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Posted: August 14th, 2007 at 2:10am By: Janet Conner
On the way to dying, my mother left a trail of little surprises, some for herself, some for the people who cared for her, and many, many for her family. But it seemed that she doled out some very special ones for me. Well, perhaps they weren't intended just for me; maybe I just noticed them. That was the key with Laurene. You had to do the noticing. Because her gifts weren't obvious. They were more like little mysteries that bubbled up from somewhere unknown and disappeared as quickly as they came. If you missed them, you were too late. She did not have the ability to repeat or explain anything.
The first surprise was her obsession with a river. No one else could see that river, but there's no doubt it was real. My mother, trust me, was not given to metaphor. Her language was the language of facts, not poetry. But in her last months, whether lying alone in her room or propped up in her wheelchair to be fed, she repeated, "Over the river, over the river, over the river." The medical profession labeled her river "echolalia" and said it was simply a sign of the progression of her dementia and the imminence of her death. Maybe that's all it was. But I don't think so. I think the river was real for her and a gift for me — a gift I gratefully grabbed and put right to use.
When I heard Mom talk about the river, I saw a river too, maybe not her river, but a river nonetheless — the river of life. Laurene's river inspired me to give my son the best gift I've ever given him. My son is my only child, my total immediate family, my very heart. It's been the two of us for a long, long time. But he's 18 now and he's going to college. It's time to say goodbye. I was struggling with how to let him go. We were both struggling. And we had the tiffs to prove it. But thanks to Laurene's river, I knew what to do. I wrote my son a blessing, sending him off from my branch of the river of life into the branch that is his alone. That image transformed our goodbye season from an ending to a beginning, from a loss to a discovery, from a sad thing to a celebration. We washed our transition in Laurene's river and have been at peace ever since. Thank you, Laurene, for the mystery of the river.
Then there was my birthday surprise. That morning, I started writing about what it must have been like for her that hot Chicago afternoon in 1948, and suddenly her worries, her fears and her discomfort appeared on the page. For the first time, I saw myself through her eyes. And the more I wrote, the more I realized how many gifts I have received from her — both the gifts I am proud to declare and the odd misshapen ones I've struggled for years to accept. Thank you, Laurene, for the mystery of my spiritual DNA.
And then, there's the odd mystery of how I turned into my mother. It seems the harder I worked to be the "non-Laurene," the more Laurene-like I became. As I sit in my writing office communing with my books, my spiritual artifacts and my copious documentation, I have to laugh: I have become my mother! That mystery was deeply buried until I picked up a pen to write her eulogy. Thank you, Laurene, for the beautiful mystery of all the ways in which we are alike.
And the wackiest mystery of all is, of course, the Prayer Lady, who popped up everywhere I went during Mom's funeral weekend. Not only was her presence a mystery, but how did she know Laurene's rather unusual name? The Prayer Lady was just another in a series of odd little mysteries that surrounded my mother's death.
So, with all these mysteries, you'd think I would have expected one at the funeral, too. But I didn't. None of us did. My brothers and sisters and I were thrilled with how beautifully the wake went; we thought that was the high point of her funeral weekend. We had chosen lovely readings and music for her requiem, but we assumed the mass would be perfunctory, probably even dreary. Our biggest concern was the homily.
Father Peter was new to Marshfield and had never spoken with my mother. He distributed communion to nursing homes, but by the time he started visiting The Miller, my mother was deep in dementia and treated him the way she treated all strangers: She turned her face away. Maybe his thick Indian accent confused her, but I doubt it. Mother turned her face away from everyone, even her adored firstborn son, when he came to visit.
And Father Peter never had the pleasure of having Laurene as a parishioner. We wondered if he'd heard about her, though, from his predecessors. Mother, at her intellectual prime, attended mass not just to fulfill her religious obligations but also to monitor the accuracy of the priest's message. She would audibly sigh when the priest wandered off what she considered to be doctrinally correct. And she would smile and nod if he got it "right." That, in her opinion, didn't happen nearly often enough.
