Seven Sorrows of Mary

Excerpts from: A Mother's Journal

by a friend of the Passionist Nuns

This journal started out as a therapeutic outlet for me, as a mother, to keep focused on something other than my fear, as our 13-year old son was preparing to undergo major surgery to remove his colon. I have always been a writer, recording my thoughts and feelings in some type of journal, yet this time I wrote to fulfill a different need. I wrote to record the details of P.J.’s surgery and recovery, and to keep busy. However as I began to journal, I could see very clearly that through P.J.’s illness our family had grown spiritually in a way that would have been impossible otherwise. ...... we learned what it means to pray, “Thy will be done”…and mean it.

     ......I do not believe that I have ever prayed as hard and fervently as I did during that drive to Louisville(to the hospital for P.J's surgery). The story of Abraham and Isaac kept flashing through my mind. Was I being asked to sacrifice my own child? I had been trying so hard over the past few years of spiritual growth to totally abandon my will and myself to God. Now, I felt like I was being put to the test. Could I also abandon my first-born child to Him? Could I pray with complete faith, “Thy will be done”? Could I accept with perfect submission whatever His Will would be?
     I prayed the words with my lips, and thought them in my mind, but in my heart, I wanted to resist. I was so afraid. What if God’s will was not my will? Of course that is the whole point of abandonment. Giving God EVERYTHING! All means all! Even (and especially) my children. I consecrate them to Him daily, and now it was time to live out that consecration…. to put my whole heart where my words were. I learned in a mystical way what it means to completely depend on God… to totally detach myself from this world and the things in it and abandon everything to Him. It was the hardest thing I’ve ever done. Part of me still cried out, “Lord, if it is possible, please let this cup pass from me and from my child.” But then I had to add… “Not my will Father, Thy will be done.”
     We arrived at Kosairs around 9:30, and went in through the emergency room. Dr. L. had called ahead so they were ready for us. This was another blessing, because the emergency room was full yet they rushed P.J. ahead of everyone else. P.J. was crying and in increasingly more pain. They started an IV drip of morphine immediately. I knew I needed to maintain my composure, but I simply could not hold my tears back. There is nothing worse than watching helplessly as your child suffers, knowing there is nothing you can do to alleviate the pain. His blood pressure was still alarmingly high and he was holding onto his right side. He was in so much pain that he would literally come up off of the bed with this miserable contorted expression, look me directly in the eyes, and say, “It hurts!” I felt like he was saying, “Can’t you do something for me, Mom?”
     .....Before P.J.’s surgery, a close friend had given me a special rosary, the Servite Rosary. It is prayed while meditating on the Seven Sorrows of Mary. That night from the moment we left Owensboro, until P.J. was beyond any danger, I felt drawn to Mary as the Mother of Sorrows. Uniting my suffering with hers was the best coping skill I had. Mary gave me the comfort I needed that night. When P.J. finally got out of the ER and moved to the Critical Care Unit, I was praying on the rosary, and meditating on Mary’s sorrows. I couldn’t help but see the parallels between her sorrows and my own. I know she was there spiritually holding my hand, interceding for P.J., and giving all of us the strength to get through this trial.

The Seven Sorrows of Mary

1) The prophecy of Simeon Luke 2:35: “and a sword will pierce your heart” On that Monday night when I called Dr. L. and told her about P.J.’s blood pressure and intense pain, I could tell by the tone in her voice that his condition was serious. When she called me back and told me to get P.J. to Louisville as soon as possible, I felt that physical “piercing”. I felt the pain that only a mother can feel for the child that grew inside their womb. A pain that is not physical, yet the entire body experiences it as if it were. Any parent who has been through an experience like this knows how it felt. At that very moment I would gladly have taken a “real” sword into my heart if I could have spared P.J. from this terrible pain and suffering.

2) The Flight into Egypt Matthew 2:13-14: “Take the child and his mother and flee to Egypt…Joseph rose and took the child and his mother by night and departed in haste…” Joseph and Mary must have packed quickly, taking only the things necessary, not wanting to waste time for fear of the safety of their child. Richard was my Joseph. He got us all together and out the door as quickly as possible. We packed quickly, fearing for our child’s safety. Our “flight” to Louisville also took place at night and we felt as if we were fleeing in order to save P.J.’s life. Richard and I did not say much during the drive up there, but we were both praying fervently. When we finally saw the lights of Louisville and Kosairs Hospital, I breathed a small sigh of relief. I knew the danger was far from over, but we had made it through the first leg of our journey safely. Perhaps this is how Mary felt as she and Joseph first saw the border into Egypt. They felt relief to have escaped with Jesus from King Herod. Yet, they both knew in their hearts that the danger wasn’t over. Their son still had many obstacles ahead of him.

