Here’s how it worked, the belting brought up the uniform’s length and we just pulled it tight enough to stop the breath, ours and the boys.  But bless her; Sister Mary Cora would make all the girls line up to assess our respectability and then she efficiently proceeded to measure - with a tape from the ground up - this uniform’s proper length in inches from the floor.

But we teen females being ever so clever would bend forward; therefore, the lengthening of this little wool dress was guaranteed.  Sister, on her knees with her habit covering the floor, would look up. “Missy, Stand up straight,” she would order but we knew she loved us even without a smile so we would stand erect (while all of the other kids watched and covered their grins) until, that is, she looked down.  So bend again we would and on and on.  What delightful innocence.  Kids remember the best teachers for so many reasons.

Now keep in mind, this nun, this divine Sister of Mercy, read Homer aloud to us.   She told me the way to win the smartest guy in the class would be to get an A.  She made me recite Milton “When I consider how my light is spent ere half my days in this dark world and wide,” though admittedly I had difficulty with this exercise until she agreed that I could sing it to my favorite song “What Kind of Fool Am I.”

I received an A on this exercise and figured this was a true definition of mercy but I suspect Sister honestly didn’t know what to do with me.  In parting, may I mention that this good and brilliant nun was a Jewish convert to Catholicism?  Oh, on the boy?  Sister’s suggestion worked.

You should see my husband’s vegetables, some tomatoes in pots and some in the ground.  It’s a contest to see which variation on the theme wins the blue ribbon this summer.  I’m voting for the varieties in the ground.  I’m voting for winning the prize of how many ways I will serve them.  See, that’s part of the deal over here, he plants; I cook.  Do I like to cook?  This is where the pan gets sticky because you must understand that for 38 years I actually did love cooking but I would rather eat light fare now, the kind that is served in a cool bistro and I don’t just mean air-conditioned.

I like Fork Restaurant in Philadelphia.  It isn’t just because the food is great but because I know a bartender there who happens to be an improv artist by day. Two weeks ago she introduced me to another gal bartender and together we thought up a great game of what drink would you name after yourself.

I love those kinds of games as what kind of bird would you be for the 5 and under set or what kind of video game for the 8 year old boy group.  The question What kind of drink would fit your personality? adds a different level of expertise and a few years to ones driver’s license, more than a few in my particular case.

My husband listened sweetly to us women playing around and laughing and decided he wanted in.  “I would be named Champagne,” he says.  I snapped my head around with that one.  Not because he isn’t cheerful because, he is, but his joining in so spontaneously afforded me an opportunity to hear his version of self-appraisal.  I thought of the possibilities a lesser man of minor sophistication might have chosen and just smiled.

Sometimes it’s better for a wife to do just that, just smile.

Obviously I couldn’t complain knowing that there was no alternative so I pleaded and begged my sister to stop sleeping on her back and to please roll over.  She refused.

So, what’s an older sister worth her own salt going to do?

I would quietly get up, tip-toe across the room, then quickly brush a little feather over her nose then run back into bed and pretend I was asleep.  This little activity went on for months until one day - as I stood over her with the feather - she opened one eye.  “I knew you were doing this, Mary, and I’m going to tell Mom.”

Well, that was the end of that fun activity for this first born.

I became introduced to death when my Grandmother McCart (who lived with us) died of a massive heart attack.  The memory of Grandmom lying in her antique bed, her children all around her with  her ever present rosaries  intertwined in her fingers made a deep impression on my ten year old soul.  It remains with me still.

Three years later my father died suddenly.  It shattered a major part of me but the gripping grief went underground and stayed unacknowledged until it my favorite uncle died twenty years later and resurrected the buried sorrow.  That’s when I began to comprehend not only death’s complexities but the real power loss over a psyche.  The timing was right, however, to address death’s mystery and its veil because I was earning my Master’s Degree in counseling.  “Counselor, heal thyself” became my personal mantra.

During these four years of academics I came to identify that just because my father was resting in peace didn’t mean I was.  I gave my father pain a voice realizing that not only would talking help heal me but it would translate into making me a better and more sensitive therapist.

When I turned forty-two my beloved eighteen-year old daughter, Katie, was diagnosed with cancer.  She immediately went to a rational place that said she could die.  She shared that information with me and added that her illness could possibly aid my ongoing search to understand my own father’s death.  Because Katie was a teenager, I don’t believe she realized that her illness eclipsed my father’s death a thousand fold whatever her fate would be.

