jongarinn

now, an orphan

It’s been nearly a week since I lost my mom and I’ve had some time to reflect on her death and the events that led to it. I’m grateful to the hundreds of people who extended supportive comments and simple kindnesses.

I am an orphan now.

The deaths of my parents, 41 years apart, have one thing in common: me. I was the one who discovered my father, dead in his driveway on a hot July day. And I was the one holding my mother’s hand when she died on a cold January night.

I consider it a privilege.

For the record, my father died on July 10, 1983. I knew something was wrong the minute I pulled my car onto the driveway at his home. I wasn’t expecting a problem. I had just seen him the night before, when we watched “Hee Haw” on TV. He loved that show. I hated it, but I tolerated it for him.

This night, I was going out with friends and I needed to “borrow” $20. Dad was always a good supplier of spending money. Yet there he was, lying halfway out of the car with one hand on the door and his face toward the ground. Maybe he’s working on his car, I tried to convince myself. But I knew it wasn’t true. He was dead. His advanced lung cancer wasn’t to blame. Nor were his radiation treatments. Instead, it was a coughing fit that caused a rupture to an artery. In the quiet twilight of that summer Sunday, I spoke my last words to my father: Dad, why did you go and do that?

What went through his mind as he went to his car? As he opened the door and put the key in the ignition? As he started the engine and reached for the door?

The motor ran until it used up all the gasoline. Eventually, the battery died. Dad’s body remained there through the night and all the next day. The horrible scene will always haunt me.

Dad’s death was a life-altering event for me, a 20-year-old college kid. When he received his cancer diagnosis 10 months before, I thought we would have more time together. One of his doctors said it might be as long as five years. How could he be so quickly gone? Why did he have to die in such a painful, panicked way? Had he been treated just two years later, he would have benefitted from new protocols that deliver more targeted doses of radiation that are less damaging to surrounding tissue.

It wasn’t easy to know my father. Like many men of his generation, he rarely showed tenderness, much less vulnerability. Yet, at the end of his life, he lived as close to meaning as anyone could. He was absolutely determined to beat his cancer. But the radiation proved to be too formidable. The treatments scorched his esophagus, making swallowing an excruciating endeavor.

It was distressing to watch my strong, certain father grow weaker; to see his muscular body become frail. During those months of helping him with daily tasks, of buying his groceries and picking up his meds, of taking him to the doctor and, yes, sitting with him through endless hours of terrible TV shows, I began to appreciate him in an unexpected way. Although his body became a prison, he made of it an opportunity for discovery. In that short time, he helped me to believe in something deep and abiding and profound in human beings. For inside that body that deteriorated before my eyes, there was a person with immense questions who cared deeply about the truth. The truth was about personhood. He wasn’t a cancer patient. He was Joe. And Joe had cancer. He refused to be defined by his disease.

He wondered why, despite all his efforts, he never seemed to be able to win. He never wrote a book or made a fortune. He didn’t leave an indelible mark on human history. Because his large family suffered grinding poverty in the Great Depression, he had to quit elementary school and go to work to help support them. He and his brothers fought in World War II, but his lack of secondary education meant he couldn’t take advantage of the G.I Bill. Instead, he went to work as a meat packer; a truck driver; a garbage collector. His marriages ended in divorce. His kids rarely spoke to him. He drank too much. And smoked cigarettes every single day–for 50 years.

Still, despite a lifetime of setbacks, when he received his cancer diagnosis he was absolutely convinced that he was going to win. “I’m gonna beat it,” he said, fiercely.

He didn’t beat it. But by facing his cancer, he left me something precious: the memory of his determined spirit.

The same can be said of my mother.

Like my dad, she spent more than 50 years of her life smoking cigarettes every single day. Her death sentence was chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD), a progressive lung disease without a cure. People with COPD can manage their symptoms by using inhalers and breathing treatments, but because the disease is progressive, even symptom management loses its effectiveness over time.

During the last years of her life, as it became clear that my mom was becoming more frail and less able to care for herself, we decided to move her to an assisted living facility near my nephew. That way, she would have someone nearby who could render aid when needed, and I could act as her Medical Power of Attorney from 650 miles away.

Over the course of the last two years, as her condition diminished and my oversight of her care increased, Cliff and I began making monthly trips of three to five days in duration to take her to her doctor appointments, do her shopping and household chores, and keep her company. We made friends with the facility’s CNAs and dietary aides, nurses and administrative staff. Eventually, we started staying overnight in her small apartment.

Mom’s greatest fear was that she would die alone. By staying overnight in the adjacent room, we brought her comfort and confidence that if she needed someone, we would be there to help.

