Night Time Visit with Mom

Last night, I was feeling very, very lonely, and missed Mom so very, very much.

So I went to visit her. It was late dusk, but there was enough light that I could use a little toothbrush I took with me to clean the dust and dirt from around the lettering on her temporary marker. Then I took a cloth and cleaned her marker off very clean. The cloth roses in her vase are the same that I bought for her the day after her burial, and I arranged them so that I thought she and I both might like them.

While I was doing this I was crying and crying and telling her how much I missed her.

It was getting darker and darker, until it was what Mom used to call "hard dark."

But I talked to her and talked to her and hoped and prayed that she might here me by God's Grace.

I told her that I had that day gone by Walmart, and bought a pumpkin, and a bunch of candy, for Halloween. I told her I was planning to celebrate Halloween just like we had been celebrating it. I told her that I remember so very, very well how much she loved sitting in her chair and watching the little kids come up to the door in their costumes. I told her I would be sure to give those who came some candy as we've always done in the past. I told her I was going to carve a Jack O'Lantern, just as before, and set it on that little outdoor table she and I had bought to sit beside us when we were "settin' a spell." I told her that I miss so so so so much "settin' a spell" with her in the mornings and evenings ... but I told her that I knew she would very much like our using our little table for a Jack O'Lantern to delight the little kids.

I cried and I cried and I told her I know that it's been 2 months but that nothing is right here without her. Yet I know that she's in a better place and I begged that if she can pray for me that she might do so; and told her that I in turn would pray for her in hope of helping her if such prayers might be useful for her; and knowing that if not, they could be applied elsewhere within the Body of Christ in this World of Suffering or in that (Purgatorial) World of Suffering. I told her that I was so very, very, very grateful for her ... that it has been a privilege to be allowed to be with her while she was in this world; and that I miss her very very very very much.

I talked a lot I guess. And cried a lot.

And I got a really strangely peaceful feeling suddenly. And a sense ... not of hearing ... not even of Ezekiel's "image of an image" or "vision of a vision" ... but a sense nonetheless of Jesus being there ... and telling me that Mom's OK.

I balled and balled then and couldn't stop balling.

And I don't know if He was there or not. Well ... of course He was there, He is in all places at all times. But I don't know much more than that I'm sure Mom's OK. I begged Jesus as always to take good care of my Momma. And I think He is.

I left then. The sky was clouded over and the graveyard very dark. But I felt ... what? Both enormous pain ... and enormous gratitude and thanksgiving.

Isn't that somewhere what that Trappist Guestmaster from Holy Ghost Monastery said ... that the Tomb, on Holy Saturday, was filled with the painful melancholia of genuine loss, but also full of thanksgiving and expectancy.

Dark is the night that precedes the Dawn.

Darkness shrouds Mom as darkness shrouded Our Lord.

Darkness enfolds Our Lady of Sorrows and the Man of Sorrows.

Darkness of the Tomb on Holy Saturday.

Holy Mary
Mother of God
Pray for us sinners
Blessed art thou amongst women
And blessed is the fruit of thy womb
Jesus
Holy Mary Mother of God
Pray for us sinners
Now and at the hour of our death
Amen.