It was about four o’clock on Thanksgiving eve. I had just put pumpkin and pecan pies into the oven and was stirring cranberry sauce on the stove. Suddenly, I wanted to call my mom so much I could hardly stand it. She died ten years ago at age 93.
She and I used to talk almost every day in the late afternoon. This time can be tricky for those of us who live alone, negotiating that transition when people used to be arriving home and aren’t anymore. There was no one else to call that I hadn’t talked to already that day, and an aching loneliness filled the room.
Usually I do pretty well, but the holiday, the familiar recipes, the dishes that were hers that I was using to carry things tomorrow to my daughter’s house for the holiday meal, and the sad news blaring from the radio about suffering in every corner of the world brought me down.
My parents, my aunts and uncles – save one who is close to 100 —are gone now. I loved some of them, was befuddled by others, and downright annoyed by one, but they were a constant in my earlier years. Now I am an elder and I haven’t adjusted to that. I wonder if they did. They seemed so much older when they were the same age I am now!
I think that the ache we feel at such times is a testament to the depth of the connections we had with those gone before us and the eternal nature of love – although we never would have called it that in my family—not in a million years!
Funny but I don’t have any of their pictures around the house – not even of my mother — only one of my grandmother that sits in a gold frame on my dresser. She has her arms on my shoulders like a guardian angel. I am about five and holding up the dress she had given me, with its plaid taffeta skirt and velvet top. And it was Christmas.
We don’t have the deep allegiance to ancestors that is present in many cultures and traditions such as Native American, but I have been feeling it lately. So when Bishop Steven Charleston (who is Indian) sent this out on Facebook, it healed my holiday-weary soul. May it help you, too.
“When the hour is late and the world is quiet, when prayers are being said and dreams are being sought, then the space between this life and the life to come draws thin, and if you look with eyes of the Spirit you will see your ancestors watching over you, watching just beyond the candle light, keeping their gentle vigil through the night, offering their wisdom in words too still to speak. You are being blessed by those who loved you most. You are safe in their care. The air around you is filled with a ceaseless benediction, your life held secure in hearts as pure as holy.”
I hope so.
See you in church.
Barbara