Sadly for me, and for the multitudes who loved her dearly, Katie died at twenty-eight years of age.  This year marks fifty years for my father and eleven years for my child.  Many other people close to me are now also peacefully on the other side: my mother, grandfather, five year old niece, sister, every uncle and all but two aunts.  I am no stranger to death and I am also no stranger to life.

It’s what keeps me focused on the bigger picture.

August 19, 2010

How we feel about a person’s death changes over time.  I think it has everything to do with our relationship to that person and maybe even the age we are when we experience permanent loss.  I also think it has to do with accepting the mystery of death.  Sometimes the death of someone is so shattering in the beginning that we barely function.  Then, as time moves ahead little-by-little, we begin to heal a little at a time depending on the intensity of the love we felt for the deceased.

Sometimes, however, our grief experience is in reverse and delayed as mine was in the case of my father who passed away I was thirteen years old.  Rarely talking about him it appeared on the outside that I was coping fine.  It wasn’t until my early 30’s in graduate school while attending workshops to deal with unconscious elements, my long ago grief for my father was uncovered.  I discovered then how much pain and sorrow had been buried when he was layed to rest.  I learned then that just because my father was at peace didn’t mean I necessarily was.  I addressed then consciously and seriously my deep sadness and loss of him.  And, while a delayed grief process, the-better-late-than-never paradigm was applicable.

When my beloved daughter Katie died at 28 years of age, my father’s death felt suddenly eclipsed despite my love for him because no grief compares with the agony of a child’s death.  My days now - despite it being almost eleven years – go up and down still where her absence from my life is concerned.  There was never a delayed grief with Katie.  It was more a paralyzing one in the beginning.  It still wasn’t going to work for me to talk to anyone about her death but I knew that I had to deal with her absence and my choice for expressing grief came with writing in a journal which, as you all know, evolved into a book.

My sorrow isn’t crippling anymore because I have accepted that death is a mystery no less intense than birth because neither life event can be fully explained for where were these souls before they came to us and now when they leave us?  To me, that is the essence of mystery which, except by faith, is an unexplained phenomenon.  There is consolation there if we allow ourselves to go there spiritually because responsibility to understand and control are removed from our earthly plate and we allow life and death to move at its own rhythm in surrendering the need to understand that which is not understandable.

As we travel through our lives we will all experience many losses.  Being able to pick up the pieces of our lives afterwards and begin a new chapter is a choice that takes grace and faith, friendship and hope.  And we will need other people to help us.  We will need family members to be loving, supportive and sensitive and never to bring on additional pain.  We will need gentleness from others who only need to take our hand and ask, “What can I do to help you?” Or, “Let me take you to lunch this week.” Or, “Allow me to watch your children while you take a walk or get your hair done or go out to dinner with your spouse.”

Remember, being able to think about and speak about death and loss whether the loss of a job, our health, our marriage or our beloved child or loved one makes a difference in a grief recovery.  It makes a difference in whether we feel we can make it.  But do believe me, my friends, when I tell you that you will make it.  You might not feel as though you will, but you will, if you allow yourself to speak of your loss and take heart to know there is always a good soul that is willing to sit with you and listen.  There is always a merciful person who is only a phone call or doorbell away.  There is always a sweet someone who reminds you that blessed are they who mourn for they shall be comforted, who wants you not only to unburden yourself but to help you through the night so you can remember to make your Every Day Matter.

–

As a child, I wondered how my grandmother and grandfather could stand them being away and in harm’s way for so many years.  My mother told me that she wrote daily to my father, her brothers and her brothers-in-law when they were in the service.  She told me that after I asked her, “Mom, why don’t you write so-and-so a letter” when she voiced not hearing from some distant friend.  Her response was that she didn’t want to because it reminded her of all the letters she penned during the war.  I understand that better now; some associations are powerful in the way they tear at the heart in its delicate places.

Who doesn’t hear songs popular during a war and not feel a tug of sorrow and pride at the heart?  World War II songs always make me cry.  “I’ll be seeing you” and “I’ll be home for Christmas” are just two which fly to mind alongside the memory of my mother humming sweetly as she wiped down the kitchen table, “God Bless America.”

Maybe this is a sentimental side of me.  Maybe this is my growing older and more appreciative of what was long ago and far away for all of my uncles have died.  Maybe this is just my heart voicing the love I feel for these great men who made my life special, who made our country great, and made me feel comfortable being around men since I was just a little girl.

 Mental health is intricately involved with self-honesty.  Did you know that?  Outside of a biological depression and anxiety – which can be successfully treated – our self-honesty will let us know when we are in pain, when we are hurting.  Our self-love couples with our self-honesty and kicks our butts to speak up when someone is mean and we tell the person so.

