Catholic Dads

24:15 Farewell Virginia

September 2nd, 2010

Welcome back to As For Me And My House (Jos 24:15), the place where the rubber meets the road. You can subscribe directly to this series here.

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Farewell, Virginia.

No, this is not an ode to the Old Dominion; rather, another soul has departed to see God face to face — may He be merciful to you.

Aunt Ginny has died.

It’s a funny thing to be celebrating the beginning of a new life with a child on the one hand and the end of another life on the other hand. Our lives are full of dichotomies and contrasts that way.

My dwelling, like a shepherd’s tent, is struck down and borne away from me;

You have folded up my life, like a weaver who severs the last thread. (Is 38:12)

Aunt Ginny was someone who loved life and the God who gave it to her. If ever someone could make lemonade out of life’s lemons it was she. Aunt Ginny was born into crushing poverty in the hollows of West Virginia (they called it “the Holler”). The community she lived in was so isolated that a visiting linguist declared it was one of the last pockets in America where the accent of the Queen’s English could still be heard. “I was hiding behind the boosh (bush).”

One of several children, Aunt Ginny’s parents could not afford to feed them all. She was pale, drawn, and sickly. Her schoolteacher took note of this bright young pupil who was so badly malnourished and convinced Ginny’s parents to let her and her husband adopt Ginny at 12 years of age to be a “big sister” to their own 5 year old girl. That schoolteacher was my wife’s grandmother.

In many ways she resembled Snow White: raven black hair, pale white skin, and ruby lips (all natural!). Aunt Ginny was gentle soul but with an indomitable will; always a smile upon her lips because she knew the cruelties of poverty. She was brought up in the Advent Christian tradition; she knew her Bible and made sure her own children did too. She was generous and gracious but always feared slipping back into that poverty that steals people’s lives away.

Owing to her pitiable health as a child, she developed several life threatening illnesses. But she took her health into her own hands, educating herself on nutrition and positive living with a firm will, becoming her own best advocate. In this way she beat breast cancer and scleroderma, a build up of collagen in the skin and other organs leading to heart and failure, malabsorption, pulmonary fibrosis, pulmonary hypertension and ultimately death. When Alzheimer’s finally claimed her life, it did so by stealing her mind.

Although Aunt Ginny suffered most of her life, she did it mostly without complaint. While she lingered in the slow decline of Alzheimer’s, it was her husband and family who did the suffering. What Aunt Ginny did was to show us how to suffer well and maintain joy in our lives. She was an upright Christian woman who was able to witness to those of us living hundreds of miles away just by being who she was.

Whatever her defect of understanding of theology may have been, I’m sure that God will weigh that pittance against the fidelity to Love that she lived out in her life. We are all responsible for the amount of Truth that has been entrusted to us. Those of us who have the benefit of the fullness of the deposit of the Faith in the Catholic Church and the help of the Sacraments need to take heed.

Much will be required of the person entrusted with much, and still more will be demanded of the person entrusted with more. (Lk 12:48)

Although I only knew Aunt Ginny in the last 15 years of her life, she was instantly likable and worthy of respect. In our brief association she managed to leave her imprint on my life and mine is the better for it. We can all learn from her perseverance to run the race and to keep the faith (cf. 2 Tim 4:7) so that and the end of our lives we will hear the words we most long to hear: