Four Mothers before Mother's Day

[Crackles54]

Four Mothers Before Mother's Day:  

A story about this morning from Dawn Slike   

May 5, 2009 AD

 

 

Dear Friends and Family,

 

Something of a healing happened in some lives today. I wanted to put it in writing, and of course share it with you.

 

 

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This morning I was called to a funeral at St. Joseph in Ashtabula. This is a wonderful church to sing and play organ in. It was built in 1926-1927 (both my parents were born in 1927) and is full of breathtakingly gorgeous stained glass with a heavily marble-accented sanctuary. The ceilings are very high and have angels and Biblical figures painted on its alcoved recesses.  St. Joseph Church resembles a miniature cathedral, seating about 500. The acoustics are heavenly, and I always love how the music travels through and around the church.  Plus, it's still decorated exquisitely with fresh flowers for the Easter season.

 

On my way east across I-90 to Ashtabula, I was both surprised and annoyed to get a rather direct message from God that I was to go visit my mother across the state line after the funeral was over.

 

Most of you know my mother and I have had a challenging relationship nearly all my life of 55 years. The short and sweet of it is, I'm overly sensitive, and she's  -- well, let's just say she's a little less sensitive to my sensitivities than I would like her to be. My impatient defensiveness clouds my fairness; her own impatient defensiveness clouds her comprehension. Attempting to communicate with spoken or written words is usually both futile and counterproductive.

 

She and I had a rather difficult time getting along as we navigated the pain of the days and nights surrounding Sherrill's funeral back in January. As our telephone conversations and written letters got more angry and strained, we "went our separate ways" again.  As much as I want things to be different, as much as she may want things to be different, we both knew the quiet distance was better and kinder for each of us. We were both grieving (and of course we still are), but we knew we needed to grieve apart.

 

 

But this morning, there was that commanding license plate message in plain sight, passing me by about 5 mph faster than I was going, traveling I-90 toward Ashtabula:   DB27EV.   Here again, as in all my license plate messages, the DB is me, my maiden name initials, the 27 is the year my parents were born, and the EV actually has a double implication:  Eva is my mother's first name, and the EV also represents the phrase "ever virgin," in reference to the Blessed Mother.  "Ever virgin" is a phrase we use when reciting the Penitential Rite before singing the Gloria at the beginning of Sunday Mass.

 

I was deeply pondering this license plate message as I traveled to Ashtabula.   I surely did not want to go see Mom. Furthermore, I had other ideas about how I wanted to use my time today after I had completed my duties at this funeral, and now they would have to be postponed. 

 

So I pondered.  My mother is not Catholic, and I wondered what God wanted me to do or say when I got to my mother's house.  Should I wait for Him to give me the words?  Maybe I should give Mom my Poinsettia Rosary beads, since the reference to Mother Mary was clear in this message.  Maybe since we've been estranged, I thought, she would not bristle that I gave her something "Catholic" for a spontaneous gift. Maybe, just maybe, she'll be glad to see me just days before Mother's Day, and none of that will matter.

 

Then I began thinking about the relationship between Mother Mary, my own mother, and in fact mothers in general.  In this small time frame of only five or ten minutes, I thought of Mary's virginity and purity of heart as she obediently submitted to the Will of the Father, and became the vessel within which Jesus Christ would be nurtured and from which he would emerge as our infant Savior.

 

My thoughts turned toward the oft-repeated realization that Mother Mary is everyone's mother, and she loves us all so deeply. My daughter Sherrill, who was not Catholic,  had an eerie and compelling fascination of Mother Mary. It was Sherrill who gave me my first set of Rosary beads, in my own birthstone color of light blue. Sherrill appreciated rich and mystical symbolism as much as I do.  Later on, Sherrill began collecting statues and vases and pots and containers with the image of the Blessed Virgin on them.  Sherrill loved the Blessed Mother, and I have unwavering confidence she is peacefully and joyfully in the company of Mary right this very moment as I type these words.

 

As I drove, I thought of Sherrill and how she and Mother Mary are probably up there right now, smiling and plotting to bring my mother and me back together. In heaven, where there is no more suffering or pain, all is forgiven, every painful stain removed, and our beloveds who live there want their heavenly forgiveness to mystically spread and heal people here too.

 

I thought of my past and perhaps residual unforgiveness of my mother's mistreatment of us, and of the rocky start we three kids had in life. I wasn't feeling churned up or resentful, but retrospective. I thought about how emotional and physical abuse is so often cyclic, imposing itself upon generation after generation, and too, how hard to break the cycle.

