Remembrance – Bernice Muller

The mother of a dear friend of mine passed away and I was privileged to have been the deacon at the funeral mass. Arlene, the daughter, asked me to share this reflection on her mother's beautiful life. Please pray for the repose of the soul of Bernice Muller.

 

Remembrance – Bernice Muller - Funeral – June 21, 2019

By Arlene B. Muller

My Mom’s role model was St. Therese of Lisieux.  When Mom was a child attending St. Pancras School, she was told about her, given holy pictures of her and was immediately drawn to love and emulate her.  Mom’s favorite teacher who became a lifelong family friend, Sister Miriametta Zehnter, O.P., gave Mom a very special gift when Mom was 11 years old: a picture of St. Therese with a relic of Therese’s First Holy Communion dress.  Mom has now handed down this gift to her great-grandniece, Angelica Therese, who has just turned 11 years old, whose mother—my goddaughter Alicia—named Angelica Therese to honor my Mom and her devotion to St. Therese.

St. Therese’s life and writings teach us that ordinary people can become saints by trusting and relying on JESUS with childlike faith and by continually demonstrating love for God and love for people by small acts of service and sacrificial love and overlooking insults and annoyances.  As a young woman St. Therese read 1 Corinthians 12 but did not find her spiritual gift, and then she continued on to read 1 Corinthians 13, St. Paul’s teaching on love, and exclaimed “My vocation is love!” As St. Mother Teresa of Calcutta, who also was inspired by St. Therese of Lisieux, said, we cannot do great things but we can do small things with great love.  This sums up my Mom’s life perfectly.

Mom initially considered becoming a Carmelite nun like St. Therese. As a high school student Mom was preparing to become a Dominican sister like several of her friends.  Sister Miriametta was going to be her sponsor and Mom was going to take the religious name Sister Ann Therese.  She longed to become a teacher and “teach the little ones”, and she would have been a gifted teacher.  But her mother, my Grandma, was an emotionally needy person and this was the late 1940s, prior to the reforms of Vatican II, when even sisters in teaching orders were not allowed to come home.  Because of Grandma’s needs Mom sacrificed her desire to become a sister and cared for my Grandma, who could be very difficult and demanding at times, tirelessly and lovingly until my Grandma died at age 88 in 1984.

Not long after Mom sacrificed her desire for religious life and the teaching profession, the LORD showed Mom that He had other plans for her by bringing my Dad into her life.  Mom and Dad fell deeply in love and were married on May 27, 1950, 46 days shy of Mom’s 21^st birthday, and they were devoted to loving and serving each other, loving and serving God, and loving and serving family and even friends they treated like family together throughout 64 years of marriage until my Dad died on August 16, 2014 at the age of 91. Mom and Dad were only able to have one child—me—and although you might not believe it by looking at me now—I was initially fragile and underweight, and Mom never stopped her concern for me even when our roles became reversed and I became one of her 3 caregivers when she was in her late 80s and I was in my 60s.  I could ask for no better mother and no better friend than my Mom! She loved me deeply, took wonderful care of me, worried about me, taught me, helped me with homework, gave me the freedom to pursue my career goals and ministries, and was always my closest confidant, encourager and cheerleader.  If given the opportunities Mom could have become a gifted teacher, writer and singer, and I feel sad that she never had the chance to fulfill her potential, but she joyfully accepted her role as full time homemaker mother and caregiver for other family members and made use of her gifts in little ways, like writing poems for people’s birthdays and singing hymns while ironing as well as in the congregation at Mass, became a wonderful cook and baker, and encouraged me to fulfill my potential in my work and my Church ministries.

After Grandma died Mom became a Special Minister of Holy Communion, and my Dad became one a few years later.  Together they distributed Holy Communion at Sunday Mass at St. Pancras and brought Holy Communion to shut ins for over 20 years.  Mom found great joy when a community of Discalced Carmelites moved into a nearby monastery.  For several years Mom and Dad attended a 7:30AM weekday Mass at the Carmelite monastery. Dad became an altar server.  Mom cooked soups and baked cakes for them.  These were joyful, fruitful years for them.

Several years ago my Mom had a dream in which Our LORD JESUS appeared and asked for help in suffering for the sins of the world and asked her to agree to suffer “in many small ways”.  I later told Mom she should have asked the LORD to define His terms, because her suffering seemed to become a lot worse than we could have expected.  Initially it was a pain in her shoulder that began on Ash Wednesday and ended on Good Friday.  Then Mom developed back pain for which cortisone injections provided little help.  We don’t know when Mom developed breast cancer because she had stopped having mammograms at age 80. But Mom’s pelvic fracture in March 2015 without a fall was suspicious, on May 31, 2016 a CAT scan revealed cancer in the bones of her spine and pelvis, and in June 2016 Mom was diagnosed with stage 4 metastatic breast cancer that had metastasized to her bones.  After hospitalization and rehab Mom required 24/7 care at home, and, thank God He brought Mom’s devoted aides, Mary & Bernadette, into our lives.  Miraculously Mom lived 3 years past a stage 4 cancer diagnosis and even rallied from an ankle fracture in 2018 after rehab at Dry Harbor and walked with her walker better than ever.  However, suddenly a few weeks ago Mom took a turn for the worse and a CAT scan showed greater metastasis in her bones. These last 3 weeks Mom became increasingly weak, and in the last few days of her life Mom was hospitalized and suffered from a fractured left femur, a UTI, pneumonia, an infection in her blood, and swollen hands, arms, legs and feet filled with fluid.  Her arms and hands were bruised and stuck with many needles from numerous blood tests and attempts to keep in her IV so she could get antibiotics and other medication.  She could not eat or drink because she had been aspirating food and fluids.  Therefore, she was unable to receive Holy Communion, but it seemed likely that soon she would be feasting on the Heavenly Banquet.  During her last hour of life Mom struggled for each breath, even with at least 7 liters of oxygen administered through an oxygen mask, as Mary held up her head and I stroked her arm and we both spoke lovingly to her until she stopped breathing and was pronounced dead.

I have serious struggles with Mom having to suffer as much.  In my human nature I feel that a woman who devoted her life to loving service of God and others should have had little or no suffering.  But I also see a parallel between Mom’s final agony as her hands were pierced and she gasped for each breath with the final agony of Our LORD JESUS in His death on the cross.  Like St. Therese and other saints my Mom was being conformed to CHRIST in His Passion.

But just as the cross was not the end for CHRIST, Mom’s suffering and death are not the end of Mom. My Mom has passed from death to eternal life and is with the LORD, with Our Lady, with her model, St. Therese of Lisieux, and with my Dad and other family members and friends who have gone before us marked with the sign of faith.  Since God has promised in Romans 5:1-5 that hope will not leave us disappointed, I am hoping that Mom could now tell us that all she suffered was all worth it because of the joy she has now.  Though I cannot physically see Mom’s face, hear her voice or touch her, Mom is not gone. Those we love who are in heaven are never really far from us because love never dies, and the intimate bond between us is not broken. Although in a different way we cannot fully comprehend, Mom lives forever in heaven and in our hearts.