Today is Ascension Sunday.
My mother died this past week . Many of you know she had Alzheimer’s. As you would expect she deteriorated over the years but especially recently. Alzheimer’s is a terrible disease that affects the family in ways no other disease does. Everyone expects to lose parents and other loved ones to various medical causes but Alzheimer’s, and Dementia in general, is different in that the person sort of slips away. I don’t regret so much that she died at 89 as much as I hate the years we lost with her before her death.
Looking back on her life I’m struck by the power of her witness on our family. She wasn’t a saint by any means but she had a big effect on us. I want to share just a couple of ways.
One was her work ethic. Well before my parents divorced in the early eighties my father was in and out of the house due to a variety of personal challenges. During those times of absence mom’s income was at times all that kept the wolf away from the door. Mom didn’t complete high school, interestingly enough, because her mother was part of the working poor and mom needed to help her keep the lights on. Mom worked in a cotton mill in South Carolina, in some pretty poor conditions, and it didn’t pay very well. At times she worked a second job to help make ends meet. At one time she held a third job one day a week when she was off from the others. That work ethic and willingness to do what needed to be done has been something I’ve admired in her for a long time. I hate that she had to do it but I appreciate her willingness to do it.
Mom was a strong Christian, mostly Baptist, but sometimes other denominations. She wasn’t someone who knew much theology but she understood what Pope Benedict XVI meant when he wrote “Being Christian is not the result of an ethical choice or a lofty idea, but the encounter with an event, a person, which gives life a new horizon and a decisive direction”. When I’m teaching about Christ I try to remember how mom knew knowing Christ was the thing, not knowing about Christ.
Mom also understood the Two Great Commandments as a call to action, and she acted accordingly. She loved going to church and went to extraordinary lengths at times to fulfill Jesus’ commandments. Even though she sometimes didn’t have two nickels to rub against each other she seemed to know how to love others by making a cake or visiting someone who needed a visit. She was a powerful witness for me in understanding how to live out the faith.
My family is sad, of course, at her passing but, given her condition at the end, we wouldn’t have kept her if we could have. We love her enough to want her to go be whole again.
I know many of you have lost people you love, some in terrible ways like Covid or you’ve lost a child. I’m grateful we had mom as long as we did and that her death was a “long goodbye” as Ronald Reagan and others have described Alzheimer’s, so we got the chance to say everything we had to say to her.
Saturday a week ago Connie and I visited her for the last time and I told her when she saw Jesus to go with him, that our family would be OK. I remember Fr. Hoefler saying sometimes you have to give people permission to go, so I did.
For good and for ill we are greatly affected by our parents. I’m grateful for mom’s witness and know that most of the good things in me are a result of her being my mother.
The not so good things I’ll blame on my dad. Mom would laugh at that.
That’s it for now. Thanks for reading.
I hope you have a great week.
Peace, Bob
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