The Healing Journey

January 6, 2024

“Our memories of departed loved ones are all we have. If we substitute sentimental half-truths for the real thing, we’ll be left empty-handed. And our grief will be even harder to deal with, because we won’t be mourning the loss of our loved one—we’ll be mourning the loss of another person, one who never really existed.”
— Mother Angelica

When George was 12 years old, he went to Bruce Park in Greenwich to secretly watch a girl he had a crush on while she was performing in a dance recital. A friendship blossomed after he finally met Lillian. They went to the same college, got married, had four children and were married 70 years when he died. It was, you might say, a marriage made in Heaven. With a caveat. Just because a marriage is made in Heaven doesn’t mean it will always be heavenly.

George was known to grumble, “She’d give an aspirin a headache.” And Lillian was known to sigh, “He gives me a headache.” And yet, all their love far surpassed all the aggravation. When someone we love dies, it’s good to remember our relationships as they were, warts and all, as they say.

Mother Angelica once told this story:

“We must try to remember our departed loved ones by preserving who they were and are, and how they affected our lives in this world, as well as how they do now, even in death. I think a lot of us do a disservice to our loved ones by remembering them as perfect individuals: valiant, cheerful, wise, patient, and everything that is good in a person. We start to gloss over the fact that these same folks used to drive us crazy when they would crack their knuckles or interrupt us. In fact, a good 50 percent of the time they were impossible to live with! The head nurse of a local hospital, someone who sees death every day, told me that she overheard a couple talking one evening and was amazed at the wisdom of the dying man’s last request: He wanted his wife to remember that he was a pain in the neck! ‘If you ever forget how I used to leave pipe tobacco all over the side of my chair, I’ll come right back and bop you one,’ the 70-year-old cancer patient said to his wife.”

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