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
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