Loss

[I originally wrote and read this at my mom's graveside service in October, 2011]

 

My mom died on September 25, 2011 after a series of major and minor strokes in her brain that arrived suddenly but were inexorable in their course.  My mom was an extraordinary person.  I know that most sons would make such a statement about their mom merely because they were talking about their mom (or vainly hoped to be genetically related to someone extraordinary).  And while those factors may be present in me, I hope in relaying a few stories to you that I may convince you otherwise.

First off, my mom was clear at the end that she did not want her life unnecessarily extended, and that she did not want to end up a vegetable, kept alive artificially.  We all knew that.  She repeated it to me the Saturday morning that she was admitted to the hospital the week before her death.  This, in spite of the fact that nearly all of what she otherwise said was unintelligible because of the strokes.  She did not flinch away from this position even though she was well aware that it would be her end, most likely in short order.  Her courage here is remarkable and speaks of both her character and her person.

Moreover, when dad and I were in the ER with her that morning, weeping and sobbing away, mom kept making jokes and nagging me.  In the darkest of times, knowing that she was not long for this earth, she was consoling us.  Her love for us was greater than her illness.  It was and remains a deep and abiding love that is the solace in the sea of her absence in which we all feel adrift.

A few years ago, mom gave me a card – I think around the time that I decided to go out on my own as an attorney.  I still remember it.  On the front there was a big pink monster looking thing with this look of anxiety and happiness on its face, arms outstretched, chasing behind a wee little pink monster that was running along at full speed, blissfully unaware of risk or danger.  Inside, the card said that my parents were behind me every step of the way.  I know this to literally be true.  My mom worried about all of us, all of the time.  It was her full time job (between that and making sure that the household used a minimum of 1 gallon of bleach each week on the laundry and that all the dishes were washed twice before being placed in the dishwasher to be washed a third time).

When I was in high school, my mom decided that she wanted to go back to school for her masters in divinity.  At that time, the degree was a 90 credit hour undertaking.  My mom was in her mid-forties.  She was no academic.  She did not have a strong faith in punctuation.  She did not have a great love for driving hours at a time to and from Washington D.C.  But, she felt that she had been called to the ministry.  She came to this decision by faith.  My mom, a mother of two kids in her forties.  I believe she even had to take a remedial course in English along with a number of other students for whom English was a second language.  But she perservered, taking one or two courses a semester, until finally she graduated with her degree. 

Along the way she learned how to use a computer (well, a little bit – I think the computer remained mostly a mystery to her that she simply accepted on faith), and with some help she also began appropriately using periods and maybe even a semi-colon or two.  She also challenged her faith, and greatly expanded the depth of her understanding of god and christianity, of which we had many a conversation when I considered what I wanted to do when I grew up.  She introduced me to Thomas Merton and a host of other writers, which in turn encouraged me to look a little further outside of christianity and helped me to think in a serious way about a number of hard, imponderable questions.  She also helped me to appreciate how beautifully written the book of John was, while also better understanding its underlying intention of converting nonbelievers to the word.  I am thankful to have had the time with her. 

My mom was always a humble person.  She cultivated this about herself.  And even though my dad, through his own research, had verified the truth of this, my mom never made a big thing out of the fact that she was directly related to King John (of Magna Carta fame), through one of his daughters that was married off to a Welsh king in the thirteenth century.  My mom had little patience for phonies and often saw through the nonsense and surface of many people.  She was both disarming and alarming in this way.  She could speak directly to you and express directly what most of us struggle to understand about ourselves.  She also, mostly unintentionally, made enemies of those that were jealous of her abilities or ashamed of how far short they fell in relation to how they perceived themselves. 

She was perceptive and insightful in conversation.  She was intelligent even if she was not very good at math.  She was an artist and a free spirit.  One of my earliest memories remains of my mom and I in the kitchen, painting on canvas board.  She first showed me how to paint with acrylics.  My first painting under her supervision was of the space shuttle (though my composition no doubt had some room for improvement).

Let there be no doubt, my mom was no saint.  She walked among us and struggled like any other person with the same things that all people struggle with.  Whatever her human failings may have been, however, she was unswerving in trying to do what she thought was right.  She did not shy away from the truth, nor was she shy in speaking her mind to others.  But she also was gentle.  She would call or (in more recent years) email me the weather report to keep in touch; always making an effort to be easy to engage and always there for me when I needed a shoulder to cry on or an ear to bend with a problem.  And I know that my mom was so happy for me when I first called to tell her and dad that Suzanne and I were getting married.  I also know how devastated she was when I called her after we had a miscarriage, having herself survived one almost forty years ago.  Whatever it was, she was present and stood by me.  I know she did the same for many people over her life.  It was what she was about.

In mourning mom, I would be remiss if I did not speak directly to her profound faith and her struggles as a person and a christian.  Having spent a little time with her papers and sermons in recent days, I am struck by her profound sense of faith and the presence of God that pervaded her thoughts on a regular, almost daily basis, for nearly all of her life.

