My mother has the sweetest face in all the world.
Her gray eyes crinkle, and she smiles with her whole self.
She's truly glad to see me, whoever I am, and she loves me whoever I am and is grateful that I have come to sit with her.
She says, "We are little now."
She sings along to several songs, including "How Much Is That Doggie in the Window," "Silent Night" and — as of today — "I'm Getting Married in the Morning."
She's as pretty and fresh-faced as any child.
She says, "I'm 90...something."
I say, "You're almost 92. In a few weeks you'll be 92."
She says, "I am?!"
I hold up my fingers like bunny ears and make them hop. "When people ask how old you are, you can make bunny ears like this and say, 'I am 92!'"
She laughs.
She giggles. She crinkles her pretty eyes and wiggles her nose.
My mother has the sweetest face in all the world.
Bank this word, it could come in handy some day: desolation.
When it is raining in the city like it's raining in your heart, and you can't pull your wit up high around your neck for protection — which will happen, one of these days, if you love anyone — you will be very lucky if a true friend is nearby, private, and you can hurry into his arms and let him hold you up while you quit trying to stand. Empty your sinuses on his shoulder and give up any pretense that you know how to be an adult, lucky girl.
Lucky, so lucky to have a friendly husband like that. And if you can see your good fortune and still you cannot cheer up, then you are wandering in the wasteland that is desolation.
Gradually, over a period of about two weeks beginning around the time of my last post here, I had slipped deeper and deeper into bleak, almost wordless unhappiness. Things are getting grim when I run out of words.
I was oppressed by the thought that I had appointed myself Mourner in Chief, for attention. That other people were missing Mom just as much and that only they and no one else cared. What is one more dying old lady when 3,770 migrants were reported to have died trying to cross the Mediterranean in 2015? That I was exaggerating my sorrow and that the sympathy friends were offering was unearned.
That these were First World problems.
That my feelings were illegitimate.
That I had life pretty darn good.
Why wasn't I more curious about other people?
And then came my meltdown at work, for which I hope I remember forever that I love Michael.
I didn't even know the name of the experience until I read it in a blog. The day after the day after Mother's Day, as I fought to compose myself by flipping through my Facebook newsfeed, the algorithm served up a link to a blog post where the writer was doing a series about St. Ignatius and his rules for dealing with times of desolation.
No sooner had I read the word d-e-s-o-l-a-t-i-o-n and thought, "ah," than the sun peeked out from behind dark clouds — no kidding, it happened above the skylights in our office.
Looking back, I realize what went "wrong," leading to my undoing, was something very right: Joe, my brother, paid us a visit from Colorado. Seeing this quiet, kind gentleman react to Mom's diminishment forced me to notice certain accommodations I'd erected, how I had been protecting myself behind a jaunty wall of remarks and reports and busy-ness. Not to draw too large an arrow to it, but somebody has needed to carry a lot of weight in the past two years, and my mother appointed me.
But after Joe's calm sorrow and his honesty, realizing how tough it is for my siblings who are not here and don't have a daily routine to help them build defenses, I felt ashamed. I stopped making slick exits from the nursing home and instead tried to observe and be more present. That is intense. Sweet, sad, crushing, ennobling, funny ... intense.
Pile on a few losses in other areas of life — discovering spurweed and burr clover had taken over the yard, for example — and in short order, I was a wreck.
Of course I made a point of following that blog for several days, to read what else Tom Elliott had to say about good St. Ignatius and his surprisingly helpful vocabulary. It helped to be reminded that feelings fluctuate:
"No one lives entirely in consolation and no one needs to live entirely in spiritual desolation. Oscillation between these two realities is simply a natural part of healthy spiritual growth. Consolation will eventually give way to desolation, which will, in turn, give way to consolation again."
And there was this: "that desolation can be an opportunity to grow in patience."
He boldfaced the word patience.
My mother has the sweetest face in all the world.
