Angela was our adopted Italian grandma who taught my husband and I to cook with garlic and olive oil and how to decorate a table with foods of every color. Growing up in large Irish families, our palates were lacking. But they came alive after enjoying meals at Angela’s house.
Not having family nearby, Angela quickly filled the role of grandma, just after the birth of my second child, my eldest daughter, Anna. We spent Sundays and holidays at Angela’s home. And during one nor’easter we had to evacuate our apartment on the south shore and move in with Angela overnight, only weeks before Christmas. Patiently, our adopted grandma took out her cookie cutters and instructed us in the art of Christmas cookies to keep the kids busy. It didn’t matter the shape and the sizes, all that mattered was enjoying our quiet time in the storm.
A few years and another baby later, I visited Angela for the last time, in the hospital just before she was to have a major heart surgery. I hid my newborn in the baby sling, MaryAngela, to visit her namesake, Angela Mary, as she lie in the hospital bed just before Christmas. We talked about another impending snowstorm and I told her I took out the cookie cutters she gave me to keep the kids busy as the storm raged outside. We laughed and Angela smiled as she reminded me that it’s not important how the cookies turn out, just that you are spending the time with your babies, because life goes all too fast.
Angela died just hours after heart surgery. We cried over our Christmas cookies, the blanketing snow outside slowing down the bustle of life so we could take the time to grieve. Over the years, we learned to cherish those snowstorms, as metaphors of God’s comforting presence in our trials.
The blizzard last week was yet another lesson of God’s presence in the storm. Miriam, our beloved kitty of 16 years suddenly became ill at the end of the day the night before the blizzard. We had grown accustomed to her sleeping more than she was awake. But that night she grew very ill, crying out in pain until I medicated her with the veterinarian’s consent and waited for morning to come.
I slept by her side on the floor next to our fireplace, as floods of memories of this kitten as an angel who slept at my daughter Anna’s head. All these memories caused a holy stillness while blizzard winds howled outside. The inspiration of the Holy Spirit came to me as a comforter and friend, even as my little kitty labored in pain and stared into my eyes.
The next morning, we had to venture out in the blizzard early, and head east to the veterinary hospital before the roads got really bad. I just couldn’t let Miriam go through another 24 hours in pain. I was pretty certain the time had come.
The trees were just newly covered and although the roads were definitely passable, the winds were picking up and limiting our visibility. When we got to the animal hospital, we were ushered into a room. A brief exam confirmed my thoughts that it was time to let her go. Johanna and my husband said their goodbyes and we prayed with Miriam and thanked her for being our little queen.
In the sterile exam room, my veterinarian, who is also my close and trusted friend, helped Miriam slip away peacefully as I held my kitty in my arms. My tears fell softly on her little face as she took her final breaths. I sobbed as my friend comforted me; this was the third goodbye in six months. First my sister, then Johanna’s service dog of 12 years and now our cat who had been with us for 16 years.
While I felt the warmth of my friend, the room felt even colder when Miriam passed. The slowly brewing storm reminded us to begin our trek home. We touched base with each of our kids, who had spent more than half of their lives in the presence of their feline friends.
I decided to stay in the warmth of the car, as I spoke at length with my eldest daughter on the phone. She lives in DC, so they were taking the brunt of the storm and already she was snowed in as a foot of snow pummelled their apartment and held them snowbound for three days. Miriam was her cat. We comforted each other as I shared the details of the night and the final ending.
After we hung up, I watched the snowfall as the winds whirred around me, as I sat in my car, safely parked in the driveway. I know it was a harsh storm for man and beast, but once again I found the quiet in the storm.
There is a profound silence, a hush even, that comes, especially with a heavy snow. Though it was cold, the quiet brought a warmth to my soul and comforted me in my newest time of grief. I couldn’t and nor did I want to, shake that sense of quiet peace that was in the storm. Inside, my emotions raw and my body tired, I paused to grieve and to let go. Outside, the world also paused, forced to stillness because of nature’s impressive display of strength. The Holy Spirit as my consolation met me once again in the blanketing quiet of a snowstorm.
Later, my daughter Anna told me about her friend, who was stranded on the highway for 24 hours, stuck on a bus with high school students who had been in DC for the annual March for Life. She told a story about 500 people who shared their food, and supplies, kept each other warm and comfortable and even held Mass outside as the storm raged on.
Pictures and videos of that “Turnpike Mass,” as it was called on social media, spread like a blazing fire. News outlets around the country reported on this band of pilgrims on their way home from the March for Life, who found Jesus in the blizzard.
I couldn’t help but relate their experience to the way the Holy Spirit met me in this blizzard too. And it prompted me to recall the Gospel accounts of Jesus coming into the storms at sea and calming the raging waves that tossed the disciples to and fro.
In blizzards and in the raging waves, I’ve seen God meet His children in these storms. Whether from without or within, God’s presence brings the calm and gives us strength to ride out another storm, secure that His love will guide us to brighter days ahead.
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 CareforaCaregiver.com.
