The Password to Heaven:
A Mother's Love

By Eileen T. Geller, (c) 2004

"I'll meet you in the right front corner..." was a secret password of sorts, a message to those who would follow after her. To understand what it means, one must 'meet' an ordinary woman - a wife, nurse and mother of seven who lived and died a 'hero' of Christian love.

This woman, Rita, was my dear friend, and as it happened, my 'Auntie Rita' as well. She was, and is, an extraordinary woman - her love, compassion, faith, determination and energy have made her mentor to many.

These were the virtues with which she lived her life. It is no surprise then, that these very virtues would strengthen and sustain Auntie Rita in the difficult but precious years after she was diagnosed with endometrial cancer on Holy Thursday, 2002.

And just three weeks before being admitted to the ECU (Eternal Care Unit) in November, 2004, this vibrant woman traveled to Seattle to see her newest grandchild. She stopped by my house one luminescent October afternoon to bid me hello. And goodbye, though we didn't know it then.

Fall was in the air.

We stood on my deck, watching Lake Washington glisten under blue skies, feeling the last of summer warmth on our faces, looking at autumn leaves floating past on wisps-of-wind, tree-born snowflakes returning to the ground from whence they came. Soon enough these leaves-of-glory would be gone from sight, but not from memory.

And what a backdrop the colors of fall made to the cup of tea we shared and the conversation of 'catch up' we played. I still have the pictures of that day - my Auntie Rita and I - she all distilled soul, showing forth from beautiful eyes a shadow of grief-to-come and heaven-in-the-making: an evergreen, I thought, if ever there was one.

We exchanged a final hug after a lovely visit. She clung to me - the hug lasting longer than usual as she whispered to me - nurse to nurse, a plea that broke my heart:

"Be there for me. Please, be there for me," she pleaded, eyes wet with unshed tears.

"Of course," I promised, my tears falling over the edges, finding their way to my heart - as prayers.

Of course I will," I said, hugging her back, leaving some of myself in that embrace, hoping for the same from her.

Little did I know, that the fruition of that promise would come all too soon - that I would receive a call from my cousin the next week that my Auntie Rita was hospitalized with a life-threatening complication of her cancer. A train ride to Portland followed. Once there, I was picked up by my cousin and brought by heavenly chance to the closest place to the train station for a Saturday night mass - the cathedral in downtown Portland.

There, my cousin and I sat with her little children between us, and heard, inexplicably, the most timely homily either of us will ever know. As it happened, the subject of the homily, if not the readings, was death, in particular, the death of a mother. The priest spoke that night of an experience he'd had as a young priest at the bedside of a dying woman some years before.

As the woman lay dying, the mother looked up at her daughter, and smiled a beatific smile of great love and tenderness. She said slowly, as if every word were as valuable as any she'd ever spoken:

"BACK----LEFT---CORNER."

The priest frowned, perplexed: was there some secret code here that he was missing, something of great importance that he should know about? He glanced about the room - was he missing something in the corner? His confusion and uncertainty only deepened when, just before the mother breathed her last, her daughter looked back at her, eyes filled with the tears of final good-byes, and said in the most reverent and loving tone:

"BACK LEFT CORNER MOM."
"REMEMBER. BACK LEFT CORNER."

The daughter finished the statement with a gentle wave and soon thereafter, her mother died.

The reticent, but still curious priest asked the daughter if she would mind sharing with him the significance of those final mysterious words. The daughter, through a mist of tears, smiled.

"Well Father," she began. "My mother and I have always had this special joke - we've talked about heaven a lot, trying to visualize what the bible means when it tells us:"

"Eye has not seen nor ear heard the glory
that God has prepared for those who love him."

"Now we know theologians may differ in their interpretations of heaven and of the time and kind of purification that is needed for children of God to go there, and Mom and I know that too - but we never focused on that. We figure all that is best left to the good Lord."

"We just focused together on how wonderful it would be to be 'at the eternal Supper of the Lamb' - to see the people of all time who are gathered there and all of our family from generations past. But we decided that with all those saints and purified souls collected there, heaven must be getting a bit crowded."

"We joked about how we would find each other up there midst of all those angels and saints, reformed sinners and regular folk, who had lived quiet lives with great love. So we made a pact: whichever one of us gets to heaven first would save a space for the rest of us, in the BACK LEFT CORNER. That's what Mom and I were talking about. I reminded her that when the time came, I'd come and meet her there, in the back left corner."

