As I recall Claire Oliver’s words: “I will lovingly accept the ‘bad’ and ‘the good…and try to see everything that happens as a gift of love. (From Maxim 10 1 E).
My youngest sister Cathy died very suddenly at the beginning of May – which sent her immediate family – husband and daughters, as well as her 7 remaining siblings and friends into deep grief and shock. “This cannot be true, I just played cards with her on Saturday night; I had breakfast with her two days ago on Mother’s Day; I had a long chat with her on the phone not three days ago…”
My dear sister, Cathy.
My acceptance of Cathy’s death took some inner work and acceptance of my own feelings of loss and down-right anger at what happened to her.
Why? Why her? She’s too young. The family needs her, she was the connector for the rest of us.
Going into an 8-day retreat in August was going to be time that I could get some direction around how to really live this new reality with a deeper faith and trust. So, with my ‘take charge’ attitude I was going to find out some answers to my questions. As I sat one morning quietly by the window asking God about the day Cathy died my questions were: What was it like? Was she afraid? Were You with her? Who else was there? Did she just take Your hand and look back at all of us and wave goodbye? Is she okay?
“I SAT ASKING GOD, WHY?”
Sitting with these questions and letting them just be in the universe and outside of myself, I closed my eyes and waited. Suddenly, I had a sense of inner peace and could hear Cathy laughing and clearly saying to me “Gotch ya!” Her laughter and those words often came when she knew she had one upped me on something- so I knew intuitively that this was a response from her.
Keeping my eyes closed, I saw my parents, my other sister Mary Jane and her husband Don standing with some of the members of the Community who were significant women in my life and who loved me – standing with Cathy and they just said “Ann, Cathy is fine, she is with us – with all of us who loved you and she will be okay.” I was overwhelmed and thought - I’ve lost my mind here! When I shared this with the Director later that day her words were: “Ann, you have had a visit from the Communion of Saints…and Cathy is among them now.”
My remaining days of retreat were filled with the gift of looking at death and not being afraid – and I spent time with the following quote from John O’Donohue:
“Death is actually a re-birth. Where does the soul go? It goes nowhere (Eckhart). The eternal world is not some faraway galaxy-but it is HERE. The dead are here with us, invisible to us, but we can sense their presence. They are looking out for us. For the dead, time is a circle. Eternity is pure presence, pure belonging. When you are in the eternal, you are outside of nothing. You are within everything, enjoying the fullest participation. There is no separation. You are embraced in the purest circle of LOVE. You are everywhere and you are nowhere. BUT you are in complete presence – DO NOT BE AFRAID. (Walking in Wonder)
As I go forward this new year, I choose to live into the deeper meaning of this Maxim as I continue to “see everything that happens as a gift of LOVE.”
-Sister Ann MacDonald, csj