“Most blessed are you among women, and blessed is the fruit of your womb, Jesus." Elizabeth and us daily!/Pondering the final year of my parents

Dad and I about 4 months ago with a gift from a family member of masks with the Twins - how my father loved to watch the Twins!

I am using my pictures over the last year and a half today as I got a call from a special friend, who is dealing with a time with her aging parents where they need to have someone there 24/7.  How I remember that feeling a year ago on our 41st wedding anniversary - August 3rd, 2019!  Dad was hospitalized with a near fatal bleed in his bladder, and we were looking at a nursing home stay for him and our mother, with her ever increasing dementia was not anywhere near able to be alone in the home they had been living independently in.

Dad and mom close to their 71st anniversary in August here in my home.  Mom died quickly in a day on March 16th in the Assisted living in New Hope we had moved my parents into after 3 siblings and I had started a rotation from early August to early October in their home.  The 4 of us took a part of the week and stayed with my parents 24/7 after my dad returned home and got better under our care and help.  They needed meals made for them, cares done for them including showers, and a sister and her husband came in weekly and cleaned for them.  How I now cherish those midweek days that I had with the two of them!  We had no idea that in a little over a year they would both be gone 7 months apart!

Dad at my mother's funeral, which we had 4 months after her death.  We had her funeral mass on July 18th the day after what would have been her 91st birthday!  Dad certainly rose to the occasion and traveled 4 hours up to Taylors Falls and back and spent the night with my brother in his home after a outdoor celebration for mom with family outside at his home.  Dad marveled at all that my brother and his wife did for them and continues to do!

3 were unable to attend, but dad get all of his children around him for his passing on October 23rd - his funeral mass happened on October 31st!

My mother had a very hard time with her increasing dementia... moving from their wonderful home she so enjoyed in St Croix Falls, but it was evident with winter coming that we could not continue to do our weekly rotation.  We took the next step and moved them from their home into Assisted Living in New Hope in the first week in October.  

The move started with them bringing them to my sister's home just a few blocks from their Assisted Living, and the men moving their bed, couch, and their chairs down into their new home, so that they could be at home there on their first day.  The change seemed to go smoothly and their TV and bookcases were put up much the same to make it seem like "home."  Mom and dad would dress and be out across the hall for meals at 8a, 12n and 5p.  They seemed to rise to the new schedule, but I guess that mom would tell dad that she missed her home and wanted to return there.

The two bookends - I am the oldest and sister, Carol is the youngest of 11.  There are 13 years between us!  That is a lot of kids in a short time, and we are now numbering 130+.  This is Monday and every Monday dad would pray for All his family - first and middle names!  Dad and I did the work for the 6 months that he lived here with me!  

This morning at 12a - I found myself in our Adoration chapel - St 's chapel, praying the litany of both Pat's family and mine - it adds up to over 250 as I add many of my dead from stillbirth and miscarriage - 7 for me, 6 from my kids = 13!  I have to smile as often now I will add a middle name to our bunch!  I know that dad is right there praying with me!  Love and miss you dad, and I know that you are praying more perfectly for us from heaven with mom, too!

Mom with the Blessed Solanus relic, which they rushed to pray over John with at this time 11 years ago when his cancer had grown back and he faced whole brain radiation.  He is now here with me and continues to join our Communion of Saints - so many that help us in our needs.

I now have this chair of mother's here, and it feels like a hug when I sit in it!  Love and miss you sweet wonderful mother of mine!

Nancy visiting mom and dad in their home a year ago last summer.  Introducing George to them for the first time as they had just moved here from Kansas City to Delano.  It was special to have George here quite a bit this summer while Nancy and Bill were busy in a huge competition they later won with Our Sunday Visitor.  Dad and George got quite comfortable with each other.

George sitting peacefully on great-grandpa's lap while the other 2 boys his age, Jude and George scream their heads off.  A picture of life and picture proof of how George and great-grandpa had become comfortable with each other in the time they shared here.

My 19 grandchildren with my father just 2 months before his passing.  I had no idea that it would be that quick as there was no end in sight with his maintaining weight and staying sharp and all the work we did together in our prayer for the family.

One part of our work we shared was a daily rosary and chaplet added to our prayer of the Church morning and evening. Today is the Visitation from Luke 1 - Elizabeth says the words that dad and I said with her 53 times each day at 3p!  "Most Blessed are you among woman and blessed is the fruit of your womb."

Mary set out in those days

and traveled to the hill country in haste
to a town of Judah,
where she entered the house of Zechariah
and greeted Elizabeth. 
When Elizabeth heard Mary’s greeting,
the infant leaped in her womb,
and Elizabeth, filled with the Holy Spirit,
cried out in a loud voice and said,
“Most blessed are you among women,
and blessed is the fruit of your womb. 
And how does this happen to me,
that the mother of my Lord should come to me? 
For at the moment the sound of your greeting reached my ears,
the infant in my womb leaped for joy. 
Blessed are you who believed
that what was spoken to you by the Lord
would be fulfilled.”  Luke 1:39-45

Mom and dad on their 70th anniversary on August 30th, 2019 still in their home, but soon to leave for Assisted living. 

