday Visitor, 2006). And am frankly absolutely delighted by this slim booklet (only 62 pages).
I was becoming more and more depressed and confused and agitated as the afternoon wore on, and took this work, along with a couple of other books I also got at the Catholic bookstore, all to Mom's grave. I prayed Vespers for the Office of the Dead, and then picked up this booklet ... and ended up reading it cover to cover at Mom's gravesite.
I was seeking something distinctively Catholic; and God in His mercy sent this to me. It's full of wisdom, Catholic tradition, quotations from Sacred Scripture and Sacred Tradition, and everything seemed to hit home for me.
It's all there: spending time at the grave; asking Why (unlike Bob Deits' Life after Loss, Duquin has no problems with asking such obvious questions); anger at God; prayer; telling the tale; missing Mass in time of Grief; Confession; keeping things that remind of the person who has died; candles and novenas; and Loneliness. It's all dealt with from a straightforward Catholic "personalist" standpoint.
I'm delighted.
OK. Here are my 5 favorite works at this time for helping with Grieving:
Job
Duquin, Grieving with the Help of Your Catholic Faith
Lewis, A Grief Observed
Miller & Golden, When a Man Faces Grief
Rupp, Praying Our Goodbyes
Thank you Lord ... and thank you once again for the Grace of having my Mother in my life for her short life, and for my short life. It's hard to believe that she died just 1 month ago today.
I love you Mom. And I miss you ... always ...
Eternal rest grant unto them, O Lord, and let perpetual light shine upon them.
May they rest in peace.
May their souls and the souls of all the faithful departed, through the mercy of God, rest in peace.
Amen.
Charles Delacroix
Eve of Sunday 25 in Ordinary Time
Saturday ... Holy Saturday
I've been feeling more and more depressed today.
I keep seeing and thinking of things that remind me of Mom's absence. S
I drive and she's not in the car seat beside me. I think of Boston Avenue Methodist Church ... where she worked back in the 1950s ... and our plans to go together to see what it looks like inside now. But she's gone, she's not here.
I went to see a movie, Invasion, with Nicole Kidman ... and family reminders were everywhere. Which naturally reminds me of Mom's family, our family, now disintegrated and bereaved.
I thought some more about a job ... maybe I should get a part-time "Recovery Job" (low-stress, easy) ... or maybe I should get a part-time job in my professional ... but then I think, what for? She's gone, she's not here.
I went to the Catholic Bookstore and picked up several books on grieving. I was disappointed that there weren't any books that either themselves were, or at least pointed to, very traditional Catholic works addressing Grieving. Not sure what I expected. She's not here anyway. She's gone.
I drove down the "up & down" street behind the Expo Center. And thought about back when we were children & Mom drove rapidly over the hilly road to give us the "up & down" experience that resulted in peals of laughter and giggled from us. I'd like to make some pictures of the street. But why. She's not here. She's gone.
Peace is in the Grave, the grave holds all things beautiful. That is surely true, isn't it, for Our Lord's Grave on Holy Saturday. His Peace, His Beauty lay dead in the Tomb. Around Him all was grey and dark and hopeless and purposeless. As now. For today's Saturday is Holy Saturday too.
Oh I miss you so very, very, very much Mom. I trust and believe you to be in a better place. But Oh how I miss you so so so so so much ....
I keep seeing and thinking of things that remind me of Mom's absence. S
I drive and she's not in the car seat beside me. I think of Boston Avenue Methodist Church ... where she worked back in the 1950s ... and our plans to go together to see what it looks like inside now. But she's gone, she's not here.
I went to see a movie, Invasion, with Nicole Kidman ... and family reminders were everywhere. Which naturally reminds me of Mom's family, our family, now disintegrated and bereaved.
I thought some more about a job ... maybe I should get a part-time "Recovery Job" (low-stress, easy) ... or maybe I should get a part-time job in my professional ... but then I think, what for? She's gone, she's not here.
I went to the Catholic Bookstore and picked up several books on grieving. I was disappointed that there weren't any books that either themselves were, or at least pointed to, very traditional Catholic works addressing Grieving. Not sure what I expected. She's not here anyway. She's gone.
I drove down the "up & down" street behind the Expo Center. And thought about back when we were children & Mom drove rapidly over the hilly road to give us the "up & down" experience that resulted in peals of laughter and giggled from us. I'd like to make some pictures of the street. But why. She's not here. She's gone.
Peace is in the Grave, the grave holds all things beautiful. That is surely true, isn't it, for Our Lord's Grave on Holy Saturday. His Peace, His Beauty lay dead in the Tomb. Around Him all was grey and dark and hopeless and purposeless. As now. For today's Saturday is Holy Saturday too.
Oh I miss you so very, very, very much Mom. I trust and believe you to be in a better place. But Oh how I miss you so so so so so much ....
Friday, September 21, 2007
A Catholic Man's Grief
When I think about Golden & Miller's When a Man Faces Grief I think this has given me a new framework for my own grappling with the loss of my dear Mother.
And it supplies part of what I think has been missing for me in my own struggle with grieving her loss.
I think Golden & Miller have helped me remember that Mom ... and I ... are Persons. Not Functionalities, not Reductionistic fragments of Society, not even Reductionistic Fragments of a
Family.
We are Persons. Endowed with Dignity by God through Our Lord Jesus Christ.
I am a Person. A Person for whom Grief is ... or can be ... a part of my very being, just as the Resurrected Christ has "taken up" His Sacred Wounds to become part of His Very Person, part of His Glorified Body.
Loss is not an Obstacle to Functionality, and Grief is not a simple Tool to Overcome Loss so that I can Function as a unit of bourgeois society.
Loss is part of what it means to be a Person. Grief is part of what it means to be a Person. A Person in Christ.
I am, of course, a fragment of our highly fragmented nuclear family; that ill-fated family of which Mom was Mother, I was Son, my sister was Sister, and my Dad was Father. But I don't need to lose sight of the reductionistic nature of that family as it developed. This is no "knock on Mom": I am still and hope I will always be, deeply, deeply grateful for her courage and her perseverance and her walking foward according to her lights in seeking to build a family as best she could. Oh what she ... and my father ... and my family ... have given me is, and will always be, truly priceless.
But the contrast that I first encountered in reading the Beatitudes in Church when I was about 16; and followed up when I read Franz Fanon's Wretched of the Earth at about 18 in Geneva ... that was, and is, still there. Fanon I would disagree with at almost all levels now; but the original critique of the bourgeoisie was, and remains, valid, IMHO. Today I choose to embrace a Catholic Christian Anthropology of Man that recognizes the inviolate Dignity of the Human Person goes so muchfurther than bourgeois economic functionalism as a framework for viewing humankind.
And my family? The Church is my family. And Christian Anthropology sees a connection in a family tree between yours truly and literally everyone. My natural father was Adam; my natural mother was Eve; my True Father is God; my True Mother on Earth is the Church.
I need to Grieve as the Person I am. Start where I am. That's what Golden & Miller suggest BTW.
And what Person am I? Among other things, I am a Roman Catholic man.
As a Roman Catholic, I need to connect up with the Catholic vision of the Person in order to help me grieve as a Catholic. I have an appointment this Tuesday with a Deacon who, I hope, might help me connect with more Catholic resources to help in my grieving process ... and help me honor more appropriately the Dignity of the Human Person who is my Mom.
