Whenever I bend over to pick up a bit of lint off the floor, I think of my mother.

I haven’t written many poems about my mother. But I wrote many letters to her from the time I left home until the time she came to live near me in Kansas City. She was my teacher, my advocate, my moral and spiritual model. I always wanted to make my mother proud of me. I think I did. The letters and clippings she saved will furnish resources for this blog.

My mother had a terror of losing her eyesight. Apart from the potential for grievous loss we all share, I don’t know exactly where she was coming from about this one thing. I only know she spoke of it from time to time. So, when the effects of aging threatened the vision in one of her eyes, and surgery was the option, she faced up to it with both courage and fear.

Post-surgery, she was careful to observe all the restrictions. That is, until the day she spotted a bit of lint on the floor. A bit of lint. Reflexively the tidy housekeeper, she bent over to pick it up. The sudden “pop” of a blood vessel bursting obliterated forever the vision in that eye.

We’ve all done something dumb in an instant. Imagine living with its tragic consequences for the rest of your life. You see it in newspaper headlines every day. Perhaps partly because of her mistake, my mother began a long decline into depression. Her faith was secure, but her fear was real, too.

I wish I could have stood in the way of my mother’s fear. According to sources I’ve come across, the Bible has 365 references where an angel, or some other speaker from God, declares, “Don’t be afraid!” That’s one Fear Not for every day of the year. A friend recently sent me a little card that contains a version of the famous prayer of St. Teresa of Avila. I keep it in my wallet. Here it is for you to hang onto as well.

Let nothing disturb you.
Let nothing frighten you.
All things are passing away.
God never changes.
Patience obtains all things.
Whoever has God
lacks nothing.
God alone suffices.
 
St. Teresa of Avila