I told that story to Auntie Rita the next day - a week to the day before she died. She smiled her special wry smile. Then she nodded, eyes twinkling as she added to me:

"I'm not sure, considering our family's political persuasion, that we should really meet on the left - it seems like the right side of the aisle would be more like us. And as far as the back corner - what do you think? I can't imagine our rather loud family in the back. It seems to me that when the Lord deems us to be purified, and when he is ready, we should really plan on finding each other in the FRONT RIGHT CORNER."

"That's where I'll be," she said with a smile. "In the right front corner, waiting for all of you."

That evening, at mass at the cathedral, another mysterious event occurred. Just as we were leaving, my cousin's little son happened to hold the door open for a gentleman leaving just behind us. It turns out he was someone I knew well from visits to the Carmelite convent in Seattle. The man, who my children call Mr. Martin, is a gentle giant. He is intelligent and kind, a sort of masculine, big-boned St. Therese of Lisieux.

Anyway, it was mysterious to find 'Mr. Martin' at the cathedral. Martin is a seer of sorts, a holy man, connected to the Holy Spirit, and to the mother of God. He has chosen in this life to be rich in the love of the Lord, rather than the riches of this world.

But there he was, in the narthex of the cathedral. He held my hand as I stood on my tip-toes to asked him to pray for my Auntie Rita, who was seriously ill, hospitalized with cancer. He nodded gently, saying he had just come from a novena to the patron saint of cancer patients, St. Peregrine, and that he would go to the Blessed Sacrament chapel that very night to pray for Auntie Rita and for all of her family.

Then, a delighted smile graced his kind face and he said:

"I can feel the love of the Holy Spirit for her and for you."

He 'listened' to the still small breath of the Spirit for a moment more, then broke into a toothless grin. (Martin, who lives in a homeless shelter, hasn't had financing for dental work. Not that it matters - that smile is lit from within - his absence of teeth is of no consequence.)

"Your Auntie Rita will be in heaven soon," he said. "Dancing with the angels."

Then his huge, charity shod feet lifted, first one, and then another, in the unmistakable rhythm of invisible music. He smiled hugely, joyously, as he said:

"She'll be dancing with the angels...dancing with the angels!"

"Soon."

Little could Martin have known, since he had never met nor heard of my Aunt Rita before that - that dancing was one of Rita's favorite activities. Or that when she danced, her little girl enthusiasm burst from the seems of otherwise 'mature' persona.

Who knows? Perhaps Martin did know in a special sort of Holy Spirit way that dancing with the angels would likely be the first chosen heavenly activity for Rita - and that maybe she'd be dancing with her guardian angel even before arriving at the pearly gates and finding her way to the front right corner.

Martin was right about another thing.

It would be soon, sooner than any of the rest of us imagined.

We went to the hospital that night and again the following morning, I had a few hours with Auntie Rita alone to discuss things on her mind and on mine. This conversation occurred a week before she died, almost to the minute.

In view of her health's sudden deterioration, Aunt Rita expressed worry that she might not be able to finish the 'love gifts' she planned to make for her husband, children, and grandchildren. You see, since her diagnosis, she'd been planning to create 'memory keepers,' so that each of her loved ones might have a special cache of letters and pictures to remember her by.

She'd been looking at old family movies, sometimes over and over again, so that she might refresh in her own mind the blessed particulars and cherished peculiarities of each of her seven children - the details of each small human, growing to be the adult children whom she cherished and of whom she was so proud. But she worried she wouldn't be able to 'do the job right.' (Auntie Rita was big on 'doing the job right'.)

And so it was, that in the end, my Aunt Rita never got the chance to write the 'legacy of love' letters to her beloved husband and children.

Instead, as a sort of 'love-insurance,' she spoke to them, through me. She entrusted to me, the most essential message for her husband, all seven children, her sons and daughters-in-law, her grandchildren, and everyone who knew her. The message Rita wanted her loved ones to carry in their hearts and in their lives, is the most important message any Mother can leave for those she loves.

The core 'Rita' message is imprinted by the Holy Sprit into the DNA of our hearts before we are born and ever after wound around and through the activities of our daily lives. This distilled message of mother-love exists even if the vehicle of the messenger is broken, as all of us are. It is lived out in the kitchens and laundry rooms, living rooms and family cars in a million different ways, on a thousand different days.