We spent our time with her enjoying her favorite foods and watching untold hours of “murder and mayhem” TV, classic movies, and Cardinals baseball games. When we were away from her, we called twice daily to check on her. These tele-visits became our routine.

My mind and heart are so full of memories.

Toward the end of her life, she would say to me, “I know I’m a problem.” I would say, “No, Mom, you’re not a problem. You’re my mom. And I’m helping you because I love you.”

It reminded me of a story I heard back when I was in the seminary about a man who cared for his mother after she got sick with cancer and then suffered a stroke. She was utterly helpless, so the man took her in to live with him. He would dress her and bathe her, take her to the toilet and wipe up after her. And he wept because it was so awful. All the taboos came up: his mother’s nakedness, her shattered dignity, his fearful pride. Here they were, two frightened people slipping and sliding around the bathroom. But despite the revulsion he felt, in spite of the embarrassment, he said it was, finally, the most spiritual experience he had ever had. He said he had learned to love his mother the way she first loved him: naked and without pretense.

What he did was remarkable. By confronting his fear he found the courage to love. Which is what caregiving is all about.

So 41 years after saying goodbye to my father, I said goodbye to my mother. I held her up as the nurse administered her medication and then I settled in by her bedside. She held my hand. Ten minutes later, she took her last breath, and it was suddenly ended. I looked to Cliff, who was seated next to her on the other side of the bed, dozing. “Cliff, wake up,” I said. “She’s gone from us.”

And I wept as we stood to hold one another.

We summoned the nurse, who, in turn, summoned the hospice nurse. We began making calls to my siblings and nephews. Cliff left to get Jayme (my sister) as the CNAs prepared her body for transport.

After Jayme arrived, Cliff and I prayed over Mom’s body and blessed her with words we remembered from when we were young priests.

I said, “May the angels lead you into paradise. May the martyrs come to welcome you, and take you to the holy city, the new and eternal Jerusalem. May the choirs of angels welcome you, where Lazarus is poor no longer. May you have eternal rest.”

Cliff said, “Eternal rest grant unto her, O Lord, and let perpetual light shine upon her.”

We laid hands on her and then let her go.

Cezar, the hospice nurse, arrived a few minutes later to certify her death and to contact the funeral home. He asked if it was OK for him to say a prayer, and we asked in turn if he would say it in his native language (the language of the heart). Hearing his words in Tagalog, his Filipino language, was soothing and sacred.

Soon, Natalie, from Kurrus Funeral Home, arrived to transfer her body to the gurney. When it was time to leave, we processed down the long hallway, slowly, reverently. I led the way, followed by my mom’s body, with Cliff and Jayme at the back. Along the way, we stopped to thank the nurses and CNAs who provided her comfort care at the end.

It was all a fitting tribute to one whose own journey was filled with life and love. We watched as Natalie placed her in the hearse and drove away.

Like my dad, my mom was fiercely determined to live. Despite a lifetime of suffering and setbacks and sin, she taught me how to hold on to hope. Together, yet apart, they taught me to embrace my frailties and faults and carry on, regardless of whatever obstacles lay ahead. And so I shall.

I am an orphan now. But I am not alone.

General, Social Issues

Dear Dallas: A Love Letter

During my first visit to Dallas in 2001, I made my way to Dealey Plaza, the site of President John F. Kennedy’s assassination. I spent hours inside the Sixth Floor Museum, carefully inspecting the vantage point from the “sniper’s lair,” before moving outside to stand atop the grassy knoll, peer over the picket fence, and contemplate the place on Elm Street where an X marked the spot of our national horror. I traveled to Oak Cliff to see the rooming house on North Beckley Avenue, where Lee Harvey Oswald lived in 1963, and to West Jefferson Boulevard, site of the Texas Theater, where he was apprehended by Dallas Police for the killing of officer J.D. Tippit on 10th Street.

I ended my first visit to Dallas with a stop at the Kennedy Memorial, about 200 yards from Dealey Plaza, at Market and Commerce streets. The architect Philip Johnson designed the bone-white cenotaph in 1970, not as “a memorial to the pain and sorrow of death,” but as “a permanent tribute to the joy and excitement of one man’s life.”

The simple, concrete memorial is intended to be a place of contemplation. Its 30-foot-high walls, open in the center and along most of the base, create a space apart from the bustling city. At the center is a black granite slab, too square to be confused with a tomb, inscribed simply with the President’s name.

I mention all these places and names, familiar to many Americans of my generation, because they were my first impressions of Dallas. It was for me a place of enormous sadness.

