The Transcendent Beauty of Ordinary Love

/

DOMINIKA RAMOS

 

Once I heard an older acquaintance remark how she and her friends had such great plans for their lives in high school, but then they just grew up, got married, and had babies.

That won't be me, I thought. I'll get married and have babies and accomplish all my creative dreams. But life hasn't turned out exactly that way.

I got married two weeks after my college graduation. I had spent the previous semester not job hunting but working on my undergraduate thesis and wedding planning. 

After we returned from the honeymoon, I had to find a job, any job, so I took on a customer service position at an eye doctor's office. 

As I snapped pictures of people's retinas and failed dreadfully at small-talk, I thought about friends who were blazing through their masters' programs, doing mission work abroad, or beginning professions in fields they were passionate about.

It left me feeling a bit deflated--here I was, not using my English degree, not disciplined enough to pursue my dreams of writing in the evenings, and, let's face it, as a Catholic newly-wed with a blithe sense of natural family planning, likely to have a baby sooner rather than later who would then upset any individual ambitions I was harboring.

Before my five month stint in the world of healthcare was up, I was indeed pregnant. And while there was much I looked forward to in motherhood, there was an attitude I couldn't shake that between me and my due date was a countdown to the end of time I could call my own. 

As I waited for that baby to arrive, I feared that my life story, too, would be that I grew up, got married, and just had babies.

Well, I wasn't wrong about being robbed of my time. The baby made basic tasks about as easy as walking up an escalator backwards and blindfolded. 

And perhaps the life story I once feared will remain true, but motherhood transformed my perspective and made it so that I don't fear that life story.

I didn't just become a mother in some general sense, but to a particular person. Just as falling in love with a particular person, my Joe, buoyed me over any hesitation I had toward marriage, so too did this little boy with his lamb-like cries, delicate frame, and arresting gaze, my Leo, shatter my hesitations over any tedium in motherhood. 

I wasn't expecting to be stunned by the beauty of even the most menial tasks of caring for another human being. And yet those tasks frankly were menial, and getting married and having a baby is still a conventional path. 

When I became a mother, I recalled a professor of mine noting that falling in love is so extraordinary an experience precisely because it is so common--that everyone from a supermodel to the girl next door can be engulfed in that ennobling sentiment of love makes it all the more meaningful. 

And having my son filled me with a like awareness--that the mysteries of motherhood have indelibly marked the lives of so many women from time immemorial is strikingly profound.

In my individual vocation as "the queen of our castle" as my now five-year-old puts it, I go beyond myself in a symbolic way. 

Through the dress and veil I wore on my wedding day, through the rings I will wear all the days of my marriage, and through the body that has carried and nurtured my children, I, with every wife and mother that has ever lived, make visible these mysteries of life and love--mysteries that point to the ultimate mystery of God.

Yet while it is illuminating to be aware of how, through my very being, I body forth a bridal dignity, it's also haunting to be aware that all those brides and mothers throughout history that I am linked with have been largely forgotten in time. 

Their bodies--those very bodies they loved and mothered with, those bodies they quite literally carried history forward with--have turned to dust, and so too will mine.

Even this unsettling thought of being forgotten has become redeemed for me though. 

Early in my marriage, I read the novel, The Bridge of San Luis Rey by Thornton Wilder, in which a friar, Brother Junipero, tries to discover why God would permit the sudden death of seven people in the collapse of a bridge. Neither Brother Junipero nor his author can logically answer for the ways of God. Instead the reader is left with this observation:

"We ourselves shall be loved for awhile and forgotten. But the love will have been enough; all those impulses of love return to the love that made them. Even memory is not necessary for love. There is a land of the living and a land of the dead and the bridge is love, the only survival, the only meaning."

To do the work of love all the days of our life without the consolation of knowing that we will be remembered here on earth is something that requires courage and faith. 

To build up with your spouse what in your child's eyes is a kingdom and in the world's eyes something as ephemeral as a sandcastle is to live in hope.

