38: The opportunity to say goodbye

Episode 38: Maggie's faith has both motivated and shaped her deep concern for others and for the world. She speaks with gratitude of people she names as amazing role models. She also shares honestly her experiences of 'messy, not linear' bereavement. 

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Transcript

 You're listening to All Kinds of Catholic with me, Theresa Alessandro. My conversations with different Catholics will give you glimpses into some of the ways we're living our faith today. Pope Francis has used the image of a caravan. A diverse group of people travelling together, on a sometimes chaotic journey together. That's an image that has helped to shape this podcast. I hope you'll feel encouraged and affirmed and maybe challenged at times. I am too in these conversations. 

Listeners, today I'm joined by Maggie. We're gonna have a great conversation, which I'm really looking forward to. And in case it's helpful for you to know, we are going to be talking about bereavement today. So let's crack on, shall we, Maggie? Welcome. 

Oh, well, it's very kind of you to ask me to be a guest, Theresa. 

I know there's a lot about your current work that will be of interest, but let's start a bit further back. Let's see how things began for you in the world of being a Catholic. Were you a Catholic from the beginning of your life? 

Yeah. I tell people that if there was a tick box on the census that says Liverpool Irish Catholic, that's the box that I would tick. So, yeah, I was brought up in a part of Liverpool, not far from the football grounds, and mom was a part time housekeeper at the presbytery. My first memory, there were eight priests in that parish. Now, there isn't one in residence. The priest lives in another parish. But it's still a thriving community in the parish. But, yeah, it was like our second home. We used to go and we'd help answer the door, answer the phone, clear the dining table after the priests had had their dinner. And, obviously, most of the people on my street were Catholics. We played together. We went to school together. It's a bit of a Catholic ghetto, I suppose, in a good way. There was that security.

Did you even realise you were a Catholic and have anything to contrast that with when you were a child and a young person growing up there? 

Not at all. Just who you were. It was just a community that you lived in, and obviously because mom also worked in the priest's house. I think I was about 18 when I met a young Anglican woman on a retreat somewhere. Well, back in the day, it was like you couldn't go into an Anglican church because we were told we'd get struck down by lightning. Crazy, crazy things. But she said to me, well, I always thought we were better than you because we went because we wanted to, not because we had to. And that really made me think, and it was like, yeah. That's true. It was a sin if you didn't go. People I guess still think that. And then in our parish, I was always involved. You know, it wasn't just about going to church on a Sunday either. You know, we'd be a reader. We'd be part of the music group. In our parish, we had a really, really thriving Young Christian Worker group that I was a member of. So very early on, it was See Judge Act, looking at areas of injustice, not only where I lived, but also in the city, also globally. You know? So that was a real foundation for me, I guess, being where I am now.

I think we'll see as our conversation moves on how See, Judge, Act is still important in in the way you live your faith today, but let's not get too far ahead of ourselves. You mentioned going on a retreat when you were 18 then. So did you feel a sense of a personal relationship with God from your teenage years, or is that something that developed later? 

I think that's developed later because it was very communal, the experience of being a Catholic, where I was brought up. You really felt part of a community. And I guess it was only as I got a bit older that it became more personal. I guess when I moved away from home and I was on my own in another city, I hadn't been going to church for a while. And then it was the National Pastoral Congress. I got involved by going to a parish in Birmingham, which was the same Order of priests as my parish at home. I just really felt there was something missing. So I started going to this church because I knew the priest, and I got involved then in the National Pastoral Congress and the meetings, the parish meetings, that were happening before the actual event in Liverpool. I was actually living back in Liverpool then when the Congress happened. So I think it was then that I really had a sense of not only was I missing the community, but it was sort of more of a journey of my own personal faith then, which led me down a couple of different roads. 

Okay. So you looked down a couple of different paths then while you were maturing in your faith. Tell us a bit about that then before we move on to your work. 

Yeah. I guess because then after I'd been back in Liverpool for a while, I decided that I wanted to live a kind of a spiritual life for a while. I didn't feel a calling to be a religious sister. Anyway, what I did, I joined a lay community in a Benedictine monastery. I lived there for eighteen months. That was a great, great experience. I still go and visit the monastery. I used to take my children every summer, and now I go with my granddaughter. So it still very much feels like home. And that was a great experience as a young adult. Just living that Benedictine life, experiencing Benedictine prayer, living as part of the community, it was a great experience. 

So did you have prayer five times a day, that kind of -

Yes. So it's Matins, Mass, midday prayer, Vespers, Compline. So we joined the monks for all that. And once a week, we'd go and eat with them. And then once a month, we'd invite one of the monks to come and eat with us. 

Did you work while you were in that community? Did you go out to work and come back? 