In an attempt to salvage the homily from descending from plain old boring into low comedy, my sister Mary contacted Father Peter to tell him something about Mother. But he was busy. So, she asked me to send him a link to the column about praying with Mother before she died. "That might help him get a sense for her and for our family," Mary said, "and while you're at it, send him a link to one of her articles."
I wasn't sure this was a good idea. Younger priests are usually not too comfortable with Mother's ultra-strict, old-fashioned orthodoxy. She wrote articles evaluating the accuracy of papal encyclicals, for heaven's sake! I was pretty sure he'd be appalled, but I did as instructed. He didn't respond, so my brothers and sisters and I assumed he hadn't read anything and we prepared ourselves for a blah homily.
Father Peter shuffled his papers at the lectern and we held our breath. "This is not an ordinary woman," Father Peter began. (Well, we'd certainly have to agree with him there.) "Laurene is a blessed woman in the Catholic Church. In the Hail Mary, we say, 'full of grace' and 'blessed among women.' These words apply to Laurene."
Jay's head snapped around and looked at me. I touched Mary's shoulder in front of me. Larry, beside me, reached out for my hand. Claire reached out for Larry.
"Laurene was a devout and devoted Catholic from her first day to her last. I read her articles. (Uh-oh, I thought, here it comes.) Laurene wrote, 'The place I begin is Rome.' Laurene expressed her opinions. (Well, he certainly got that right.) She recognized the merits and the demerits of the church. (That was a lovely way to put it.) But she was faithful. Mother Teresa used to say, 'God doesn't want success; God wants faithfulness.' Laurene was faithful to her church, to her family, to her husband. An extraordinary woman lived among us. I want to talk about her inner beauty."
He went on to describe what she wrote about: the second Vatican council, abortion, the church in the modern world, sustainability. And he named her articles — not one, but several — by name! Which isn't easy. She loved dense titles like "Ramifications of a Dilemma" or "The Popes of Conciliar Renewal"
"There is so much to say about Laurene," Father Peter gushed, "but we just don't have the time." But then he went on, and on, talking about her orthodoxy, her virtues and her writing.
The five of us were in a state of shock. How had this priest, this stranger, this man from India, who had only recently arrived in Marshfield, Wis., understood her better than priests who'd known her for decades? How had he known exactly what she wanted to hear? How had he managed to give her the recognition she waited 94 years to receive? I glanced at the coffin and could easily see her smiling and nodding.
But Father Peter wasn't finished. He had one more surprise for us in his closing. "As her daughter Janet Conner said in her ReligionAndSpirituality column, 'Dear God,' here comes Laurene, your precious daughter, a holy woman. She taught us that life is holy, prayer is holy, the church is holy, family is holy, the country is holy, education is holy."
I have no idea what he said last. I wish I'd captured the ending, but my pen stopped moving. My brothers and sisters and their partners and children all turned to smile at me. But I don't think I smiled back. I think I just sat there, eyes bugging out of my head. Oh my God, I was being quoted in a Catholic church! Me! Who isn't even Catholic anymore! On Saturday morning, July 14, 2007, my mother and I were both quoted in a Catholic church! Now, this is truly amazing.
I thank Father Peter for honoring my mother on her last day on earth. Her soul must have been twirling in joy to hear his sermon. But it's still all a mystery to me. How did he know the names of all her articles? I only sent him one link. How did he find the perfect quotes from them? They are long and take hours to read. How did he manage to capture her essence, her beliefs, her convictions, and share them with us in just 15 minutes? How did he know exactly the words she would love to hear?
I don't know. I'll never know. I chalk it up to another mystery from Laurene.
(Next in the series: the treasures and mysteries in Laurene's safe deposit box.)
— — —
Janet Conner, S.E. (Spiritual Explorer), is the creator of the Spiritual Geography map and book series. She is currently working on a new book, "Writing Down the Soul: How to Activate and Listen to the Extraordinary Voice Within," for Conari Press. The Spiritual Geography books are available through Amazon or Spiritual Geography. Do you have a story about your own written conversations with God? Contact Janet at {email janetconner@tampabay.rr.com}janetconner@tampabay.rr.com{/email}. © Copyright 2007 by Janet Conner.