3) The Disappearance of Jesus Luke 2:48: “I have been looking for you with great anxiety.” When we arrived at Kosairs, the ER waiting room was full of people. The staff first put P.J. in a regular ER room and got his IV drip going so they could administer pain medication. Seeing P.J. in such pain, was killing me. I was crying uncontrollably, and Richard gave me a look that said, “get yourself together for P.J.’s sake”. He suggested I go find a bathroom. I found a bathroom down the hall, and as soon as I closed the door, I sobbed and cried and tried to get it all out of my system, so that I could go back and maintain my composure for P.J.. I wasn’t gone more than a few minutes, but when I got back to the room where I had last seen P.J., he was gone. There was no sign of him, Richard, or any of the doctors and nurses who had been with us. I knew I was in the right room because my purse was still there. I had no idea where they had taken P.J. or what had happened to make them move him. With much anxiety I walked down the corridors of the ER looking right and left into every room for P.J.. After what seemed like “3 days”, but was in reality only a few minutes, I finally found them. They had moved P.J. to the trauma unit because he was showing signs of shock. I felt a huge wave of relief to have found him, but still troubled and worried about his condition. How relieved Mary must have felt to finally find Jesus after 3 days of not knowing where he was.

4) Seeing Jesus Carry His Cross on the Road to Calvary One of the most difficult things for any parent to experience is the utter helplessness of watching their child suffer. For the past two years we had watched P.J. suffer with Ulcerative Colitis. It has been his cross to carry and as much as I wanted to carry it for him and keep him for having to, there was nothing I could do, but stand by and watch, always letting him know that he wasn’t alone. As P.J. has struggled through his own “way of the cross”, Richard and I have tried to be like those people that Jesus met on His way to Golgotha. We were Simon of Cyrene, walking beside him, unable to experience his pain, but trying to lighten it by helping to shoulder as much of his cross as we could. We were Veronica, wiping his face with a cool cloth, giving him comfort in his agony and pain. We were Mary, offering him our unconditional love and support. We tried to be all of these and more. We were the women who stood alongside the road weeping for Jesus. We wept for P.J. many tears, but we never turned away or left his side. I think it is more painful to watch someone you love carry his cross than it is to have to experience your own cross. (I suppose that makes my cross watching P.J. carry his cross.) However, my faith leads me to believe with absolute conviction that it is through the “carrying” that God sends an abundance of graces that we would never have received otherwise. That very cross that seems so impossible, only serves to strengthen the “carrier” and to mold them into someone much stronger than they ever could have been had they foregone the cross.

5) Witnessing Jesus and His Sufferings on the Cross Watching P.J. undergo his pain and suffering united us to the Blessed Mother as she also had to watch her only son suffer terribly. The experience of seeing P.J. with arms outstretched in the same position as Christ on the Cross was a truly mystical and surreal experience. In between bouts of pain, P.J. would doze off and on. At one point, Richard and I were standing on either side of his bed, trying to reassure him that everything would be all right. P.J. stretched out his arms straight out from his body, closed his eyes and fell asleep. The last round of morphine was beginning to kick in. P.J.’s side was still hurting so badly that he could not even straighten out his legs. He had to keep his knees bent because of the pain in his right side. I can’t possibly put into words what happened next.

