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My Mother-in-law is in her final days and yesterday I was speaking with my sister-in-law asking how her children were holding up.

She told me that her daughter prays for a miracle that her Gramma will be restored to health.

That of course is the simple prayer and wish a greiving child, but it not the thought the adults have, they wish for a good and peaceful death.  My sisiter-in-law tried to tell her but her daughter would have none of it.

But death does have it miralces.  The gathering of family can be a time to reconcile, to heal broken relationships and for some a time to take great stock in how life is being lived.  It is a time to honour the memory of the lost loved one by living life well, successfuly, prayerfully.

For us, our whole family, this death has been peaceful and at appropriate times, has had its moments of humour.

With all that is going on I am constantly being reminded of all the blessings I have been given.

This Sunday is a very special Sunday for 13 young boys and girls at the Parish where I am Director of Religious Education.  This small Parish lost its school last year and many thought that would be the death knell, but the Parish has only gotten stronger.  We are growing and this Sunday 13 young people will be recieving our Lord in Holy Communion for the first time!

As DRE I wanted my time here to be one of warmth and healing.  I am blessed everyday by the parents of the children who come to say how much they are learning, and how much they enjoy coming to Mass and class.

Please pray that God guides me to be a strong DRE who can evanglize and welcome new parents into our community, nurture those we have, and encourage everyone to strenghten their spiritual lives.

Avatars are so telling aren't they.  We choice them becuase they represent something for us.

If you take the time to look at the different avatars you can see the personality of people.  We have avatars of nebula in space, good natured battlers of herasy, and then we have those avatars of people I am not sure I would like to know, they avartars look so aggressive, sneering, superior.

God has made us all with our own unique talents and gifts.  But we must remember too that we are called in Matthew 22: 36 - 40: "Teacher, which commandment in the law is the greatest?’ ³⁷He said to him, ‘ “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind.” This is the greatest and first commandment. And a second is like it: “You shall love your neighbour as yourself.” On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets.’

In early Feb. we got a call from a nieghbor concerned because she did not see mom's bedroom shade open; this was somting my mother-in-law did every morning without fail at 5:15 AM; but not that morning.

We rushed over to found mom on the floor for what we learn was about two days!  Now each of us, the children of mom, would call and see her every day, but not that Friday, there was some glicth in our system. 

At the hospital they thought she may have had a strock or heartache because she was weak on her right side, her speach slurred, and she could not swallow.  They told us they did not think she would last the night, than it was the weekend, than we heard that she was going to die every day of the month she was in the hospital.

This past Wednesday we got "that call" and we have been stepping up the visits, last night we visited and she was up awake and eating!

Is there something mom is waiting to do, some person she needs to see?

The roller coaster continues

With every ring of the phone I think this is it...mom is gone.

We are on the Do Not Call list so we don't get the calls from people trying to sell us something...but we do still get calls from Charities we support and magazines we subscribe to..and now with Mom so near to going home...well you can imagine.

Yesterday, for those who may not know, we got "that call" telling us that mom was fading fast she had maybe two weeks, but could go earlier, and if we wish to say our goodbyes and gather out-of-town family this would be the time to do that.

So we spent a restless, anxious day waiting.  To releive some of the tension our girls, we have twin daughter and two sons, and I played UNO.  Our girls are twelve and like most twelve year olds the world seems to be a place that revolves around them; well, our youngest twin daughter looked up from her cards and said: "Mom this feels like I'm waiting for a test!"

Out of the mouths of babes!

This does feel like a test. 

Many of us have heard of Stephen Covey, or my favorite Vic Conant of Nightingale-Conant, the time management gurus who suggest that we look at how we wish to be eulogized to detrimine what our calling is from God; how we wish to live our lives. We want people to miss us, say great things about us and speak of a life will lived.  Well, if you want that you have to live that now!

It's a sobering thought to think of how we will be remembered when we are dead. 

To think about how we are living the call God has given us as others saw us doing it and now are commenting on that. 

To think of all that we did and did not do for our brothers and sisters here while we were on earth. 

