Today is my mom’s feast day.
About seven years ago, Mom had just been moved from the main population of Mala Strana Nursing Home to the “Little Village” (the locked ward) of Mala Strana, out of fear that she might endanger herself by wandering off from the campus. Mom’s dementia was worsening.
Though Mom had dementia, she might refer to me from time to time with a variety of names, she knew who I was. Ruthie had gotten her some beautiful artificial flowers (which we still have here at home) because the nurses were afraid that mom might fall out of her wheelchair trying to water real flowers. When mom was telling Ruth and I about how much the “Kids” (the residents) loved the flowers, she would tell the residents that her husband’s wife got them for her. (I later joked with Ruthie that I was not only guilty of bigamy, but I had one helluva Oedipus complex too!)
Approximately one week before she died, she had moved into her new room. The Sunday before she died, I visited with mom for several hours and noticed that she had the onset of pneumonia, again. The following day, I was called into the nursing home because in lifting mom from the toilet, her left femur broke. They got mom comfortable in her bed and started treating her with pain meds, as we awaited mom’s hospice nurse to arrive (mom had been on hospice for three years because she was prone to pneumonia). The hospice nurse asked whether we should transport mom to the local hospital for x-rays. I told the nurse that if she looked, she could see the femur break with her naked eye. I had suffered a high femur break in a head-on collision in 2002. The pain was so severe, even with a lot of morphine administered, that I passed out. I told the nurse, why put my mom through horrific pain to only confirm what we could see with our own eyes?
Mom’s osteoporosis was so severe that they would never do surgery on her. With the onset of pneumonia, surgeons would refuse to operate on her. There was little to no chance of any recovery from this break. She would not be able to get up to offset the pneumonia. All we could do was keep her comfortable and let her move from this life to everlasting life. And, so, from Tuesday through Saturday, I kept vigil by her side as she slowly died. I wrote her funeral homily, planned the funeral liturgy, and wrote her obituary for the newspaper. Her funeral was on July 3rd. Being so near to the 4th of July holiday, I knew there would not be many either at her wake or her funeral. I am so grateful for my Aunt Mary Jernstrom, who made the long journey from Pittsburgh Pa to be with us during this time. I am also so grateful for my father in law, Al, and all my brothers and sisters in law who celebrated my mother’s life with us. We buried mom alongside dad, and Mary Ruth in the family plot at Roselawn cemetery. A year later, we buried my brother, Bill, with them.
2018 was a tough year for us. We lost Ruthie’s mom, suddenly to death on January 4th. We lost my cousin, Cheryl, suddenly to death on January 26th. My mom died on June 30th, and Ruthie got run over by a pickup truck on October 18th. The injury from that was so severe, Ruthie had to retire from nursing in August 2019.
Mom was 97 years old when she died. Would she wanted to live longer? I think not. I don’t know anyone who was as well prepared for heaven than my mom and my dad. She had vivid dreams of being with my sister, Mary Ruth. She said they were so real that all the senses were engaged. Mom was spiritually and emotionally well prepared for death, though, she was not actively seeking it.
While still in the main population at the Nursing Home, she spent a great deal of time helping “the new kids” (mom’s reference to new full-time residents) adjust to their new life. She had taught home economics at a high school level, and achieved much conducting cooking schools all over the state of Pennsylvania before she married dad. She was still practicing what she taught in all those classes of long ago at the nursing home.
When one woman, probably about 90 years of age, announced that she was pregnant to the lunch table my mother ate at, my mother was teaching her how to eat responsibly during a pregnancy (Mom told me that the nuns, mom’s references for the nursing home staff, found the woman in the basement drinking beer with the boys. I responded to mom that that was how she probably got pregnant). The woman later requested to be moved to another table because she didn’t want to lectured about proper nutrition by my mom. In other words, the woman wanted that second dessert. About a year later, mom expressed her concern that the woman hadn’t given birth to her baby and wondered if she had aborted the baby. I reassured mom that she probably placed the baby up for adoption. Incidentally, elderly women reporting pregnancies is not that unusual. As Ruthie once related, there was one woman who insisted that she was the carrying the baby of Prince Charles of England. The woman was awfully disappointed that after three years of pregnancy, Prince Charles had yet to send her a Mother’s Day card on Mother’s Day.
The one thing in her life as important as her career, her husband, and her children was her Catholic faith. Mom often said it was her faith that sustained when she, at the age of 12 years, lost her mother and her little sister, Greta, to death two weeks before Christmas and on Christmas Day respectively. Her dad, her older sister, Ruth, and mom did all the cooking for those coming to the house to wake her mother and two weeks later, her sister. She spoke of staying up throughout most of the night by her mother’s body (they waked people in their homes). What a comfort those last moments with her mom were to her, and how important the support of Father Conglin, and all the nuns at St Rosalia parish were to her, to her dad, and to her siblings over the years.
That same faith sustained her when her dad died 15 years later. And that same faith sustained her when my sister died in 1997.
I know she was thrilled when I was ordained a deacon in the Catholic church. I, in turn, made sure that I was there for her, dad, Mary, and on/off long distance for my brother to support them spiritually as a deacon. And though it was difficult, my last act of love for them was to be there to preach and lead prayers at their wakes, their funerals, and their burial.
The diaconate is a ministry of service. And I was raised in a family that sought to serve others and place others before themselves. So being ordained into diaconal ministry was natural to me. And though I am retired from active ministry, which means I am no longer assigned to a parish, a deacon NEVER retires from ministry. I continue to serve the greater community as facilitator of support groups, being a spiritual director, and assisting others in need. I guess its my way of being there for the “new kids”, as mom referred to it.
That which gave her tremendous joy was her family. She found her greatest fulfillment in life in providing a wonderful home life for Bill, Mary, Dad and I. Later, she rejoiced fully in being a grandmother to my kids, Andy, Luke, Meg, and Beth. And later, being great grandmother to her great grandchildren Alyssa, Owen, Aidan, Sydney, and Oliver.
My mother’s favorite painting was a silk screen painting of a Chinese Madonna. My mother had a great devotion to Mary, Mother of Jesus. Of all the religious Madonna portraits of all the greatest Western artists, it was this silk screen painting of Mary she enjoyed the most.
For her birthday in 1988, I composed this piano song for mom, using this portrait of Mary as my inspiration. I used the pentatonic scale (a scale consisting of only five pitches) for the melody. The pentatonic scale is one that I was taught that is used often in Chinese music. (For the musicians reading this, it is composed in the key of Gb major … in other words, six flats, which means lots of black keys on the piano). Here is mom’s song.
The last time this song was played was at mom’s funeral Mass.
Happy Feast Day, mom! Greet Dad, Bill, and Mary Ruth for me.