P.J. was lying on the gurney, stripped of his clothes, knees bent, and arms straight out to his side. I have never before seen anyone go to sleep in this position. A shocking realization hit me. He looked just like Christ on the cross. I looked with wide eyes across the bed at Richard. I gazed into his red-rimmed eyes and he shook his head slightly. No words were necessary. I knew he was thinking the same thing. At that moment, P.J. opened his eyes. He saw us standing on either side of him with lines of worry etched deeply into our faces, and he actually smiled for the first time that night. Then, he took those two little outstretched arms and put them around both Richard and I, gave us a reassuring hug, put his arms back down by his side, and went back to sleep. I truly felt as if Jesus himself had hugged us at that moment, giving us a silent word of reassurance that everything was going to be OK. I was reminded of Jesus, hanging on the cross in agony and pain, yet reaching out to his mother and making sure that she was going to be OK, by asking John to care for her. Along with P.J.’s “Christ-like” position, there were other similarities to Christ’s passion that were mysterious: 1) P.J.’s pain was all in his right side, the same side the Roman soldier pierced on Jesus, causing blood and water to pour forth. 2) P.J. was stripped of his clothing and a kind of diaper was placed on him in case he had any leakage, just as Jesus was stripped of his garments with nothing more than a cloth across his loins. 3) Throughout that long, long night, P.J. kept begging for a drink. He kept repeating, “I am so thirsty.” We were not allowed to give him anything to drink because it might make him sick. In John 19:28, Jesus says, “I thirst.” And John goes on to write, “They took a sponge soaked in wine and put it to his mouth.” Later in the night as P.J. continued to ask for a drink, the nurse took a small sponge on a stick, dipped in mint flavored peroxide and rubbed it around in his mouth to clean it and to help alleviate the dryness. 4) Another unusual similarity between P.J. and Christ Crucified were the marks on P.J.’s hands. When he was in the hospital at U of L he had an IV in each hand. Although the needles had been removed over a week previously, he still bore the marks, looking very much like some of the pictures that depict Jesus with the nail wounds on his hands. (Even several months after surgery he still had faint marks on both hands.) P.J. is actually the one who noticed these “wounds”. I had not told him about any of the things that happened in the emergency room. But when he said to me out of the blue a few days after we were home from the hospital, “You know mom, I am kind of like Jesus.” He was looking at his hands and then he pointed to the two marks on top of each hand and lifted up his shirt. He said, “I have the nail marks on my hands and the scar from my surgery.” At this point I told him all about what had happened in the ER. He had a look of incredulity on his face, and he said in amazement, “I don’t remember any of that.”

6) Removing Jesus From the Cross and 7) Placing Jesus in the Tomb Throughout the long night I feared that perhaps we were all being called to walk the entire way of the cross, but Praise God these last two Sorrows were figurative for us rather than literal. I believe that through all the prayers being directed to heaven for P.J., Jesus miraculously healed him. I heard Jesus say to my heart, “I’ve already done that part for him.” This was the point when I started to feel some sense of peace and knowing that everything was really going to be all right. Sometime after midnight one of Dr. G.’s associates came into the emergency room. She had seen the results from the CT scan and seemed to think that P.J. had an ileus in his small intestine. This is a place where his bowels were literally still asleep from surgery. The ileus was on his right side and that was what was causing the pain. The doctor felt sure that this was causing his stools to get backed up and with heavy doses of antibiotics and liquids we could get it cleared up. No one was sure what causing the high blood pressure. There was a lot of speculation that the high blood pressure was caused by an overdosing of a medication given to him the previous week while he was at U of L. He had been given Toradol, a strong ibuprofen. He should have only been given the Toradol for 48 hours, yet they continued to give it to him for 5 full days. Fortunately, Dr. K. did not think any permanent damage had been done to the kidneys and thought that over time his blood pressure would go back to normal, and his kidney function would be perfectly normal. He went ahead and ran some tests to check out P.J.’s kidney function.

It was 5:00 AM before P.J. was finally moved into the Critical Care Unit of the hospital. They wanted to be able to monitor him closely. P.J.’s pain was being controlled fairly well by the morphine, but his blood pressure was still too high. Richard and I managed to doze fitfully in chairs by P.J.’s bed for about two hours before Dr. G. shoed up. Her first words were that she wanted to take P.J. back into the Operating Room, and open him up to see what was going on. She was afraid there was some kind of blockage. His white blood count was 20,000 indicating a serious infection. She also told us that she would probably have to go ahead and do the ileostomy after all. This was pretty upsetting news. P.J. had been so relieved at not having the ileostomy, and now to hear that he might have to undergo surgery again and have the ileostomy was hard to hear. We tried to be positive, but we were all feeling very anxious.

Dr. G. wasn’t gone more than 15 minutes when she called us on the telephone. She had taken a closer look at P.J.’s CT scan and she confirmed that he did have an ileus. She said she wanted to hold off on the surgery and monitor him. Hopefully with heat on his abdomen, antibiotics, and fluids she would not have to do the surgery. We were very relieved and hopeful that things would work out. She also prescribed a drug called Reglan to cause his bowels to start moving again.

