All Things…

I share with your today something I often carry in the quiet.

I carry a deep ache, a longing, a grief as I watch my mom slowly slip away from here dementia and I don’t like to talk about it, but I have felt God tug at my heart to step out of this place of hiding my feelings and write more about it.

I started a book last year, the title “ALL THINGS” from one of my favorite scriptures Romans 8:28

“And we know that for those who love God all things work together ^hfor good,⁸ for ⁱthose who are called according to his purpose.”

All things…not just the happy moments, rather often the painful ones are when the deepest transformations come.

As soon as I started to write the book I stopped. Not because it was too painful to write, not because I don’t have the time, not because I lost inspiration. I stopped because of fear of sharing, of being told I was wrong, of drawing pity from others, or this tiny part of me not wanting to embarass my mom…because I do not want her to only be known by this.

I realize now as I sit here holding my youngest baby, missing my mom so deeply though that writing about this is honoring her. There is a deep love between a mother and child. I feel it with my own children, and the absence of it with my mom.

My mom was the one person that I knew no matter what would always love me. My mom was the one person I knew that I could run to and share the worst of things (which I did as a teen often) or the best of things…we laughed, we cried, she prayed A LOT for me, and we walked through so much life together.

It only makes sense that now there is an emptiness where those conversations have stopped, and a confusion in my heart because she is very much alive and very much here, but different due to her disease.

I know she knows me. On my Birthday, it may sound crazy, I could feel her thinking about me. As a mom I know that connection with my children that she used to always tell me I ‘didn’t understand until one day I was a mother” and now I do.

This is the first time she has not come after I have given birth, and it is felt. My stepfather popped by for a visit to meet Judah and that was such a beautiful gift because I truly believe as “two become one” in marriage he carries the peace of my mom with him. Yet we both felt that absence…she was not here.

What do you do with the ache? What do you do with the tears streaming down your face? What do you do with the grief that comes out of nowhere?

This may sound insane to say…but that grief, that ache, that tear…it is a gift. The Love that I have is deep and powerful and the pain that I feel in the suffering is transformational…through grace, in time, as I surrender.

I was in church this past week sitting before the side altar after confession crying and praying my penance and I heard our Lady speak into my heart the words she spoke to Juan Diego…”Am I not here, who is your Mother?”. She is here with me, she is holding my mom…and she is not the consolation prize, or to replace my mom…rather she is here to walk with me as her heart knows ache and loss like no other as well as the grace found in Romans 8:28.

ALL things…even deep things for good.

So starting now…this week I am starting back to write how through loss the Lord is teaching me about life. The gifts found in grace. And my prayer is each chapter, each word, each thought gives honor to the gift of my mother and in writing the book she always encouraged me to write.

To the friend reading this who is in the messy middle of grace, I want to encourage you to no give up hope, to not rush to the end, to not waste the time you are in shaming your feelings…sit with them in Grace, with God, with our Lady and know you are not alone…

Blessings & Peace