My Mom

I haven't used this blog for this purpose before, but I want to pause to talk about my mom, who recently passed away, and ask you to reach out to her church.

My mom passed away Saturday morning, November 13. Hours after her granddaughter Ellie's third birthday. I was with her when she died, in a nursing home in my neighborhood, Hyde Park. She had been declining for a long while, since a heart attack in March. We moved her to Chicago in September. It was the first time she had lived outside of Ohio.

My mom had a long, happy life. Those who knew her know she was quick to laugh, always buoyant, looking for the best in people. She was a loyal friend, taking care of her aging friends, driving them to events and doctor appointments after they could not, one of the last of her group of friends to be fully independent until she fell ill in March. Like a lot of her life, she took on this role as a welcome responsibility. She was a teacher in a collapsing school system for over 20 years, arranging ways to buy supplies for children who couldn't buy them. She took on the job of union leader in her school, to make sure that teachers and students had a voice in school policy. She took on this responsibility, even as the work became harder and harder, and other teachers fled to suburban schools. Republicans like to position the words "liberal" and "responsibility" in opposition. Liberals, they'll say, manufacture a culture of dependence, encouraging the poor to expect hand outs, rather than accept responsibility for their own fate. My mom came from a long tradition of liberal politics that embraced our responsibility toward one another. She was a life-long liberal Democrat, and believed that government's role - our role - should be to take care of the vulnerable. She was a child of the Great Depression, the first in her family to go to college, starting just after World War 2, when her campus (my alma mater too, Miami of Ohio) was filled with GIs coming back to school on the GI Bill. She saw how government could give a hand up, and she never lost faith in the idea.

Her months of illness had wearied her. She always believed that things happened for a reason, that even bad events in our lives were part of a path that leads us to some reward or lesson. An optimist by nature. And as she endured the loss of her mobility - she had not been able to walk since March - and repeated trips to hospitals and three different nursing homes, and a move to Chicago that meant leaving behind her home, and church, and friends, she continued to look for a reason. Why was all this happening? She never found the answer, but the fact that she viewed her ordeal that way is a testimony to her faith and optimism.

We will hold a memorial service for my mom on Sunday, December 19, in her church, Church of the Ascension, in Lakewood, Ohio. If you want to remember her, please make a donation to the church. Ascension, which was my church when I was a boy, may have to close its doors. It doesn't have the financial resources to continue. The church was a central part of my mom's life for a very long time. It lost a lot of its membership when members - like my mom - refused to withdraw from the Episcopal Church over the consecration of Gene Robinson, who is gay, as bishop in New Hampshire. Some conservative members of the congregation had agitated for a gesture of defiance, urging Ascension to leave the Episcopal Church, to affiliate with the Anglican Church of North America, as a way to protest the election of Bishop Robinson. During the meeting of the congregation on the question, my mom made the point that her vision of the Episcopal Church was an inclusive one, in which all who felt called to share their journey of faith together could find fellowship and love. Enough members of the congregation agreed with her, and the measure to split from the Episcopal Church was defeated. Of course, the conservative members who had pushed for the measure quit, unwilling to set aside their narrow-minded views. Then Ascension had some changes in leadership - one minister was forced to leave, another, who was well-loved, left after a few years to return to his hometown in the South, and over the past several years the church has been served by an interim minister. It's hard to build a plan for the future, and attract new members, when you don't have a permanent spiritual leader. Lakewood has two Episcopal churches, one near the WASPier, well-to-do lakefront neighborhoods to the west, and one, my mom's, in the working class part of town near the border with Cleveland. The other church, St. Peter's, just raced past its capital campaign goal of one million dollars, collecting more than 1.6 million. Meanwhile, my mom's church can't pay its bills. It feels a lot like what is happening in the country. Haves and have-nots live in different worlds. And the social safety net that supports the most vulnerable is shredding. My mom's church contributes to the work of the Lakewood Christian Service Center, it is a place for families on the west side of Cleveland to find comfort, a place to pray that they don't lose their jobs, or their homes. If it is forced to close its doors, it will abandon, too, all the people it helps.

Help it stay open. Send a donation to The Church of the Ascension, 13216 Detroit Avenue, Lakewood, Ohio 44107.