And as a Man ... following Golden & Miller, I can acknowledge that working through things iwth more ratiocination ... as in this blog ... is part of the male approach to grieving, and that is something I can embrace freely and use not just functionally but as a way to be who I am as a Person whno Grieves the Loss of his Dear Mother.
As a man I can express myself perhaps more readily though writing ... as in this blog ... and through Rituals ... as with my visits to the Grave, as with the gift of using the Office at the Grave, as with buidling photo albums that memorialize my Mom as I've been working on.;
As a man, I can express my grief through tears freely ... and I can express my anger, my rage ... and follow Father Job in raging, even as I follow Christ in weeping at the Tomb of Lazarus.
As a man who was my Mom's Provider, and who can Provide for her no longer, and who has no control at all over her Loss; and no control at all over her present situation ... I can grieve and express my frustration that I can no longer Provide for her; while surrendering her to the Supreme Providence of God.
And Oh I can acknowledge the Pain ... the Pain of Loss, of Grief, of Sadness, of Anger at this violation of Human Integrity that is the Death of my Mother.
Oh God help me to dispute this like a man ... and to also feel this like a man.
A Catholic man. A man on his knees before You, O Lord; on my knees before Your Blessed Mother; on my knees before all the Host of Heaven.
I cast my Sword at Your Feet, O Lord.
Help me to embrace truly the Surrender that I enact through the Ritual of the Surrender of my Sword.
Lord Jesus Christ Have Mercy on Me.
I love you Jesus. I love you Mom.
Love always,
Charles Delacroix
Feast of St Matthew
And it supplies part of what I think has been missing for me in my own struggle with grieving her loss.
I think Golden & Miller have helped me remember that Mom ... and I ... are Persons. Not Functionalities, not Reductionistic fragments of Society, not even Reductionistic Fragments of a
Family.
We are Persons. Endowed with Dignity by God through Our Lord Jesus Christ.
I am a Person. A Person for whom Grief is ... or can be ... a part of my very being, just as the Resurrected Christ has "taken up" His Sacred Wounds to become part of His Very Person, part of His Glorified Body.
Loss is not an Obstacle to Functionality, and Grief is not a simple Tool to Overcome Loss so that I can Function as a unit of bourgeois society.
Loss is part of what it means to be a Person. Grief is part of what it means to be a Person. A Person in Christ.
I am, of course, a fragment of our highly fragmented nuclear family; that ill-fated family of which Mom was Mother, I was Son, my sister was Sister, and my Dad was Father. But I don't need to lose sight of the reductionistic nature of that family as it developed. This is no "knock on Mom": I am still and hope I will always be, deeply, deeply grateful for her courage and her perseverance and her walking foward according to her lights in seeking to build a family as best she could. Oh what she ... and my father ... and my family ... have given me is, and will always be, truly priceless.
But the contrast that I first encountered in reading the Beatitudes in Church when I was about 16; and followed up when I read Franz Fanon's Wretched of the Earth at about 18 in Geneva ... that was, and is, still there. Fanon I would disagree with at almost all levels now; but the original critique of the bourgeoisie was, and remains, valid, IMHO. Today I choose to embrace a Catholic Christian Anthropology of Man that recognizes the inviolate Dignity of the Human Person goes so muchfurther than bourgeois economic functionalism as a framework for viewing humankind.
And my family? The Church is my family. And Christian Anthropology sees a connection in a family tree between yours truly and literally everyone. My natural father was Adam; my natural mother was Eve; my True Father is God; my True Mother on Earth is the Church.
I need to Grieve as the Person I am. Start where I am. That's what Golden & Miller suggest BTW.
And what Person am I? Among other things, I am a Roman Catholic man.
As a Roman Catholic, I need to connect up with the Catholic vision of the Person in order to help me grieve as a Catholic. I have an appointment this Tuesday with a Deacon who, I hope, might help me connect with more Catholic resources to help in my grieving process ... and help me honor more appropriately the Dignity of the Human Person who is my Mom.
And as a Man ... following Golden & Miller, I can acknowledge that working through things iwth more ratiocination ... as in this blog ... is part of the male approach to grieving, and that is something I can embrace freely and use not just functionally but as a way to be who I am as a Person whno Grieves the Loss of his Dear Mother.
As a man I can express myself perhaps more readily though writing ... as in this blog ... and through Rituals ... as with my visits to the Grave, as with the gift of using the Office at the Grave, as with buidling photo albums that memorialize my Mom as I've been working on.;
As a man, I can express my grief through tears freely ... and I can express my anger, my rage ... and follow Father Job in raging, even as I follow Christ in weeping at the Tomb of Lazarus.
As a man who was my Mom's Provider, and who can Provide for her no longer, and who has no control at all over her Loss; and no control at all over her present situation ... I can grieve and express my frustration that I can no longer Provide for her; while surrendering her to the Supreme Providence of God.
And Oh I can acknowledge the Pain ... the Pain of Loss, of Grief, of Sadness, of Anger at this violation of Human Integrity that is the Death of my Mother.
Oh God help me to dispute this like a man ... and to also feel this like a man.
A Catholic man. A man on his knees before You, O Lord; on my knees before Your Blessed Mother; on my knees before all the Host of Heaven.
I cast my Sword at Your Feet, O Lord.
Help me to embrace truly the Surrender that I enact through the Ritual of the Surrender of my Sword.
Lord Jesus Christ Have Mercy on Me.
I love you Jesus. I love you Mom.
Love always,
Charles Delacroix
Feast of St Matthew
The Times and Seasons and Rituals of the Grave
This morning I really had a wonderful time "settin' a spell" with Mom at the Grave. This is part of my (masculine?) ritual: visiting her Grave, twice daily, once in the morning, once in the evening; sometimes in between as well.
But the point is to recognize both that she is here; and that she is not here. For I just plain don't agree with those who say of the dead, "they're gone, they're not here, they're somewhere else ..."
In a sense that's true: the soul is (we hope) in Heaven.
But the body is here. And since I'm a Catholic Christian, and believe that the Person is both Body and Soul ... and indeed Spirit ... it's true to say of my Mom that she's here, in her Grave; and at the same time that she's there, in Heaven, as I hope.
This afternoon, when I visited Mom's Grave, earth had been added to its sunken surface: the first since she was buried on 8/27. Her Grave looks nice. And praying there when a recording of Taps began, carrying from a military section of the cemetery, this was really very moving for me. Then when I got up, a flock of about a dozen geese took flight from the row of trees a short distance away. Sometimes I wonder, like Seymour, if people ... or God ... is not conspiring to make me happy despite myself.
May God bless us all ... and may God grant you Rest in Peace, Mom.
Charles Delacroix
Feast of St Matthew
But the point is to recognize both that she is here; and that she is not here. For I just plain don't agree with those who say of the dead, "they're gone, they're not here, they're somewhere else ..."
In a sense that's true: the soul is (we hope) in Heaven.
But the body is here. And since I'm a Catholic Christian, and believe that the Person is both Body and Soul ... and indeed Spirit ... it's true to say of my Mom that she's here, in her Grave; and at the same time that she's there, in Heaven, as I hope.
