Teach us to count our days aright,
that we may gain wisdom of heart.
(Psalm 90:12). (1)

Memento Mori

When I was growing up, “Remember your death” was an almost universal expression of Christian practice during Lent.

Parents taught their children that we are “ashes to ashes, dust to dust.” My own mother, and a variety of other mature women I knew then, quipped their excuses for not mopping under beds with the old joke, “My friends might be down there, visiting me today.”

It’s human nature to fantasize that we are the exceptions, that we will never wrinkle and decline, that we ourselves will never die. The elders then were offering us as children an essential grounding in reality.

Last September, I lost my beloved husband of almost 50 years

Although I recognized our advancing age, decreasing energy, and the burgeoning of necessary medical checkups, I shied away from his earnest attempts to provide me with important survival information.

My response was bright-eyed and cheery. “But we’re not going to die,” I kept telling him. “At least, not yet.”

I know he showed me where he was hiding the outdoor emergency house key … Five months later, the kids and I still haven’t been able to find it. Fortunately, we had other keys.

A massive heart attack, caused by blockage in the LAD, left artery descending, took Charles away from us far too soon. This silent and deadly killer is nicknamed “the widow maker” by medical professionals, for good reason.

I’m deeply thankful for the memory that last April, he raced me across the parking lot at St. Thomas the Apostle Church in Tucson, right after we had received Eucharist together on Easter Sunday. I’ll never forget his grin when he beat me to the car.

Despite my evasion, a spiritual call to prayer for the dying does run in my maternal family line. I experienced it even in my Methodist childhood, with elderly family members “checking in” as their time of passing neared.

Once I was confirmed in the Roman Catholic Church in 1989, insistent calls to pray for fellow parishioners, and even total strangers, drew me to the Adoration Chapel more and more often.

After a while, I began to notice that every time I felt a particular call to prayer, the same people were already there, or coming through the door right behind me; each of us always with a rosary in our hands.

At a Catholic Life in the Spirit conference held at Notre Dame University in 1998, I heard a speaker on the topic of charismatic gifts say, “Here’s a terrible one – knowing when people are going to die.”

I disagree. It’s a beautiful gift in the Body of Christ, a blessing that Our Lord pours through us, in the power of the Holy Spirit.

These calls to prayer mean that someone who loves us knows when we’re coming home; someone is lighting a candle in the window to guide us and welcome us; someone is calling companions together to support us. The transportation provided for that journey is prayer.

Every time any member of the Church prays a rosary, aren’t we asking the Blessed Mother for this very assistance at the time of our own deaths?

Catholics who respond to a felt call, to pray a rosary for others, are serving Mother Mary as her hands here on earth.

Has this understanding spared me any of the dreadful earthly experiences that follow the sudden death of a spouse — the incapacitating waves of grief, the hollow feeling of emptiness, the seemingly endless sleepless nights – the lawyers, bankers, and brokers, with their complicated rules and reams of paperwork – the daunting responsibilities to console grieving children and grandchildren, and to navigate the family through a disorienting new universe?

No. I have not been spared any of these.

But I’m grateful that, by mystical grace, I was granted the privilege to be with my husband, in prayer, at the time of his death; with God’s love swirling around us and through us both. That, for me, is everything.

T.S. Eliott wrote, in the concluding lines of his profoundly religious poem Ash Wednesday:

“When the voices shaken from the yew-tree drift away,
Let the other yew be shaken and reply.
… Teach us to sit still
Even among these rocks,
Our peace in His will
And even among these rocks
Sister, mother
… Spirit of the river, spirit of the sea,
Suffer me not to be separated
And let my cry come unto Thee.” (2)

Holy Mary, Mother of God, pray for us now, and at the hour of our death.

Amen.

Notes:
1. https://bible.usccb.org/bible/psalms/90
2. https://englishverse.com/poems/ash_wednesday © 2003-2025 English Verse

Feature photo used by permission of the author.

