Thursday, November 25, 2010

Αιωνία η μνήμη - Memory Eternal

My beloved mother reposed on this day twenty-four years ago. It seems a lifetime and a world away. The proof of the resurrection of Christ in me is her faith, in which she now is safely harbored in life eternal, waiting for the rest of us to arrive, her whole life in God now poured out for others as she always wanted, but could not achieve, on this earth. Out of the sound of her accuser's cries, she rests in the paradise of God. Αιωνια σου η μνημη, αξιομακαριστος και αειμνηστος αδελφη ημων. May your memory be eternal, dear sister, for you are worthy of blessedness and everlasting memory.
I post this at the clock time of my mother's repose, just as I marked it in my Jerusalem Bible, after parsing off the psalms for the twenty-fifth day, the day of her birth (on Christmas) and her death (Tuesday of Thanksgiving Week).

Though these wretches have almost done for me,
I have never abandoned Your precepts.
Lovingly intervene, give me life,
and I will observe your decrees.
Lasting to eternity, Your Word,
Yahweh, unchanging in the heavens.
Psalm 119:87-89
corresponding to 7:30 p.m., November 25, 1986

Biography

My mom was the second child of her parents, Pawel Milewski and Maria Kozinska, the eldest of three sisters, and she grew up in inner city Chicago in the 1920's and 30's. The family was Roman Catholic from Warsaw, Poland. Their house was in a Mafia infested neighborhood, and my uncle, her brother, married a Sicilian. The household was very cultural in a Central European bourgeois sort of way, and it didn't change after the war.

As a child staying there in the 1950's, everything was just as it was in the 20's. I always felt it to be a magical place, another world filled with wonderful things I never saw anywhere else… persian rugs in profusion, rare tropical birds uncaged on their perches and other birds, just as rare, in their cages with the little doors often open, so they could exercise their wings at will, plastic covered overstuffed couches, my grandmother's collections of rare dolls, her little family of rare dogs… pekingese, pomeranian, spits, chihuahua… the half-lot garden which I remember now as being a veritable paradise to explore but which was only a strip of ground two and half yards wide that flanked the house on one side, where the lawn swing was.

There too was grandpa's basement hide-out, his workshop, and the little bedroom in the back porch that had a secret connexion back to the kitchen through a high windowlike opening where a large cookie jar was placed on the ledge, reachable from the kitchen or the bedroom. One always hoped to be invited to stay the night, because of those cookies that could be had without asking.
This is where my mother grew up.
I love this old photo from her first holy communion. Mom is the girl on the right. It would have been taken around 1928. The clothes the kids are wearing, and their non-chalant poses, are so cute. It's nice to know that Mom’s crowd was a lot like ‘the Little Rascals

My mother did not have a happy life, but rather one with a lot of personal tragedy, and as a result she fell away from Christian community from about age 40, and became even more isolated. She and her siblings were a violent bunch, and what could have been a virtue in her, a vibrant and athletic personal energy, gradually decayed into a life of unending vendetta, and a kind of mental illness set in. She made her marriage unendurable, and it ended. Eventually her devotion to her children drove all of them off except me, except that I moved away, first to Canada, then to Oregon, and never to return. So she wrote me often.

From a letter dated January 4, 1974…

I’m always and forever thinking about God, and never—not once—have I blamed God for my unlucky life. Just knowing that God and I know this to be true is what’s keeping me on till God wants me. Even if everyone on the face of the earth ignores me or is angry at me, I don’t care. I have God if no one else, and I’m happy. I can pray and talk to God and I know He hears me. I’m always praying for everyone, but I don’t go telling them, and I ask God to forgive them, because they don’t know any better.

I do not demand from God. I only feel I got what I had coming, and I will get what I deserve. There is only One God, and He only knows. I even thank God for all the bad luck I’ve had. Hard to believe, but it’s the honest truth. And again I say, God and I only know this. I expect to be punished by God, if I need it, but also forgiven, if I deserve it.

I really wish I could be a nun, even at this late age. By God’s standards I am a sinner, but God understands and forgives me, I know. All I ask God is to help me do the right things, to be with me always, there to help me in this way, and to forgive me and give me another chance. All I can do in return is live a life like God wants us to. I never ask God to give me something, only to help me and show me the way to do my best, and never to give up.

You see, I’m not without sin, but I don’t blame God. I ask Him to stand by me and never lose faith in me. I can’t help myself, and maybe I’m taking longer [than I should], but I’ll always keep on trying, because I know God is with me.

I could say more, but I’ll close on this note. We’re all sinners. Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me, a sinner.

