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A Mother's Day Remembrance

by Patrice Fagnant-MacArthur

In one of his daily explorations, my three-year old son David came across a great treasure I had forgotten I had, tucked away for safekeeping in a small cedar box. To anyone else, it would hold little value, a small tarnished medal with a picture of a typewriter on one side and a French inscription on the other. This award was given to my grandmother for excellence in typewriting when she finished eighth grade in Canada - the highest level of formal education she ever achieved. Many years ago she passed it along to me.

Feeling the cool embossed metal in my hands, my thoughts turned to my grandmother who went to her eternal rest over ten years ago. She was born in Canada, the youngest of twelve children, who left her family and came to America in the midst of the Depression to marry a barber and give birth to five children. She spoke to her children in French, but had them speak to her in English so that she could learn the language. I was her thirteenth grandchild, the youngest child of her youngest child, born when she was already old and had been widowed for a decade. Every Sunday afternoon, my parents and I would climb the three flights of stairs to her attic apartment where a full tin of candy and a toy box tucked away under the rafters awaited me. She was a simple woman who never drove a car, but who trusted in God and dedicated her life to her family. Her great enjoyments were playing cards, crossword puzzles and going to Bingo. Even in her later years when she moved into senior citizen housing and her gait slowed, her laugh remained hearty and true, and she would talk about the "old people" who were always older than her!

In those last years, I didn't get to see her as much as I might have liked. I was a teenager busy with life and work and school; Sunday afternoons usually found me working a cash register rather than listening to my mémère's stories. I was lucky enough to see her the night she died, however. My date had canceled our plans for the evening, and I accompanied my father to the hospital for a visit. She had just had surgery and was recovering quickly. She was bright and cheery and looking forward to going home. God saw fit to bring her to His home later that night.

I think of her sometimes, about whether she watches over all her children and grandchildren and great-grandchildren from the other side, about what she thinks of me and my family. I think of her as a young woman with the courage to travel far from home, and as a young mother raising her family. I wish I knew how she felt during those days which are now lost to the pages of time. Like so many women, she lived and died in anonymity, but her memory lives on in those of us she left behind. On this mother's day, we remember all of our mothers and grandmothers, aunts and sisters who have gone before us, who showed us the love of God through their love for us. May we cherish their memory and learn from their example.

Patrice Fagnant-MacArthur is editor of The Spiritual Woman Newsletter