This afternoon, when I visited Mom's Grave, earth had been added to its sunken surface: the first since she was buried on 8/27. Her Grave looks nice. And praying there when a recording of Taps began, carrying from a military section of the cemetery, this was really very moving for me. Then when I got up, a flock of about a dozen geese took flight from the row of trees a short distance away. Sometimes I wonder, like Seymour, if people ... or God ... is not conspiring to make me happy despite myself.
May God bless us all ... and may God grant you Rest in Peace, Mom.
Charles Delacroix
Feast of St Matthew
Review of Three Books on Grieving
I’ve been working my way through several books on grief kindly loaned to me by Hospice. And I’ve found them both helpful and thought-provoking enough that I’d like to say something about 3 of these books.
The first book (Life after Loss) I myself found to be very poor for my own purposes, and would not recommend it to anyone who does not embrace a highly reductionistic, functionalist view of the human person. The other two books (When a Man Faces Grief and Praying Our Goodbyes) I found very useful indeed, and recommend them to anyone who embraces a humanistic and personalist view of humanity.
More on each of these three books:
Life after Loss, 4th Edition, by Bob Deits (Lifelong Books: 2004).
This is a thick volume, subtitled “A Practical Guide to Renewing Your Life after Experiencing Major Loss.” Hence it addresses loss in general, not bereavement in particular. The book was recommended to me by a hospice worker. Its 4th edition status and endorsement by a hospice worker may suggest something about its degree of acceptance within the medical community.
However, after poking around in it, despite many good things there, on the whole, I thought (and think) it’s a bad match for me. On the whole, despite frequent use of humanistic language, it seems to take a generally reductionistic, functionalist, utilitarian view of persons and of life. My overall impression from this book is that grief is an obstacle to Function, and needs to be “overcome” in order to restore Function as fully as possible, as soon as possible. Recovery will take time, according to the book; but the overall goal, restoration of Function, is the purpose of “grief work.” And whatever else the book may say, it seems to treat Persons as having value precisely to the extent that they have Utility.
Terms like “effectiveness” and “helpfulness,” used in a utilitarian manner, abound. A whole chapter (11) is devoted to “Beliefs that Help or Hurt.” The clear implication is that whether this or that belief was true, or accurate, was not important; what mattered is if it “helped” one to function or not. It is in this chapter that Religion is examined. Religion is evaluated strictly on the basis of whether it “helps” … again, in a functionalist, utilitarian sense … and is not brought up again, as far as I can see, anywhere else in the book.
"Why" questions are explicitly denounced in favor of "How" questions in a passage I can't locate at the moment. Probably it's in Chapter 11. I myself would think that "Why?" is one of the most natural questions in the world, especially at a time of loss. Apparently questions like this are part of the legacy of humanity ... who does not ask such questions sometime or the other? If St Augustine is right ... that our hearts are restless till they rest in Thee ... then how could a man or woman with a restless heart not ask, sooner or later, Why? I can certainly see why such a difficult question as "Why?" might not be as "functional" as simpler and more practical questions like "How?" But isn't a counsel to ignore the questions that clutch at our souls a sort of counsel to despair? To ignore what is deepest in who we are? To dehumanize ourselves and ignore our own humanity?
In “Back to Work” (p. 23) we are told flatly “If you are employed go back to work as soon as you can.” This dictum appears without explanation. Presumably, though, restoration of Economic Utility is considered so paramount that the recommendation is considered unquestionable. Don’t get me wrong: it might well be a good thing to get back to work ASAP; it might even be economically necessary for most. But surely this can’t be the case for all? Is the author denouncing leaves of absence, furloughs, and the like such as are often used in time of great personal loss? In any event, I don’t myself see this as a clearcut question at all. Unless, again, I were to adopt a functionalist view of the human being; in which case fitting that human being back into the economic system, to function in service of the greater good of the economy, would be indeed a paramount objective. But this entails a very reductionistic, utilitarian view of the human person.
One of the most chilling parts of the book appears on p. 159. An elderly man, we are told, experienced a severe loss in the death of his wife. Then the book says “When his wife died, his family decided he should move into an assisted living facility.” At this point I would expect some indication that there may be at best ethical issues, and possibly legal issues, involved in the compulsory placement of the elderly man against his will The book simply ignores any such considerations at all, and, indeed, tacitly endorses the man’s forced move. Presumably the man was no longer sufficiently “functional” and therefore needed to be forced to move from his home to someplace else where he could be “assisted”: against his will, of course. That our book manages to ignore the violation of the man’s civil rights, and the violation of his dignity as a human person before God, is to me outrageous; and once again emphasizes the utilitarian and anti-humanist, anti-personalist view of the human person.
The book also takes a generally feminized view of the grieving process, dismisses distinctively male grieving (see pp 79f for example) and is directly contradicted by the next book I’d like to review:
When a Man Faces Grief, by Thomas R. Golden and James E. Miller (Willowgreen: 1998).
This book is subtitled “12 Practical Ideas to Help You Heal from Loss,” so it addressed loss in general, not bereavement in particular. This is a very slim volume, but contains enormous wisdom and insights regarding specifically male grieving. Anyone familiar with Robert Bly will find in this book some echoes of “Iron John” and other salient works of the Men’s Movement. And although I realize that Bly and the Men’s Movement have their own reductionisms to deal with, no one, I think, has ever accused them of not being deeply personalist, and deeply humanistic, regarding the nature of humankind in general, and of man, and men, more particularly.
The introduction to this book says, “there are as many ways to heal as there are people who are healing. Unfortunately, our culture tends to embrace and acknowledge only a small portion of these may ways. Often the types of healing our culture endorses are what are considered the traditionally feminine ways which are characterized by talking about the loss, by crying, and by sharing one’s emotions with others. While these are very good ways to heal, they are not the only ways …” (p. 5).
Indeed. But our authors go on to emphasize “that the masculine side of healing is used by both men and women … the truth is that we all use both sides … We need to use caution when it comes to judging anyone about the way they choose to heal.” (p. 6). Males tend in general (but not always) to engage less in what the book does not term, but what others have termed, “experessed emotion” (EE). Males tend to rely more on independence, strength, courage, rituals, and other means of grieving. However, the grieving on the view of the authors is not something to be used strictly functionally, as a means of “overcoming” feelings of loss and helping the man to regain his “functionality” as soon as possible. Rather, grieving, allowed to enter into the being (p. 12) actually helps the man become the person he was meant to be; or actually becomes a part of him. If this sounds like echoes of Robert Bly’s (and previous) myth of the Wounded Healer; if this sounds like a pale but real echo, or ikon, of the Cross, then that won’t be far wrong. Reading this book seems to me to emphasize deep respect for the human person as person, not as functionary or automaton, but as a human person, unique, flawed, beautifully, extraordinary, hurt and hurting … but something that is the echo of the Transcendant.
The echoes of the Transcendant, and the humanistic and personalist approach to persons, and to personal loss, appears as well in the third and last book I would like to review at this time:
Praying Our Goodbyes, by Sr Joyce Rupp, OSM (Ave Maria Press 1988).
The author is a Servite Sister, a Catholic, but one who strives to keep this an ecumenical work, though one that is unapologetically Christian from start to finish.
