Weird Pang

I actually had no intention of blogging tonight.  "Too much to do," I thought to myself today.  "Maybe later in the week I will have the opportunity."  But here I am.

Tonight (ok Monday night since it is now Tuesday morning) I went to Mass, the first Monday of Holy Week.  It was being offered for the repose of the soul of my memere and, as I've said, praying for her is something I want to make a priority.  I have prayed for her already during private prayer but I was appreciative of the mass being offered for her and wanted to be there with the family.  So after getting Alicia to take a nap, picking up the house, waking Hannah to eat, then waking Alicia to head out the door, I made it to my parent's house.  We ate supper and off we went to church.

Both of the girls are really good in church, so, knowing that my aunts and uncles would probably want to sit up front, we headed up to the second pew, walking by our parish priest and one of the five seminarians (YES THAT'S RIGHT FIVE) from our parish who happens to be home for Holy Week.  My whole family, parents included, pretty much always sit in the last pew in church in case we need to make a quick exit to the "cry room."  So anyway, after a quick prayer, worried that Hannah would start fussing, I took Hannah out of the car seat and we sat there in the silence as people trickled in.

Since the church was fairly empty, Hannah's cooing sounded louder than usual.  I smiled and did try to hush her a few times, but it wasn't so bad really.  There was a young couple behind me that she was smiling at, and another parishioner she grinned at a few rows back that we know from the Coming Home program my husband and I are a part of.  When Mass started she started looking around during the singing, then during the readings she seemed to want to face forward.  Usually, maybe because we are in the back, she has no interest really in seeing what is going on.  "Well that's funny, " I thought.  Then Alicia came over and snuggled up next to me during the homily.  "Maybe going to Mass just the three of us wouldn't be so bad," I thought to myself.  "I guess I should have at least tried it once during Lent." 

After the gifts were brought up, I sent Alicia down to sit with her memere and pepere and headed to the cry room with Hannah to change her and give her the last bottle of the night since she was starting to show signs of becoming fussy.  I wasn't sure if the timing would allow me to go up to receive communion, but I thought I had a shot at it.  But as I was feeding her, I realized that I wouldn't be going and I felt a weird pang in my heart, a dull ache if you will.  "Well, this is something that I have never felt before."  It dawned on me as I sat alone in the "cry room" with Hannah, that I was sad that I wasn't going to communion.  Could it be that suddenly I realized what I was truly missing by not going for communion?  After all this time of not being sure that I truly "get" transubstantiation, that I actually do realize that it IS in fact Jesus that we receive?

I've been thinking about trying to get to the Triduum with my little ones: mass on Holy Thursday, Good Friday and Easter Vigil.  The only thing is, if I do go to mass on Holy Thursday, this may be the first time I head to mass with just my girls.  As I said above, it may not be as bad as I've imagined it to be.  Good Friday my husband will not be working so I'm pretty sure he'll be there and I think that for now the Easter Vigil will be too long for our littles ones, so we'll probably all be together at church on Sunday morning as usual. 

But just maybe, I will head to Holy Thursday, even if it is just myself and the girls.  I wonder if it happens again that I cannot go up for communion, will I once again feel that weird pang?  What was once something I knew in my head, now seems to be transmitting to my heart.  God is certainly revealing His mysteries to me in marvelous ways.

Mourning Memere

So, I haven't written this past week, mostly because of the passing of my memere.  She was to move into a new apartment on Friday, March 4th, which she did.   Unfortunately, she was only there for about 6 hours.  My Aunt Elaine, memere's daughter, spent the night with her that first night to ease the transition.  Luckily, she was there and noticed something was not right.

I find it so strange how God has a hand in things.  If memere had moved on Thursday, or Saturday for that matter, we would not have had the chance to have the great week that we had with her until she passed away on March 12th at the age of 85.  I'm very sad to say that I didn't visit her as often as I would like.  Maybe had I spent more time with her it wouldn't seem to be so great that we had that last week because I would now be missing my regular visits with her.  But life gets in our way sometimes and we don't always make time out of our busy schedules for visiting with the people who mean so much to us.  No excuses for that and it really upsets me that I only visited her at her house two times in the past year and a half.  I did see her at family gatherings and parties, but that's not the same thing.  You never get to have a good conversation with someone at your 1 year old's birthday party!

At any rate, when I say we had a great week with her, that probably sounds selfish.  In recent years, she had become very confused, repeating herself often, and losing track of conversations pretty easily.  She would repeat a line of conversation that she had started just a few minutes earlier.  Any time we got into this circular conversation during a visit, I would smile and nod, acting as though I had never heard the story.  That last week we had with her, she seemed so "with it."  She wasn't repeating herself, rather, she was cracking jokes and making funny comments at almost every turn.  My Uncle Don walked into her room, she looked at him and said, "you look good, you have a nice shape" which sent us all into a fit of laughter.  She was remembering our names, birthdays and bits and pieces of the details of our lives that we didn't know she remembered.  It was like the memere I had known from YEARS ago was back.

I think that's what made it all seem so impossible that she wasn't doing well.  We saw such a spark in her, such a desire to live a long life.  But if you looked at her monitor during the visit, you could tell things weren't right.  She'd go from a normal heart rate in the low 100s and shoot up to 177.  They used medication to bring her heart rate down to have her blood pressure drop, then have to use medication to bring her blood pressure back up, starting the cycle over again.  I saw the monitor register AFIB a few times, which I knew wasn't good.  I do know that she was pleased with her care, as well as her doctors and nurses.  I did know that she was granted the sacrament the Anointing of the Sick and I am glad that she was able to see a priest before she passed.

I joke with my husband how our parish priest has made wakes and funerals a bit more difficult than they used to be.  However, I think that the point this priest has made is an important one.  He often says that he has a hard time during the eulogy when a loved one says that they know the person who passed is in heaven smiling down on them.  Unfortunately, we do not know that and cannot judge as God would judge a person's life.  Our parish priest points out that if we say this, we may pray asking the person who has passed to intercede to God on our behalf and maybe talk TO them, but not pray FOR them.  We need to remember to pray for those who have gone to eternal rest, not just talk to them.  We can only guess where they are on their journey in the afterlife, but we can be sure to pray for their souls, that God will take them into His kingdom.

The song that always gets me choked up continues to ring in my ears, "May the choir of angels come to greet you, may they bring you to paradise.  May the Lord enfold you in His mercy, may He bring you eternal life."  I am still mourning my memere and will talk to her from time to time, but I will be sure to continue to pray FOR my memere.  Love you so much and I will miss you!