Written by Kathy Avey
I do stress, even when all is going well my brain rushes into the future and I find something, always something, to be anxious about to occupy my mind taking me away from the present and throwing me into an imagined crazy scenario of events that never ever happen. I know how anxiety and stress tend to isolate me from relationships and experiences. I do not like feeling of uneasy and instead of embracing it, or at the very least resign myself to it and accept the discomfort, I literally let it overwhelm me. I have learned to rely on my faith with this mantra to get me through these times from Psalms, “Shepard me O Lord beyond my wants, beyond my fears, from death into life.”
I do not like being vulnerable. My family rarely showed or shared deep emotions and as a child who believed it was my responsibility to keep the family whole and functioning. I had no time to deal with life moments that were not the way I believed they should be so I became a master at keeping the stress and anxiety within.
With all that said I found myself broken open and vulnerable at a most unsuspecting time in my life. I had always been very close to my dad. As a little girl I was his shadow, going with him to lumberyards and farmer’s markets, grocery stores and church. He hardly left the house without me accompanying him. It was from him I learned the depth of his faith and its importance in his life. That relationship continued throughout as he aged and I left home to begin a new life in another state and build a family of my own. We talked weekly, but did not see each other as much as either of us would have liked.
After my mother passed, my dad took a fall and could no longer live in his house. My brother and I were in agreement he had to move to a nursing home. It came time after he had broken a leg to move him to St Anne’s Home, run by Carmelite nuns, after being released from the hospital. My brother was going to be out of town so I needed and wanted to be at St Ann’s when he was transferred so he saw a familiar face in an unfamiliar place.
It was February and the drive from Ankeny to Grand Rapids, Michigan can take 7 to 9 hours depending on stops, weather, and traffic. I made this drive by myself many times to visit my dad. The weather was lovely with clear roads and I was there Saturday morning when he was transferred to St Anne’s. I had a reservation at a hotel I stayed at often several miles away. As I waited for him to arrive, I started getting notices on my phone about a severe winter storm with ice moving in later that day. Grand Rapids is just east of Lake Michigan so lake effect snow can be heavy and make for treacherous driving. I started to get anxious and stressed out about what was I going to do. I planned on leaving Monday to return home and now it looked like I might not even make it to the hotel. The thought of being stranded, my plans totally upended, sent my anxiety and stress through the roof. I was not truly present to my dad. I was more concerned about my own needs than his, although I put on a good front with him and others there. It was a horrible snowstorm and roads were impassable. I was going nowhere. In the end the nuns offered me the apartment on the campus to use as long as needed.
That disruption in my plan made possible the most impactive, loving, vulnerable moment in my life. Monday morning I went to my dad’s room where he was lying there so frail and so weak. He was always so strong and capable; it broke my heart to witness such vulnerability. He could not feed himself. I picked up the spoon and as I fed him I felt a peace and a calmness overwhelm me. I began to weep for in that moment I was witnessing the very presence of Jesus so vividly in my dad. I knew I was feeding Jesus. It was as S. James Meyer writes “so much more enriching and rewarding to receive, become and share the Eucharist.” Had I not been stranded there for those extra days I never would have had this moment of clarity. Funny thing is, when I left Wednesday the roads were dry and clear. The sun shone and trees sparkled with ice reminding me of the goodness and power of God.
Such an ordinary event was transformed into the profound with love. That is Eucharist.