In fact, as the title suggests, the book is really all about Prayer and all about Goodbyes. A strong sense of connection with the Universe, with God’s Creation, underlies this book full of Autumnal memories, feelings, and wisdom. The book includes a series of prayers to assist in praying our goodbyes in the appendix, and they are all moving, faithful, and accessible.
Alas I’m getting sleepy, time to hit the sack … I may have more to say aobut this wonderful book by Sister Rupp later.
The first book (Life after Loss) I myself found to be very poor for my own purposes, and would not recommend it to anyone who does not embrace a highly reductionistic, functionalist view of the human person. The other two books (When a Man Faces Grief and Praying Our Goodbyes) I found very useful indeed, and recommend them to anyone who embraces a humanistic and personalist view of humanity.
More on each of these three books:
Life after Loss, 4th Edition, by Bob Deits (Lifelong Books: 2004).
This is a thick volume, subtitled “A Practical Guide to Renewing Your Life after Experiencing Major Loss.” Hence it addresses loss in general, not bereavement in particular. The book was recommended to me by a hospice worker. Its 4th edition status and endorsement by a hospice worker may suggest something about its degree of acceptance within the medical community.
However, after poking around in it, despite many good things there, on the whole, I thought (and think) it’s a bad match for me. On the whole, despite frequent use of humanistic language, it seems to take a generally reductionistic, functionalist, utilitarian view of persons and of life. My overall impression from this book is that grief is an obstacle to Function, and needs to be “overcome” in order to restore Function as fully as possible, as soon as possible. Recovery will take time, according to the book; but the overall goal, restoration of Function, is the purpose of “grief work.” And whatever else the book may say, it seems to treat Persons as having value precisely to the extent that they have Utility.
Terms like “effectiveness” and “helpfulness,” used in a utilitarian manner, abound. A whole chapter (11) is devoted to “Beliefs that Help or Hurt.” The clear implication is that whether this or that belief was true, or accurate, was not important; what mattered is if it “helped” one to function or not. It is in this chapter that Religion is examined. Religion is evaluated strictly on the basis of whether it “helps” … again, in a functionalist, utilitarian sense … and is not brought up again, as far as I can see, anywhere else in the book.
"Why" questions are explicitly denounced in favor of "How" questions in a passage I can't locate at the moment. Probably it's in Chapter 11. I myself would think that "Why?" is one of the most natural questions in the world, especially at a time of loss. Apparently questions like this are part of the legacy of humanity ... who does not ask such questions sometime or the other? If St Augustine is right ... that our hearts are restless till they rest in Thee ... then how could a man or woman with a restless heart not ask, sooner or later, Why? I can certainly see why such a difficult question as "Why?" might not be as "functional" as simpler and more practical questions like "How?" But isn't a counsel to ignore the questions that clutch at our souls a sort of counsel to despair? To ignore what is deepest in who we are? To dehumanize ourselves and ignore our own humanity?
In “Back to Work” (p. 23) we are told flatly “If you are employed go back to work as soon as you can.” This dictum appears without explanation. Presumably, though, restoration of Economic Utility is considered so paramount that the recommendation is considered unquestionable. Don’t get me wrong: it might well be a good thing to get back to work ASAP; it might even be economically necessary for most. But surely this can’t be the case for all? Is the author denouncing leaves of absence, furloughs, and the like such as are often used in time of great personal loss? In any event, I don’t myself see this as a clearcut question at all. Unless, again, I were to adopt a functionalist view of the human being; in which case fitting that human being back into the economic system, to function in service of the greater good of the economy, would be indeed a paramount objective. But this entails a very reductionistic, utilitarian view of the human person.
One of the most chilling parts of the book appears on p. 159. An elderly man, we are told, experienced a severe loss in the death of his wife. Then the book says “When his wife died, his family decided he should move into an assisted living facility.” At this point I would expect some indication that there may be at best ethical issues, and possibly legal issues, involved in the compulsory placement of the elderly man against his will The book simply ignores any such considerations at all, and, indeed, tacitly endorses the man’s forced move. Presumably the man was no longer sufficiently “functional” and therefore needed to be forced to move from his home to someplace else where he could be “assisted”: against his will, of course. That our book manages to ignore the violation of the man’s civil rights, and the violation of his dignity as a human person before God, is to me outrageous; and once again emphasizes the utilitarian and anti-humanist, anti-personalist view of the human person.
The book also takes a generally feminized view of the grieving process, dismisses distinctively male grieving (see pp 79f for example) and is directly contradicted by the next book I’d like to review:
When a Man Faces Grief, by Thomas R. Golden and James E. Miller (Willowgreen: 1998).
This book is subtitled “12 Practical Ideas to Help You Heal from Loss,” so it addressed loss in general, not bereavement in particular. This is a very slim volume, but contains enormous wisdom and insights regarding specifically male grieving. Anyone familiar with Robert Bly will find in this book some echoes of “Iron John” and other salient works of the Men’s Movement. And although I realize that Bly and the Men’s Movement have their own reductionisms to deal with, no one, I think, has ever accused them of not being deeply personalist, and deeply humanistic, regarding the nature of humankind in general, and of man, and men, more particularly.
The introduction to this book says, “there are as many ways to heal as there are people who are healing. Unfortunately, our culture tends to embrace and acknowledge only a small portion of these may ways. Often the types of healing our culture endorses are what are considered the traditionally feminine ways which are characterized by talking about the loss, by crying, and by sharing one’s emotions with others. While these are very good ways to heal, they are not the only ways …” (p. 5).
Indeed. But our authors go on to emphasize “that the masculine side of healing is used by both men and women … the truth is that we all use both sides … We need to use caution when it comes to judging anyone about the way they choose to heal.” (p. 6). Males tend in general (but not always) to engage less in what the book does not term, but what others have termed, “experessed emotion” (EE). Males tend to rely more on independence, strength, courage, rituals, and other means of grieving. However, the grieving on the view of the authors is not something to be used strictly functionally, as a means of “overcoming” feelings of loss and helping the man to regain his “functionality” as soon as possible. Rather, grieving, allowed to enter into the being (p. 12) actually helps the man become the person he was meant to be; or actually becomes a part of him. If this sounds like echoes of Robert Bly’s (and previous) myth of the Wounded Healer; if this sounds like a pale but real echo, or ikon, of the Cross, then that won’t be far wrong. Reading this book seems to me to emphasize deep respect for the human person as person, not as functionary or automaton, but as a human person, unique, flawed, beautifully, extraordinary, hurt and hurting … but something that is the echo of the Transcendant.
The echoes of the Transcendant, and the humanistic and personalist approach to persons, and to personal loss, appears as well in the third and last book I would like to review at this time:
Praying Our Goodbyes, by Sr Joyce Rupp, OSM (Ave Maria Press 1988).
The author is a Servite Sister, a Catholic, but one who strives to keep this an ecumenical work, though one that is unapologetically Christian from start to finish.
In fact, as the title suggests, the book is really all about Prayer and all about Goodbyes. A strong sense of connection with the Universe, with God’s Creation, underlies this book full of Autumnal memories, feelings, and wisdom. The book includes a series of prayers to assist in praying our goodbyes in the appendix, and they are all moving, faithful, and accessible.