Yeah. Initially, I did. I did go out to work, but used to have to go to Matins, come back, have breakfast, go to Mass, walk down the hill, get the train, and it was all a bit frantic. So then I got a job. There was a school then, and I used to work in the linen room darning socks and sewing buttons on schoolboy’s shirts. That was a very interesting job. I met some really interesting local women. They were just wonderful. 

I'm just hearing a bit of Reuse, Recycle coming in already. Yeah. It might crop up again. That sounds really different from the route other people might have taken. And you mentioned there was a second strand to your developing and maturing in your faith. 

Yeah. I think that happens because, obviously, when I got married and then we had the children, I've always been involved in parish life because that's how I was brought up. You didn't just go to Mass on a Sunday. You were part of the community. Children's liturgy, the music group, the parish council. And I did the CCRS course, the Catholic Certificate in Religious Studies. And that was a real eye opener because I was in my early thirties, and we had some brilliant lecturers. One in particular, I am gonna mention Joe O’Hanlon. He did scripture. Oh my goodness. It was so eye opening. Because, you know, you go to a Catholic school, you do RE, and it's a subject, and you gotta learn it, and you gotta do an exam. But, oh, as an adult, not only did I get more understanding of the Bible, but who the gospels were written for, just mind blowing. And then I also learned that I had a brain that worked because, you know, with four young children and having left school with maybe two O-levels... So then I went to university for four years, part of my faith journey. That was a really big thing that CCRS course.

I've done that myself many years ago, and I found it really helpful as well. I studied theology at university back in prehistoric times, and I found it so hard. I always said I am never doing that again. And then I had the opportunity to do that CCRS course, and I also really enjoyed it. I got so much out of it with more life behind me. 

I would really recommend it. Yeah.

Good. I hope that speaks to someone listening. Tell us a bit about your work, Maggie. Let's get back to See Judge Act. 

So See Judge Act. Joseph Cardijn was the founder of the Young Christian Workers Movement. We were part of that in the parish. The adults in the parish had family social action. So See, Judge, and Act, I've been brought up with. I guess nowadays, it's also referred to as the pastoral cycle. And then I've always sort of been involved in justice and peace in a parish, which always involved for looking at issues around overseas development, injustices, inequalities. And then I joined the Justice and Peace Commission here in the diocese, and then, I know Rosemary Read has been mentioned before. Amazing role model. I really enjoyed working with Rosemary on the Justice and Peace Commission. And then I became the Justice and Peace worker for the diocese for three years, a job I loved. You know, the diocese is a big diocese to cover, but I loved it.

 I love getting out and meeting people, working with small groups in a parish, helping to resource them in looking at justice issues both locally, nationally, and internationally, continuing with that legacy from when I was younger. And also because my degree was in development studies. 

Was it supportive of your faith in the sense that, one of the reasons I started the podcast is that I was reflecting on how much, you know, some listeners will have heard me say this before, my apologies, but I think it's important, how much talking to other Catholic people about how they are living their faith and integrating what they think is important from a faith perspective and trying to make a difference in the world, how important those conversations have been to me over the years and how energising it is to meet new Catholic people and talk about this stuff. And I wonder whether you found that too, getting out around the diocese and meeting different people and talking about the things that really matter for you and your faith actually, you know, helped your faith to grow. 

Definitely. Because to me, I still struggle with the more contemplative, quiet side because I'm very much into putting faith in action by doing things. So whether that's writing to your MP, going on demonstrations, making people aware of injustices, you know, getting people to sign petitions. So meeting other people around the diocese who were trying to do their bit where they were, different issues in their localities, but just that care for the world. We can have a better world, and we need to be doing things to make it a better world. And that it was our faith. That was the inspiration. It was like the backbone of it. That person of Jesus who was a rabble rouser, who was challenging authority and doing things he shouldn't have been doing, you know, talking to people that he shouldn't have been talking to and getting told off for talking to those people. I wish we focused on him more sometimes.

And that's interesting when you had that experience of being a lay Benedictine for a while, isn't it? When you're talking about the contemplative experience is not necessarily what speaks to you the most later. 

And I don't know. Maybe because I getting a bit older now. Maybe that part is coming a bit easier, that contemplative side of it as well. Maybe I do find a bit more time for that now. 

I guess you've got that experience and the knowledge and things that have happened to us along our journey. You've worked with CAFOD for a good few years now. And was that something that you aspired to do, you know, with your degree subject and everything? Was that something you were hoping to have an opportunity to do, or did you just fall on your feet there somehow?

