Grief is so human, and it hits everyone at one point or another, at least, in their lives. If you love, you will grieve, and that's just given.
Kay Redfield Jamison
Today is All Saints Sunday. In the Episcopal Church we celebrate All Saints Day on the day after Halloween (all Hallows Eve), but we pick the Sunday either before that day to be the Sunday of All Saints. It's today.
We will ring the bells for those who have died this year. We will have their names read. And this year we will hear the name Ruth Boyce at St. James. We will pray for my mom. And her death. And her inclusion in "the communion of saints."
I am always comforted by a scene from a movie ... A Place in the Heart with Sally Fields as a hard-working farm wife who overcomes great odds to produce a crop of cotton with the help of a black man named Moses who literally and figuratively saves her life. Set in tensions of Jim Crow and pre women's lib, the two form a team to overcome lots of incredible odds against them. But what I love most about the movie is the ending. The scene is in the little church where Sally Fields and her family worship. It is a Sunday morning and the organ is playing--can't remember the hymn, but I am sure it is significant to the image. And there, sitting in the pew with Sally you first see her husband (he died in the movie), her parents (they had died) and many of the other people in the town who you knew were dead at this point in the movie. Even Moses. It is startling and confusing. Why are they there? What is going on? And then it dawns on you ... this is what the communion of saints looks like. I think of that image often when I take my place in my pew on the Market street side of St. James. I think of the times when Mom and Dad were crammed in there with all of us helping to calm the wiggly, noisy little people sharing the pew with us. Helping to navigate the prayer book both ways--my kids helping them and them helping my kids. Hearing those voices all together in the hymns joined to praise God and in the creeds professing what we believe. And when I am there now, I try to conjure up that image for comfort. And some days I can. It is the best feeling to know that they are there with me. And when I go to the rail to take communion and I have heard the priest say "and with all of the communion of saints" I breathe deeply to know that at that time I am joined with my mom again and again and she with me and my dad and her parents and friends and so on and so on.
My other favorite image of this feeling comes from Hebrews 12:1. Therefore, since we are surrounded by such a great cloud of witnesses, let us throw off everything that hinders and the sin that so easily entangles. And let us run with perseverance the race marked out for us. I am so comforted by the image of that cloud of witnesses that surrounds me (and us). I know Mom is in that cloud and surrounds me. And in my missing her, I find that cloud to be comforting.
I do miss her.
I miss
• her "home" for the last two years of her life. Who would have imagined that I would miss punching in a code (actually two codes) to get to the unit where mom lived with about 20 other mostly women who were in varying degrees of dementia? I would miss Ginny, Bob, Ada, Ruthie, Velma, Rose, and others whose names I have since forgotten. I would miss chair yoga, drum time, singing with the cds to hymns, chair dancing, visits from Justin, the shelties and even that tv on all of the day! I would miss seeing the nursing staff who cared for Mom so dearly and fought with her over her hair, her food and her showers.
• her purse that sort of told you the best and worst of my mom. She carried lots of little papers in that purse with names, schedules and other things she was supposed to remember, but couldn't. She fought hard to keep track of things, to maintain order but lost the battle from minute to minute. She always had Kleenex and some kind of old candy of some sort. And she would tell you there was money in there that needed to be watched carefully because people were always trying to steal from her. That purse sits in my living room on the couch--I can't put it away. I keep thinking that maybe she is still here as long as that purse sits there.
• speaking of that living room, I miss those times when Mom would sit down at the piano at our house (mostly in the evenings) and just play. Mostly hymns and old songs that were very familiar. I think she was trying to calm the chaos that was coming to a head in our house about that time at night. But it was a great way to bring an end to the day ... "day is dying in the west."
• and to bring it back around to my cookies, I think of my mom most when I am in my kitchen. For some reason, every time I am using my mixer. Mom used to come see us, clean the kitchen and scour my mixer every time she was here. It looked brand new and shiny when she would leave. That was her way . . . a job was done thoroughly, quietly (she never told me she was doing this), non-judgmentally (she never said this mixer is a mess!) and without any expectation of acknowledgment. Oh, that I could be more like her in that one way.
• whenever I make my bed. My mom loved a well-made bed and when here, often ran inspections for the kids on bed-making complete with a report card for them to see upon return from school. I am not sure the grades were ever that good ... I know they flunked greatly when Gmom would leave! But I make my bed every day (especially with a husband who un-makes it every single night!) and think of Mom as I smooth the covers and try to make it look neat and tight.
There is so much more, but I do need to get to church so that I can hear her name read this morning. To remind me that she was alive, but now joined with the communion of saints in that great cloud of witnesses that watches over me and loves me just as much as ever. I am grateful.