Alas I’m getting sleepy, time to hit the sack … I may have more to say aobut this wonderful book by Sister Rupp later.
Thursday, September 20, 2007
In Defense of Mourning
I thought about calling this entry "Apologia Pro Vita Mourning" or "Contra Celebration of Death". What brought this on was hearing today, and even a few days before Mom's Funeral, the apparently common view that "Death should be a celebration of life" and "She's in Heaven now; she's not in pain; we should celebrate and rejoice."
Yet no such sentiments appear, do they, anywhere in Sacred Scripture. Perhaps somewhere in Sacred Tradition; but not, I feel sure, in a way that contradicts what appears to be the strong current in Scripture, and in common human experience, in favor of mourning the dead.
Jesus wept at the Tomb of Lazarus. Job, confronted by the "Job's Comforters", who did take a similar line that might be called the "celebrate pain" approach to suffering, steadfastly embraced his pain, his suffering, his grieving and mourning. And in the last few chapters of Job, we cannot doubt where God came down on this: "Job spoke rightly of me."
In the Beatitudes, we are told, "Blessed are they that mourn, for they shall be comforted." Mourning is explicitly endorsed, so to speak. And there is no implication that those who mourn will be stripped of their grief and given a clown's "Happy Face" to replace it. "Comfort": to be made strong, to be fortified. No "Happy Face" here.
Mourning is the common human experience in the face of Death.
Plutarch's description of the Death of Pompey, and the obsequies for him, are so very moving.
Similarly Homer's description of the obsequies for Achilles and so many other.
Shakespeare's Macbeth includes this deeply moving passage, in which Macduff expresses his grief upon hearing of the slaughter of his family. Malcolm tells him to be a man, to which Macduff responds in words that echo through the years.
Malcolm. Dispute it like a man.
Macduff. I shall do so
But I must also feel it like a man.
I cannot but remember such things were,
and were most precious to me …
4.3.221
All of this I recount not to say yet again what has been said a million times better than I by others ... but to remind myself of precious things in the face of the surly challenges of contemporary culture to "hurry up and get over it" or (in the modernist churchman's variation of same, "Let's celebrate death."
Nonsense. Death is an ugly gash across the universe, a stripping away of what is most precious to us in this life. The best way we can celebrate God, and the person who has died, is to mourn ... to shed tears, to weep, to don sackcloth and ashes, tear our hair, and wail before Heaven and Earth at the Death of our loved ones.
Mom ... you were ... and are ... most precious to me. I love you and I miss you ... and I mourn your passing ...
Love in Christ,
Charles Delacroix
Yet no such sentiments appear, do they, anywhere in Sacred Scripture. Perhaps somewhere in Sacred Tradition; but not, I feel sure, in a way that contradicts what appears to be the strong current in Scripture, and in common human experience, in favor of mourning the dead.
Jesus wept at the Tomb of Lazarus. Job, confronted by the "Job's Comforters", who did take a similar line that might be called the "celebrate pain" approach to suffering, steadfastly embraced his pain, his suffering, his grieving and mourning. And in the last few chapters of Job, we cannot doubt where God came down on this: "Job spoke rightly of me."
In the Beatitudes, we are told, "Blessed are they that mourn, for they shall be comforted." Mourning is explicitly endorsed, so to speak. And there is no implication that those who mourn will be stripped of their grief and given a clown's "Happy Face" to replace it. "Comfort": to be made strong, to be fortified. No "Happy Face" here.
Mourning is the common human experience in the face of Death.
Plutarch's description of the Death of Pompey, and the obsequies for him, are so very moving.
Similarly Homer's description of the obsequies for Achilles and so many other.
Shakespeare's Macbeth includes this deeply moving passage, in which Macduff expresses his grief upon hearing of the slaughter of his family. Malcolm tells him to be a man, to which Macduff responds in words that echo through the years.
Malcolm. Dispute it like a man.
Macduff. I shall do so
But I must also feel it like a man.
I cannot but remember such things were,
and were most precious to me …
4.3.221
All of this I recount not to say yet again what has been said a million times better than I by others ... but to remind myself of precious things in the face of the surly challenges of contemporary culture to "hurry up and get over it" or (in the modernist churchman's variation of same, "Let's celebrate death."
Nonsense. Death is an ugly gash across the universe, a stripping away of what is most precious to us in this life. The best way we can celebrate God, and the person who has died, is to mourn ... to shed tears, to weep, to don sackcloth and ashes, tear our hair, and wail before Heaven and Earth at the Death of our loved ones.
Mom ... you were ... and are ... most precious to me. I love you and I miss you ... and I mourn your passing ...
Love in Christ,
Charles Delacroix
Home
"Home" has been one of those words that has always been a real challenge for me.
I've tended to think of it in fairly narrow terms, as sort of a catch-all for one's ancestral place, where you were born and raised, the place where your "kin" were. In so many ways, I and my family never really had such a place; and the location where I was residing at this or that time was "home" only in some very loose sense.
Mom used this term very differently, I think. I suddenly realized this yesterday, while going through Mom's old photo albums. In her albums, "home" is wherever she and her family are living. Her family meaning her, Dad, me, and my sister. Later it meant her, me, and my sister. And towards the end, it meant her and me. In April, when in the hospital and rehab, and she said, "I want to go home," she meant the residence where she and I were living. A month ago, when dying, and when she said "I want to go home," she meant the same thing.
Hornersville, where she was born and raised, was in a special sense "home" to her as well. In her photo albums, though, she speaks of visits ... from Tulsa, from Libya ... to Hornersville, not visits "home". Yet when speaking to me orally she often referred to Hornersville as "home." The picture that she bought in the 1950s(?) that always was in a prominent place in her living room she bought, she told me, because it reminded her of "home" ... and said the "Joe Hole" (in Hornersville) looked like it could be right down the river from the scene in the picture.
"Home" has meant for me, for many many years, my True Home in Heaven. She acknowledged, I think, this use of the term; but never, or almost never, to my knowledge, used it this way. Her Home was in the Here and Now; or, in the case of Hornersville, in the There and Then.
And now how my own heart does ache ... for Home ... whatever Home might mean ... and especially the Home that is where she is ...
I've tended to think of it in fairly narrow terms, as sort of a catch-all for one's ancestral place, where you were born and raised, the place where your "kin" were. In so many ways, I and my family never really had such a place; and the location where I was residing at this or that time was "home" only in some very loose sense.
Mom used this term very differently, I think. I suddenly realized this yesterday, while going through Mom's old photo albums. In her albums, "home" is wherever she and her family are living. Her family meaning her, Dad, me, and my sister. Later it meant her, me, and my sister. And towards the end, it meant her and me. In April, when in the hospital and rehab, and she said, "I want to go home," she meant the residence where she and I were living. A month ago, when dying, and when she said "I want to go home," she meant the same thing.
Hornersville, where she was born and raised, was in a special sense "home" to her as well. In her photo albums, though, she speaks of visits ... from Tulsa, from Libya ... to Hornersville, not visits "home". Yet when speaking to me orally she often referred to Hornersville as "home." The picture that she bought in the 1950s(?) that always was in a prominent place in her living room she bought, she told me, because it reminded her of "home" ... and said the "Joe Hole" (in Hornersville) looked like it could be right down the river from the scene in the picture.
