And love and thought and joy

Post by J

Last night, R and I watched St. Vincent, a movie with Melissa McCarthy and Bill Murray. In it, Melissa's son attends a Catholic school and is given the assignment of finding and writing about a "living saint."

I was fascinated by this idea, and started to think of all the people I know who might qualify, bringing them to mind one by one. And one by one discarding them as possibilities. Wait - that sounds harsh. I know I have many, many really good people in my life. But to measure up to sainthood?

And now it's the next day and I'm still thinking about potential candidates. I just can't seem to come up with a single person who measures up to my narrow, internal, very personal definition of a living saint. The only person I can think of is no longer living.

My mom had a difficult life. She was born into a dysfunctional family; her father was an alcoholic who died at age 54 and her mother was a classic enabler. She married my dad when she was just 18 and had three children by the time she was 23. She struggled to find her way in the world.

She wasn't perfect and she made a lot of mistakes. She had a rough time when she and my dad were divorced and she made some bad decisions. She drank too much when I was in high school.

She didn't read to me. She didn't take me to museums. She didn't teach me to sew.

But.

She loved people and people loved her. She genuinely cared about others. She was compassionate and she was kind. She was funny and she was silly and told the same stupid jokes over and over. She baked amazing cookies and even more amazing loaves of bread.

Maybe it's just because she was my mother and I have the advantage of hindsight but, in retrospect, she did so many things right. For better or worse she shaped who I am today.

She taught me to work hard, but to enjoy life. She taught me that it's okay to fail.

She believed in me and encouraged nearly every hare-brained idea that I ever had ... after I explained why it was important to me. I knew that if everything in my life went south I would still have a place to fall and that she would take me in.

She suffered, but she rose above it. She had the kind of faith that, if heaven had contributed just 1% of the solution, she would have brought the other 99% to solve the world's problems. She was that sincere and that devout.

And with all of her contradictions and all of her faults, she was the most holy person I think I will ever know. She was truly a living saint for me.

My mother passed away exactly 12 years ago today at the age of 63. I will always miss her.

She gave me eyes, she gave me ears;
And humble care, and delicate fears;
A heart, the fountain of sweet tears;
And love, and thought, and joy.

The Sparrow's Nest

William Wordsworth