 As Wilder suggests, love is the only intelligible force amidst the tragic decay of this life, and even the most ordinary acts of love give a glimpse into eternity.

I still hope to fulfill my creative ambitions. With the perspective of being five years into parenthood, I can see how my panic that children would make writing impossibly difficult was a bit dramatic--they do eventually learn how to sleep on their own and stop nursing round the clock. 

Yet, there's a peace in knowing that if I live these primary vocations as wife and mother faithfully, whether or not professional success is a part of the picture, I will have lived a life of transcendent beauty.

About the Author: Dominika Ramos is a stay-at-home mom to three and lives in Houston, Texas. She runs a creative small business, Pax Paper.

INSTAGRAM | BUSINESS

My Daughter's Storybook Wedding--and How it Helped me Grieve

/

LIZ GORRELL

 

I am a bride, a mother, and a grandmother. In anticipating my eldest daughter’s child (my 6th grandchild), I am eager to share the story of our mother-daughter relationship amidst the planning of her wedding day last year. Celebrating her storybook wedding, and reflecting on that season of life, was a precious spiritual gift to me. I pray that sharing this story will be a gift to a young bride-to-be, new bride, and her mother.

In the midst of planning my daughter’s wedding, I was grieving the death of my mother. The process of mourning my loss filled my soul with emotion and clouded my ability to express myself. It wasn’t until after the wedding when I was finally able to sit and reflect upon my mother’s death, my daughter’s beautiful wedding, and the prayers my mother would have offered--for my daughter, her new husband, and their life together. Ultimately, the moment of pause helped me recognize how her wedding was my “good grief,” a gracious gift in the midst of sadness.

A mother is an integral part of a young woman’s life when she is getting married. Regardless if the two are on good terms or not--whether the relationship is filled with intimate stories and laughter over a girls’ night or strained from wounds and incompatible temperaments--the mother-daughter relationship is emphasized during a transition to marriage.

I believe every mother longs to be close to her little girl as she moves from her parents’ protection to the loving shelter of a kind man. And I believe each young woman yearns for her mother’s support as she enters her new vocation.

I go back in my mind to a year ago when my daughter, Kate, and I were in the middle of reception detail planning and dress fittings. There was so much to decide upon, and of course, I was so excited to bring all my crafty talents to the table and make her storybook wedding a reality. At the same time, the shadow of grief from my mother’s death followed me as I hadn’t adequately processed the transition in my own mother-daughter relationship.

Kate and I often argued about wedding etiquette. More than once I heard, “Mom, people don’t do that anymore!” Eventually I responded, “Well, if I’m paying for it, I want it to be done well and be a classy event.”

The tension and anger were followed by apologies and compromises. The “Please, Mom, understand I want my wedding to be what I envision, not your vision,” was almost always answered with, “I understand, honey, but please don’t steal my joy in giving you something beautiful.” Despite our challenging conversations, we were able to come together to create a lovely and memorable day.

“Stealing joy” was an echo of my mother’s words from years prior--when I had denied her opinion and financial support in my own wedding preparations and newlywed life. I was the youngest of fourteen children, her eleventh daughter, and I shudder at the memory of my reaction to her efforts to help me.

The dual-perspective as both a daughter and a mother allows me to identify these offerings of help as a sincere gift. I wish I had been more gracious and hadn’t “stolen her joy.” Simultaneously, I can empathize with my daughter’s longing for independence and freedom in some of our conflicts of opinion.

I recognize the perspective as a young bride, unable to realize how much emotion a mother experiences as her daughter prepares for marriage. A mother’s emotional investment stretches beyond monetary costs, aesthetic details, and various other niceties. In her daughter’s wedding, a mother comes to terms with the reality that her young girl is becoming a woman, making decisions of her own, and preparing to leave home in order to cling to another. Such a transition is difficult.