The heart of the message is known to all of us from the time we are born until the day we die. And beyond. (Though for those whose earthly mothers are particularly fragile, the words may resonate more lovingly when whispered from the heart of their heavenly Mother.)

The message that Rita Brown left for her loved ones is from the heart of every mother everywhere.

The message is as follows:

"Your Mom has always loved you."
"Your Mom loves you now."
"Your Mom will always love you."

After Auntie Rita breathed those words out loud, it became clear that even if she couldn't finish the larger project she'd envisioned, she could at least be sure that each of her beloved knew the core of what she wanted them to know, now and forever. To Uncle Bob, her lifelong partner and dearest friend, to her mother, to her grandchildren, to her extended family, and to neighbors and friends, she wished to speak these words.

"I love you. I have always loved you. And I will always will love you."

And if she could give just one piece of advice to the rest of us, my Auntie Rita might have this to say:

Don't put off until tomorrow the legacy-of-love you can create today.
Don't wait to have those essential conversations until the time is just right or perfect - it may never be.
Don't wait until you grow worse or get better to write love letters to your spouse, children, grandchildren, and friends - you may never get the chance.
Don't wait until you have the energy, or the words come easily, to speak of regrets or forgiveness - neither may happen soon enough to console.

Instead, 'Just do it!'

Now.

Speak works of love. Write birthday cards for your loved ones, several years in advance. Apologize for past misunderstandings. Create a love-legacy video or audio tape. Seek forgiveness, even for perceived wrongs. Purchase special gifts for your anniversary or Christmas. Celebrate early, and often. Reacquaint yourself with the Author of Life. Pray.

Just do it. Slow down. Cherish each day. Live in love. Build a legacy.

Now.

Auntie Rita worried about leaving her soon-to-be-grieving family. She tried to hang on for their sake, but to no avail. I told my Auntie Rita not to worry, that the love she'd lived in a myriad of small ways and an avalanche of bigger ones, over a lifetime of sweet inspiration, great faith, and abiding love, was legacy enough to last.

Forever.

My Auntie Rita may not have finished her 'business' in the perfect way she hoped, but she left a legacy nonetheless, an extraordinary and lasting legacy, the legacy of self-transcendent love. In her deep humility and understated goodness, in her abiding faith and genuine mercy, she had no idea - none - how many people she changed for the better, or how many of us will carry an image of her love imprinted in our hearts.

Always.

That memorable morning, she and I also spoke of the Pulitzer-prize winning author Earnest Becker and the words he wrote that had applied to her since the moment of her diagnosis, and would apply even more certainly at the time - whatever time that was, that she left us in this 'vale of tears' and went on to 'the Eternal Care Unit.'

Becker wrote: "When we witness a person bravely facing her own extinction, we rehearse the greatest victory imaginable."

With the love-drenched life and courage-filled death of my Auntie Rita, we witnessed a great victory. And when she was tied to this earth by only the slimmest wisps of breaths and the extraordinary love for her beloved spouse and children, we did rehearse the greatest victory, the greatest victory imaginable.

Rita fought the good fight. She finished the race. And, as St. Paul says, the victor's crown will be hers. She will be called into the kingdom by he who is victorious over suffering and death, he who has cherished her since before she was born, he who is, who was, and who will be, now and forevermore.

He who welcomes her into loving arms will say:

"Well done good and faithful servant! Come and share your Master's joy."

Early that November morning, as she breathed for the last time the sweet scent of this earth, the surrounding love of her mother, husband, children and family, Rita made ready to breathe in the heavenly scent of the beyond. She exhaled that last tiny breath finally, but only after waiting an impossible wait, literally holding onto dear life to be enveloped in love - and to see each and every one, one last time, and to witness the love and support her brood will have for one another from this day forward.

Auntie Rita: You have taught us the power of great love and of sweet faith. We will always love you - forever and ever. Dance with the angels, sing in the choir, and until we meet again - in the corner - the Right Front Corner, may God hold you in the palm of his hand.

Wait for us there!

Postscript: The following letter was found written in the notes to the family collected together after the funeral reception:

Rita, I am not as close to the Eternal Care Unit as you, but they say my time is coming before very long. I think you'll understand when I say I can't meet you in the Right Front Corner - as you know, I'm a 'Left Front Corner' kind of guy.

But I'd love to see you anyway.

How 'bout we meet in the middle?

Your friend, Al

Drawn from a Eulogy delivered by Eileen T. Geller, in November, 2004