“We have what we seek. It is there all the time, and if we give it time, it will make itself known to us.”
– Thomas Merton
The trip had been planned for weeks. Death, it turns out, involves a lot of paperwork and awkwardness and helping other people work through their grief before you can get to your own. I needed to get away from all the “shoulds” that people lovingly heaped on me, all the requests that I plastered on a smile to fulfill. I needed silence and solitude.
So I went to The Mountain.
Mt. Ireneaus is difficult to describe. It’s home to several Franciscan friars (the current population is four) tucked away in the mountains of Allegany County in New York State. The Mountain is its own entity, though it has an affiliation with St. Bonaventure University. It is a place where solitude and community naturally co-exist. Away from your everyday world, it is a place of quiet and contemplation, but one which ends each day in community, usually around shared meal. It is not so much about escaping the realities of your individual life as it is a place to take time away, to get centered, and return back to your life, not as a new version of yourself but as a truer version of yourself.
It is a place I return to often because it is a place where I connect with my true self.
This trip was about three weeks after my mom’s passing and the last week the Mountain accepted guests, before the great COVID-19 shutdown of 2020. There were no other guests. It was me, the four friars, and miles of trails on a brisk March weekend.
I walked the trails, about six miles each day, allowing myself to get a bit lost, allowing myself to feel safely held by the ground. As a runner, as someone who can easily get caught up in setting goals, making plans to attain goals, and evaluating my worth by whether or not I accomplished goals, this was an extraordinarily important place for me to be. TO BE. To just be. I swear there is a quote somewhere from Thomas Merton that asks, “Can we not simple BE ourselves?” but alas, I can not locate it. Still, it is a phrase from which I draw immense comfort.
You see, while I am inspired by stories of athletes who do amazing things — break marathon records or thru-hike the Appalachian Trail — my worth is not tied to what I do. My only job is to be who I am.
So there I was, walking around the woods, letting myself be held by nature, when the tears started to roll down my cheek. After weeks of compartmentalizing my grief, I was able to just be with it. And it turns out it had something important to say.
The last two months of my mom’s life were a quick descent into agony. She was in physical pain. She wasn’t eating enough. She wasn’t drinking enough water. She was stubborn on top of it, so it was difficult to separate what were real physical issues and what was her natural level of insubordination. In the final two weeks, she was a hot mess physically, mentally, and emotionally. She was scared. She was angry. She lashed out loudly, and often, at me and my dad. She had a good public face, so not everyone saw it. But I did.
I listened to her cry out, wondering why God had abandoned her. That was a night which ripped my heart out. I watched, helplessly, as she tried to get comfortable but couldn’t find relief for her pain, crying so hard she could barely catch her breath.
I saw all the pain. And I couldn’t do anything about it.
And I had started to wonder if I had missed something. Should I have been at more doctor’s appointments? Should I have asked more questions? Should I have pressed my mom to be more truthful with the doctors, to explain the level of pain she was in, to unmask that public face in front of the people who could help her the most?
In the woods came my answer.
My mom’s vulnerability was not my failing.
My mom was at her most vulnerable in front of her family. She let me see her at her worst. She shared her vulnerability with me. She let me in. It wasn’t pretty. It was gut-wrenching. But it was real and authentic and I’d like to believe that by sharing it with me, I helped lighten her load just a bit.
But this vulnerability was not some failing on my part to address her needs. I didn’t fail my mom. She wasn’t in pain because of something I failed to do. What if, instead, I actually supported my mom by bearing witness to her vulnerability, by being there when she was at her worst and staying by her side?
My value in those moments was not in what I could do. My job, my only job, was to just be. Be a witness for my mom. Be love. Be peace. Just. Be. And therein lies the only thing I ever really need to do.
