Do you have peripheral people? I’m sure you do, but by
nature of their role you may not always see them clearly. I attended a funeral
mass today for one of my peripheral people, Pat. Patricia Elizabeth Cossins,
although I may not have recognized that name had I seen it somewhere out of
context. I found out today that Pat had 25 grandchildren and 38 great grandchildren.
I had no idea what a bundle of family she had, but even so she gave attention
to celebrating the milestones of my children as though they belonged to her,
not peripheral attention but genuine, focused warmth.
We got Pat at St. Mary’s, our parish just outside the Snow Globe.
My parents were always front row people
at church, and Pat was their front row counterpart just across the narrow aisle.
I can’t remember what point in time she began to be there. I just know she was in the
family photos of Holly’s baptism and then of Devin’s. I grew up a front row
person by association and was ever uncomfortable and self-conscious there. So when
Devin, (wiggly Devin who didn’t have a whisper voice whatsoever) was a toddler,
I began to look for ways to sit behind the front row people on the outside
where I could escape as necessary to give him a good scolding on the back steps
(for which I needed to confess my lack of patience during several Advents and
Lents).
By the time Treyson’s baptism came around, Pat was not only
in the photos, she was more than happy to be his godmother, for which I was grateful.
But I was more grateful still when St. Mary’s joined other small parishes to
become one big parish and Pat saved me. She became my parents’ front row same
side of the new wide aisle companion. Because they had Pat, I didn’t feel like they
were lonely when I began sliding in the side entrance with two very busy boys
and one teen sister sweetly aloof from their ruckus. By mid-mass I usually had
to force my way in between the boys to keep them from laughing and elbowing,
and it was always a comfort to look across the way and see Pat and my parents, distant
enough to be fondly amused by the shenanigans and sympathetically supportive of
me.
While my parents’ friendship with Pat was more concrete,
mine was mostly a Sunday kind of deal. We congregated after mass to chat, Pat
would catch up on the doings of the kids, and we’d exchange well-wishes for the
week ahead. There were Christmas cards sent. I was guilty of needing to call my
mom for her address for a string of years because I hadn’t taken time to add it
to my address book. We attended her 70th birthday party with her
family. By Devin’s graduation she had mobility challenges, so I didn’t give
much thought to her actually attending, but she got herself there early and told a teacher who she was there to celebrate. The teacher assumed she was a
grandparent and helped her to a seat in the row reserved for Devin’s family
where we found her waiting with a smile. It was a much better spot for her than
on the periphery.
Pat was proudly present at Treyson’s graduation and Devin’s wedding. When
Devin came to mass for the last time before moving across the country for
graduate school, she cried like she was losing one of her own, which took the
focus from my own heavy heart and helped me hold myself together. After an
illness left her in a wheelchair her daughter Terry began bringing her to
church and the brief cheerful Sunday chats continued with another person in the
circle, until Pat went through a string of health complications and Terry began
to come to mass alone. Then on Easter Sunday Terry invited us to visit Pat at
home, where the family had settled her with the help of hospice to spend her
last days.
I’m not proud of how much I didn’t want to go. It seemed so
intimate and personal, not peripheral at all. I love people, but I’m socially
awkward at best so imagine me when things are at their worst. I did go though,
and I have never felt with more certainty the value of connection or the divine
force that has given us hearts to connect. I can’t fully comprehend why it
mattered that I was there, but it did. Pat was not able to hold a conversation
but when she said my name I moved to a stool by the bed and she gazed steadily
at me, her eyes shining and clear for a long, warm while. I didn’t have words
then, and I don’t have them now, but I will never forget that moment. We stayed
at the house for just a bit longer to encourage Terry, so brave in bringing her
mom home and so fragile in her knowledge of both how long and how fleeting the
time would be. When I told Pat “Goodbye, I’ll see you again,” I knew it to be
true.
From this Easter parting with Pat I learned you should value
your peripheral people. That’s not to say you must bring them into the center
of your life; they’re exactly where they belong. But when you meet them, understand
that you are seen and heard and more importantly, allow yourself to see and
hear. Outside your snow globe the world is vast and impersonal but between you
and things beyond that don’t belong to you, stand your peripheral people. When
one of them is gone, you’ll feel deeply that the world out there is too big without
them, but then you will realize with comfort how much more connected to all humanity
you are because they once were there.
