When I was a little girl, my mother sent me and my brother Mark to my aunt Dode’s house for refuge when the chaos at home overwhelmed us.  My mother’s sister Joyce, whom we called “Dode” for reasons unknown to me, and her husband Joe had as full a home as we did.  Our houses stood in similar neighborhoods — ours in Jennings, theirs in nearby Berkeley.  Each set of siblings attended Catholic church and school — the Corleys in their home parish of Corpus Christi and the Orsos at St. Bartholomew’s.  My cousins went to St. Thomas Aquinas HIgh School.  We Corleys divided ourselves among Corpus Christi High School and various other options when CCHS turned all-girl somewhere between kid-three and kid-four.

Two similar families, bound by the love of sister-mothers; but so dissimilar in other ways.  In the calm Orso household, my cousin Theresa and I whispered confidences at night and played ball with the boys during the day.  Their school-teacher mother took us on summer picnics and to afternoons at the pool.  I stayed at a table with my aunt reading while my able-bodied brother dove into the deep-end with the boisterous Orso boys and my tall, cheerful cousin Theresa.

Theresa and I lost touch over the years.  We came together in August of 1985 during my mother’s last illness.  I heard of my mother’s death over Theresa and her husband John’s telephone line at 6:50 a.m.   Theresa and I had stayed up too late, talking about funeral scriptures and life in north St. Louis County where we had been raised and where she and her husband settled.  Theresa sang “Goin’ Home” at my mother’s funeral mass in a haunting, sweet a capella voice that I have never forgotten. 

Over the next two decades, we saw each other at funerals and the occasional family picnic.  Then in 2018, after I moved to California, I started seeing more of Theresa when I came to Missouri in the process of closing out my court-appointment family law cases.  For the first time, we talked about adult things:  Her successful marriage, my failed three, life in Ferguson, and, always, ever, our sons.  

Her son Johnny had gone into the service.  Mine had become a writer and then an activist.  Both struggled with health issues.  We talked about feelings of helplessness; of not knowing how to give guidance to our adult boys without seeming to mistrust them.  Our sons met at one of those picnics and took to each other.   I had a few conversations with her John in those years.  I admired his passion, his unique sensibility, and his determination to overcome serious obstacles. 

Most of all, I stood in awe of Theresa’s brand of motherhood.  Whatever she felt on the inside, she remained outwardly calm and supportive.  She rejoiced in her son’s accomplishments, bragged only quietly but with a definite maternal glow.  She exuded a determined encouragement.  She allowed her son to face life  as he chose while leaving open any door through which he might want to return for advice.  I felt more than a little envy at the deftness of the dance which she choreographed with both of her grown children as they navigated the wide and wicked avenues of life.

My cousin Theresa and her husband John lost their son three days ago.   I had seen talk of a heart issue on his Facebook page, of the implantation of a pacemaker.  I wondered at the scariness of such a serious condition in a man so young.  When I saw the post about the successful operation, I hit the “like” button and then scrolled through earlier posts: song lyrics, mostly; dark and intense, but with a certain promise.  I smiled and said a little prayer for his continued recovery and went about the day.  Not until my sister Joyce called me that night did I learn of his death.

I cannot possibly know the extreme pain that my cousin must feel.  I pray that I never do.  The loss of a child must be nearly unbearable.  Only her husband, her daughter, and her grandchildren can possibly stand close enough to bolster the crumbling of her body and spirit, a collapse to which she must yearn to succumb.  Mothers and sons have this bond, you know?  An inseverable, intangible fiber wound itself from his heart to hers.  I do not mean to denigrate my cousin’s husband, nor suggest that his loss is any less.  Yet mothers and sons — oh my Lord, my Lord.

I did not know my cousin’s son John as well as I might have.   But I know his mother.  I know her compassion and her joyfulness.  I know her strength and her fortitude.  I knew her goodness and her serenity.  I know her heart.  I know that her heart joined to his.  The nurturing love which my aunt and uncle instilled in their daughter grew into the jewel of her firstborn child.  I know that love flowed between my cousin and her son, nourishing both.  Whatever else might  be true of either, that much cannot be questioned. 

Tonight, there is a Johnny Smythe-shaped hole in the universe.  Please:  Fill that hole with every kind of beauty.  Hug your children, if any bless your home.  Call your parents, if you have not yet lost them.  Sit on the couch by your partner and ask after events of the day.  Knock on your neighbor’s door with a batch of cookies or a deck of cards and a folding chair.  Wrap a gentle arm around thin shoulders huddled in a worn jacket and walk that mother’s son on down the road.

It’s the twenty-first day of the ninety-fourth month of My Year Without Complaining.  Life continues.

Rest in Peace, John Smythe.  Rest in peace.

“We are all just walking each other home.” — Rumi