An Inconvenient Lent

by Dina Mann

I would like to share my very inconvenient Lenten experience with you. This March 4th, my mom turned 94. It has become painfully apparent that she is having great difficulty maintaining her three story house in Queens. Though she ambulates easily, shops and pays all of her own bills, there is a good degree of visual and auditory impairment and some short term memory loss. She likes to quote Bette Davis as saying: “Old age isn’t for sissies.” After numerous meetings with her social worker, my spiritual directors, my St. John’s mentor, and our lawyer, it became clear that I should stay with her in the home for what remains of her life. The remaining sibling is blessedly 3,000 miles away and is disabled emotionally and physically. I ranted and railed to God: “Why me and why now?” I love my life as it is, my ministry at St. John’s which is to blocks away, my health club also close by, my work 15 minutes on the A line, and my community in this neighborhood. God probably chuckled and said: “Why not you?” Mind you, I hate subways.

In closing, I’d like to leave you with something to reflect upon from my chaplaincy training. I presented what I though to be a stellar verbatim, when my supervisor shot back at me in his deep southern drawl: “Y’all mean to say you ain’t ever though ‘I’m sure glad that ain’t me that old in that bed.’” Deep down, I think no one wants to think, God forbid, that the shoe might someday be on the other foot.

Epilogue: Four Weeks Later: Free Style

My God, my God, why have you forsaken me? Psalm 69: “I am sinking deep in mire, my eyes have failed from seeking to look for my God.” (The psalmist knew what I am going through,) Been part of the Open Door as a care partner, finding God in AIDS, but in rubble -the shards, filth and fossils of two pack rats-lives brilliantly, but insanely lived. Social workers, APS, de-clutterers, estate assessors, friends, angels, frustration, rage and grieving the postponing of my life temporarily. Am I as blind as the disciples on the road to Emmaus, not seeing Jesus in their midst? In the midst of shlepping 40 pound garbage bags and boxes full of junk? Still looking. Perhaps God is also looking perhaps saying “Here’s looking at ya kid.” I can’t see Him clearly: dirty goggles, a zoot suit, mask and gloves.