I Am Said I (Huruma)

It's December 16, 2008 - almost five months since my mother died - and I'm getting ready to go on visitation to our community in Michigan. Grief inhabits me and I inhabit grief to such an extent that I'm simply not up to the demands of my job, the office of Provincial and I wonder if I can keep going. Is it fair on the Province community for me to continue holding a position of responsibility when I cannot fulfil its demands? I'm plodding around all of this mire inside myself when I get a call from a member of the community who, in the course of our conversation, informs me that the "lads" are unhappy with the way I'm doing the job.  But the "lads" have forgotten that my mother is dead and I'm facing my first Christmas without her - the first in 53 years. I'm sure I've also forgotten other people's grief and need to learn from this. The complaint hurls me nosediving to a decision that was waiting to be made. I will re...

August 10, 2008 It seems that every day now is like pushing an elephant up a stairs . I awake each morning to begin hauling myself up all over again. What was achieved yesterday seems to be of no use for today. I am somehow disconnected from life and fiercely connected to loss. It’s like a massive hangover, without having had the pleasure. “You have veiled the Godhead in a cloud, in the clay of our humanity” (St. Catherine Of Sienna) The Lord veiled His divinity in the clay of Mam’s humanity, most especially in the ending of her time on earth - the final ten days. The Office Of Readings today has the lovely reading from Hosea 11 and I have experienced the tenderness of that love. The night before she died Mam drew me down to her, holding me to her cheek. I had asked her if she knew who I was and she opened her eyes, smiled and said, “you are Eamonn Monson, my lovely son”. She drifted into sleep still holding me, and in her I believe, I know, that God was holding m...