07/18/2026
I am writing to tell you that my mother, Janet, journeyed to God Wednesday night, at the age of 92 1/2. She had extreme pain her last days so Hospice prescribed morphine and she left us quickly in only two days time.
As you know, this year was filled with many ups and downs for my mother with days of relative health and days of great discomfort - we thought she would leave us in March!, but now she is at peace with Christ and the Saints. I celebrated a mass with family members in mom's presence earlier in the day and that memory brings us great comfort.
In the previous weeks I shared with Mom here in FL (her funeral will be here in a few weeks and then I will return to NYC in August)
were beautiful. Although she was weak, we shared remembrances, we prayed, and I read to Mom -- poems of Emily Dickinson and others, Children's rhymes and Fairy Tales (Janet loved happy endings), and watched BLUE BLOODS --that long running tv series about a Catholic family of cops and lawyers who met for Sunday dinner in each episode. I recognized, once again, how it is important and so affirming for each of us to see ourselves and our distinctive cultural and religious identities depicted positively in the media. And, of course, positive depictions of others. Still a long way to go on all fronts.
As I have been sharing with many fellow Paulists, there is a hope and a bit of defiance in regard to death. I am experiencing both with and from family members as we grieve, remember the best, the saddest, the good and the regretful. "Blessed are those who mourn". So many levels of thought and feeling.
May God grant peace to us all.
