Thanksgiving For A 'long, Good And Wonderful Life'

The email that I had been dreading arrived early in the morning. It was from my cousin Mary, who lives in Arizona. “Mom died this morning at around 4:30 our time,” she said.

“She had a long struggle with letting go, and we had a wonderful Irish nun spend time with her yesterday. She helped convince her it was okay to go to heaven.

“I am so happy for her long, good and wonderful life.”

Sadness engulfed me as I read the email.

My precious Aunt Sally was dead. She was 97 years old.

I wandered around my house for a few minutes, and then I knew what I needed to do. I needed to be in church.

It was one of those cold days in early February, and the town was shut down because of ice and snow. As I cleared off the windows of my car, I thought about my aunt. She grew up near Green Bay, and she and my mother walked two miles back and forth to school every day — even during those harsh Wisconsin winters.

That morning, I drove to a nearby parish, and when I entered the adoration chapel it was quiet. All I could hear was the sound of tires crunching the ice on the street outside.

As I knelt beneath a crucifix in the chapel, I started to remember the crosses that my aunt carried during her life. The hardships brought on by the Great Depression. The fears and uncertainties of the World War II years. Family difficulties.

Of course, her life was also filled with joy and happiness. Great friends. Ballroom dancing for 40 years. Golf championships.

It seemed that she never let the bad times get her down. Aunt Sally always seemed unsinkable to me.

I asked her once how she did it, and she just smiled.

I believe it was her attitude. I believe she made the decision that no matter what happened in her life, she was going to have a wonderful attitude.

She was a daily Communicant in her younger years — meaning up in her 70s — following the example set by her parents. I think that’s where her strength came from.

Jesus tells us in Matthew 11:28, “Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest.”

I have always received comfort in nature. In the woods. In the garden. Near the water. I have always felt close to the Divine and freer from my daily worries and problems in those sacred places.

And that’s what I needed that cold morning. I needed rest. I needed comfort.

And I needed to be in a church. I needed the quiet, the darkness, the solitude that only a holy place offers.

I believe that’s what my Aunt Sally understood. She also loved nature and being outside; but for many, many years she chose to get up early and walk four blocks to attend morning Mass in her parish church.

She understood that Jesus will give us rest — but we have to come to Him. And we find Him in the Eucharist.