~ by Father Ron Camarda

Mother of a Navy Chaplain who served with the Marines!

All of us are born.

All of us will die.

Everything between birth and death is life, as we know it.

My father is going to be 81 years old on the first day of spring. My mother died ten years ago on the week she turned 70. Although part of me wished her to live longer, I accept her death with great gratitude. When I brought her in for the CAT scan about forty days before she died on August 13, 2000 shortly after midnight, I wasn’t ready to take this final journey. Or was I?

My mother suffered from various ailments of the stomach and arthritis. Had she lived longer, she may have suffered even greater hardships including the death of her son, my brother a few years later. My mother was a very tolerant person of physical pain, but the death of one of her nine children may have been unbearable.

As horrible as the dying process was for my mother wrestling with metastasized cancer in her liver, stomach, lungs and lymph nodes, her death was truly a beautiful and life-giving experience. About two weeks before her death, she was able see all of her nine children together for the first time in over twelve years. She was also able to converse and be alone with all of her children as they lied down beside her. As the priest, I was the last one to accept this opportunity and gift. I didn’t plan this, but I simply was struggling. It could have something to do with me being the “priest”, but I believe it had more to do with me as a person named “Ron”.

On the Sunday before she died, I had just returned from being the spiritual director for an Engaged Encounter. I didn’t want to go to the weekend, but my mother insisted. My mother was in great physical pain, but I saw an incredible beauty, especially in her eyes. As we prayed the Glorious Mysteries of the Rosary, I was kneeling beside her bed. Her green eyes changed color to a most spectacular sky blue. Her eyes were so inviting that I knew that I was seeing with the eyes of my soul. Words cannot explain this with justice. The vision was similar to when a seven-year-old boy by the name of William had died after a yearlong journey. Just after I gave him Communion and anointed him, I was kneeling at the foot of his bed. He looked at me with dancing eyes. Then he looked up to Heaven like St. Stephen. The room was filled with angels. I saw the glory of Heaven through his eyes while his parents and sister wept at his side. That was about eight years before my mother died.

My mother was preparing me for the next ten years of priesthood…with Jesus by my side. I had to let my mother go and she knew it. I told her how much I loved her and that I understood she would die real soon. My heart was breaking while my soul was bursting with joy. How could this be?

In her book Animals in Heaven? Catholics want to know, Susi Pittman shares with her readers the intimacy of death of an animal. Although animals don’t have souls, we humans who love animals do. Death is always a challenge for humans who were made in the image and likeness of God, the Creator and Beloved. The death of summer, marriage, animals, pets, jobs, flowers, family or friends cause us to contemplate death in its entire splendor. Life is beautiful and so is Death. St. Francis of Assisi calls her “Sister Death.” Death helps us to probe deeper into the mystery of life and love. Death cannot be separated from Life.

When I finally realized that I could turn the tragic loss of life in Iraq to something life giving, I was filled with awe and wonder with each death I was privileged and honored to experience. I didn’t wish it. In fact I was repulsed by war and death. But I looked deeper into the mystery of Life and love that was stronger and more enduring than death by itself. The tear in the desert that Edward shared with me moments before his death is beyond my comprehension, but it is a tear that I continue to contemplate.

A few months before her death, my mother and father gifted me with a white chasuble she sewed, which I wore at her funeral. On my 10^th anniversary as a priest, she also gave me a card that I keep in my bible:

Peace comes in knowing we are doing our best.

Be proud that you

have taken the path

less traveled by others,

but one that has

been built by you, & Jesus

and you alone & the Holy Spirit

She then wrote a note to me that has inspired me. This was the last thing she wrote to me before she died. She wrote it in her own handwriting. I find it very wise and loving. In a way, my mother was a steward of her son the priest. She let me go on this incredible journey filled with life and death.

Dear Ron,

We are very proud of you and Love you very much.

The last 10 years have been very different for you

to say the least. Good, bad, indifferent, exciting, blessed,

scary etc etc. But one thing is for sure,

you have always been in the hands of Jesus

who has to love having fun with you. Don’t you think?

We hope the next 10 years will be just as wonderful.

Love you Mom & Dad

Love, joy, peace,

Father Ron Moses+

www.tearinthedesert.com

Father Ron Camarda is a retired Naval Chaplain and author of “Tear in the Desert,” a powerful book containing his memoirs of life and death at the Battle for Fallujah. Father Ron appears on EWTN and recently won the Silver Medal from the Military Writers Society of America.

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