Saturday, October 31, 2015
There is something somber about the month of November. Perhaps it’s because the church calender starts the month off with a day to remember and honor our deceased friends and relatives. Living in our climate zone probably enhances the mood as we see the sunlight diminish and watch the leaves burst forth in color only to drop to the ground and die leaving the trees, stripped of their fleshy foliage, standing like wooden skeletons.
As a college student in Pittsburgh, I was privileged to hear a lecture by Linus Pauling who was well known for his research on Vitamin C. In his talk, he mentioned how the growing fetus is fairly comfortable and provided for within the womb but at the end of the gestation phase it becomes crowded and creates the need to be born. Pauling then enumerated some of the possibilities available to the new born that were not available in the uterus.
He then talked about the deterioration of the human body as we age and that at death the soul is released from the body as a spiritual being with many new capabilities not available in human form. His viewpoint was that death is not the end of life but a transition to a new way of being. This concept is compatable with that of individuals who have had near death experiences and have supposedly talked to people on the other side of death. I guess we will all find out what is true sooner or later, but it feels good to have a positive expectation.
One year, I happened to be in Mexico City on Halloween, and I signed up to take a walking tour at twilight through the main cemetery. Candles were already burning on tombstones and people were setting up folding chairs and unloading food from containers. Mexicans seem to be firm believers that their loved ones in the spirit world would be visiting them on this All Hallow’s Eve.
The people did not seem to mind the invasion of tourists walking among them. In fact, they were eager to tell their stories of previous encounters with the spirit world. One gentleman told me that once his deceased uncle took a dessert off his plate. He couldn’t see him but he knew it was his uncle because it was the uncle’s favorite dessert. People who lived near the cemetery invited some of us into their home to see the food on the table and places for the deceased to sit had their picture near the chair. There certainly was no doubt of an after life among the people we met.
My mother died when I was 3 years old. She had gone to see a doctor about a lump in her breast, and when she returned to hear the results of the tests he had taken, he said, “Yes, you have cancer. And by the way, do you know that you are pregnant?” My two older sisters had to drop out of high school to take care of a dying mother and her newborn baby. It was very hard for them because they loved school.
I don’t remember much about my mother, but I do know that her coffin was in our living room at the farm. I had to stay upstairs when the people came to pay their respects. I would watch them from between the railings of the upstairs banister. What I do remember is the wonderful scent from all the flowers that lingered days after they took them away. There were a lot of lilies and, until today, the scent of Easter lilies is my favorite.
When everyone was leaving for the funeral at church and then to Calvary cemetery, a neighbor and I went to the upstairs window to watch the cars drive out the bumpy gravel lane to the paved road. The cars were all black back then, and their flat rectangular tops looked like a choo-choo train with the hearse out in front like an engine.
I was working at the American Embassy School in Bonn, Germany, when my father died in January of l968. The principal came into my classroom and told me the news. My sister in Hubbard had contacted the Red Cross and travel orders already were at the airport. I went to my apartment, gathered a few clothes and drove to Frankfurt. I assumed that I would fly out in a passenger plane. What a surprise it was to have to dangle in a harness seat in a cargo plane with an empty space that seemed as large as a basketball court with 14 U.S. Army soldiers also going home on emergency leave.
A cousin of mine was ordained a priest in Slovakia and chose to be a missionary in New Guinea. After nine years of service, he was to have a month’s leave to visit his family. But, he could not get a visa to enter Slovakia because of Stalin’s practices during the days of the Iron Curtain, so he chose to visit us instead, and we got to know him quite well.
When his next vacation was due, he was able to enter Slovakia but could not dress in clerical garb. He always continued to spend some time with us when he had a vacation and had just visited my dad before he died. He officiated at the funeral Mass.
When he spoke about my dad from the pulpit, there were no sad words of mourning. Instead, he only mentioned how much joy there must be in heaven as my father reconnects with his parents and all the deceased members of his family that he had not seen since he left Slovakia as a 17-year-old young man.
Somehow, looking ahead to the future rather than mourning the past seems like the right attitude to have.
Perhaps my mother will meet me when I cross over, and want to know all that I’ve done since she died.
Or maybe, she already knows far more than I could ever remember.
Dr. Agnes Martinko is a member of St. Edward Church in Youngstown.