For I know the Plans I Have for You (Jer. 29:11)

Greetings, fellow travelers. I am (probably) the newest contributor to the CWG blog. In an attempt to introduce myself, I decided to offer the following recollections that I wrote for a smaller audience. This is a deeply personal account, but it’s how I roll.

I was widowed two years ago, and it significantly altered my perception of marriage, God and our eternal trajectory. Retrospect is the critical viewpoint in this narrative, since my husband and I did not convert to Catholicism until we were in our mid-thirties. Hence, God’s plan for our lives was not immediately intuited, although we eventually recognized the critical nature of the Catholic faith in our marriage. It was this faith that would provide continuity and structure to the sacrament we shared. We were married for 42 years, and this is our story:

My husband, Steve, was a risk-taker.

I was not.

Our third date I found him cheerfully explaining the constellations of scars on his head and chin—which he identified as wounds from embedded gravel—the result of a tire blowout during a high-speed motorcycle ride on a gravel road. Apparently, he went airborne before the force of gravity did what gravity tends to do—and it sucked him into the hard, graveled surface below him.

I watched, horrified, as he retold the story, complete with sound effects, and enthusiastic arm-flapping.

“You’re lucky to be alive!” I gasped. He smiled.

“Yeah,” he said. His grin grew even wider.

“Weren’t you scared?” I exclaimed.

“Nah,” he said casually, “I was too busy trying to keep the bike from falling on top of me and killing me.”

I remember being incredulous, as I tried to comprehend his explanation. I did not understand this attitude toward life. I risked nothing. I gambled on nothing, and I kept everything in my world ordered and safe. We could not have been more different. Who is this guy? I thought.

Eventually, and against my better judgment, Steve managed to talk me onto the back of his dirt bike—after assuring me that he wouldn’t go too fast. I believed him (mostly) even when we were sailing over huge hills with considerable hang time, before landing on the other side of the hill. I remember clutching my arms around his waist and screaming into his back, while he yelled reassurances that everything was fine. (I think he really enjoyed that part.)

Steve frequently challenged the forces of nature with every ounce of his seemingly immortal body. If he wasn’t defying gravity, he was water skiing without skis, or driving snowmobiles across frozen ponds. It always seemed to me that he was like one of those giant grasshoppers that flies erratically into oncoming cars—barely missing the windshield with an artful dodge.

Alternatively, the laws of physics and the general nature of risk, did nothing to inspire intestinal fortitude within. My formative years had been painful, and I trusted no one. Night after night, I remember begging a distant God for deliverance—a deliverance that always seemed elusive—rendering my nominal faith into shadows.

Despite my spiritual quagmire, I gradually began to appreciate Steve’s attitude toward life. Scientific laws can be harnessed if you have the right tools, and the world is approachable if you are comfortable with who you are. Steve was all those things—and slowly, patiently (sometimes) he taught me to take risks: with others, with myself, and of course … his motorcycle.

Initially, I did not realize that God had finally offered me deliverance in the form of a young man with an irrepressible temperament—but it seems rather obvious now. It would have required someone with that kind of fortitude to wage battle with the seen and unseen forces around me.

It turns out that God had been listening all along.

It should come as no surprise that Steve went on to have a successful career in law enforcement before retiring due to injuries he sustained in the line of duty. Those injuries are what ultimately caused his death, but he would have settled for nothing less. That’s just how HE rolled.

January marked the second anniversary of Steve’s death, and if I could tell him anything right now, I think it would be this: Thank you for taking a chance on this wisp of a soul. You are proof that God answers prayer on the most elemental level. I am forever grateful to you—and most importantly—to God, who is ever-merciful, and actively involved in the most intimate details of our lives.

This knowledge fills me with child-like trust–secure in the knowledge that God always has a plan.

Memento Mori

Memento Mori

For I know the Plans I Have for You

For I know the Plans I Have for You (Jer. 29:11)

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