Bernard’s mother died this week. Her name was Mary. In the 11 years I have known Bernard I’ve only ever heard him call her, Mother. “Mother, how are you today?” “Mother, what happened in the Red Sox game last night?”
I’ve been thinking the last few days about how it went the day she got the call about the accident. It wasn’t the first call of its kind that she had received. Mary was, after all, a mother of 9. You can’t have that many chicks on your roost and not expect that from time to time one or two is going to fall off and even fall away. And sure enough, some did. A couple seemed to have decided that the roost was simply too full; too many chicks sharing the same room, the same bathroom, and they flew away in search of their own house to call home. I don’t know if they ever called to tell Mary they were going. Perhaps someone else had to make that call. “Mother, she’s moved south.” “Mother, I’m sorry to be the one to have to tell you this, but he left a month ago.”
We should be neither surprised nor discouraged to discover that in a house of 9 chicks, 1 rooster, and a hen, there is going to be some clawing, some cockfights, and everyone is going to grow up with some scrapes, bumps, and bruises. Some will even endure wounds too deep to heal. Flying the coop, cutting certain ties, falling in and out of love is necessary trial and error on the road to redemption.
Then of course there is Bernard, my father-in-law with bear paws for hands who lost those paws in a freakish motorcycle accident over 9 months ago. How must that call have gone? “Mother, it’s Bernard. He’s…”
I remember seeing her walk into the waiting room at the hospital. It hadn’t even been 24 hours yet since death had gotten into the ring with Bernard. He had gone from a joy ride under blue skies with his Harley buds to an ICU room with dull lighting that is supposed to make you feel like the person in the bed is just resting comfortably, when the truth is, they’re about to go 250 rounds. The extent of his injuries were so massive that when you entered his room you had to look on the little whiteboard over his bed to see where they’d scribbled his name. Otherwise you might not know who it really was under the sheets. To say the least, only immediate family was allowed in to see Bernard. The other 40 people–yes, 40–would just have to persist (and persist they did) in the waiting room.
When Mary came in there was a muted sense of awe. Her arthritic body didn’t like car rides, even short ones, and the trip to the hospital wasn’t short. Speaking only for myself, it’s a terrible mistake the young make when they try to suggest that old eyes and hearts won’t be able to survive the sight of their unrecognizable children. “Are you sure you want to go in to see him?” I asked her. She didn’t say a word to me, which was, I humbly admit, her way of telling me that such questions are not mine to ask. She walked down the hall, her rosary in hand, and I don’t imagine, not even for a second, that she had to check the whiteboard over his bed to know that it was Bernard she was looking at.
I never asked or was told what, if anything, Mary did or said that day she stood beside Bernard. When I heard about her death several days ago, though, I found myself wondering again. Did she whisper to him? Paul McCartney and John Lennon once famously confessed,
“When I find myself in times of trouble
Mother Mary comes to me
Speaking words of wisdom, let it be”
In her own way Mother Mary was always one to let it be. Let the children who have remained and let the children who have gone to far off places find the door to my home and heart always wide enough for them to fit through it together. Let it be. In this same way, however, Mother Mary was, I think, waging the fight to beat all other fights. When it is love, when it is peace, when it is light, then let it be. Until then, fight like hell.
I don’t know if Mother Mary whispered such words of wisdom to Bernard ever. I do know that Bernard is not much into lying in bed or sitting in chairs these days. Ever since his right leg got a new knee 2 months ago and his left side got a new arm 1 month ago, he is now into going up and down the hallways on the fifth floor at the rehab hospital, learning (because Bernard is caring like this) the name of everyone who is anyone. From the peg-leg woman who lives next door, to the kindly older gentleman who mops the floors to a shine, to the Filipino-accented woman who takes his meal orders and never gets upset when she has to track him down because his lunch is ready and his potatoes are getting cold, to his physical therapist whose full name is rather long and so who just likes to be called Ro, Bernard knows them all and they all know him.
For a few hours each day Bernard goes down to the second floor to workout in the gym. At first it was all he could do to spin a few rotations on a stationary bike or to practice picking up a fork. Now it’s all anyone can do to tell him that a half-mile on the bike and a 400 meter power walk around the gym is probably all he should do. Not so, says Bernard. I may not always be able to make my finger push the right button on the elevator to get me back to the fifth floor but when I get there, my sweat drenched tee shirt will make it look like I took the stairs.
Still, I can’t say w
hat, if anything, Mary did or said that day as she stood beside Bernard in the ICU. I mean, at her age, with all that arthritis and 8 other kids to think about, what could she have possibly given him above a whisper? I just don’t know. But if that’s all it was, thanks be to God for Mother Mary.
PleaseGrace 