We had great nurses while we were in CCU. Two in particular were especially attentive and helpful. In CCU patients pretty much have their own personal nurse. Most nurses don’t have more than 2-3 patients and they monitor them very closely. That first day, Tuesday, June 12, P.J. continued to feel terrible. He threw up again around 11:00 that morning and then he wasn’t even allowed to have ice chips. He was so pitiful. He kept dozing off and every time he woke up he would whisper, “I keep dreaming and in my dreams I am walking down the street and people are all offering me a glass of water.” And then he would break down and start crying. He had an IV pumping him full of fluids, so we knew he wasn’t dehydrating, but his mouth was so dry.

By Tuesday afternoon P.J. was going for longer periods of time without asking for morphine. His blood pressure was beginning to drop. We were starting to breathe again and to believe that everything really was going to be OK. Every day we called home to talk to Lindsey. My mother had driven to Owensboro and she Lindsey seemed to be having a good time together. Mom was trying to keep her busy and her mind off of missing us. It was so hard to talk to Lindsey and hear the tremor in her voice. I knew she was feeling so left out and wanted to be with us, but CCU was hard enough on us. It would have been very difficult for Lindsey.

CCU didn’t offer the same luxury we had at U of L. We certainly didn’t have our own bed to sleep in. We were in a small curtained off room, and it was a very noisy area right in front of the nurse’s station. We even had video cameras over the bed so they could monitor him. The nurse came in constantly, and it was impossible to really rest. There was a 6-year old little girl on the other side of the curtain from P.J.. She had been hit by a car while riding her bike, and we could hear everything going on over on her side of the curtain. We all felt sorry for her, because it was very apparent that her home life was far from ideal. There were times when I wanted to put my hands over P.J.’s ears so he didn’t have to hear some of the language they were using.

On Tuesday night Richard and I slept fitfully. Richard slept in a chair and I curled up into a ball and slept at the foot of P.J.’s bed. We all took turns listening to the rosary CD. It was the only way any of us could get to sleep. Again, thank you Mary! I only wished I had 3 CD players J!

By Wednesday morning, P.J. was a different child. He felt better than he had since before surgery. By the afternoon he was feeling so good that he was actually laughing again and he, Richard, and I were playing cards on his bed. It was amazing the difference a day had made. Our spirits were soaring with hope.

Dr. G. came in that afternoon. The Reglan was working and he was going to the bathroom again. His blood pressure was looking better and his white blood count was going down. She told us that he could start on solids Thursday and if he kept breakfast and lunch down and did OK, he might be able to go home.

All day P.J. had been sitting upright and laughing but about 15 minutes before Dr. G. came into his room, he had asked for his first shot of morphine since earlier that morning. So, when she saw him, he looked as if he was feeling really bad, and wouldn’t give him the release to begin on solid food. Her timing was terrible! I wanted her to see the happy, laughing P.J. we had seen just an hour earlier.

Not even an hour after she was gone, P.J. was sitting up and asking for food! We gave him some cheese nips and he did fine eating those and keeping them down. He was really hungry, but the nurses in CCU are sticklers and wouldn’t give him anything but clear juice and Popsicles. Dr. G. did release P.J. from CCU, but the rest of the hospital was full and there were no regular beds available. So…we had to spend another sleepless night in CCU.

P.J. was almost pain free, or at least his pain was a 1-3 on the pain scale. He wasn’t on morphine anymore, but it meant that he had a sleepless night as well. We listened from midnight to 1:00 as a nurse tried to force the 6-year old next to us to swallow a pill. I have to give that nurse an A+ for perseverance. It was distressing to P.J., because he was exhausted and wanted to sleep. Finally around 1:00, the nurse gave up and gave the little girl a shot instead, and we could all go back to “trying” to sleep.

Thursday morning, P.J. woke up famished and with a light in his eyes that hadn’t been there in over 2-weeks. He ate eggs, bacon and French toast for breakfast. At around 11:30 one of the nurses came in and told us that we could move out of CCU and into a regular room. We were all ready to go home, but we had resigned ourselves to the idea of having to stay in the hospital one more night. We were excited about getting our own private room…without all the distractions and noise.

As soon as we got up into the new room, it was time for lunch. The lunch cart came by and P.J. was already hungry again. He ate chicken nuggets, macaroni and cheese and Nutter butter cookies, washed down with a large bottle of Fruitopia. Richard and I just watched incredulously. P.J. hadn’t eaten this much food in one day in over a year! P.J. was feeling so fantastic, that he wanted to go for a walk. As we were walking down the hall on our new floor, we discovered that every floor at Kosairs has a playroom. P.J. and Richard were giddy with excitement when they saw the Nintendo in the corner of the room with an NBA game just waiting for them to play! I was totally exhausted, so I left the two of them playing Nintendo and I went back to P.J.’s hospital room to take a nap.

