Here in Massachusetts, the last two winters have defied the long, slow warming of the earth and stubbornly reverted to the heavy snows I remember from my childhood. There was snow on the ground from December 19 to the start of March, and the usual clock of spring has been set back. The crocuses are just now struggling out, alongside the daffodil shoots, which usually they precede by weeks.
This is Latarae Sunday, the half-way point in Lent for the Catholics, a stop on the way to the Easter festival of springtime and rebirth.
Our Aunt Annemarie is very ill, and my Aunt Mary has come from New York City to stay. She, my mother, and Aunt Carol will head to mass at Holy Name, the church around which eighty years of family cycles are gathered. Now, Annemarie is a very tough ancient person, so she just might stick around awhile longer; but folks are gathering because she's in a tough spot.
Here's the amazing thing to me about this aunt: she is a woman who raised nine children, who, in turn, brought her an enormous pile of grandchildren, sons and daughters in law, and great grandchildren. As one of eight brothers and sisters herself, she is additionally a matriarch in an enormous extended clan of nephews and nieces and cousins galore. Not to mention the countless number of old friends and parishoners and church committees and neighbors for whom she also has always found room in her life.
And yet, out of this giant crowd, for some inexplicable reason, she is always absolutely happy and joyful to see you, the individual.
I mean, you think her heart would get full, not to mention her memory. Yet, in all the years I have known her, I remember this phenomenon happening. One sees her after many months and miles of distance, and boom, her face is just alive with sweetness, and being absolutely pleased as punch to see you, and she wants to know all about your life and your day, and even if, perhaps, there's nothing very remarkable and amazing about those things, she's just very, very happy for you anyway. Because you're here.
Somewhere around there is probably a human so utterly rotten to the core that Aunt Annemarie would not be happy to see them, and all I can say is, I am glad I am not that person.
She's also a really enormously dedicated and faithful and unshakable Catholic, in a way that really makes you envisage a highway that goes straight to heaven and a shiny Holy Express Bus that may be pulling up to the curb.
So this morning we're thinking about spring, and things continuing on and coming back, and also about death, and things ending. When you have a person like Annemarie, who's been living life so absolutely brim full of days and hours and years well-spent, you can't really mourn about an ending, because she's done it all so extraordinarily well. There's a lot more profound things that could be said about her faith, her family, her generosity, her persistence through hard times and good times, but I'm hoping that elegy time might not yet have arrived.
But you mourn for her beloved husband brother and sisters and sons and daughters, to not have that love here with them anymore, and a little bit for yourself as one of the one million people she was always happy to see.
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