There’s an old Celtic saying that Heaven and Earth are only three feet apart, and in thin places the distance is even smaller. Then there are Thin Moments. My community is what brings me to these moments, and these places every day.
Saturday morning Annie and I drove down to Connecticut to visit my mother. One of my brothers lives around the corner from my mom, so it’s always a guarantee that we’ll be hanging out at their house. What I didn’t know was that another brother would be venturing down to visit mom for the weekend too. My family is very close-knit, there are five of us in all, I the only daughter, hence the love of all things sport. When we lost my father a few years ago, it brought us even closer together. We work to ensure my mother’s life would be filled with family gatherings and plenty of love we drew on the community she and my father built.
Another surprise would be that the three of us would be discussing my “mother’s future”. Now, she’s 80, still working, and very sure of what she wants in her future. She wants to live her life in her way. My mother and I are extremely close. She is the sister I never had. She is my hero. She is my rock. And as I learned today at her church, she is the Saint. We didn’t need to discuss her future. We needed to understand what to do for her should she need help in her future. (Medically speaking).
We gathered the necessary paperwork and landed with more questions around Long Term Care, Health Care, Medicare Plans, and asset protection. Now, here’s my little public service announcement: understand all this stuff now with your parents whether they are 60 or 80, it’ time to understand that they are protected. What do I mean by protected? Protecting their dignity. Know what they want. Do they want to stay in their home, have a live-in care, or live at a facility with assisted living, where they live freely but are checked on regularly?
These conversations are not easy, however, when you have your community together, they will be much easier. And within this community, you may find your thin moments.
But I didn’t find mine during this conversation. I didn’t find mine as the tears rolled down my face telling my mother how much we care for her and just want to understand “her wishes”. No, I found this moment in a hug and a wink from an old friend of my father’s at Church this morning.
Annie generally participates in church with me, however, this morning she had the opportunity to travel with her community to New York City. I couldn’t prevent this from happening. My mother, brother and I drove up to the church that we had grown-up going to as children. “It seems so much smaller than when we were kids” he would say to me as we walked up the steps. I needed the distraction as we walked in; my father’s ashes are buried just to the right of the entrance.
The moment we opened those doors it all came sweeping back to me. I felt like a child again. Going to church with my mother. Holding her hand like a nervous little girl, afraid of what lay ahead of me. But it was all too familiar. The sounds, the smells and then, the people. Matt, the minister who gave my father his last rites, and then my parents very close friends, Nan and George. They were older, but still the same. My mother pointed out that she always sits with them each week. So that was our cue to follow Nan and George to the pew.
Nan motioned to my mother, who leaned in graciously to hear her, as she uttered the words “Eve’s 16-year-old son has a brain tumor”. My heart sank. I have a 16-year-old I thought. This was Eve’s son. This was Nan and George’s grandson. This hit me so hard. My mother grasped her hand, held it tight and acknowledged we will all say a prayer for him. My heart still couldn’t function. My mind began to wander. The music started but I had a little understanding of where we were in the service. I followed the program, but couldn’t get it out of my head that this boy, this 16-year-old boy, had a brain tumor.
That was all I knew. And I didn’t need to know more. I just knew I needed to pray. I needed to be closer to God. And then it happened. After communion, I knelt in prayer. It felt like eternity. My eternity. Not time as far as eternity goes, but the eternity we all dream of.
This was my thin moment. I didn’t know it at the time until it was over. My brother leaned in closer to me and said “you’ve just had a thin moment”. I had no idea what he meant, and why or how he knew what I had just felt, but he knew and he had a label for it. For I have felt it many times in recent months, and just assumed it was chalked up to emotion. But this defining moment. This thin moment, had great meaning for me, and now I understood it all the more since my brother whispered it in my ear.
After the peace, and the final “Alleleluhiah”, hugs all around with Nan and George, and others, my brother turned to me and said, “Google it”. I love that about him. He knows he doesn’t need to tell me any more about my thin moment, but that I can find it on my own and seek my meaning. My community spoke to me. My community supported me. It was my community that brought me to this point in my life. And now, now, I had a defining moment in my life with my community around me.
Nan and George, my mother, my brother, Father Matt, and my father were all there – with me. I will continue to pray for Eve’s son. He will be undergoing his operation on March 5th at Children’s in Boston. Join my community and pray for him.
And now, go, find your community. Find your thin moment. Let it define your eternity.
Stay happy, be fit, and have fun!