I had been asleep about an hour when Dr.G. came into the room and woke me up. Her first question was, “Where’s P.J.?” and then she said, “Would you like to go home?” It was a little embarrassing for the doctor to come into the hospital room and find me the one asleep in the room and P.J. out running around the floor! Fortunately P.J. and Richard had just come back from the playroom. Dr. G. asked P.J. how he felt, and he told her he felt great. Richard told her that he hadn’t seen this side of P.J. in two years! So, she signed the papers and released him. We were ecstatic to be going home and we were tremendously thankful that P.J. was feeling like himself again.

We didn’t call home and tell Lindsey that we were coming, because we wanted to surprise her. She was with good friends at Blessed Mother decorating for an upcoming church party. She didn’t expect us home until the following day. Needless to say, she was speechless and very excited to see us!

P.J. was on an eating binge and wanted pizza for supper. He was actually hungry again. So for the first time in two years we ordered pizza without having to worry about the consequences P.J. would have to face later. It was a celebration meal and we all gave thanks to God for bringing us through the tumultuous trial of the past few weeks.

Richard and I have been amazed and awed by the number of people who have told us they have been praying for P.J. and our family. Through this harrowing experience we have truly come to appreciate the Blessed Mother church community. Along with the wonderful friends and family who were praying for us so faithfully, we have had elderly people in the church, some we barely know, tell us they had been praying for P.J.. The rosary group at church offered each rosary for him while he was in the hospital. Even younger children would come up to him and ask him how he was feeling better. Entire families were uplifting our family in prayer.

On that first night back home as we were saying our prayers, I told P.J. that as time goes by and all of this gets further behind us, it will be easy to forget just how much God has done for him and for our family. I also told him that we must never forget to thank and praise God for healing him and for all the faithful friends, family, and even strangers who interceded so valiantly for him. Indeed none of us should forget.

I’ve learned so much about what St. Teresa of Avila teaches concerning total abandonment and dependence on God over the past two weeks. I know I still have a lot of work to do before I am where God wants me to be, but this experience has been a powerful teaching tool. This is certainly not the path I would have chosen for my family and me to travel. I know I would have preferred the easier path, but this was the path that allowed God’s graces to flow down upon us in a great deluge, and to learn in a deeper way what it means when we are willing to say, “Thy will be done”…and really mean it!

I see a subtle change in P.J.’s personality since we have been home. He has always been a very intuitive and all around good kid, but now he is much more patient and thoughtful of others, especially for a 13-year old. He is much more personable with people outside of our family. Every time we go out, someone comes up to him and asks how he is doing, and he seems to truly appreciate their concern. I used to get onto him for appearing to ignore others, particularly adults. I have noticed he is much more patient with Lindsey, and more affectionate to both Richard and I. Once simply cannot go through the experience P.J. did and not be a changed person.

God is the master teacher and He chose this particular path for our family. My fervent prayer is that all of us have allowed this situation to draw us closer to Him; to the One who loves us unceasingly and always knows what is best for us…even when we can’t see it.

Everyone has a special and specific plan that only he or she can accomplish. I do not understand why P.J. had to endure so much suffering at such a young age, but I do believe that God allows nothing in vain. He has a very special plan for P.J.. I have no idea what that plan might be, but I pray daily that God will give Richard and I the wisdom and spiritual knowledge necessary to raise P.J. a good Catholic; to instill in him whatever the skills are that he needs for his future; to show us how to lay that foundation, so that P.J. will be able to accomplish whatever it is that God has planned specifically for him. I pray that during the short time that we have left with P.J. before he leaves home (only 6-years) we can instill in him those virtues that Christ embodied…love, compassion, generosity, kindness, joy, and peace. Those virtues that are best taught by our example.

As parents we have been given an awesome responsibility that must never be taken for granted. I do not want to stand before God at the end of my life and be weighed in the balance and found wanting. With God’s help and grace and with the intercession of the Blessed Mother, my guardian angel, my patron saint, St. Lutgarde, and the intercession of countless other saints that I call upon regularly, I truly feel that I have an army of prayer warriors interceding for me. I know that as long as we keep our eyes focused on that which is not of this world, we will someday hear God say to us, “Well done good and faithful servant. You have taken the talents given you and used them wisely.”

AMEN