In later years, I would work at The Dallas Morning News, founded by George Bannerman Dealey, after whom Dealey Plaza was named. Every day for nearly eight years I made my way to work, walking past the plaza with the School Book Depository looming over me like a monument to madness. I would settle in Oak Cliff, not far from Oswald’s last stand, and I would interview Marie Tippit for some banal article in the newspaper’s Seniors section.

I would eventually take a job in the Department of Radiology at UT Southwestern Medical Center, which had clinical space in Parkland Hospital’s former Trauma Room 1, where President Kennedy was X-rayed by the department’s first chairman, Frederick Bonte, before being declared dead at 1 p.m. Had the assassination happened today, Abraham Zapruder might have live-streamed the event on Facebook, generating millions of views by 1:01 p.m.

To live and work in Dallas is an almost constant encounter with its ghosts. Every day, as I drive to work, I pass the grave of Clyde Barrow, a poor hillbilly from West Dallas who met his own violent end in an ambush that also claimed the life of his lover, Bonnie Parker. Their bank-robbing shooting spree made them cult celebrities of the early 1930s. One can only imagine how they would have trended on today’s social media, given their fascination with collecting newspaper clippings of themselves and their exploits.

To live in Dallas, you have to make room for its ghosts.

After a dozen years of living in the city, traveling its streets, passing its past, I’ve learned that you may be able to avoid reality but you can’t escape it. Despite the popular appeal of J.R. Ewing and America’s Team, the Dallas Housewives and The Bachelor, Mark Cuban and Ross Perot, Dallas cannot erase its association with tension, trouble and terror. The city’s racist establishment, corrupt political system and north-south bipolar disorder have all been well documented.

So why live in a place so fragmented, so divided, so haunted by past iniquities and enduring inequities?

Because Dallas is America.

Although historically predominately white, Dallas has diversified as it has grown. Today, about a third of the city’s 1.3 million citizens are white, 25 percent are black or African-American, and nearly 25 percent are foreign born. The largest minority groups in the city are Hispanics and Latinos, making Dallas a microcosm of the U.S. population.

To live in Dallas, then, is to live in America.

Throughout this vast and conflicted city, you’ll find localized populations of Chinese, Korean, Persian, Indian, Bangladeshi, Pakistani, German, Arab, Polish, Russian, Romanian, and Jewish peoples. Our neighborhood, in south Oak Cliff, is almost equally divided between black and Hispanic residents. This multicultural mix is the direct result of what Dallas has come to represent: It is a place of new beginnings; of continuous change; of limitless possibilities; of big ambitions.

The opportunity to make a fresh start brought me to Dallas, and I’m proud to call it my adopted hometown. I’ve traveled its roads, walked its streets, met its people, celebrated its triumphs, and mourned its losses. I have gathered with a jubilant crowd to cheer the nation’s first African-American president; marched with the LGBT community to demand marriage equality; thrilled to fireworks over downtown; rang in the New Year at a massive street party; enjoyed artistic and cultural events that are second to none, including symphony concerts, musical performances, ballet recitals, museum exhibitions, and stage plays.

The violence that visited our familiar streets last week may not have been unfamiliar to Dallas, but it was still a shock to the system. In a way, it was an assault on America itself. It struck at the heart of our great democracy. It does not represent who we are.

The peaceful protestors and the police who protected them — that’s who we are. We will not be defined by our bloody, racist past but by our multiracial future. Our commitment to healing our wounds and working toward greater understanding and appreciation of each other will be the way we build a more perfect union.

In the aftermath of the killings, Dallas Police Chief David Brown spoke in moving terms about how service and sacrifice are essential to democracy. He assured us that his officers would continue to put themselves in harm’s way to protect the great citizens of Dallas. That work, in service of democracy, is worthwhile, he said.

This, then, is Dallas: noble, proud, and strong.

Ethics, General, Social Issues

Guns Kill People

George Zimmerman killed Trayvon Martin on Feb. 26, 2012. That single fact is undisputed. But did the Neighborhood Watch leader murder the unarmed teen? Did he act with such reckless abandon that his actions amounted to manslaughter? A jury unanimously said, “no.”

In U.S. jurisprudence, as in much of biblical history, there is a distinction between killing and murder. Murder is unlawful killing, an act that is premeditated, intentional and malicious. Killing is when someone unintentionally takes the life of another, or does so as an act of self-defense or in defense of others.

The jury in Zimmerman’s trial simply decided, based on the evidence and the law, that Zimmerman didn’t murder Martin. He killed him in self-defense.

