I hope he doesn’t mind my telling this story. He knows an abbreviated version of it. When my parents were to be married (Dad was Lutheran) they promised their children would be raised in the Roman Catholic Church.
An earlier story may be relevant to the main issue. At age seven, my younger sister told a nun at CCD (every week we left school early to go to religious instruction) she didn’t need the box with 52 envelopes for giving for the next year. Each envelope had our names on them so they could total our gifts.
The nun insisted. My sister said no. Finally my sister said “I won’t take them because we go to St. Patrick’s on Sunday, not St. Joseph’s!” Oops.
Move forward to four years ago and our mother is in wonderful hospice care. We know she only has a few days to live and her morphine intake is increasing to alarming rates for someone who is down to perhaps 70 lbs.
At dinner I mention a priest in front of my three siblings and my husband. Years ago my mother had said to a priest that if she wanted him, she’d go to church, if she wants a doctor, she’s in the hospital, which she was at the time.
They all said no. No religion, no priests. It took several hours but I finally got them to agree that if Mom said yes to a priest for last rites, it was her decision. Afterwards, to lighten the mood, I made a joke and spoke fake Irish and said I was Father McGuinness (my brother was sipping a Guinness at the time).
The next morning I visited my mother, and everyone else came as well. I talked with the chaplain and told her of our discussion and said my mother didn’t like me very much, never had, so could she broach the discussion of a priest.
She did and my mother said “yes” immediately. I thought she had little time left and the priest had just left for the day. I asked the chaplain to get him back.
An hour later, I left her room to use the restroom and a priest came towards me and said, “You must be Dee, my name is Father McGuinness.” We went into her room and he performed last rites and we all said that we loved her. Unbeknownst to me, my husband said, “I’ll take care of her.”
Fr. M turned out to be the priest of the parish she joined before she got cancer. I gave them a small donation (we were just out of Hurricane Ike) and he called me and I thanked him personally and told him this story.
We just moved to a very Catholic city, I try to stay in touch with my college sociology mentor, Fr. Cap, and there are reasons things happen. I know that my husband is here for a job. I’m here for another reason and someone will tell me what that is and I’ll know what I’m meant to do here.
I stopped by a church for the architecture and while the doors were locked, the plaque outside said the parish was “Three Holy Women.” I’m not religious, but have ended up at out-of-the-way churches giving women money to take care of feral cats, while studying Annunciation paintings in Florence.
I can’t call my mentor or Fr. McG, it’ll come to me. Yes, say that I’m crazy. There’s a lot going on and I need to do taxes, move, fly to an important burial all this month! Who knows. All I can say is thanks for reading and writing! Dee
