Mom in the Ever After

She always seemed invincible to me, so strong mentally and physically, so vibrant and full of vigor and life. She was always there, ever present, ever ready to advise, support, affirm, console, love. But one year ago this week, my dear Mother passed through the veil of life. And though she was as prepared as she could have been, I sure was not.

For one full year, I have not been able to write anything about my Mother because there just weren’t adequate words. Her life could fill a riveting book, it would teach readers so many valuable lessons, and it should be made into a movie. I was supposed to write that book, she told me years ago. But I can hardly write this. She’s supposed to be here still, how can she be gone from this life? How do I even think about that?

Throughout 2023 her health was declining, she was seeing many doctors but was also preparing for what she knew was soon to come. “I’m going to die soon” she told me in one shocking moment in a phone conversation we regularly had, usually about all the latest family events and health issues and home repair issues and business matters. She had all of that covered so well, knew most everyone’s ‘latest’ and wanted to hear what she hadn’t yet learned about us all. But in that moment, the certainty she had in that shocking statement threw me, hard. My comeback was “you sound so sure” to which she said “I am.” Not willing to accept that, I rather jokingly asked “How do you know? Did God tell you?” “Yes”, she said. And she sounded certain. It was jarring.

I made more visits to her, two states away where she lived near our family. I so wanted to have one on one talks with her to ask her thoughts about life ending here and a new one beginning in eternity, how she thought about that, what her feelings were, whatever she wanted me to know.

She wanted me to know plenty, but she had been telling me things over the course of years, especially the latter few, and most especially the final one. She asked me and my priest son to please take a 24 hour roundtrip flight into town to spend just that time to go over some final concerns of hers about the last things before her last hour. We did, and she filled that brief time with wishes she had for special prayers, hymns, her funeral liturgy, her obituary, things she had to tell us face to face and she wanted to know that we heard it and knew what she wanted. We did. And she was relieved. Happy. It was hard, very hard, for us, for me, to consider.

I once told her I didn’t want to engage her ‘when the time comes’ conversations because I needed her to live as long as I do, but would ‘allow’ her to go just one day before me (lightheartedly did I say that), that’s how much I loved and needed her. She just laughed and said ‘oh honey, my time will come long before yours, and I want you to know these things’.

But for months over 2023, when I visited her again and again, her health was declining so much, the opportunity to talk about her evolving thoughts about nearing the end of this life and approaching the ever after just didn’t happen. She was suffering medically, physically and interiorly and it wasn’t the time to have a discussion we should have had earlier.

I had been in to see her in June 2023 again, my son and I got \back in for a visit in July, and she was declining. I planned to return the third week of August on a date she herself had chosen, knowing my son needed to go abroad before then. But on that day, instead of flying out to Europe, he changed plans when I got the call from the hospital that my Mother had been brought in to the Emergency Room. My family was gathered there, and after talking with doctors, I had to get ready to fly in asap. My son came with me. It was time.

We prayed beside and over her and at first she was barely aware, but still was. Only hours later, she slipped into less and less consciousness, but her hands still moved and grasped at times. When the family left and only the two of us were there, he and I prayed what she asked to be prayed over her. It was beautiful. As we prayed the Rosary, her hands raised in the air, fingers grasping for something. She was praying with us.

We prayed the Divine Mercy Chaplet, then some spontaneous prayers, and told her things we wanted to say. She grew more peaceful.

I told her that if God wanted her to be with Him as much as I wanted her to be with me, I would give her over to the Lord, and I asked that she please commend us, her family, to God on the other side. ‘Put in good words for us, please, Mom!” I appealed, choking back tears.

The next day, August 14, Mom was the most peaceful she had been in months. She was settled, calm, seeming barely to be breathing. My brother-in-law the Marine stood watch over her. My son the Priest stood watch over us all. And at the threshold of her hospital door, as we were talking, she was slipping over the threshold of life, through the veil between this one and the eternal one, the ever after. It was surreal. For her, probably all glory. For me, total grief.

I put my head on my son’s shoulder and cried. After the declaration was made, the wonderful staff left the family alone with Mom for as long as we needed, and closed the door. We held hands and prayed around and over her, and I sobbed.

At that moment, and every day since then, now a full year, I have prayed for her and talked to her. ‘Where are you right now, Mom? What does it look like? What do you see? Who do you see?! Is all the family with you there? What do you hear? Do you hear my prayers for you? Please pray for all of us here, our family, your family. We love you so much. We miss you so much.’

She was always so beautiful, every day of her life, all the way through her suffering and final breath, just three weeks shy of her 92nd birthday. I can only imagine the beauty her resurrected body and soul brought into the hereafter.

In our faith, we believe we will be united again for eternity, in what is now unimaginable light and peace and sheer glory with the Lord, the Heavenly Hosts, the saints and angels. And our faith informs us that we should continue to pray for the dearly departed to have eternal rest in peace, and that if they are not in Purgatory but now in Heaven, our prayers will go for those in need of them, for whom no one may be praying.

So many people I know have lost loved ones, especially parents, even children, which is unimaginable grief and suffering. But so, too, is the glory of the Lord unimaginable. And that is the one sure, true thing that gets us through everything else. The one thing necessary to focus our attention and efforts on, no matter what. Now, and forever. And ever, amen.