… Call me and bid me come to you … I wrote about that prayer a few weeks ago.** It became important again Sunday.
I’m going to a funeral this morning. A lady I’ll call ‘Marion’ died last week. She was ninety-nine years old. Her daughter stopped me in the communion line Sunday morning to be sure I knew, so that I could come to the funeral. I’ve been thinking a lot about Marion and how she exemplified a certain kind of relationship.
I moved across the country thirty years ago, and my new parish met in a community center with folding chairs and no kneelers. The pastor was not very friendly and I felt quite lost, especially since I had little children who were misbehaving during Mass. Marion and her husband were members of that parish and she always smiled at me, making it clear that my fussy children were not a problem to her.
At some point in my struggles with the children, I knelt down on the floor during the Consecration and two things happened immediately. I saw the absolute forest of backs and legs that was all my young (and short) children could see when everyone stood up. And my children decided somehow that if I were down in that forest with them, then they would behave.
Lots of people were scandalized that I would kneel. I was actually admonished — from the altar during Mass — to stand up. Fortunately, it was a visiting priest so it was easy to ignore him. People do kneel for very philosophical and important reasons but I wasn’t doing it for those reasons. I was doing it because my children behaved when I was down at their level.
And Marion smiled at me. Marion, who had loads of children of her own about whom I knew nothing, watched me, as the young mother, struggle over several years and encouraged me with her smiles and sweet hellos.
A new church was built down the road and both ‘Marion’ and my family migrated to it. Over the course of several years my parents both died and I had a very sick child. Marion’s husband also died. She wasn’t attending church at the same Mass time as we did, so I didn’t see her. Or possibly, she was sitting in the back while we sat in the very front. I had learned my lesson with small children. But Marion remembered me and my (no longer) sick child. When I started teaching, and her grandchildren showed up in my classes, she made sure the connection was clear.
I think that’s just who she was. She was kind in the strongest and most powerful way, and she shared it with her Mass going friends. Her smile, twenty and thirty years after I first met her, was still the same. I hadn’t seen her at church recently, and had vaguely assumed that death had already reached her, without me knowing. I attended a lot of daily Masses in the years when I taught. The regular attendees become a presence in each other’s lives, even though I seldom learn the names. And then they vanish, especially older women. So I assumed Marion had already been called to eternity.
But she hadn’t. I’m incredibly grateful that I was told about the funeral. The life of the spirit that is shared between people who only see each other at church functions is a very real thing. And it doesn’t end at death, which is a lovely thing. Marion let me, and my children, into her heart. She herself had children, and grandchildren, and great grandchildren, and even great-great grandchildren. (It happens when you are ninety-nine years old.) She had plenty of other people to think about. I’m blessed that she also thought about my family. If I had to guess I’m not the only stranger she drew in, with that lovely smile.
Rest in Peace, Marion. Eternal light shine upon you.
**
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