"Home" has meant for me, for many many years, my True Home in Heaven. She acknowledged, I think, this use of the term; but never, or almost never, to my knowledge, used it this way. Her Home was in the Here and Now; or, in the case of Hornersville, in the There and Then.
And now how my own heart does ache ... for Home ... whatever Home might mean ... and especially the Home that is where she is ...
Wednesday, September 19, 2007
Story without an Ending
I think one reason I feel so empty, so desolate, so hopeless is that with the death of my Mom, my own story seems to be over ... a story without an ending ... a "tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing."
By Faith I bow my head before the Teachings of the Church that all life has meaning; that even a sparrow will not drop from the sky without our Lord knowing and taking note of even such a loss.
But it just doesn't feel that way.
You know, I can see, now, why the traditional investment of so much emotion and energy and meaning is in the Family. I'll swear, I could really get into being a traditional Medici or Colonna ... member of a large House, in which advancement of the Family becomes the primary enterprise of this large, extended familias. The Family carries on the Story that is theirs.
I know I know I know. That may be in some sense "natural" but it's also a guise for the Enemy. "The World, the Flesh, and the Devil." Such a view of Family is surely the Temptation of the World.
But still. Mom is gone. I am so deeply grateful for her. But now she is gone. And I have nobody. I live alone. My father has been gone for decades. I have no wife. I have no children. My sister is estranged. My aging aunt is kind but as she will be the first to say, she has her limits. My cousins have their own lives.
I'm alone. And my story, such as it is, is an empty soliloquy for which there is no audience but myself.
Except the Church of course is my family. Mary is my Mother. Jesus is my Brother. The Church Triumphant is my enormous Extended Family stretched through time.
But in the Here and Now ... I find myself again fairly distant and uninvolved. No one's to blame but me for this of course. But still there it is.
O God have mercy on me. And God let her Rest in Peace.
By Faith I bow my head before the Teachings of the Church that all life has meaning; that even a sparrow will not drop from the sky without our Lord knowing and taking note of even such a loss.
But it just doesn't feel that way.
You know, I can see, now, why the traditional investment of so much emotion and energy and meaning is in the Family. I'll swear, I could really get into being a traditional Medici or Colonna ... member of a large House, in which advancement of the Family becomes the primary enterprise of this large, extended familias. The Family carries on the Story that is theirs.
I know I know I know. That may be in some sense "natural" but it's also a guise for the Enemy. "The World, the Flesh, and the Devil." Such a view of Family is surely the Temptation of the World.
But still. Mom is gone. I am so deeply grateful for her. But now she is gone. And I have nobody. I live alone. My father has been gone for decades. I have no wife. I have no children. My sister is estranged. My aging aunt is kind but as she will be the first to say, she has her limits. My cousins have their own lives.
I'm alone. And my story, such as it is, is an empty soliloquy for which there is no audience but myself.
Except the Church of course is my family. Mary is my Mother. Jesus is my Brother. The Church Triumphant is my enormous Extended Family stretched through time.
But in the Here and Now ... I find myself again fairly distant and uninvolved. No one's to blame but me for this of course. But still there it is.
O God have mercy on me. And God let her Rest in Peace.
Monday, September 17, 2007
Children
Just a note ... seeing and hearing children these days is so very, very painful.
There are kids next door ... I heard them laughing and playing yesterday and had to leave. I saw some kids on their way to school today ... and my heart sank.
Mom loved children. I'm usually glad to see and hear kids myself. But these days ... seeing them reminds me that Mom was a child once. So was I. So were we all. And the end for all of us is always the same: the Grave. I know this is part of the Life of Holy Saturday and the Tomb that is Life. I know that this is History. And pray indeed "Admit me to this History."
But Oh it's so painful to think of laughing children on the one hand, and the inevitable Grave for those children on the other.
May God have mercy on all of us. And may God bless all children everywhere.
There are kids next door ... I heard them laughing and playing yesterday and had to leave. I saw some kids on their way to school today ... and my heart sank.
Mom loved children. I'm usually glad to see and hear kids myself. But these days ... seeing them reminds me that Mom was a child once. So was I. So were we all. And the end for all of us is always the same: the Grave. I know this is part of the Life of Holy Saturday and the Tomb that is Life. I know that this is History. And pray indeed "Admit me to this History."
But Oh it's so painful to think of laughing children on the one hand, and the inevitable Grave for those children on the other.
May God have mercy on all of us. And may God bless all children everywhere.
Emptiness and Desolation
I sometimes forget that this feeling of emptiness and desolation ... and acute loneliness ... really isn't anything new for me. Perhaps for anyone, but I can only speak for myself.
It's horrible ... that wrench in the gut, that sense that not a thing is really right between me and my world. That feeling that I have no purpose, no hope. That feeling that I am a walking, talking, gaping hole of Nothingness.
I think I feel that way above all because I am that way. St Augustine says that that is how we are built, constructed, created by God. Lewis says that goes along with being a creature rather than the Creator. I feel like a walking, gaping Hole because I am a walking, gaping Hole. I feel like living Need because I am living Need.
Then what is ... what was ... Mom? To me?
A living, walking, talking, loving Ikon of Mary, Mother of God; and a living, walking, talking loving Ikon of Christ, of God.
For the One I really Need is God. God through Mary. God by means of Mary. The Church, the Body of Christ, is the instrumentum crucis through whom I receive Christ. God comes to us through the God-Man Christ; who comes to us through the womb of the Blessed Virgin Mary.
Who is Imago Dei like all of us, isn't she.
Oh but how painful it all is. I'm looking forward to OOR (Office of Readings, Matins) today ... I think I can be sure that there will be a Reading reflecting exactly the kind of thing that we all go through in experiencing this pain, this loneliness, this horrible isolation. I look forward as well to MP (Morning Prayer, Lauds) and later today to EP (Evening Prayer, Vespers). The EP of the Office for the Dead has such beautiful things ... the first Psalm, 121, is so moving, and is the Psalm Mom specifically asked to be said at her Funeral. After 121, there's the De Profundis Ps 130, and finally the Hymn to the Kenotic Christ in Philippians. MP's prayers in turn include the moving Psalm 51 and Canticle of Isaiah. This is to me all very comforting ... not in the sense of "making things seem OK" or in the sense of "making me feel better." Things are not OK. I do not feel better. But I do feel strengthened, in the etymological sense of being comforted.
Blessed are those that Mourn ... for they shall be comforted. Strengthened, that is, not anesthetized into not feeling what we should feel, what we want to feel, what we need to feel, if we are to be human and experience loss in this world.
Father Job, pray for us.
S Robert Bellarmine, pray for us
S Joseph, pray for us
Holy Mary, Mother of God, pray for us
Lord Jesus Christ, have mercy on us
Charles Delacroix
Feast of St Robert Bellarmine
It's horrible ... that wrench in the gut, that sense that not a thing is really right between me and my world. That feeling that I have no purpose, no hope. That feeling that I am a walking, talking, gaping hole of Nothingness.
I think I feel that way above all because I am that way. St Augustine says that that is how we are built, constructed, created by God. Lewis says that goes along with being a creature rather than the Creator. I feel like a walking, gaping Hole because I am a walking, gaping Hole. I feel like living Need because I am living Need.
