Tag: Prayer

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Dad

My dad died peacefully last week. I miss him terribly. His death, and indeed his entire life, is a powerful testament to the Words for the Weary spirit of “lighthearted stories about everyday things”.

Two weeks ago we arrived at his home to find him in an armchair. He was connected to oxygen and wearing slippers shaped like hamburgers. He cheerily engaged with everyone while consuming vast amounts of ice cream. His faith and humor and grace remained intact despite the cancer. This was no stoic façade: it’s how dad was hardwired from a lifetime of love.

On one occasion during the ensuing days, as I reconnected his oxygen, he took a deep breath and said “Ah, oxygen. Great stuff. They should put more of it in the air…”.

After moving to narcotic pain medication he quipped “My first drug trip. So this is what all the fuss was about in the 1970s. I suppose I must be hip now with the younger generation.”

We returned one night from the hospital to find a neighbor’s note: “Tater-tot hot dish in the refrigerator”.  I love Midwestern neighbors. And I love tater-tots.

Dad was never strong on administration. His account passwords are kept on little yellow sticky notes that absolutely cover his desk. Each note contains a complex mathematical formula which, when solved, reveals a password. I asked him how I was ever to sort out his affairs. He smiled and suggested that if I took a step back and looked at the sticky notes with the correct perspective, they were artfully arranged in the shape of an iguana. Thanks dad.

We prayed together. When speech left him, we prayed for him. Or we simply held hands and gazed upon one another with such love that words were not required.

His decline was remarkably fast – a week before he died he was playing the piano. His final days and the moments of his death were profound. You could squeegee the love out of the air, it was so saturated with grace and light.  He died surrounded by his closest loved ones, utterly at peace with his life and with God.

He was the greatest man I have ever known. He also happened to be my dad. No amount of thanks seems sufficient for such a gift.

[This post is dedicated to my late father. His obituary, written by my sister late one night in just a few minutes, can be found here]

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Peace

The Jesuit training center where I attend a monthly course is normally filled with joy and peace. Not today. Today, there is a disturbance in The Force.

Some months back I came to the center to interview for a place on the course. I was anxious. My anxiety was put to rest the moment I met him. Well into his 80s, he looked like a leprechaun.  Short, trim, prominent nose, gray hair parted to the side. He held the door open and welcomed me to the center in a sing-song Irish accent. He wore faded cotton trousers, slippers, and a cardigan knit long ago by a loved one. He asked me my name. He told me he would pray for me. Then he ambled off down the corridor, humming.

He reappeared throughout that first day, popping up in random places. He didn’t seem to be working, but rather drifting peacefully through the training center on some invisible current, as a fish might do in a huge aquarium. Each occasion when we passed he would stop, clasp my hand, say my name, and remind me of his prayers for me. His eyes twinkled. He hummed merrily to himself as he floated away.

I learned that he had once been a renowned expert in the practice of prayer. He had been a sought after retreat leader and author of several classic works. In recent years he has spent his days padding around in slippers, praying for people and radiating peace. He is perhaps the most peaceful human that I have ever encountered.

For 21 years he lived on the second floor of the training center in a small bedroom between the elevator shaft and the utility storage closet. The room has a tiny window with a distant view of the Irish Sea. Today he is being relocated to another Jesuit community. I suspect he is being eased out to pasture.

We met this morning in the stairwell. He did not recognize me. He held a box of paperclips in his hand. He told me he was cleaning out his small room and wanted to be sure the paper clips were put to good use at the reception desk.  I spontaneously gave him a bar of chocolate that I had in my backpack. I told him how grateful I was for his peaceful presence. His eyes welled with tears.

This afternoon I watched from a distance as the small group of remaining Jesuits escorted him to the taxi. They held him lovingly by the elbow as they walked together. Everything he owns fit into a garment bag and a single suitcase.

Headlines of predatory priests and politicians get me down. Today, however, I was reminded of the legions of truly great people who never make the papers.  These anonymous heroes make the world go round by quietly going about their life’s work.  As this gentle man has done his whole life, sowing peace.

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My Great Aunt – 13/11/2017

One hot summer day at a family reunion, someone gave my great aunt a margarita and a water gun. She was in her late 80s. She knocked the drink back like it was Kool-aid. Then she drank another. Before the end of the day she was dancing on the picnic table in her Baskin-Robbins-esque polyester pant suit, squirting people with water.

Later she was playing a ball-toss game with a priest. He made a throw and missed the target altogether. Picture a woman in her late 80s, cradling her drink like Dean Martin, turning to the clergyman and saying, “IS THAT THE BEST YOU’VE GOT, HOLY BOY?” She trash-talked a priest. Then she squirted him with water. Then she went and got another margarita.

She taught us kids how to gamble, playing Royal Rummy for pennies at her kitchen table. She let us sip beer from little paper cups from as early as I can remember. She asked about our lives. She patiently listened to our response.  She modeled faith in action, sending her prayers and her money to schools in South America, Africa, Native reserves, and inner city slums. She never had any children of her own, but man did she have a heart for them.

She also nearly killed us with her driving. The finer points of gentle acceleration and gradual braking were lost on her. When the light turned green she would pin it, and at the next red light she would hammer on the brake inches before the intersection. Naturally we kids loved this, being flung all over the car in the days before seatbelts.

She was hard of hearing. Even with hearing aids she SPOKE LOUDLY, her volume the same regardless of subject matter. Once she went to the hospital to visit a family member with an infection who would sit up in his bed, hallucinating and bathed in sweat, and yell about the rising river water. In walks my great aunt. She sizes up the situation and then randomly blurts, “LAST NIGHT MY UTERUS DROPPED, AND NOW I HAVE TO WIPE TWICE WHEN I TINKLE”. She honestly said that. At that moment said family member sat up and yelled, “Everyone get the hell out, the river’s flooding!” He honestly said that. You can’t make this stuff up.

They broke the mold with my great aunt. Last week she would have been 104. Happy Birthday dear one, and how we miss you!

 

 

[If you know someone else who might enjoy a lighthearted story to begin their week, kindly forward them the link to WordsfortheWeary. The more the merrier.]