 Life was to take a huge turn for them... 5 and 1/2 months together in Assisted living, mom falls and dies in a day on March 16th, Dad alone with the world pandemic not allowing us to visit, dad goes into Vets for a checkup on April 14th, and they put a tube into his kidney on the left side unexpectedly due to kidney failure, offer him hospice, which he rejects, his assisted living will not take him back with the new tube, we cannot put him in a nursing home... he leaves Vets on April 16th, and we travel 3 hours to my home on the farm - bringing Dad's prediction from 20 years before to truth!  "If mom dies before me, I will come and live with you, Barb, on the farm."  He lived here for 6 blessed months - an entire growing season on the farm, he went on hospice the day her arrived here, and showed me and the world how to have a "natural death."  

Dad bounced back, but his kidneys were worn out and eventually that led to his slow decline here... my hospice nurse helped me accept his passing..."Your mom had dementia, and that was hard to watch.  Isn't it a blessing to say that your father was sharp to the end."  Yes!!!

Their 70th Anniversary!  We had no way of knowing that there would not be a 71st, and that they would both be gone by this Christmas dying just 7 months apart.  Once again dad predicted that he would follow mom soon after she left him alone.

My Joy was praying with the two of them in their home, and yes even in their Assisted living.  

I am eternally grateful to my parents for leading me on such a powerful journey of faith and family!  On Christmas Eve we will reach our 49th anniversary of coming into The Church - all 13 of us!  Each day since has been a gift to me!  And to share "religious life" with my deacon of 44 years, father here in our Farm Monastery was the best and most wonderful parting gift I could have had with him!  Yes, I was tied down here for those 6 months of 24/7  care with the help of hospice, but for the most part it was such a powerful gift of prayer for our family with mom from heaven joining us!

https://familysoulstory.blogspot.com/p/the-amazing-story-of-13-becoming.html

Two weeks before my mother died, Pat took this awkward picture of me.  My mother was wonderful that day and after cropping me out... both of my parents look so peaceful and in the light of Christ.  

Jesus, Mary and , I love you very much, please help the families that need you to find peace and answers to their dilemmas.  The words from the chaplet of Divine Mercy dad and I would say daily come to me here.. "Eternal God, in whom mercy is endless and the treasury of compassion — inexhaustible, look kindly upon us and increase Your mercy in us, that in difficult moments we might not despair nor become despondent, but with great confidence submit ourselves to Your holy will, which is Love and Mercy itself."  Yes, Lord, we submit ourselves to your holy will and die to self so that you may live in us. You are in control in the midst of the storms of life!  Jesus, we trust in you.  Amen and Hallelujah

Dad shortly after moving here getting acquainted with Jude.

Birdie arrived a short time after dad moved here... He went out to mass and her Baptism - all dressed up ( I look like Donald Trump) and surrounded by most of my grandchildren - only missing Maria's 6.  

3 of my children that he baptized at infancy!  He didn't baptize Birdie, but was there to support her on her day of coming into The Church!  So powerful to have my father marry me, baptize all my kids, and marry quite a few of them and preach at their wedding masses, praying over the two boys I lost at stillbirth in the cemetery here in Marshall... Not only did he bring me into The Church with our family, but has blessed me with his ministry as a Permanent Deacon over these 44 years!  Bless-bless, Barbara

My hero of Faith and Family!  I love you dad and miss you a lot!

From dad and St John Henry Newman today.. the title of this meditation...The Church a home for the Lonely!

More!  Wow!

Now from Brother Victor - the O Antiphon for today O Oriens.  I love how he takes me into the beauty of his monastery and prayer of a monk on this the darkest and shortest day of the year!  Come, O Radiant Dawn!

O Oriens for December 21st!

 

The Lord and Ruler will be coming soon,

and his name will be called Emmanuel,

because he will be God- with-us.

Cf Isaiah 7:14; 8:10 (Today’s Entrance Antiphon)

 

 

"After Holy Communion,

we carry Christ within us in the sacramental species

just as Mary carried Him

in His own species for nine months. ...

 

Pregnancy in particular is dense with spiritual lessons:

being 'with child' is the model of being 'with Christ'

in faith, hope, love, in humble service and deepest prayer.

 

Having come, with the Father and the Holy Spirit,

to make His home within me, Christ wants to remain

sub tectum meum, 'under my roof',

the king and centre of my heart.

 

Obedience to God, formed by loving contemplation

and flowering into loving action,

is unending pregnancy, perpetual birth."

 

John Saward

Redeemer in the Womb

 

Top Image: Our Lady of Life and Light
Bottom image: Thanksgiving After Communion

 ~ Alphonse Legros (1837-1911)

Gregorian chants for Advent

Bach Advent Cantata