When a woman first finds out she is having a baby girl, she holds close to her heart all the expectations of what kind of mother she will be to her little girl. She hopes to be a good example in femininity, holiness and motherhood, and to cultivate a true friendship that goes beyond being a mother and daughter. Every mother has expectations for her daughter, in what kind of woman she will become; as I look with love upon my daughter, I can honestly say she has always exceeded mine.

As a homeschooling family, I had been a long-term support to my daughter--and she to me. Yet, witnessing her maturation and growing independence through the college years was difficult. Though she became the lovely independent young woman and friend I had hoped for, there is an experience of grieving, of “losing” my little girl. Such a bittersweet transition is not easy.

My daughter’s wedding was truly a storybook wedding. I was touched by her and her fiance’s desire for the wedding to be a deeply sacred event. The afternoon of the Nuptial Mass was indeed a true expression of Faith which included she and her guy meeting our pastor to receive the Sacrament of Reconciliation minutes before they would line up with their bridal party in the back of the cathedral.

With the classic sacred music, stunning musicians, and reverence of the whole Mass, many tears of joy were shed that afternoon, however, surprisingly, I didn’t cry. In total peace, I looked upon my little girl all grown up, as she stood arm in arm with her new husband presenting, with love, her bouquet and entrusting their marriage to our Blessed Mother Mary. My own mother lived her life devoted to our Blessed Mother, so I imagine she was probably smiling down from heaven.

The fairy tale continued at a most exquisite reception venue with simple elegance planned into the details. The details were very personal from the place setting favors to the gorgeous dessert table spread of homemade pies and cheesecakes compliments of her sister-in-law, Abby and myself. My humble effort at making the wedding cake was a labor of love and satisfaction even if it was a bit crooked! From the Father-Daughter dance to “Isn’t She Lovely” by Stevie Wonder, and the Mother-Son dance to “What a Wonderful World” by Louis Armstrong,

all the joy was bit by bit healing my grief.

Everyone celebrated loudly, danced the night away and gathered under the stars sending off the happy couple under a shower of sparklers.

In the grieving of my little girl’s growing up and the grieving of my mother’s death, I lost my familiar positions in relation to the women who know me best. But in my loss, I gained a new level of intimacy with both my daughter and my mother, I gained a new perspective and compassion for how the mother-daughter relationship changes over time, and I gained the love of God to guide me, gently, through a major life transition with peace and joy.

I often think of my daughter and my mother, Edith, as my two closest friends. When I think of the virtues my holy mother possessed--strong love of God, His Blessed Mother and the Saints, humility and patience--I see those same virtues in my daughter; so my mother lives on.

My advice to the young ladies planning a wedding is to seek a better understanding of the gift you are to your mother, and that regardless of the state of your relationship with your mother at this time, know you are a gift from God to her. Your love and joy may help her grieve a loss, heal a wound, and grow in holiness.

To the mothers out there, I pray for grace for you to enter into a better friendship with your girl as she prepares for her vocation of wife and motherhood. Give her your time and love, but most importantly your prayers so she may glorify God with her new life--a life you helped to provide, and nourished the best you could.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR: Liz Gorrell is a wife, mother to five living children and three little saints in heaven, and grandmother to 5 sweet kiddos. A Midwest transplant to Austin, Texas, she loves gardening, creating mosaic patio stones with Catholic themes, all-things decorating, wedding and party planning, baking, and celebrating big her Catholic Faith. Liz has spent the better part of the last 20 years homeschooling her last four children, creating a domestic Church by way of her love of sacred art, liturgical celebrations and cultivating an environment of goodness, truth and beauty. She enjoys helping young mothers and other homeschooling mothers through her ministry, Heart of the Home. She has a devotion to the Blessed Mother, and strives to emulate Mary and the Saints in living a simple life. Her goal is to hear, "Well done, thou good and faithful servant,.. Enter thou into the joy of thy Lord."

INSTAGRAM | FACEBOOK