Then what is ... what was ... Mom? To me?
A living, walking, talking, loving Ikon of Mary, Mother of God; and a living, walking, talking loving Ikon of Christ, of God.
For the One I really Need is God. God through Mary. God by means of Mary. The Church, the Body of Christ, is the instrumentum crucis through whom I receive Christ. God comes to us through the God-Man Christ; who comes to us through the womb of the Blessed Virgin Mary.
Who is Imago Dei like all of us, isn't she.
Oh but how painful it all is. I'm looking forward to OOR (Office of Readings, Matins) today ... I think I can be sure that there will be a Reading reflecting exactly the kind of thing that we all go through in experiencing this pain, this loneliness, this horrible isolation. I look forward as well to MP (Morning Prayer, Lauds) and later today to EP (Evening Prayer, Vespers). The EP of the Office for the Dead has such beautiful things ... the first Psalm, 121, is so moving, and is the Psalm Mom specifically asked to be said at her Funeral. After 121, there's the De Profundis Ps 130, and finally the Hymn to the Kenotic Christ in Philippians. MP's prayers in turn include the moving Psalm 51 and Canticle of Isaiah. This is to me all very comforting ... not in the sense of "making things seem OK" or in the sense of "making me feel better." Things are not OK. I do not feel better. But I do feel strengthened, in the etymological sense of being comforted.
Blessed are those that Mourn ... for they shall be comforted. Strengthened, that is, not anesthetized into not feeling what we should feel, what we want to feel, what we need to feel, if we are to be human and experience loss in this world.
Father Job, pray for us.
S Robert Bellarmine, pray for us
S Joseph, pray for us
Holy Mary, Mother of God, pray for us
Lord Jesus Christ, have mercy on us
Charles Delacroix
Feast of St Robert Bellarmine
What She Liked and What She Didn't Like
I'm going to come back to this ... I hope ... and add things as I remember them.
She Liked:
Butterflies
Children
Rabbits
Home
Spooky
Me (!)
MASH on TV
As Time Goes By on TV
Tom Brokaw
Pink
Old time Swing music: Tommy Dorsey, etc
Veterans
The American Legion
Tea
Earl Grey Tea
Coffee - black, no sugar, no cream
Sitting and looking out the back glass door at the yard
Birds
Settin' a Spell with me on the front driveway
Beautiful Skies
Her shoes
Sweets - especially chocolate
Beans
Lima beans
Navy beans
Rice
"Skillet dishes"
Pancakes
Log Cabin syrup
Sorghum molasses
Music
Choir music
Her family, going way back into the mists of time
"Foot rubbydowns" (foot massages)
"Back rubbydowns" (back massages)
"Coos" (kisses by family)
Puppy dogs of all kinds and shapes and sizes; but especially smaller dogs
Travel
Flowers. Especially roses, red roses. But all kinds of flowers. One of the notes she wrote in a note in a photo album dating to a vacation to Netherlands says “flowers everywhere lovely flowers”
Sunsets
The Sea ... especially The Mediterranean
The Sun
The feeling of the sun on her skin
Italian food
Chinese food
Mary Poppins
The Sound of Music
Dick Van Dyke
Star Trek
Star Trek: The Next Generation
Mr Spock
Data
Little fishies with yellow sweaters
Little (*small*) octopus that would scoot this way & that way in the shallows of the Med
Shopping
Christmas
Easter
Little animals of all kinds
She Didn't Like:
"Holes in the ground" - tunnels, dark places, cellars
Feeling like someone was intruding & getting into her business
Snakes
Spiders
She Liked:
Butterflies
Children
Rabbits
Home
Spooky
Me (!)
MASH on TV
As Time Goes By on TV
Tom Brokaw
Pink
Old time Swing music: Tommy Dorsey, etc
Veterans
The American Legion
Tea
Earl Grey Tea
Coffee - black, no sugar, no cream
Sitting and looking out the back glass door at the yard
Birds
Settin' a Spell with me on the front driveway
Beautiful Skies
Her shoes
Sweets - especially chocolate
Beans
Lima beans
Navy beans
Rice
"Skillet dishes"
Pancakes
Log Cabin syrup
Sorghum molasses
Music
Choir music
Her family, going way back into the mists of time
"Foot rubbydowns" (foot massages)
"Back rubbydowns" (back massages)
"Coos" (kisses by family)
Puppy dogs of all kinds and shapes and sizes; but especially smaller dogs
Travel
Flowers. Especially roses, red roses. But all kinds of flowers. One of the notes she wrote in a note in a photo album dating to a vacation to Netherlands says “flowers everywhere lovely flowers”
Sunsets
The Sea ... especially The Mediterranean
The Sun
The feeling of the sun on her skin
Italian food
Chinese food
Mary Poppins
The Sound of Music
Dick Van Dyke
Star Trek
Star Trek: The Next Generation
Mr Spock
Data
Little fishies with yellow sweaters
Little (*small*) octopus that would scoot this way & that way in the shallows of the Med
Shopping
Christmas
Easter
Little animals of all kinds
She Didn't Like:
"Holes in the ground" - tunnels, dark places, cellars
Feeling like someone was intruding & getting into her business
Snakes
Spiders
Mother's Love
Mom's Love ... for me, personally ... that's what I sometimes ... maybe always ... miss the most. Maybe that's selfish. But it's true. I loved her; I love her; she loved me. And I always ... ALWAYS ... could count on her love.
Especially in the past say 6 months ... even when she was physically very weak, very tired ... she could lift her arm ... swiveling it upwards on her arthritis-ridden elbow, fingers old, bent, stretching out ... this meant she wanted to hold my hand. I would rush to her and hold her hand and she would hold mine. Her hold would be very weak. But she would say things that bring so many tears to my eyes then and now. "I love you. I am so grateful for you. You have in many ways made this life of mine worth living. No matter what, you will always be my son. I love you so much." I would tell her how much I love her, or that I could never tell her how much I love her. How deeply, deeply grateful I have been for her. How deeply, deeply grateful I am for her now.
And now she's gone. Gone. Oh God. She's gone. I know, I know she's got to be in a better place. But she's gone. And God I miss her so much. Oh please God. Help.
Especially in the past say 6 months ... even when she was physically very weak, very tired ... she could lift her arm ... swiveling it upwards on her arthritis-ridden elbow, fingers old, bent, stretching out ... this meant she wanted to hold my hand. I would rush to her and hold her hand and she would hold mine. Her hold would be very weak. But she would say things that bring so many tears to my eyes then and now. "I love you. I am so grateful for you. You have in many ways made this life of mine worth living. No matter what, you will always be my son. I love you so much." I would tell her how much I love her, or that I could never tell her how much I love her. How deeply, deeply grateful I have been for her. How deeply, deeply grateful I am for her now.
And now she's gone. Gone. Oh God. She's gone. I know, I know she's got to be in a better place. But she's gone. And God I miss her so much. Oh please God. Help.
Doing and Not Doing
Time sometimes seems to crawl past so very, very slowly these days. And it's not as if there aren't things to do. The biggest ... the thing I think ... I say I *think* ... I want most to do and need most to do ... is to work some more on the pictures I've taken for my albums about her. But oh every time I start to sit back down it hurts so much ...
