Three Ladies, Two Stars and One Little Angel...

I have taken the ninth anniversary of the birth of my first child to reflect.  I look at who I am, where I find myself and in short, I guess things could be much worse.  It has been another particularly difficult year for the McNassar clan.  In the last 12 months we have lost three members.  My aunt Jeanne (Henningsen) McNassar passed away suddenly last October.  Earlier this year we lost both my aunts Ann (McNassar) Zenner and most recently, Sr. Mary McNassar SNJM with whom Liam shared a birthday.  So this August 27^th was a particularly difficult one.  As a matter of practice, we do not have a ceremony or major function on Liam’s birthday.  When we first lost him, we quickly joined a grief group and leaned heavily on the experiences and advice of our peers.  Everyone agreed that the first birthday as well as the first anniversary of the death of their child was the hardest.  Verily, I remember enough of those days to not want to relive them.  Liam’s (would-be) fifth birthday was 78 days after his death.  I always struggle with explaining that when asked about Liam from the casual acquaintance.  Usually, when first meeting a person, they ask if I am married and if I have a family.  I tell them I have two children at home.  I used to go straight into the story of Liam as it felt deceitful or dishonorable to Liam to ignore his existence to strangers somehow.  Well, now I find some people don’t want to know all of that and they will let my answer lie (the tacit : I have TWO AT HOME, but elsewhere?)  The occasional person pursues the conversation and I am all too happy to open up.  Still, I find myself getting hung up on the question of his age.  Liam was amazing.  He acted wise beyond his years and just had a competency about things that continues to blow me away.  So, to think that he had only experienced 4 birthdays throws me for a bit of a curve.  How old was he when he died?  Well, he was almost five, or he was a couple months short of his fifth birthday…  it all seems cumbersome.  I think somewhere in my heart I worry that people will hear, ‘oh, he was four’ and think, well that must suck, but the kid was practically a baby so they can’t really miss the person that badly, just the idea.  I worry somehow people won’t recognize the value of a four-year-old for the incredible person they are versus the obvious tragedy of the loss of the person they could possibly become.  All these things swirl around in my head and I can at times sit down and rationalize to myself that it is all misperception and neurosis but it doesn’t make it any easier.    I made a promise to myself when Liam died.  I told myself and the entire church full of people that had come to honor him that I was resolved to learn from his strength and resilience, his honesty and bravery and would incorporate those things into my life.  I would live a better life than I had up to that point, one that is happy and joyful, to take delight in the small things, the crickets and the butterflies.  I feel I have done a fair job, though I can’t stop holding myself to a standard that seems at times above my capabilities.  It is funny how so many men, when they are boys, try to hold themselves to a standard dictated by their father.  I wonder at times if I am the only man that tries to be more like his son.  It is reassuring to know those gifts, the gifts of unconditional love, unshakeable optimism and unquenchable curiosity that defined Liam still exist.  In the dark moods that occasionally still appear as background lighting in my mind, II have doubted these things, I have doubted my devotion to myself and to getting up again and dusting myself off and continuing to walk.  But, now I find there are little stars in the night sky.  I see two small shining stars that reach down with their slender arms of light and reach out to me.  The call me by name, ‘Daddy,’ and I don’t end up having much of a decision in the matter anymore, and that is liberating.  When I no longer have the choice as to whether or not I will give up or fail myself, the question morphs from will I get up? To HOW will I get up?  How will I take another step?  I don’t really need strength to decide to wake in the morning, I just need discipline to pace myself and go to sleep at night.  Standing up half the night with Baby Liam in my arms, followed by Baby Sophia and Baby Mario was PT for the big show.  After the darkest part of my life, there was a question as to whether the light would shine again.  Thanks to my little stars, the path seems lit.  I know this all reeks, it reeks of hyperbole and sappy misplaced metaphor, but sometimes you just need saccharined schlock to keep you from tasting the bitterest parts.  I am not ready to have a poster of a cat that tells me to ‘Hang in there’ on my wall or anything, but I will take this one conceit, this exaggeration of reality since it brings me comfort.

   Jeanne, Ann and Mary were all good at that, bringing peace and joy, each in their unique ways.  Jeanne, with her wealth of children and grandchildren, the eternal hostess and matriarch, so beautiful and graceful, I never knew how she could keep it all together like that.  Stunning.  Ann was so thoughtful, sometimes to a fault, about the needs of her family and the desire not to want to impose her grief or disposition on others.  We didn’t see much of her in the last long stretch of time, but I was lucky enough to do a little work for her in her home with my father and reconnect.  Her love and kindness were not something blunted by her separation from the family.  She loved us all and it was apparent through her words and actions.  Mary, it was a shock that she passed so quickly.  I was certain after Liam’s experience with Leukemia that we would have time to say the things that were expressed every time we saw each other, through her faith, love and compassion.  Mary loved each and every one of us without exception, without pause, without any expectation of reciprocity, though it was always there.  Mary could elicit some of the finest behavior from some of the most dour, taciturn characters.  Don’t worry, I shall not name names.  Mary was a nutcracker, one that could break through even the most closed off and jaded individuals.  She was a go to person for the schools where she worked, for the order of The Holy Names and for the McNassar family.  She was our ‘point man’ and she loved it, not for the glory, but for the feeling of usefulness and completeness of spirit.  She was at her happiest and at her best form when helping others which was pretty much every day.  On several occasions Mary would come to my live performances and asked me several times if I knew the tune, The Rose of Tralee.  I always felt like a bum when I had to shrug and say I didn’t.  When I learned that she was ill, I decided to learn the song.  I practiced it a lot as her illness progressed and was tempted to blurt it out when asked at the funeral if anyone else had something to say.  I opted to say a few heartfelt words as I felt both my own words and my own heartbreak were more honest and more celebratory of Mary than of myself.  Still, I find myself humming the Rose of Tralee and thinking of Mary, the beauty that was and is a beautiful blossom of the family McNassar: 

 

“She was lovely and fair as the rose of the summer,

Yet 'twas not her beauty alone that won me;

Oh no, 'twas the truth in her eyes ever dawning,

that made me love Mary, the Rose of Tralee.”