![\"\"](\"https:\/\/upload.wikimedia.org\/wikipedia\/commons\/0\/0d\/Old_woman.jpg\")
<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
The people in front of us\u00a0scooted over in the handicapped pew in Mass this morning \u00a0to make room\u00a0for a tiny, stooped, elderly woman with a walker. Her daughter guided her carefully to the front\u00a0of the church and\u00a0moved the walker out of the way.\u00a0 The people in the pew started to move down further so that she could sit when she turned to leave.<\/p>\n
The Mother\u2019s arthritic hand fluttered outward in the direction of her middle-aged child, and her faint whisper of a voice said, \u201cPlease stay with me.\u201d<\/p>\n
I closed my eyes and silently begged the daughter to give in, instead, with and exasperated sigh she hissed, \u201cNo. I\u2019m not staying. I\u2019ll be back in an hour to get you. You\u2019re fine.\u201d She spun quickly and determinedly walked to the nearest exit.<\/p>\n
Her mother had no idea she\u2019d gone. She reached again in the direction where her daughter had last been, and softly pleaded, \u201cPlease?\u201d When she realized that she had been left, she reached up and, with her fingertips, gently stroked along the contours of her face. Tears misted across her sightless eyes as she reached forward to find where her walker had been placed.<\/p>\n
I leaned forward and asked her, \u201cDo you need help?\u201d When she didn\u2019t respond, I repeated myself a little more loudly, and then asked a third time louder still. At last she heard me.<\/p>\n
She half-turned\u00a0in my direction\u00a0and stated matter-of-factly,\u00a0\u201cI can\u2019t find my walker. I think it got misplaced.\u201d<\/p>\n
It was inches beyond where she had been reaching.<\/p>\n
Blind, nearly-deaf, and very nearly unable to walk; she sat alone at the end of her\u00a0pew, standing or kneeling whenever she sensed movement in the Sanctuary. She knew the Mass by rote memory, and was following along as best she was able. The woman beside her raised and lowered the kneeler, and I reached out gently to let her know she should sit when she stood by mistake.<\/p>\n
When it came time for Communion. she knelt down and placed her hands in front of her in anticipation of the Eucharist. She waited patiently, but when the usher approached her, he was asking her to sit down and let the other people out rather than bringing her the Host. \u201cWhy should I sit?\u201d She asked in confusion. \u201cI\u2019ve never taken Communion sitting down. I\u2019ve always knelt.\u201d But by then the usher was gone, and there was no one to answer her.<\/p>\n
It was absolutely heartbreaking.<\/p>\n
She dabbed at her eyes with her fingertips, and\u00a0I sat sobbing immediately behind\u00a0her. I reached out instinctively to touch her shoulder and offer what comfort I could, but she flinched away in confusion. It was emotionally devastating to behold.<\/p>\n
I fought with myself to not judge her daughter. I don\u2019t know them or their circumstances. This may be the daughter\u2019s only free hour of the week. She had left her mother in a place where she knew she would be safe, and was taking a much-needed breather. Maybe she was an atheist or a Protestant, and found the idea of Mass personally off-putting, but had found the strength and Grace to make sure that her mother attended anyway. I thought of a dozen reasons and more of why she might have left her alone this morning, and more. The reaction of the people around her showed that this was something they were used to seeing.<\/p>\n
And that made it so much worse.<\/p>\n
I glanced down our row at the six children we still have living at home, and I silently begged them \u201cPlease, don\u2019t ever leave me this way. Please don\u2019t leave me blind, deaf, crippled, and confused sitting alone and helpless at the end of a pew. Please remember the woman I am now, giving my youth and my strength to you as my gift. Please remember the woman who chased monsters from under your bed, and held you for hours when you were ill. Remember the mother who baked you cookies, and tickled you until you were breathless. Remember the safety of curling up within the safety of my arms. Please don\u2019t forget how I loved you with all of being\u00a0\u2013\u00a0madly and wildly.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cPlease, whatever you do, don\u2019t leave me trapped and alone in the silent darkness wondering where and why you have gone.\u201d<\/p>\n
And I began to think then, of my own mother, and how I am teaching my children by example. Every time that I sigh and roll my eyes because she\u2019s calling on the phone to clarify something for the hundredth time. The way I allow myself to be frustrated with her\u00a0slow and awkward gait instead of walking slowly and patiently beside her. That I sometimes wish we could have holidays with just us, enjoying the quiet routine of our everyday lives.<\/p>\n
Every time that I have abandoned her just as the daughter in Mass did this morning.<\/em><\/p>\n Each and every one of those times, there is a child nearby who is listening and learning from my example. Learning how they will someday treat me. And it was crushing to realize that all the things I hope for, I do not do myself.<\/p>\n Somehow I\u2019ve allowed myself to stop seeing my mother, and see instead only the old woman she has become.<\/p>\n I\u2019ve somehow forgotten the way she would swing on the swing beside mine for hours, the two of us scream-singing Shirley Temple songs to the clear summer sky. I forgot the curve of her body, and how I would curl into in in late nights after having a nightmare, finding safety in her embrace. The girlish-ghoulish grin on her face as she told campfire ghost stories with a flashlight held under chin. The young, strong woman who would grab tightly onto my hands and spin us both until my feet lifted from the floor and I felt as if I could fly.<\/p>\n