I had a miserable week.
I was barely awake on Monday morning when I checked email on my phone. That was a bad idea. I need two things before I check my email; prayer and a cup of coffee. I had neither last Monday and it wasn’t a good thing.
My sister sent an email late the night before to let my siblings and I know that my mom was hospitalized on Easter for complications with some chronic medical issues. She was not doing too well.
I also got an email confirming my daughter Johanna’s hospital admission, for Wednesday. I acknowledged the emails and turned my phone off, turning to prayer and a cup of coffee. I decided to go to see my mom and spend the night at her apartment so that I could touch base with her and give my sister a break.
Before I left, I gave our aide some last minute details to help get ready for Wednesday’s hospital admission and did a load of laundry to make packing easier.
I was just going to spend the night in Connecticut and return by dinner on Tuesday. With good planning, I could handle it all.
On my way to CT, I stopped at the Shrine for Easter Monday Mass and for an Anointing of the Sick for Johanna. The priest exhorted us trust in Jesus and to hand over all our burdens to the Lord, as he anointed the sick and prayed for those of us who take care of them. I met another mom at the service who also has a child with disabilities. I’ve known her a while, but we never have time to share and pray. As I waited for my husband to pick up my daughter, this mom and I took some time together.
I was deeply moved by the Mass, the anointing and the prayer time with my friend. I felt like I had been dipped in a pool of God’s mercy on my way to a small mission of mercy.
Mercy Mission
Mom turned a corner for the better during the time I drove to CT. I was glad to see her smiling face. We spent the next few hours catching up and then she dozed off to sleep. Finally, later in the evening she kicked me out of the room. I prayed over her and kissed her goodnight.
I spent the night in her apartment, admiring family pictures and shedding a few tears for the losses we’ve all had. My older sister died way too young. My Dad died forty days after a terminal diagnosis and everyone else has their stuff. With a large family, there are lots of blessings and sorrows.
Easter Songs
Early the next morning I went to daily Mass at my mom’s parish. The church was decorated for Easter and we sang Alleluias throughout this Easter week liturgy. As I joined in on the prayers and reflections, I thought about the week before- Holy Week- where we spent our time focusing on the Passion and death of Jesus on the Cross. They were somber celebrations that paved the way to Easter.
This year, the Easter Vigil was especially exciting for us because I was Godmother to a beautiful young woman who was being baptized and received into the Catholic Church. She had a tremendous conversion from a place of misery to live a new life in Christ. I was very blessed to witness her conversion and walk beside her these past 8 months as she prepared to be baptized.
Misery
After mass at my mom’s church, I headed up to the hospital to sit with her again. Then, I got a call from NYU. As it turns out, they moved up the admission date for Johanna till Tuesday (ugh) and I had only hours to get to NYC. I was so glad I did that load of laundry before I left.
After just an hour with my mom, I was on my way to NYC to meet my husband, Johanna and her aide at NYU.
The next 24 hours were very difficult and made for a pretty miserable hospital stay. This was our first transition to adult care for my daughter since she turned 18 last summer. Despite my preparations, records and notes that indicated her cognitive disabilities and her primary diagnoses, the doctors and nurses on the adult floor just didn’t get it.
They directed so much to her, treated me like I was just being a control freak, even though my daughter indicated she needed help. On top of all of it, unlike in Pediatrics, where they expect a parent to stay, there were no sleeper chairs for me. Recall the saying, ‘When Mama ain’t happy, NOBODY is happy!”
I tried. I really tried. I kept telling myself that this foray into advocating for an adult with disabilities was educating me for the journey ahead for our family and others. Our needs were not being understood.
Misery and Mystery
In the midst of this misery, God’s Mercy was evident. I drew on the strength of our Holy Week and Easter celebrations. I thought about how in the sufferings of Christ our misery is transformed in God’s mercy to become part of the eternal mystery of God.
When I reflected on the mercy of God, I saw less of misery in my situation and more of the mystery of God. For example, as I stood in the hallway with Johanna waiting for her to go into the operating room, I noticed a family ahead of us. An older man in a wheelchair kissed his wife, daughter and son-in-law a tearful goodbye as he was wheeled into the operating room.
As they walked past us, a nurse consoled them and the wife cried that it was her husband’s fifth surgery. I felt her pain, even though our fifth surgery was over eighteen years and eighty surgeries ago. In my own misery, I wanted to tell her this was the ninety-second time Jo was making this trip. But I didn’t. Instead I chose to pray for God’s mercy to surround this family and give them peace.
I kissed Jo’s sleepy face goodbye, made the sign of the cross on her forehead as they wheeled her to the operating room to put a bolt in her head and a monitor in her brain. Then I got on an elevator.
When the elevator doors opened, the family I was praying for stepped in. I found myself right behind the upset wife- in a perfect place to pray for the merciful love of God to pour over her grieving spirit. I quietly prayed as we rode the elevator together.
I didn’t even know them, yet I felt so connected. Misery and mercy does that to our hearts.
As I opened my heart to God’s mercy, my misery became a party of the mystery of God. When I focus on God’s mercy, rather than my misery, a deeper mystery of God’s love is revealed.
Don’t get me wrong. We still had a miserable week.
In fact, it got worse as the week went on. But while the misery did not let up, neither did God’s mercy. And that mercy led us deeper and deeper into the mystery of God.
In the Catholic Church, we celebrate the Feast of Divine Mercy today, on the first Sunday after Easter. Focusing on God’s infinite love as it flowed in the blood and water from the side of Jesus as He hung on the Cross, makes the message of Easter all the more powerful.
Christ’s misery was transformed through mercy to impart the mystery of God in Jesus’ rising from the dead.
Without the Cross, there would be no Resurrection.
The Resurrected Jesus still has wounds. He reminds us that in His merciful love, our misery is transformed to become part of the eternal mystery of God.
Eileen Benthal is a writer, speaker and wellness coach with a B.A. in Theology from Franciscan University. She is the author of Breathing Underwater: A Caregiver’s Journey of Hope.
Eileen and her husband Steve live in Jamesport and have four young adult children. Their youngest, Johanna, is a teenager with special needs.
Eileen can be reached at FreeIndeedFreelance.com.
