ON FAITH AND FAMILY
By Fr. Michael Himes
My father died a number of years ago, and my mother was living alone for years. We knew that she shouldn’t be alone any longer, and so she decided to come and live with me, which I was absolutely delighted by. We had about 12 great years together here in Boston. My mother was an avid theatergoer and concertgoer, so we went regularly to the Boston Symphony and to theater here in Boston, and she’d show up at lectures at Boston College and at other universities because she just was interested in all sorts of things.
Finally, Mother began to show the signs, the unmistakable signs, of dementia, probably Alzheimer’s caused Eventually, it came to the point where we couldn’t leave her alone for a moment She would wander off And so she went into a nursing home For the next seven years, I went every night to that nursing home and fed her, because they found it hard to get her to eat unless it was me feeding her. I would hold her hand and just talk about anything that popped into my head until Mother dozed off for the evening,andthenIwouldheadout.
About a year before she died she passed away a year ago lastJanuary Mothersaidshewashavingaparticularlybad evening. She seemed really very distracted. She didn’t know she wasn’t recognizing anybody. And I said to her, “Now, dear, do you know who I am? Do you remember who I am?” And she really scrutinized me. And then she said, “I’m sorry, I don’t know that I could remember your name, butIdoknowthatyou’resomeoneIlovedverymuch”
About a year before she died she passed away a year ago last January Mother said she was having a particularly bad evening. She seemed really very distracted. She didn’t know she wasn’t recognizing anybody. And I said to her, “Now, dear, do you know who I am? Do you remember who I am?” And she really scrutinized me. And then she said, “I’m sorry, I don’t know that I could remember your name, but I do know that you’re someone I loved very much.”
Well, I’ve always said to my brother Ken (a Franciscan friar) that Mother was the best theologian in the family, that the two of us were just amateurs compared to her, because she got it exactly right You may forget everything else, everything else in your life may disappear You may forget even who loved you and how they loved you But you never totally forget having loved someone else. You may forget being loved, but you never forget loving, because it is the most central, the most important, the most fundamental of allactivities, not being loved, but loving.
That’s what family gives us an intimate chance to do, in circumstances that may be very supportive or very painful, that we have the opportunity to give ourselves, to learn how to give ourselves to one another wisely and courageously and with tremendous forgiveness and deep acceptance.
If you learn that, you’ve learned everything that you need to know If you learn everything else and you never find that out, you’ve missed what it is to be a human being, because human beings are called to be the people who do what God is God is agape, and we get to enact it That is the most extraordinary statement about being a human being that I know.
Fr. Michael Himes (1947-2022) was a diocesan priest from Brooklyn, New York, a distinguished theologian, and a faculty member at Boston College for almost three decades. In 2014, Fr. Himes spoke to an overflow crowd at the popular C21 student speaker series Agape Latte about faith and family.Thisstory isanexcerpt of his talk.
