Mother of grace taught so much despite no training
My mother lived by the words above, written about her in her 1938 Taylor Allderdice High School yearbook, every day of her life. That was her grace. That was what came naturally to her.
She was a devoted wife, mother and friend, and although she never studied to become any of those, she instinctively knew how to fulfill each role. My mother also didn’t study to become a teacher, but she was my greatest teacher.
My mother had the rare gift of being able to transform others simply by being near them. She had a beautiful welcoming aura, and those who met my mother walked away with an elevated sense of self-worth.
When I was 12 years old, my mother gave me one of her most precious gifts. After some teenage boys we knew in our part of Oakland were arrested for stealing, my mother took me aside and said, “Don’t ever steal. If you need something, just ask. If your father and I don’t have it, we will find a way to get it.”
For a 12-year-old boy, that was a defining moment, when my mother instilled in me a deep sense of belonging and security, the very first function that love should provide.
In high school, when I was required to wear a tie and sport coat at Central Catholic, she made sure my shirts were always starched and pressed. High school was also the time that I experienced my first heartbreak, which came with the end of a relationship. My mother was there to see me through that strange and difficult emotional time.
When I turned 21 and would venture out with my friends, returning home around midnight, she would always be awake. Her excuse was that there was some laundry or ironing that needed to be done, or that the floor needed a good cleaning, or some other household chore had to be completed. But I knew that the real reason she stayed awake was to make certain that I came home safely.
My mother had a profound sense of wisdom. When she and my father were in their 80s, my father’s eyesight began to fail and my mother developed arthritis that limited the use of her hands.
She said to my father something very simple that sums up the beauty of marriage. She said to him, “I’ll be your eyes, you be my hands,” perfectly capturing the love, devotion and partnership of husband and wife.
Some of the greatest treasures of my life were either taught to me or reinforced by my mother in the last few years of her life, when she had a condition that I would simply describe as memory loss. Though that condition may have taken away many of the things she was able to do on a daily basis, it never took away the essence of her person.
In the initial stages of that medical condition, I watched her face the dread of losing her sense of self. She did so with courage, perseverance and conviction. She never blamed anyone or lashed out in anger as to why such a tragedy was happening to her. She faced the challenge with her trademarks of dignity and love.
At the same time, she taught me to look to the future and never give up hope. When I would say to her, “Every day in every way you are getting better and better,” she would simply reply, “I hope so.”
My mother believed that having fun is a fundamental human purpose in life, and it should continue for the entirety of our lives. She and I had precious moments of laughter together to the end, from her many witty comments to our pretending that we had just arrived from the old country in Italy while speaking to each other in broken English. And we’d laugh whenever I said “Budda bing budda bang” to express how my heart felt as she would kiss me on the cheek.
There will be no canonization ceremony for my mother, but in my eyes she stands equal to all of those individuals who have received that saintly honor.
I will close with words that I wish I could say with my mother once again: “I love you, forever and a day.”