Most things are like that. One friends says I need to get a job. I'm sure I do. Yet every time I think of it I feel exhausted.
Partly it's because my profession as a therapist or counselor feels like something I'm just not up to right now. When I think or feel or stumble across anything that reminds me of anyone else's loss, I think of my own. I saw the new Jodie Foster movie that's out the other day. "The Brave One." And felt like I was watching my loss again. Saturday night, I went and saw a "sneak preview" of "The Kingdom." Again, loss there, loss here. Can I sit and listen to someone speak of his or her own tragedy or loss without being overwhelmed once again by my own? And is it even ethical to try to sit as a counselor helping someone else with his/her tragedy when inside I'm screaming and crying and wailing and aching over my own? The dangers of both countertransference and transference seem to me very great.
I keep thinking a part time job might be good though. Partly for financial reasons. I'm OK for the moment in terms of money, but of course all my living expenses are coming out of savings, and continually drawing down that very finite resource is not perhaps such a great thing. I wonder if I could get a part time job at a store or even at a movie house - I saw they were taking jobs there a few days ago.
But then even doing fairly simple daily living things these days just seems exhausting and I keep forgetting what I'm doing and messing up. I go to the store and get a few things and come out exhausted. I buy some gasoline for the car and do the pump thing and can't be bothered to clean the windows though they need it. And when I sit back down in my car I feel exhausted. Everything's exhausting.
Then again, doing nothing can be exhausting too. I was sitting at home most of the day yesterday - Sunday - and felt tired and depressed and more and more sad. I finally went to the dollar movie, a comedy, and couldn't hold my attention to the screen, finally walked out in the middle, and went back to her grave. Then I cried and cried and told her how much I missed her. Only then did I feel some kind of relief. Not that that weight was gone, or that horrible fear-like clenching in the stomach, or the exhaustion. But it felt right to go see her and say how I felt.
To her and to God. I find myself talking to her and to God at the same time at the gravesite these days. That's something I'm doing. Every morning, about 5:00 or 5:30 AM it's up, get the dog, and go to Woodward Park for a "walkie-walkie" - as Mom called it - for the dog. We've lately been doing a "brush-brush" - as Mom called it - brushing Spooky's fur - as well. Then back here. I eat breakfast & get breakfast for Spooky. Then to the gravesite for Office of Readings and Morning Prayer. That's about 8:00 or 9:00. OOR I take from the Office for the Day; Morning Prayer from the Office for the Dead. Then it's a matter of getting through the day. Then in the late afternoon or evening it's back to the grave for Evening Prayer, from the Office for the Dead. And I take Spooky for another "walkie-walkie" - usually over at Waite Phillips Elementary School - and then back home.
Home. This really is Home, or Home away from Home, our True Home. In this world that is of course our place of Exile, having this Place ... what Mom called Home, what I call Home too ... is a Blessing. A Challenge but a Blessing. Maybe because it'a a place not only to either Do or Not Do. But because it's a place to simply Be. Maybe that's what she liked about it most. A safe place for her, a safe place where she could Be.
Me too, Mom. Me too.
I love you and miss you so much.
St Robert Bellarmine, pray for us.
Oh by the way, I went by the Catholic Bookstore on Friday and picked up a book by Robert Bellarmine. The title: "The Art of Dying Well." This I think you above all showed me by your own end, Mom. But naturally a title like that gets my attention and I hope to see what this good Saint and Doctor of the Church has to say on the subject.
Lord Jesus Christ, be with her, be with me, be with all of us. Mary, Seat of Wisdom, pray for us.
Charles Delacroix
Feast of St Robert Bellarmine
Most things are like that. One friends says I need to get a job. I'm sure I do. Yet every time I think of it I feel exhausted.
Partly it's because my profession as a therapist or counselor feels like something I'm just not up to right now. When I think or feel or stumble across anything that reminds me of anyone else's loss, I think of my own. I saw the new Jodie Foster movie that's out the other day. "The Brave One." And felt like I was watching my loss again. Saturday night, I went and saw a "sneak preview" of "The Kingdom." Again, loss there, loss here. Can I sit and listen to someone speak of his or her own tragedy or loss without being overwhelmed once again by my own? And is it even ethical to try to sit as a counselor helping someone else with his/her tragedy when inside I'm screaming and crying and wailing and aching over my own? The dangers of both countertransference and transference seem to me very great.
I keep thinking a part time job might be good though. Partly for financial reasons. I'm OK for the moment in terms of money, but of course all my living expenses are coming out of savings, and continually drawing down that very finite resource is not perhaps such a great thing. I wonder if I could get a part time job at a store or even at a movie house - I saw they were taking jobs there a few days ago.
But then even doing fairly simple daily living things these days just seems exhausting and I keep forgetting what I'm doing and messing up. I go to the store and get a few things and come out exhausted. I buy some gasoline for the car and do the pump thing and can't be bothered to clean the windows though they need it. And when I sit back down in my car I feel exhausted. Everything's exhausting.
Then again, doing nothing can be exhausting too. I was sitting at home most of the day yesterday - Sunday - and felt tired and depressed and more and more sad. I finally went to the dollar movie, a comedy, and couldn't hold my attention to the screen, finally walked out in the middle, and went back to her grave. Then I cried and cried and told her how much I missed her. Only then did I feel some kind of relief. Not that that weight was gone, or that horrible fear-like clenching in the stomach, or the exhaustion. But it felt right to go see her and say how I felt.
To her and to God. I find myself talking to her and to God at the same time at the gravesite these days. That's something I'm doing. Every morning, about 5:00 or 5:30 AM it's up, get the dog, and go to Woodward Park for a "walkie-walkie" - as Mom called it - for the dog. We've lately been doing a "brush-brush" - as Mom called it - brushing Spooky's fur - as well. Then back here. I eat breakfast & get breakfast for Spooky. Then to the gravesite for Office of Readings and Morning Prayer. That's about 8:00 or 9:00. OOR I take from the Office for the Day; Morning Prayer from the Office for the Dead. Then it's a matter of getting through the day. Then in the late afternoon or evening it's back to the grave for Evening Prayer, from the Office for the Dead. And I take Spooky for another "walkie-walkie" - usually over at Waite Phillips Elementary School - and then back home.
Home. This really is Home, or Home away from Home, our True Home. In this world that is of course our place of Exile, having this Place ... what Mom called Home, what I call Home too ... is a Blessing. A Challenge but a Blessing. Maybe because it'a a place not only to either Do or Not Do. But because it's a place to simply Be. Maybe that's what she liked about it most. A safe place for her, a safe place where she could Be.
Me too, Mom. Me too.
I love you and miss you so much.
St Robert Bellarmine, pray for us.
Oh by the way, I went by the Catholic Bookstore on Friday and picked up a book by Robert Bellarmine. The title: "The Art of Dying Well." This I think you above all showed me by your own end, Mom. But naturally a title like that gets my attention and I hope to see what this good Saint and Doctor of the Church has to say on the subject.
Lord Jesus Christ, be with her, be with me, be with all of us. Mary, Seat of Wisdom, pray for us.
Charles Delacroix
Feast of St Robert Bellarmine
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