And from another letter, written September 2, 1974, these words about her repentance…

I sit and think all the time, how we only have one life, and how people can really waste it, like I did. The only time I feel so good is when I’m trying to go to sleep. I talk to God, and I just can’t explain how I feel and what I see, how it will be when I’m gone. You know, I feel so very happy, and I’m not afraid. God will remember me and forgive me, because I never blamed God for my bad life. I only remember what was good, and how happy I was. The rest that happened was only when I went off [on] the side road, and it took me longer to get back. Remember, it was [when we lived] on Ross Street, you were telling and showing us about that road, and how one can stray. It took me longer [to get back] because the devil was stronger than me. I feel I could have done something sooner and will never forgive myself for straying that long, but I know God will forgive me. So now, all there is for me is the straight ahead road, and I’m sure not turning either way. It’s too close to the end to let the devil win again.

If you’ve read this far, I thank you, brethren, for helping me stop and remember the soul of this dear sister, my mother.

5 comments:

Mother Effingby said...

That was so beautiful, Romanós. Your mother was a humble and lovely woman. Her simple words are what should be in the mind of every Christian.

Ρωμανός ~ Romanós said...

Thanks for leaving your comment, Jewel. My mother's life was and is a mystery to me. My own life is a mystery to me as well.

The Lord's sends us into this world with so many blessings, yet we lose so many of them in our vain striving to obtain more.

Mom's life was so tragic, I could make a movie about it. But then, my life is almost as tragic. I watched Mom's movie; I wonder who will watch mine?

There is something in us—I don't know what it is, or even if it is good or bad—that loves the difficulty, loves the struggle, could not endure a life without opposition, trials and affliction.

This may not be true for some people, or even for most, but it is true for some. Does it run in families? Mom was this kind of person. I am one. Is it by choice? Or were we born that way?

Either way, we know Whose mercy is our need, our completion, and our end. And we only live once.

Fortunately, apart from all religion and philosophy so called, we know our fallenness, we hate it, and we know our Healer is waiting to restore us.

This is why for us there is no other meaning of life. Everything else we do or think is only a delay.

Mother Effingby said...

I often feel about my life the way your mother felt about hers. That I missed God's calling and settled for second best as wife and mother. I don't know if it's the world, satan or just my own regrets telling me this, but I often feel as though I've missed out on God's blessing, somehow. I've learned late in life that God's will for us is to know Him, and to be saved through Jesus. Wherever we are, the time is always now.

Ρωμανός ~ Romanós said...

I'm not sure that she felt she missed her calling or settled for second best as wife and mother, and I am pretty sure you haven't either.

Mom had a typical Polish Catholic mindset that equated the convent with holy life, and marriage with a somehow lesser call.

Mom's great struggle was one that afflicts many women and men, that there was some defect in her marriage. My dad was not her first husband, but I still don't know what happened to her first, and she never admitted being married before marrying Dad, but it later came out that my older sister was my half-sister. My mom tricked my dad into marrying her, and I think that had a lot to do with her feelings of guilt and failure. Covering her tracks overwhelmed her. She destroyed or lost her documents and erased or cut out dates from photos. No one found out her real age till she passed away. She told my dad she was born in 1927 (he was born in 1926) and did not reveal the existence of her first child till after they married.

Mom began life as a religious Catholic living with serious and unconfessed sins, and that set her up for failure. Between her divorce in 1970 and her debilitating stroke in 1977, she was learning that Christ is not a religious figure, but the One whom she now must follow, and all her self-imposed prisons started crashing. During her last nine years as a mute and paralysed stroke survivor her soul went through such transformation, that I knew she had already begun living life on the other side. When death came, it was just the stripping off of a confining garment.

Before her stroke she told me several times, if I could come to her memorial, great; but she said if I couldn't, not to worry because she would not be there anyway. She told me that she was happy because I spent time with her while she was alive.

As it turned out, it was impossible for me to make it to her funeral, and I wrote my brother to explain the situation and also her dispensation. He seemed fine with it at first. But at the funeral an enemy in the family blasted me and cut me out of the family, and since then I have been completely ostracized by them. A friendly cousin whom I have unfortunately lost track of, warned me that this had happened.

This is how my life has been. That's why I say my mother's life is a mystery, and mine is too. Things have happened outside our control that have no possible resolution, destroying everything, yet here we are. God doesn't see things as we do, and as the psalms say, "Though I live surrounded by trouble, You keep me alive—to my enemies' fury! You stretch Your hand out and save me…" (Psalm 138:7).

Mom's life and mine have a lot of parallels, but, so what else is new? Satan lacks a creative mind. His ways of destroying us are not as numerous as God's ways of saving us.

Let me tell you, sister, your comments mean a lot to me, and I thank you.

Andrew Kenny said...

THanks for sharing this Romanos. I'm sure this story will help many people. It is a sad story that almost makes me want to weep. But to see how your mother came to true faith in God is most wonderful and shows that there is always hope for someone who is open to the Lord.May her later life in particular be an encouragement to those who have found life to be a struggle and full of sadness.