Living with Great Grace and Courage
Cecilia…Voice of the Feminine Spirit…
and tears are knocking at my eyes.
Yesterday marked the one year anniversary of my mother’s funeral.
My sons and husband and daughter-in-law and I stood guard
at her snowy grave while her casket was lowered into the hole.
I wanted to make sure that she wasn’t alone on her last journey.
They wanted to make sure that I was good.
This morning,
I attended the beautiful funeral service of the mother of my sons’
second-ever-outside-of-the-family babysitter. (The first was a lovely woman from Peru who returned to Peru when Baby Jack was still a baby so she didn’t know Andrew.)
Kirstin was 19, a student at Loyola University.
We talked about my having been a student in Rome.
And then a graduate student in Paris.
We talked about how much she wanted to travel
and how she loved film and photography…
and learning in general.
We connected at such a soul level.
Of course, I was old enough to be her mother.
In fact,
after Andrew was born, Baby Jack was invited to be part of a film.
When she and I went to the studio with both boys, Jack, age 2 and Andrew a newborn,
the young woman looked at me and then at Kirstin
and said to her, “Oh! you brought Grandma along! Cool!”
I said to her, rather icily,
“No, I’m the Mom.”
She was mortified and kept digging her grave
until I finally told her she needed to stop talking
and it would all be fine.
Kirstin and I have stayed in touch over these 29 years
as she traveled through Italy, came back to Chicago to study film
as a second bachelor’s degree, as she worked in and found love in Germany,
where she now lives with her and Jan’s two daughters.
Kirstin and her Mom were very, very close,
a relationship I’ve admired for as long as I’ve known Kirstin.
I spent only some time with her Mom,
but I knew Kirstin
and I watched her, confident and strong and strong-willed
from the first,
gifted and generous and kind.
Today, at her Mom’s funeral,
Kirstin shared—with great grace and courage--who her Mom was for her family
and for everyone.
I admired how kind she was,
how generous she was,
how loving she was,
where she came from and how she had evolved
into such a powerful and loving force in her family’s life.
I know that Kathy shines through her daughter’s
loving heart and eyes,
love of life and her own daughters
and of the world in general.
I feel their love,
their incredible bond…
There are countless mothers,
as the priest noted,
and not all of them are as good at what they do as Kathy was.
I pray that
I am able to be such a Mom—
a presence of loving support,
offering the right words of solace and hope
in the moment,
of kindness and generosity, first to my family
and then to the world at large.
I admire Kathy by admiring Kirstin.
I’m grateful that Kirstin’s and my paths crossed so many years ago
and that we remain an important part of each other’s hearts.
I know this is impossibly hard for Kirstin right now and in such profound ways.
I pray that she feels and knows, if not today, then in her time,
how, by living as deeply herself as she does,
she is honoring her mother’s legacy
in unimaginably beautiful ways.
May we all seek to live our deepest selves.
Blessings,
Paula.