The story is a tragic one, of course, and no one emerged victorious. Martin is dead and Zimmerman is a pariah. It’s likely that Zimmerman and Martin were both scared of each other that rainy night–Martin, because he was being followed by some “creepy ass cracker” with a gun (according to Rachel Jeantel), and Zimmerman, because he didn’t know whether this “punk,” “asshole” Martin was armed. Their mutual fear of each other’s intentions escalated into a physical confrontation that spiraled into a life-and-death struggle.

I would argue that this whole wretched event might have been avoided if their hadn’t been a gun.

I served as a Neighborhood Watch volunteer for years, and I never carried a gun. I never felt as though I needed one. My chosen method of self-defense was a cellphone and a call to 911. That was also Zimmerman’s choice, but when fear overtook him, he reached for his gun. What if he had been armed instead with Mace or pepper spray? What if he had used a Taser or if his gun had had rubber bullets? What if he had shot him in the shoulder or the thigh? It suffices to say, you probably wouldn’t be reading this blog post.

I don’t agree with defense attorney Mark O’Mara’s claim that Martin was also armed, but “with concrete” instead of a gun. However, I do think that both Zimmerman and Martin were scared that night. And a gun in the hands of a fearful individual made all the difference between life and death.

General, Life

Whoever Said “50 is Fabulous” Was Delusional

Everyone keeps telling me it’s great to turn 50. But the honest truth is it’s sad to be a half-century old. I have to take daily medications now for gout and high blood pressure, and I can’t even read the pill bottles without my reading glasses. I can’t wear a swimsuit anymore. I’m far more willing to get dressed in front of the dog than in front of the mirror. I have mixed emotions about bacon: joy and gladness. I love it so much, in fact, that I’ve stipulated in my advance directives that it must be my last meal. If I’m being kept alive by a feeding tube it must be liquefied. If I can only have ice chips I want frozen bacon bits. You get the idea.

I used to have such a sharp mind. Then I was introduced to Google. I Google everything, which at least gives me the satisfaction of thinking I’m hipper, younger and more technologically savvy than I am. But all my gadgets have robbed me of my memory. Besides Google, I blame my memory loss mostly on my smartphone. It’s smarter than I ever was. It’s smarter than anyone I know. Because it accesses the collective smarts of human history, it’s the smartest thing in the universe. I hate it. I don’t even know my mother’s phone number. It’s just “Mom” in my “favorites” list. It’s my smartphone’s fault. It’s been said that the older you get the wiser you become, but why would I want wisdom if I can’t remember anything?

Nora Ephron described aging as one big descent—the steady spiraling down of everything: body and mind, breasts and balls, dragging one’s self-respect behind them. You reach a point where everything can no longer be held up with surgical scaffolding and the drugs of denial. I’ve reached that point. No investment of resources will stop the decline. I joined a gym, with great enthusiasm, hoping to slow the decline, but because I am equally enthusiastic about cocktails, the most I can hope for is to break even.

I hate that my gray hair makes me look distinguished but my jowls make me look disgruntled. The corners of my mouth droop. My forehead is permanently etched with horizontal lines. The bags under my eyes look like they’ve been packed for a long trip to the next 50 years. My legs are almost hairless; my ears, nose and throat have hairs popping out everywhere. My skin is pasty; my body, doughy. My muscle mass is decreasing; my stamina, ebbing. So far, getting older isn’t better—it’s fraught with peril. I’m shorter than I used to be; fatter than I ever was. Because I lack the dexterity I once had, I have to keep sharp objects at hand so I can open anything sealed in plastic packaging.

I still hate rap music, only now I hate it more than I ever did. I have no idea why I should care about Lindsay Lohan or Justin Beiber. I often repeat anecdotes and I’m grateful that most of my friends act as if they’re hearing them for the first time.

I wish I had something profound to say about reaching this “milestone,” but I don’t. After five decades, I’ve amassed the following bits of advice:

Be good to your colon and it will be good to you.
When in doubt, reboot.
Fresh vegetables are always the least expensive items on the grocery list.
You can’t be disappointed if you don’t get what you don’t ask for.
Everything’s better with bacon.
You know you’re old when everything is a problem.

Religion, Spirituality

High Hopes for Church Reform

It came as somewhat a surprise that the Vatican announced Pope Francis would be convening a group of eight cardinals from around the world to “advise him on the government of the universal church” and “to study a project of revision” of a document from John Paul II on the Roman Curia. One month into his pontificate, he is already delivering on a suggestion made during the “General Congregation” meetings of cardinals in the run-up to the conclave that elected him to the papacy.