In a document entitled “What I Believe,” mom wrote this:

God gives to us the example of nonviolent love.  Jesus did not resist evil but broke the power of it.  Somehow accepting brokenness often breaks the power of it.  In my own experience, it is the fear of something that keeps us from doing anything constructive about it.  When I started my field experience this year my biggest fear was of being hurt by church people, and I was hurt by them.  But I realized that this hurt broke the power of the fear.  I feel free of it now and even though I do not want to be hurt, I know that I will survive it.  In a far greater sense, this is what happened to Christ on the cross, he accepted death and broke the power of death.   We need the cross in our lives, because it breaks the power of sin for us.  Those who are powerless in the world can  find power in the cross of Christ and be set free to live new lives and gain control over powerlessness. (Galatians 5)  When God allowed Christ to be crucified, God became vulnerable to hurt and pain and suffering, and showed us the power of  vulnerability.  For out of this vulnerability came new freedom and life.  For me, Christ is the source of life  and if  I am deserted by others, Christ promises that he will not leave me or forsake me.

In offering consolation to others at the passing of Florence Faith, mom wrote: “The Lord is near to the brokenhearted and saves the crushed in spirit.”

Her personal commitment to live a Christian life as she came to understand it led her to many places that she never expected.  Her sense of the community of the church and the importance of the church to serve and to reach out and welcome strangers in, guided her life.  In more recent years, she felt estranged from this community, referring to herself as a heretic.  I’m certain that she asked how her faith in God had led her so far away from the vocation to which she was called.  I know that she felt, at times, profoundly alone.  In 1994, mom wrote in a sermon:

I was talking to one of my former ministers and we were discussing prayer and the significance for our lives and I said that prayer got me into trouble, my life has changed so radically and I have changed so radically that I almost do not recognize it anymore. I found myself at odds with others who wanted to live as if God was not in the picture for them. I found that the organized church did not want to hear about what God may be doing and this was quite a shock for me.  But listening to God [begins] a new process in our lives that takes us upon a journey which will bring about many changes-changes in us, not in God. We do not control God.......God is free to do as God chooses to do.

I am confident, from personal observation, that at the end of her life it was her deep sense of faith and love that gave her the strength to remain present with us, consoling us, even as her body failed her.

Her strength in such dark times is a clear reminder of what we are made of and what we all are capable of.  It made us rise to the occasion for her and to respect her wishes with regards to her life and the present arrangements for her burial, even if we would have preferred to shy away from this painful duty.  And in talking with some of the professionals that cared for her, it has become clear that she drew in complete strangers to care about her.  She was magnetic.  Mom would probably explain that this was caused by her own struggle to point herself towards True North; the deep care expressed by strangers to her was because of God.

Losing mom is, to date, the hardest thing I have ever experienced.  But this process has also helped make me a bit more empathetic and has been a reminder that kindness is all around us, from friends and even complete strangers, if we but open our eyes to it.  I am thankful that I had the opportunity to know her as an adult.

I will not pretend to fully understand what comes after this life.  At the end, I said to mom that I have glimpsed it, and believe that her dad and my dad’s brothers and others that have preceded her in death were waiting to help her to find her way to wherever or whatever comes after life here.  It is an article of my faith that she will be waiting for me when it is my turn.  Ultimately we do all die alone (even when surrounded by family and friends).  It is a process that is intensely personal.  In spite of this reality, we were there at the end for her, even if we had nothing to do but hold vigil and her hand.  I could not turn away because she did not, even in the darkest of times.  I loved her my whole life, and love her still today.

This process has left me feeling like I was run over repeatedly by a truck.  I know that I share this unenviable feeling with many of you.  I also know that my mom would want me to leave you with some consolation and to remind you that her love abides.  While we must grieve in our own way, mom would not have us grieving interminably.  We leave mom here in a beautiful and peaceful place, among friends and loved ones.  And she leaves us on this side of the hereafter, also among friends and loved ones.  The divide that seems to run between us is much narrower than we usually acknowledge, and in any case, is overrun by the common cause of love.

It is also true that we grieve far less when our friends or loved ones travel to another place, or even move to a new state or country, than when those same people die.  We treat death as absolute in its finality and certainty.  But truly, nothing is permanent.  Just as certainly as this day shall pass, so shall our grief and all things.  As my grandfather said to my mom at his passing a decade ago, “look up, not down.”

Psalm 23 is often read at times like these, and I think for good reason.  This short verse has always been a consolation to me and I hope it will be for you this day.

The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want;

He makes me lie down in green pastures.

He leads me beside still waters;

He restores my soul.

He leads me in paths of righteousness for his name’s sake.

Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death,

I fear no evil;

for thou are with me;

thy rod and thy staff, they comfort me.

Thou preparest a table before me in the presence of my enemies;

thou anointest my head with oil, my cup overflows.

Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life;

and I shall dwell in the house of the Lord forever.