One of the reasons I love praying the rosary out loud at Mother's Group and sharing a short reflection on it -- is because it forces ME to actually think about, what I am praying about. Maybe I should trying talking about the reflection out loud as I am praying the rosary at home? I am sure that would go over well !!! At times, when my family is not in a rush, I do do this at family rosary times, but it certainly is not as often as I would like, because it seems we are ALWAYS rushed!.
So, exactly when did the Feast of the Visitation and the Visitation decade make it to one of the profoundest places in my heart?
Well, back in May of 1999, when I was feeling on "top of it all" I suddenly, unexpectedly got very very sick. It was one of my closest brushes with death. I was diagnosed with a very rare illness, that a specialist called it a "random cosmic event." It was in fact a series of tumultuous events that took me in and out of emergency at St. Joseph's hospital dozens of times. It involved visits to too many specialists, it involved just one too many procedures including angiograms, angioplasties, stents and finally ended in renal bypass surgery.
It is a time in my life which helped me see much. It definitely reorientated my thoughts and many of my relationships. I think anyone that has been seriously ill can attest to the fact that the fear and intensity involved in those types of illnesses changes you forever. Suddenly, the notion of life being a gift, is not some remote distant airy fairy idea. It becomes very real, very tangible.
One begins to see one self and those around them in a slightly different light.
It was at that time, I began on a certain level to recognize my own importance, not in a narcissistic way, but a very, very simple way. While laying on a futon in the family room for a few sleepless nights before the bypass surgery, I meditated on life, my brush with the reality of death, my fears and hopes of the upcoming bypass, I battled with much despair and discouragement. My introduction to Fybromuscular Dysplasia came in May and it was now December and so I had had well over 8 months of illness, 8 months of trying to get to the bottom, eight months of living on egg shells being a mother of two very young children, --- who in the middle of all was forced to move from one house to another.... with the pressures of a husband and wife tag teaming on a home based business.
I was sick, tired and exhausted by it all. It was a time where my marriage was heavily burdened. Nothing in me had the strength to deal with any of it. Thank goodness for the supernatural graces that accompany the sacrament of marriage.
There was a remote part of me, that considered dying as being a welcomed break from the chaos, fear and pain that filled my body, mind and my soul. As I lay there a few nights before the surgery, overcome by complete and utter despair and fear, my four year old daughter appeared out of no where at my the side of the futon. As a little child completely unaware of the gravity of the unfolding events, she ran up to her mama, and unexpectedly got down on her knees, folded her little hands as if to pray. Looking up into the skylight in our family room, there she was on her knees and in her own little way she did in fact start to unexpectedly pray...
She looked up through the skylight, as if up into the heavens and she prayed a Hail Mary. She prayed it slowly, deliberately, innocently and sweetly. The innocence, the beauty, the belief, the hope, the conviction and love behind that one simple Hail Mary changed absolutely EVERYTHING for me.
I realized at that moment, that my life did matter, that I did have something to "fight" for. At that moment I was given the grace and resolve to once again, do my best and not let this thing overcome me -- it really dawned on me, that I was special. Only I could be the mother to my children and that NOBODY else in the world could be the mother to my children. In that grace I came to see how much my children actually needed my love, my care, my mantle. I shuddered at the thought of my two precious children being cared for by somebody else. Her one unsolicited Hail Mary marshaled within me the resources I had other wise lost. This precious one little Hail Mary infused me with so much strength. The strength to get up and go at it again. The thoughts in my head began to turn around.
In the middle of that illness, I was infused with the dignity and realization that being a mother was a profoundly important spiritual task. I thought I had already come to that realization. I thought I had already known that, but somehow that grace was elevated within me to a more fervent place in my heart and mind. Sometimes God gives us graces, and then he gives them us again, in a particular way, as if to forge it as a part of our life's mission. I think.
Forgive me, but I am wiping away many tears as I write, but that time in my life, despite it's unbearable suffering, was a time of exponential growth. I thank God for it. I faced so many obstacles and complications in my recovery, I faced so many of my own sins... it was mind numbing, devastating and in many ways haunting. For a very long time after the surgery I struggled on many, many levels. I made it through each moment by clinging on to my rosary, uttering the words, "Jesus, I Trust in You" over and over again. They both became my mantra, my hope and my focus.