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On the way to dying, my mother left a trail of little surprises, some for herself, some for the people who cared for her, and many, many for her family. But it seemed that she doled out some very special ones for me. Well, perhaps they weren't intended just for me; maybe I just noticed them. That was the key with Laurene. You had to do the noticing. Because her gifts weren't obvious. They were more like little mysteries that bubbled up from somewhere unknown and disappeared as quickly as they came. If you missed them, you were too late. She did not have the ability to repeat or explain anything.
The first surprise was her obsession with a river. No one else could see that river, but there's no doubt it was real. My mother, trust me, was not given to metaphor. Her language was the language of facts, not poetry. But in her last months, whether lying alone in her room or propped up in her wheelchair to be fed, she repeated, "Over the river, over the river, over the river." The medical profession labeled her river "echolalia" and said it was simply a sign of the progression of her dementia and the imminence of her death. Maybe that's all it was. But I don't think so. I think the river was real for her and a gift for me — a gift I gratefully grabbed and put right to use.
When I heard Mom talk about the river, I saw a river too, maybe not her river, but a river nonetheless — the river of life. Laurene's river inspired me to give my son the best gift I've ever given him. My son is my only child, my total immediate family, my very heart. It's been the two of us for a long, long time. But he's 18 now and he's going to college. It's time to say goodbye. I was struggling with how to let him go. We were both struggling. And we had the tiffs to prove it. But thanks to Laurene's river, I knew what to do. I wrote my son a blessing, sending him off from my branch of the river of life into the branch that is his alone. That image transformed our goodbye season from an ending to a beginning, from a loss to a discovery, from a sad thing to a celebration. We washed our transition in Laurene's river and have been at peace ever since. Thank you, Laurene, for the mystery of the river.
Then there was my birthday surprise. That morning, I started writing about what it must have been like for her that hot Chicago afternoon in 1948, and suddenly her worries, her fears and her discomfort appeared on the page. For the first time, I saw myself through her eyes. And the more I wrote, the more I realized how many gifts I have received from her — both the gifts I am proud to declare and the odd misshapen ones I've struggled for years to accept. Thank you, Laurene, for the mystery of my spiritual DNA.
And then, there's the odd mystery of how I turned into my mother. It seems the harder I worked to be the "non-Laurene," the more Laurene-like I became. As I sit in my writing office communing with my books, my spiritual artifacts and my copious documentation, I have to laugh: I have become my mother! That mystery was deeply buried until I picked up a pen to write her eulogy. Thank you, Laurene, for the beautiful mystery of all the ways in which we are alike.
And the wackiest mystery of all is, of course, the Prayer Lady, who popped up everywhere I went during Mom's funeral weekend. Not only was her presence a mystery, but how did she know Laurene's rather unusual name? The Prayer Lady was just another in a series of odd little mysteries that surrounded my mother's death.
So, with all these mysteries, you'd think I would have expected one at the funeral, too. But I didn't. None of us did. My brothers and sisters and I were thrilled with how beautifully the wake went; we thought that was the high point of her funeral weekend. We had chosen lovely readings and music for her requiem, but we assumed the mass would be perfunctory, probably even dreary. Our biggest concern was the homily.
Father Peter was new to Marshfield and had never spoken with my mother. He distributed communion to nursing homes, but by the time he started visiting The Miller, my mother was deep in dementia and treated him the way she treated all strangers: She turned her face away. Maybe his thick Indian accent confused her, but I doubt it. Mother turned her face away from everyone, even her adored firstborn son, when he came to visit.
And Father Peter never had the pleasure of having Laurene as a parishioner. We wondered if he'd heard about her, though, from his predecessors. Mother, at her intellectual prime, attended mass not just to fulfill her religious obligations but also to monitor the accuracy of the priest's message. She would audibly sigh when the priest wandered off what she considered to be doctrinally correct. And she would smile and nod if he got it "right." That, in her opinion, didn't happen nearly often enough.
