My mother always hoped she’d die before my Dad. That way, due to my father’s popularity, she’d be guaranteed a reasonable turnout at her funeral. Though my father predeceased her by more than three years, mother’s worries were unfounded. She was loved, respected and admired in her own right as witnessed last night and today.
Emotions are raw at one’s mother’s passing. No matter how old she was or well prepared, no matter how eager she was for the journey, or how frail her body and mind had become, nothing can prepare you for the loss of your mum. The longer the life the harder the letting go; the more intense her presence the more jarring her absence; the deeper the love the more broken the heart. We don’t feel cheated or betrayed (she lived a long and good life), but neither are we satisfied, for there was life in her yet, and she died in a way we would not have wanted.
Our dominant emotion is one of gratitude. She lived for four score and ten years, a noble and full life. For almost all of that time she was robust, independent, physically and mentally sharp, our undisputed reigning monarch. We marvelled at her wisdom, the well of knowledge and insight she had accumulated and dispensed unsparingly. Her sagacity always astonished us. We delighted in her sharp brain, still on top of things after decades of active service, always clued in, figuring out practical solutions to problems we couldn’t solve, a brain that, even in her final illness, could rattle off epics like Young Lochinvar to anyone willing to listen.
So much has changed since she was born the year of the Wall Street crash; society today bears no comparison to the stable, rural setting of her younger years, but she took all those changes, whether in technology or social mores, or in understanding of the complexities of human relationships and gender and sexuality, in her stride. Change never flustered her.
We adored her quick wit and telling phrase and sharp retort. A skill she passed on to many of the next generations.
We marvelled at her gritty determination. I think of her undertaking those steep, almost perpendicular, lung-bursting walks around the loop on Cape Clear island. One morning, at the summit of the hill, pausing for breath, we encountered a young couple breathlessly pushing a buggy toward us. “Tough walk, this,” the man observed. “Especially if you’re 82 and a half,” my mother retorted. Just as with being faithful to her recent physiotherapy exercises, she met every challenge head on. She refused to be defeated.
We admired her strong work ethic. The Redemptorist founder, St Alphonsus Ligouri, made a vow never to waste a minute; to make good use of every second God gave him. Though she never made a formal vow, my mother also never wasted a second. She always had to be doing something constructive. For years she got up at dawn to milk cows, feed calves, wash churns, care for her growing family, her bed-bound mother.
In her twenties, with her brother George, she trained greyhounds, won lots of races, knew almost every dog track in the country. Later, she kept a large coop of hens and ducks, supplying local shops with free-range produce.
Almost 50 years ago, we installed an ultra-modern milking parlour, capable of milking eight cows simultaneously. It was marketed as a ‘one man milking parlour,’ but my mother asserted there must have been a flaw in the product or marketing plan, because the one man always required the presence of one woman too.
She made and repaired our clothes, knit thousands of jumpers and cardigans, supplied schools with their uniform knitwear. During peak season, she knit five jumpers a day. At night, she would sow or knit as she watched TV. She frowned on idleness. She couldn’t understand how my father and I could watch TV with idle hands and empty heads.
We worshipped her supremely gifted hands. Hands that not only washed and milked and baked and cooked and crafted and wallpapered and sowed and gardened and farmed, but also that bathed the ulcered feet of her own mother, and helped raise 14 grandchildren and two great grandchildren, and cleaned and changed my ailing father when he could no longer do so himself; hands that enthusiastically rubbed my back, easing my chronic pain. Hands that cut her sisters’ hair when they visited from the convent. Dexterous, industrious, sensitive, soothing, graceful, gentle, healing, Godly hands. Hands at rest at last.
We were privileged in her love. There is a classic devotional book by St Alphonsus Ligouri called The Practise of the Love of Jesus Christ, that offers prescriptions for living a holy life. My mother never read it, but she didn’t need to. She lived it. True love is not grasping or self-obsessed or begrudging. It is never selfish or manipulative or self-seeking. True love forgives, serves, sacrifices, empathises, always makes allowances. True love lives for others. My mother was the most other-centred person I have ever known. What made us happy made her happy; what made us sad made her sad; what troubled us troubled her; what delighted us delighted her. She loved us when we did our best; loved us when we let her down. She loved us unequivocally, unconditionally.
She was lucky in her birth family, the Ryan Georges, and in her husband, Mick Moloney, a hard-working, simple, virtuous man – and they were lucky in her. About four years ago, as my father sat wheelchair-bound and helpless, and I sat beside him crippled with back pain, we watched, as booted and rubber glove-clad, and carrying scissors and bucket, she scoured the hedgerows sourcing nettles for dinner (which she cooked with cabbage several times a year). Full of admiration, my father said, “Where would we be without her!” He knew every day of their 55 years together how deeply fortunate he was to have her. Without her he would never have reached the age of 84; without him, she would never have had the purpose and love that gave her life meaning.
She was the classic home bird, spending her life in the house in which she was born on 18 February, 1929. Her life centred on home and family. She was profoundly shy (unlike my father, who loved to talk). During her final year of school, she was sent as a boarder in Doon. She loathed it, she couldn’t bear being away from home, even if the distance was barely a mile. She stood for hours at the top floor school window facing East, hoping to catch a glimpse of any family member making their way into the village. She loved nothing more than being out on the farm with her brother, George, and her father, Tommy.
Lately, she missed no longer having a phone. It was a cry of loneliness, of grief. She didn’t have a phone because most of those to whom she spoke every day were with us no more. Not having a phone represented those she had lost.
She despised old age; hated lacking independence; hated needing constant attention; hated being a burden, hated being unable to knit or play Suduko or do the things she used to take for granted.
My father’s sudden death began her slow decline. It shocked her so much she had a breakdown, post traumatic stress. She never recovered. She used to imagine he was in bed with her, still by her side. When one loses a partner after half a century together, the one left behind is no longer fully alive.
If ever a person was ready to go, it was mother. She prayed for it. She longed to join Mick, and her infant son, and her parents and brother and sisters. Her bags were packed long ago. She was prayerful, devout, righteous, conscientious (like my Dad), who lived the beatitudes, who modelled the Sermon on the Mount. She and Dad were Christians in the proper simple sense.
Today’s gospel speaks of the wise person who built their house on rock, the rock of faith. Mam built her house on the rock of faith. Nothing could shatter it. No storm could bring it down. It protected her through the up and downs, the joys and sorrows of her long, good life. St Paul’s soul-soothing, Spirit-saturated, reassuring words to the people of Corinth were addressed to my mother also: “Eye has not seen, nor ear heard, nor has entered into people’s hearts, what God has prepared for those who love him.”
Mother was our matriarch, our anchor, our stronghold, our shield, our fount of wisdom, our conscience, our rock of ages, our best selves. We were blessed, and will remain forever blessed, to have her as our mother.
Now, going to her place of rest atop her beloved Mick, she can say confidently with St Paul, when his work was done: “I have fought the good fight, I have finished the race, I have kept the faith.”
frommypulpit 