To think of how, if we are brutely honest with ourselves, how others truly see us, not the imaginary hoped for eulogy, but how we are truly seen, to imagine what they will TRULY say, how they will truly react to our passing.  Will we be the anger person who has just a handful of people who will mourn, but not really mourn.  Or will we be one of the lucky few who touched lives with great love?


It's a time to rethink how we deal with people, how we love as Christ loved, how we are living for Christ RIGHT now.

Its something I am thinking about how 'bout you?

My mother-in-law is dying, in fact she could be gone as early as this weekend.  Death is always a difficult thing for me.  Sixteen  years ago when my Father-in-law lay dying I could not be in the room talking with him as my husband and my sister-in-laws could.  I walked the hall of the hospital crying and begging God just to get him go.  Eight years ago it was my husband who rushed to my mother's bedside, I stayed home praying my rosary, not really feeling I could be with her. My father-in-law was my rock and coming from the family I came from I needed a secure man to let me know that I was not worthless, something my father told me on a daily basis, or stupid and unwanted like my mother did.  No I needed to known that I was worthy to be loved by man and God. My husband and his father were the resasons I have come as far as I have. Now my mother-in-law is dying.  I have never had good relationships with women, women in postitions of authority, or supposed authority, in particular.  Like my mother, my mother-in-law was always quick to judge and assume with out fact and with out real evidence.  Like my mother, my mother-in-law loved to gossip about someone, making sure the story put her in the light of needing support beciase the situation was so horrible. This is distructive for any relationship: And for our as in-laws it was impossible.  I did have times of great warmth with my mother-in-law, until a mutual friend suggested that I not share my concerns and worries with her, because as she put it your mother-in-law is gossiping about you and loves to let her freinds know how much she hates you. It was a blow!  I cried for days and left as betrayed as I ever had.  I never shared anyting with her again and it was hard for me to keep my feelings about her from showing on my face.  At time I hated her and felt great guilt at feeling those feelings.  My relationship with her made me question how my husband felt about me, if left to choice would he pick her over me?  He would pick me. The relationship crept into every mutual relationship I had with her.  Her friends, some to this day, looked at me with contempt, others would come over and pat me on the shoulder like I was some fragile lunatic whow would and could explode at any moment.  It was hard for me to look those people in the eye and would come home from Church crying. Family activities made me nausea weeks in advance of the activity or holiday.  It wasn't until we stopped going into the other city were my husband grandparents had lived that I finally felt the joy of the holidays.  The stories I was hearing and the retelling of secret concerns, always told to show how wounded she was that my husband had married such a gold digger, horrible parent, etc would make me cringe.  I was not that person but who was going to beleive me! I had shared my deepest concerns, my most secret worries with a woman I thought had my best interest at heart only to find she cared only for the appreance she made to others, it made me weep.  I felt even more inadequent after spending time with HIS family. He and I spoke about my relationship with her and my feelings towards her and he reassured me that my mother-in-law did not know, or wanted to know, how much I worked at my emotional-spiritual issues.  She thought of anyone who went to seek help for such things must be insane and that my husband would be better off without me.  My husband was proud of my work and was proud at how much I had changed from the, Paris Hilton-esque woman I was to whom he knew I was called to be. He told me that when we were dating he was on his knees in prayer and asked God whom he should choose: me or another woman he was dating, God told him to choose me.  At that point my mother-in-law was someone I became respectful of but did not need to share my life with and should not share anything important with.  My husband assurance that I was the one God had told him to marry made me feel humble and little unworthy, but also very free and loved. It is sad to think of all that has gone before, how much misuderstood we have been with each other, but it is also a calling to live more like Christ. For if very life expereince is an opportunity to learn how to live more fully, nore humanly, more humanly; than looking at how I could have been better with her is the best way for me to learn how to become more confident and secure in myself as a daughter of God.  How I must be more loving towards everyone I meet and how judgement of others and assumation of who they are; ruin relatiohsips.

Tags: Dying Mother-in-law Prayer Daughter Of God