I was astonished by all the well wishers and prayers. I was stunned that so many people actually cared, I wondered why I didn't always feel their care at other times, less urgent ones, in my life. I came to see that all the worrying I did over my husbands health, needed to be redirected, in part to myself. I have been neglecting myself.....
As, I lay there one day on that same futon, trying to come to terms that there was one less vein in my leg and it was now connected to my kidney, as I lay there in total utter pain, pain which is impossible to describe... I clung on to my rosary and prayed decade after decade hoping and trusting that their was in fact some meaning behind it all.
Obediently I offered things up, but when I didn't see the fruits of my offerings.. in my humanity I got angry... I was dying to get back to my normal state. I just so much wanted to clean the kitchen, cook a meal, tidy up the kids rooms and I couldn't do any of it. None. I began to see that those little acts, cooking, cleaning, shopping for groceries, preparing a meal, doing laundry -- that each of them too, was a gift. To serve others was a divine gift which at times I had just dismissed or taken for granted.
It is impossible to cover the gamut of spiritual revelations and graces that came to me in this two year ordeal, but I do remember several things. It is so very, very important to visit the sick. It is so very, very important to take the time to BE with them, not just cross them off our list of things -- as if visiting someone sick can be crossed off a list. It is also so very important to pray for the sick and to give them the dignity of time, space and nurturing... so they can heal physically, psychologically, and spiritually.
I faced my own "craziness" in the days after the bypass. I was getting really angry at myself that this "thing called recovery" was taking too long. It wasn't quite fitting into the schedule. It was interrupting too many things. I had to miss my daughter's Christmas recital at school, I couldn't do all of those things I always JUST DO! I was humiliated by needing help. I hated being helpless, I hated being weak and actually needing people to help me shop, clean, drive -- I got extremely frustrated. I am a type A personality that can really push myself to the limit. In the midst of all of this I prayed the rosary and stumbled once again upon the decade of the VISITATION, but this time, it struck me completely differently.
The Visitation celebrates the time when Mary visited and stayed with Elizabeth for about THREE months. There you have it in black and white. Two women staying with each other for THREE months. They both had husbands, they both had responsibilities, and yet in this supernatural visit -- they recognized they needed each other. They probably prayed together, they probably talked together, they probably went to the market together, and cooked together, these two women relished in each others company. It was God's Will that they should visit -- reflect on their life's journey and help one and other. It was then I realized the craziness of my own "sick" desire to "hurry up" get better, "be independent" and be done with this illness.
Tradition tells us that Mary went in haste to visit Elizabeth, tradition tells us that she lived at least 25 kilometers away and tradition tells us that the trip was actually up hill. Mary knowing Elizabeth's state felt called to drop everything and go and help. She didn't point fingers at others who should do it, she didn't look for reasons why she couldn't do it -- she just DID it ..
Through God's grace, I came to see that everything I had learned in any women's magazine any self help book, just didn't apply here. I had to develop a counter cultural approach to viewing my illness. I had to develop a counter cultural approach to being a woman. I was in need of help and it was OK that it was taking time to get better. It really was OK.
I was faced with the reality that many people didn't have the time to help me, but they did have the time for a turn-style visit. I will never forget the women who did have the time, the women who made profound sacrifices and they came to me, almost as a another Mary, to shop, to wash floors, to cook, to pray and just to be with me. What a blessing what a grace.
I began to see that we really do live in a "crazy world" one that at times denies our very humanity, our very need for each other. Can you imagine in today's day and age a woman going to visit and stay with another woman for three months, just because she was pregnant? And doing it out of love for to earn a wage?
In this day and age few people are even showing up at funerals. Maybe it's time to ask ourselves am I really doing what God is calling me to do? Or have I become trapped in a rat race -- that I must get out of.
Please remember that I am praying for you....... and that I love hearing from you! Dorothy
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