Habits of a Lifetime

November 17, 1991
Excerpt from her son's journal

Off to Wildwood today with Danny. Yesterday my mother called in the morning to tell me that she had a minor repair job that she wanted me to take care of next time I visited. Yesterday afternoon she called again with essentially the same request. Didn't say so but I think she was missing me and wanted to see me.

Dan and I up before dawn, bright Venus and Jupiter in the Eastern sky, we were off at daybreak, in Wildwood by eight-thirty. Dan sleeping most of way. Brought stuff to make the repair; a flange to fit round the water supply pipe bringing water to the toilet- for appearance sake at the floor line. Took almost five minutes, excuse - she just wanted to see me. We never say anything of any importance in a direct way in our family; major genetic disorder, makes for much loneliness, not to speak of miscommunication, confusion, misreadings, hurts. But it does allow me to make this visit a gift and a surprise instead of a duty-like thing. Big difference here. She let me come because I love her and sense her need of me; gift in that, too.

We went to Mass at nine-thirty. Mary doesn't much like to go, some anger; none of us can get it out of our system that the Church is somehow holding the tickets to the big show. And we can't get in unless we pay in their currency. Mom is beyond all that. By eighty-three one finally gets to be a grown-up. Just not worth it, I suppose, to be spiritually having temper tantrums so close to the end. Mom feels better going to church with me. Publicly anyway I look like the unfallen away Catholic; no divorce, no dropped priesthood, no convent left, none of Mary's cleansing anger. My left turns less out there in the public arena; skeletons in closet, clay feet hidden in wing tips.

My mother brings spaghetti and dry cereal to church to give to the poor; her arthritic knees hurt too much when she brings heavier things like cans of vegetables or soup and so the lighter stuff, boxes of cereal and spaghetti. She pulls herself up the couple steps to the vestibule, over to the table with her gifts for the poor - no ritual here, she drops the load without gesture, hesitation or attention. Simply would not occur to her not to be generous to the poor, these are habits of a lifetime, as natural and unremarkable as washing the dishes after meals.She walks into the sanctuary Danny and I opening doors, following her. To the left a little alcove, kneeler, plaster statue, banks of memorial candles. Not candles, really. She lights an electric lightbulb, just push down on a button and the damn thing flickers as if it were flame: labor-saving device. She does not decry the profanation of sacramental candles, the FIRE, and all that symbolizes. She remembers my Dad, leans, not kneels, on the preidieu. Small prayer, no mind to the fire-like flickering of the little bulb. There is no time left in her life for the mindless inanities, in mine there seems to be plenty. I'm angry about the stupid electric candles. On one side my mother, past all pettiness; on the other side Danny, still all wonder and awe. And me, middle-aged grump.

She leads us to a pew and we spend an hour, her in prayer and beads . Danny fidgety, attentive, fidgety; me trying not to pay any attention to the boob massacring the liturgy. She, at every collection, in her pocketbook. They don't even say what they are collecting for. Her a widow on Social Security, something at each go round, even to have the electric candle lit for a time.

After, at graveyard, she still misses Dad so much; she stands above him and looks at his name and her own on the tombstone, her tears fall on the grass above the space she will share with him. Danny and I find a blue jay feather on the grave, and a leaf fallen from the peach tree growing just on the other side of the fence. Her faith shows her other than, more than we can see.

And then she goes on. The little profundities, the sadnesses are put away; we look for change for the bridge toll, stop at the store to get batteries for the flashlight. She chatters on about who is sick and who is well, and what grades this grandchild is getting, and whether or not to go to Ann Marie's for Thanksgiving, and what if it rains cause Mary doesn't like to drive in the rain, and should she get a frozen turkey breast just in case...
Julian of Norwich must have been a mother before nun and abbess to have said, "All will be well, all will be well, and all manner of things will be well.". Would never have occurred to anyone like me to say that kind of truth.

Recently heard friend Dan Fanell, a devout guy, giving off about his visit to Medugorge, where for the past number of years the Blessed Mother is supposed to have been appearing on a hillside giving messages. Apparently the Serbs and Croats haven't gotten the messages, or the BVM has neglected to tell them that mutual genocide is not God's will. The traveler had little to say about the irrelevance of apparitions to murderous civil strife. I don't have much belief like Dan Fanell but this I know; I don't have to go all the way to East Herzenegovnia to be near a blessed mother.