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'Michelle's Story'

My father died when I was six leaving my mum with five children and an elderly mother to support. Money was scarce and even now, my mother recalls with some tenderness that three weeks before my father died, he wrote her a cheque for £20 000 which he left under the bed for ‘safe-keeping’. She knew at the time that he didn’t have that kind of money, but she never envisaged that less than a month later she’d be burying him and find herself in extreme financial difficulty. How much easier those early days of bereavement would have been if she’d had the privilege of having some funds stashed away in a ‘rainy day’ bank account.

 

Mum immediately became the bread winner and channelled her energies into making enough money to make sure that we all had the essentials in life. She’d leave the house at 7am and return at 5pm. Many an evening would be taken up bringing badly needed pennies in by working a second job. Then on a Saturday morning she’d be at the launderette at 6am to do the family washing which was a half day costly enterprise; she couldn’t stretch to a washing machine at the time, that came many years later. Times were hard, but we never wanted for the most important thing in life – motherly love – to the extent that on Sunday’s she often spent half of it baking so that we’d all have goodies to enjoy from Monday to Friday.

Needless to say, some years into this gruelling workload she was diagnosed with cancer, whilst at the same time her elderly mother had a stroke. All our worlds changed forever. A three year battle began which involved several rounds of very strong cancer treatment resulting in weight loss and a tremendous amount of physical suffering. Our future was very uncertain, but it was alleviated by the fact that some of my siblings were now old enough to have jobs and were self-financing. As a family we pulled together, sadly burying my grandmother during this time. Friends and extended family were very generous and extremely kind. I saw a side to others that has left a lifelong positive and meaningful impression on me.

 

Unswavering faith, determination and a great deal of courage enabled my mother to fight the cancer. The outstanding medical care that she received also played an enormous part in her recovery. After two or three years she returned to normal life.

 

At times mum could have let fear, grief and suffering crush her, yet as she sat ill in bed, with her Catholic prayer book in her hands, a power greater than herself was present – God. He quite literally carried her in the palm of his hand.

 

What mum modelled to me is that whatever life difficulty, sorrow or uncertainty that I might face, financial or otherwise, the Catholic Faith - which is The source of love and hope - are the antidotes; these are more powerful realities than fear and despair, even greater than seemingly impossible circumstances. Mum had reason to give up when her husband died young, when initially the cancer treatment didn’t work, when her mother died, but she held fast, confident that God, in some way, would heal, act and provide. He did and if you’re reading this feeling down trodden, sorrowful and trapped, there is hope. Turn to a power greater than yourself – a loving Father in heaven - and ask for the courage, supported by others, to take what action you can knowing that you’re not alone.

 

“…these remain: faith, hope and love, the three of them; and the greatest of them is love.”
1 Corinthians chapter 13, verse 13
Sourced from the New Jerusalem Bible

 

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