The Gospel lesson for All Saints Sunday is the Beatitudes from Matthew's remembrance of the Sermon on the Mount, about how people find blessings in this world. I was thinking about my grandfather and how he found blessings taking care of my grandmother. She was a difficult woman, presenting a fragile persona. She had a breakdown while attending Mount Holyoke and returned to the home in Western Pennsylvania to recover. She met my grandfather at a small local college and he devoted his life to taking care of her and others.
He had grown up on a farm and his father during the 1880's and 90's kept leaving to go to Gold fields to "strike it rich" in the Yukon, Arizona, and other locations, leaving his wife and kids behind to take care of the farm. He never struck it rich, but would return for a couple of years and father yet another child before the next strike was made public and he would rush out. All the children did well, but never felt the need to get rich but were raised by their mother with the idea that they had a responsibility to care for others. They all left the farm and had successful professional lives but success was never measured by how much money they made but about the caring for others, even difficult people.
MAMITA
Mother's mother displayed airs of a delicate flower,
with thorns, preparing to prick ripping disapproval,
if we failed to meet her needs of attending approval;
shimmering weakness underlying source of power.
“Mamita” was what we were instructed to call her ,
a diminutive name, implying that she was adored,
while fearful she's walking on a Swiss cheese floor,
which she'd fall through holes should mishap occur.
We were to be careful, as my mother and her father
taught over decades, if life upset her in any way;
resentment, by us, wasn't allowed to imply or say.
When she died, I dreamed relief for my grandfather.
But he did not, for her care was his silken glove;
needing to be needed, was how we show love.