 

I thought of how Mom herself had been abused, mistreated, beaten, emotionally starved by the very people in her family who should have nurtured and encouraged her. I thought of the virginal heart she must have had as a child and through the tender years of her young womanhood, before the School of Hard Knocks that was her own painfully dysfunctional home took away all her joy, her trust and her innocence.  It was at this point I realized that as I myself move back, back, back into a state of self-forgiveness and innocence, so does my mother. So does my mother.

 

Now I really began to see something vivid and unifying in my mother and me:  we both were longing for the peace which lives only in the hearts of very young girls, before the feelings of abandonment, before guilt, before the stain of sin, before the shame and despair. Yes, if I feel these things, it stands to reason she does too. I am my mother's daughter.

 

Still I did not know what I was going to say to her when I arrived. But I absolutely knew it was God's Will that I take time to go visit, even for only a little while.

 

So after the funeral at the church whose school next door bore an inscription of her birthyear above its now-closed doors,  I went to see my Mom. 

 

We exchanged a rocky and awkward greeting, but got past that and finally went into the house to talk for a little while. Mom has all kinds of health issues  -- she's 82 --  and it is hard for her to move around, although she's the most determined person I know.  In fact, when I first arrived this morning, she was out putting in a new garden, right in front of her house. By herself.

 

I told Mom I truly did not know why God wanted me to come visit her, but I was here because He told me to go.  We passed back and forth a little chitchat, and she thanked me for the Poinsettia Rosary.  We then turned our conversation back to the reason I was there. I asked Mom if she could think of a reason God would send me to her house, or was it that she had something to say to me?

 

Mom said, calmly, "I know why."

 

She quietly proceeded to explain to me that a couple days ago she had suffered another mini-stroke. She and her neighbor Shirley were cleaning the house, and Mom had been working hard, bending over and standing back up,  twisting this way and that way, and she suddenly developed a pain which traveled from back behind her ear, up and around her face. They called the doctor immediately, and the nurse told her to remain perfectly still and have Shirley go get her some aspirin.  Mom said this seemed to be enough to provide relief.

 

Sitting in front of me there two days later, Mom told me she felt okay, but it was clear she was still shaken by the experience. She seemed able to converse as usual, although her memory of names and dates was not so good.  But this has been failing a long time. Other than that, I would never have guessed she was having this problem again.

 

(Multiple mini-strokes have taken their toll on her over many years. Yet she still sings for audiences, she still gardens, and she still drives into town to bring both my brothers meals and baked goods. There are probably no other 82-year-old women around these parts who can sing like Mom. By the way, SHE is a second soprano.)

 

Then, thinking about her scary experience the other day, she got misty and said,  "I was afraid that if I have another stroke, you wouldn't have been up here in time to see me."  

 

Now I understood.  Mom thinks she's dying.  We both got misty, sitting in our respective chairs four feet apart. I finally got up and hugged her, and she hugged back. It was a long, pained hug. So much heartache  -- hers, and mine. So much unhealed, so much unresolved, so much past suffering and so many unanswered questions, yet at this late stage of our lives, none of it even matters anymore.

 

We talked a little longer, about my husband and boys, about Sherrill's kids, about Sherrill's Bob's back problems, about our own activities.  We talked about her wishes, should her health continue to deteriorate.

 

But I had to get going.  As I got up to go to the door, Mom mentioned that she had picked up some old yearbooks from Academy High School (Erie) that someone had advertised in the classifieds, the high school where she had graduated 64 years ago.  She had already looked at them. She wanted me to have them, to take them to my home where they would be safe and wouldn't accidentally get misplaced or thrown out. 

 

When I left her house I told her to take care of herself, and she thanked me for stopping in.

 

In my arms were the school yearbooks containing pictures of her as a very beautiful young woman with a virginal heart, and suddenly the wisdom of God was revealed, encircling and embracing me. 

 

I did not go right to my car, but to the apple tree next to her house in full floral splendor.  The blossoms' scent was heavenly and I gently picked a couple off the lowest branch.

 

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It is always a good idea to do what God tells you, even if you don't like the message. Especially then, I think.

 

Please pray for my Mom, that she takes care of herself.

 

Thanks for taking time to read, and to pray for all of us. God bless you all.

 

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[LibbyLife]

May. 7, 2009 at 8:16 PM

Wow Dawn.  That is so beautiful.  And the timing -- so close to Mother's Day -- how appropriate.