Remembering Mom: an end to mourning, a bitter-sweet celebration of mercy

Hard to believe it has been a year since my mother, Katherine, passed away.

June 17, after having called aloud in delight for her own mother, she "reposed," as we Orthodox Christians say. And, a year later, I see that moment of her leaving us as a blessing -- ending the confusion and haze of final-stage Alzheimer's disease, the physical pain of one unable to speak or understand speech, walk, or care for herself in the most basic manner.

But she knew love and knew how to give love to the end of her 91 and a half years. She could still smile, and raucously laugh, and cry tears sometimes of pain, other times of joy she could not otherwise express.

As dawn turned the sky silver over the Jordan River this morning -- candles lit, a ribbon of burning incense drifting up toward a small photo of her nestled amid icons of Christ, His Mother, and an assortment of saints in my home prayer corner -- I recited the ancient Akathist to Jesus for Those Who Have Fallen Asleep.

I had offered this same prayer for 40 days following her death last year, as I had for my father when he had passed away six months before. And as I had done for my father, Robert Sr., on the one year anniversary of his repose, I prayed for Katherine.

There were, again, some tears for me. There also was peace and hope.