Could major reform be on the horizon? Consider: As the ultimate Vatican outsider, Francis is uniquely positioned to assess the situation free from internal politics and entrenched influences. Moreover, each of the cardinals tapped to help him in his task are strong personalities in their own right, so they’re not likely to tell the pope what he wants to hear. And these are leaders of dioceses, which indicates not only a desire to hold the Vatican accountable to the local churches but also an attempt to implement Vatican II’s call for greater collegiality.

Regardless of what results, Francis has captured the attention of “lapsed” Catholics the world over, including me. He has given me great hope that the reforms of the Second Vatican Council (which framed my faith and inspired me to serve), may, despite many years of setbacks and outright reversals, be finally and fully implemented.

General, History, Religion, Spirituality

Since You Asked About Vatican II

Lots of questions, especially from non-Catholics, about the Second Vatican Council. A brief primer follows.

Vatican Council II was the 21st general, or ecumenical, council of the Catholic Church. It was held from Oct. 11, 1962 through Dec. 8, 1965. The council is regarded by many as the most significant religious event since the 16th-century Reformation and certainly the most important of the 20th century. The council produced 16 documents: four were constitutions, nine were decrees, and three were declarations. A constitution is a major document that intends to set a direction for the whole Church. A decree is a significant document, intended to foster further reflection and set a pace and direction for future discussion. A declaration is a statement of a theological position that is important for its influence on future dialogue.

A summary of the teachings of Vatican II:

The Church is, first and foremost, a mystery, or sacrament, and not primarily an organization or institution.
The Church is the whole People of God, not just the hierarchy, clergy, and religious.
The Church’s mission includes action on behalf of justice and peace and is not limited to the preaching of the word and the celebration of the sacraments.
The Church includes all Christians and is not limited exclusively to the Catholic Church.
The Church is a communion, or college, of local churches, which are not simply administrative subdivisions of the Church universal.
The Church is an eschatological community; it is not yet the reign of God.
The lay apostolate is a direct participation in the mission of the Church, and not simply a sharing in the mission of the hierarchy.
There is a hierarchy of truths; not all official teachings of the Church are equally binding or essential to the integrity of Catholic faith.
God uses other Christian churches and non-Christian religions in offering salvation to all humankind; the Catholic Church is not the only means of salvation.
The dignity of the human person and the freedom of the act of faith are the foundation of religious liberty for all.

General, Life, Religion, Spirituality

A Note From the Margins

It’s been barely two weeks since Cardinal Jorge Mario Bergoglio took the name of Pope Francis, yet it seems like the whole world has entered a sort of time warp. Allow me to explain.

At first blush, it appears as though Francis is more a successor to John Paul I than to John Paul II and Benedict XVI. After all, his emphasis on the marginalized over the magisterium calls to mind some of the very reforms envisioned by the Second Vatican Council, which, despite decades of attempts to reverse them (first by Karol Wojtyła and, then, by Joseph Ratzinger), is apparently unstoppable. Score one for the Holy Spirit.

Attending Palm Sunday Mass this year, inspired by the new pope’s outreach to the marginalized (in what was a first attempt to re-engage the Catholic Church in two years), it felt as though I had stepped much farther back in time. The emphasis on ritual purity reminded me of the first post-Conciliar days of my youth, with the faithful clinging to the past while being forcefully (though pastorally) nudged forward. The stilted liturgical language, the pious expressions of the faithful, the surprisingly extensive use of Latin and Gregorian chant, the undeniable focus on the tabernacle, the kneeling to receive communion–all combined to make for a reverent, yet eerie, celebration of the Eucharist. This Mass was a hybrid from a bygone era. Like a scene from a movie, it was preternaturally clean. There were no “femi-Nazis” here, no adherents to liberation theology, no faithful dissenters of any sort. Only precise gestures, choreographed movements, neatly manicured environment, appropriately diverse congregants and impressive edifices. It was so disconnected from the theology I studied and the ministry I practiced that, for the first time, I didn’t miss the priestly ministry. In that moment, it seemed like a distant, even distorted, memory.

During my seminary and ministry years (1986-2001), I absorbed Vatican II, all the while witnessing John Paul II take it off the rails. Benedict XVI extended and calcified many of his predecessor’s efforts–all of which culminated in the bizarre experience of Palm Sunday. Hopefully, Francis will be able to redirect the Church’s attention to what matters most: it’s not about the branches, but the people holding them aloft.

General

We’ve All Got to Start Somewhere

So I’ve decided to start a personal blog and begin building my brand. I’ve made many attempts to leave my mark on the Internet, and these perspectives may never be seen by anyone other than myself. But there’s something cathartic about expressing one’s self. So, here goes.

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