BREAKING OPEN THE ORDINARY

By Sandy Prather

One year, not so long ago, I faced the paradoxical situation of welcoming one life into our family and bidding farewell to another. We had gathered for our annual four-day Christmas celebration: my mother, husband, siblings, the children and the grandchildren. It was a bittersweet occasion. My mother had reached a stage of palliative care and was only weeks away from dying; my grandson was only two weeks old.

There was delight in watching my son and daughter-in-law blossoming into parenthood. There was grief as we nursed our mother and watched her slip further and further from us.

In speaking with my daughter-in-law, she remarked on how she thought my son was born to be a father. He was, she said, so confident and conscientious, never hesitating about what needed to be done and never failing to offer it. He was, she remarked, showing her what to do as a mother and she was very proud of him.

Watching the two of them, I could see them growing into their roles as parents. Their focus on their child was total. Cradling and carrying him, responding to every whimper and cry, changing diapers and figuring out feeds, they were present to every need. They cooed to him, spent hours holding him and clearly cherished him.

I thought about this child and how, in his neediness and dependency, he was calling something forth from them. Tenderness, protectiveness and love were drawn out from them as they opened their hearts to him. Their personal wants, needs and time were willingly sacrificed in order to care for him. This helpless baby was, in his vulnerability, bringing about a transformation in his parents. As they moved from self-centredness to other-centredness, their hearts were being shaped. They were learning the lessons of love.

In a more painful way, the same dynamic was happening with my mother and my family. After two and half years of illness and deterioration, my mother’s cancer had brought her to the point of death. Now, bed-ridden and semi-conscious, she required total care. We changed her clothes, spoon-fed her liquids, massaged lotion onto her swollen feet and held and sang to her as she lay helpless in her bed.
Her need called each of us beyond ourselves. It was, at one and the same time, a pain-filled and graced blessing. We discovered patience we never knew we had. Previously untapped wellsprings of tenderness and compassion sprang forth. Our capacity for suffering grew as our hearts were stretched beyond the breaking point. Break they did, over and over. In the breaking, they became larger. We learned what love really looks like.

Parents cradling their newborn have no idea of the journey of the heart this child will take them on. Nor do any of us when we enter into love. The lessons of love will teach us that love is more than sweet feelings.
True love is a serious affair, one that draws you willingly out of yourself into the mystery of another. It will always involve a breaking and a dying, as Jesus well knew, because in binding your heart to another’s, you are also binding your life. Selfishness and ego, our impulse to cling to the self, have to die if love is to survive. For it is in our willingness to forgo the self wherein the fullness of love lies and it is the true grandeur of love. “To suffer in love for another’s suffering is to live life not only at its fullest but at its holiest,” writes Frederick Buechner (Listening to Your Life, 1992, 239).

Presently in my life, at opposite ends of the country, there are two mothers and two daughters facing life and death struggles against illness. It is not the mothers who are in danger; it is the daughters. These young women are literally fighting for life. They are each in their own crucible of suffering.

Their mothers stand with and alongside them. Like Mary at the foot of the cross, they are silent witnesses to the suffering of their children.

Swords are piercing their hearts. They know, as Mary did, that it is a privilege to be where they are. Love requires it and they would not choose to be elsewhere.

The outcome of each of these battles is not determined. But we know that the places of love are always the places where God is present. Where hearts are being broken open in suffering for another, where hearts are being stretched to new depths of tenderness, compassion, gentleness and patience out of love for another, then God is powerfully present. That gives us the hope and courage we need to trust in God’s merciful, generous love as we pray for God’s healing for each of these young women and their mothers who suffer with them.

Prather, BEd, MTh, is a teacher and facilitator in the areas of faith and spirituality. She was executive director at Star of the North Retreat Centre in St. Albert, Alta., for 21 years and resides in Sherwood Park with her husband, Bob. They are blessed with four children and 10 grandchildren.