In an attempt to salvage the homily from descending from plain old boring into low comedy, my sister Mary contacted Father Peter to tell him something about Mother. But he was busy. So, she asked me to send him a link to the column about praying with Mother before she died. "That might help him get a sense for her and for our family," Mary said, "and while you're at it, send him a link to one of her articles."
I wasn't sure this was a good idea. Younger priests are usually not too comfortable with Mother's ultra-strict, old-fashioned orthodoxy. She wrote articles evaluating the accuracy of papal encyclicals, for heaven's sake! I was pretty sure he'd be appalled, but I did as instructed. He didn't respond, so my brothers and sisters and I assumed he hadn't read anything and we prepared ourselves for a blah homily.
Father Peter shuffled his papers at the lectern and we held our breath. "This is not an ordinary woman," Father Peter began. (Well, we'd certainly have to agree with him there.) "Laurene is a blessed woman in the Catholic Church. In the Hail Mary, we say, 'full of grace' and 'blessed among women.' These words apply to Laurene."
Jay's head snapped around and looked at me. I touched Mary's shoulder in front of me. Larry, beside me, reached out for my hand. Claire reached out for Larry.
"Laurene was a devout and devoted Catholic from her first day to her last. I read her articles. (Uh-oh, I thought, here it comes.) Laurene wrote, 'The place I begin is Rome.' Laurene expressed her opinions. (Well, he certainly got that right.) She recognized the merits and the demerits of the church. (That was a lovely way to put it.) But she was faithful. Mother Teresa used to say, 'God doesn't want success; God wants faithfulness.' Laurene was faithful to her church, to her family, to her husband. An extraordinary woman lived among us. I want to talk about her inner beauty."
He went on to describe what she wrote about: the second Vatican council, abortion, the church in the modern world, sustainability. And he named her articles — not one, but several — by name! Which isn't easy. She loved dense titles like "Ramifications of a Dilemma" or "The Popes of Conciliar Renewal"
"There is so much to say about Laurene," Father Peter gushed, "but we just don't have the time." But then he went on, and on, talking about her orthodoxy, her virtues and her writing.
The five of us were in a state of shock. How had this priest, this stranger, this man from India, who had only recently arrived in Marshfield, Wis., understood her better than priests who'd known her for decades? How had he known exactly what she wanted to hear? How had he managed to give her the recognition she waited 94 years to receive? I glanced at the coffin and could easily see her smiling and nodding.
But Father Peter wasn't finished. He had one more surprise for us in his closing. "As her daughter Janet Conner said in her ReligionAndSpirituality column, 'Dear God,' here comes Laurene, your precious daughter, a holy woman. She taught us that life is holy, prayer is holy, the church is holy, family is holy, the country is holy, education is holy."
I have no idea what he said last. I wish I'd captured the ending, but my pen stopped moving. My brothers and sisters and their partners and children all turned to smile at me. But I don't think I smiled back. I think I just sat there, eyes bugging out of my head. Oh my God, I was being quoted in a Catholic church! Me! Who isn't even Catholic anymore! On Saturday morning, July 14, 2007, my mother and I were both quoted in a Catholic church! Now, this is truly amazing.
I thank Father Peter for honoring my mother on her last day on earth. Her soul must have been twirling in joy to hear his sermon. But it's still all a mystery to me. How did he know the names of all her articles? I only sent him one link. How did he find the perfect quotes from them? They are long and take hours to read. How did he manage to capture her essence, her beliefs, her convictions, and share them with us in just 15 minutes? How did he know exactly the words she would love to hear?
I don't know. I'll never know. I chalk it up to another mystery from Laurene.
(Next in the series: the treasures and mysteries in Laurene's safe deposit box.)
— — —
Janet Conner, S.E. (Spiritual Explorer), is the creator of the Spiritual Geography map and book series. She is currently working on a new book, "Writing Down the Soul: How to Activate and Listen to the Extraordinary Voice Within," for Conari Press. The Spiritual Geography books are available through Amazon or Spiritual Geography. Do you have a story about your own written conversations with God? Contact Janet at {email janetconner@tampabay.rr.com}janetconner@tampabay.rr.com{/email}. © Copyright 2007 by Janet Conner.
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