 Self love will give us the words to remind our mates to treat us like the treasure we know ourselves to be.  For example I said to my husband just last week, “Honey, please remember to tell me how lovely that dinner was if you like eating here!”  Humor is a marvelous tool of self-love and men enjoy learning through humor not lectures.

 Self-love will keep your spirit strong and your self-confidence unshakeable.  Even when you go through painful times – death, divorce, illness, betrayal, your self-love won’t allow you to stop because you will value the importance of your life, even the painful places in it.  Pain causes us to grow; pain enlarges our personality and our compassion for other’s pain.  Or we could always adopt what writer Madeline L’Engle once said, “When I have something to say that is too difficult for adults, I write for children.  They have not closed the shutters.  They like it when you rock the boat.”

I loved being a mom and I still do but it’s different now because my daughter is in heaven, my son is older and I have three grandchildren. But I delight still on remembering the early days of being a mother.  In my first months of motherhood, if anyone even mentioned my daughter’s birth or her name, my breasts would leak.  Fortunately, that little tweak feeling comes first to give a warning to hurry up and get a tissue in there!

 I remember the countless Sundays of folding cloth diapers for two.  Both my kids were allergic to that plastic coating on Pampers and my mindset was allergic to the idea of doing something easy when I could do it the hard way. This was after coming back from the laundromat with two kids and the diapers in a shopping cart, bless me Father for I have sinned in taking the metal cart.  But can you imagine what the trip was like on the way there with 100 wet baby diapers?  Oh, the things we did to economize saving for a house.

I remember toddler days of pointing to my cheek for a kiss whenever I felt the urge and buying a dozen donuts after Mass, heaven help me, and eating three because “the kids like donuts.”  That was after bacon and eggs and toast.

I  remember our early camping trips where we all slept in a 9 x 9 foot tent while the raccoons clawed at our water bottles and the entire vacation cost a mere 100 bucks, even with one dinner out.

I remember sunny days at the Jersey shore and that was after my husband lugged down a playpen, a car bed, and our lunch while carrying one child in arms and the other baby in tow.  No one ever slept in those contraptions either but it was a matter of principle because no decent mom ever just put her darling baby on a blanket!

I remember all those doctor checkups and the pediatrician saying to me on one exhausting morning, “I can’t understand why your son isn’t sleeping through the night at four months.”  Then he narrowed his eyes at me, “You’re not playing with him when he wakes up are you?”  And when I didn’t answer because I wanted to get that good mother look, he tilted his head and continued in a louder voice, “Who wouldn’t want to wake up, have a little nuzzle and play?  Next time, just give that baby boy water and he’ll never wake up again in the middle of the night!” Ladies, I think there’s a lesson for us in there somewhere even as grown women.

Anyway, I guess when I think about being a mother I confess that nothing has ever given me more joy and fulfillment and I just wanted to share a little and see if any body else wants to do the same.

Love and peace and Happy Mother’s Day,
MJ

When you know you are ‘Bless-ed’ you accept all that life provides or throws at you from a place of there, it’s a gift in here and I will find it.  You are open to receive everything as a contribution to your life, an active role.  The Good and the Bad.

When you are ‘Blessed,’ you are in a receiving mode to the Universe and good will come to you.  You see all the good you have and say, “I am blessed.”

Which role do you think has more likelihood of a joyful life?

Explore these distinctions today; you’ll be amazed at what you discover about yourself.

Unlike other dogs, Beauty was never hungry at the end of the day for the singular reason that she had explored so many great garbage pails after people left for work.  I look back in horror at my attitude then.  I never realized how offensive I was having a ‘free range dog’ until I took a walk and brought my pooch with me.  Of course she wasn’t on a leash because that would be pet abuse.

Some neighbor who lived four blocks away saw me coming.  She began shouting awful things I couldn’t even repeat here.  I kept looking around wondering why was she so upset?  I didn’t even know her.  She pointed at the ground (now I realize it was at my dog) and her hands were flying around like she was swatting bees.  Then I noticed she was wearing a beret so I figured she must be an artist or something, real temperamental type.  So I waved back and kept going.

Sometimes that’s what we have to do when people become over-reactive.

First group/workshops begin in June.  They will focus on grief’s journey back to the land of hope.  Everyone will commit to attending 4 groups. Women in Transition Groups will begin in July.  All groups are confidential and what we share in our groups stays in our groups.

So call me when you need me and I will be there helping you to make Every Day Matter.