I just sort of fell on my feet there somehow because even though, you know, I've been a CAFOD volunteer for a long time. So it's Jubilee Year this year, isn't it? And the last jubilee year, I was recruited to be a campaign volunteer in the diocese. The idea was that I equipped myself with the skills and the knowledge and then passed it down, visiting parishes and working with justice and peace groups. And that's what I did in the build up to the last jubilee year in 2000 and the Drop the Debt campaign. Sadly, it's a subject we're still talking about. Tragically, that injustice is still there. So it's a focus for this Jubilee Year too. So, yeah, so I've always been a volunteer with CAFOD. And then I was doing a different job. I was working with young homeless people in the county, and a job was advertised for a CAFOD person in Nottingham diocese. Sounds interesting. Maybe I'll apply. And I did, and I got the job. So that was in 2015. I started working as the CAFOD representative in the diocese. And, again, it was lovely because I was meeting people from my J&P days who were still going strong, just that inspiration again and meeting new people. Yeah. It was great. I really felt very blessed that I got that job. I'm very thankful.

I know that you made a difference to lots of people and engaged lots of people in the work of CAFOD since then, but there's been some sadness in your life then more recently, hasn't there? Maybe you feel comfortable to tell us a bit about that. 

So my mom, Tess, amazing role model. She brought six children up on her own. Her first child, my sister Maureen, died when she was six. She never spoke about it for years. That generation, they weren't really encouraged to talk, were they? They just got on with it. And it was only really later in life, when I was a mum, that we talked about Maureen. I always rang her on Maureen's birthday. Anyway, mom was diagnosed with terminal cancer in September 2016. Even on her deathbed, she was organising her neighbours to come for a Service of the Word and Communion because the eucharistic minister would come to bring her communion, and she'd send us, Go and tell Charlie. Go and tell Annie to come. Because initially, she was living with cancer, and it was the last two months of her life really that she was dying with cancer. We had a rota, I’m one of six. We had a two person rota. There was always somebody with her. It was me and my brother, Sean, who were with her the night she died. I guess she was very organised. She had a bag of clothes. She knew what she wanted to wear. She had the service sorted. She knew who was doing the readings. She'd asked us to carry her into church. And then a few weeks later, she was like, actually, I don't think you should carry me into church. There's a lot of steps and there's a long aisle. Maybe you should just carry me into the crematorium, which, of course, we did. 

So was there a sense with her death then that I mean, I don't want to put words in your mouth, but, you know, when someone has lived a good life to a good age and, you know, they have an opportunity to have their family around them and have conversations that they might have held over to the end, you know. Yeah. Is there a sense of some sort of peace around that death? 

There was. There was. I guess when you hear people say it was a good death, she was surrounded by people she loved. We still felt amazingly loved by her. Whoever was there of an evening when she was ready to say her decade of the rosary joined in in the decade of the rosary. And it would have been people who wouldn't have said the rosary for a long time, and it was just beautiful. She had her rosary beads, and every night, she'd say a decade of the rosary. And those last few nights when she couldn't talk, we still did a decade of the rosary with her. 

She does sound absolutely amazing.

She was. And she knew she was dying, that loss of that wonderful person in your life. She prepared us for it. 

Thank you for sharing that, Maggie. And I hope people listening who've experienced bereavement, which will be many people because it comes to us all, doesn't it, will find something to take from that experience. But then you had another experience that may have been different. 

Very different. So then 18 months later, my daughter, Anna, died. Suddenly, unexpectedly. She'd been undergoing tests in the hospital. I'd actually seen her on the September 1st. She was living in Edinburgh at the time, and I was up in Northumberland taking part in the Cafod pilgrimage walking over the sands to Holy Island. And I'd said to her, come down, come down and join me. We had a really lovely day together being part of the pilgrimage. She went back off home on the train to Edinburgh. And then the next time I saw her, she was in hospital, and she was there for ten days before she died. It was, well, it's just I can't describe how awful it was sitting there with the doctor telling us that we had to be looking at end of life care. You know, she was 31. So Anna died. She always knew how to make an exit and an entrance, Anna, and she died on the feast of All Souls. And I have no doubt that she's up there campaigning for it to be her own feast day and that she doesn't wanna share it with anyone else. So it was a beautiful, beautiful sunny day in Edinburgh. It was absolutely a gorgeous day. I'd come to get my brother. He'd come up. All the family were there supporting us. My siblings were just amazing. He'd come up from London to just sit with me or sit with Anna to give me a break. He was my brother who was with me when mom died. So I had gone back to the flat. We'd rented a flat to be in Edinburgh. I'd just got back , 3o’clock in the afternoon. I'd just got into bed to have a sleep to go back that evening, and the hospital rang to say, you need to come back. And he was with her. He was with her when she died. And that was just devastating. Yeah. So different because, like, when mom died, you know, you expect that your parents will die before you. But with Anna, it was just you know, I never really understood the phrase heartbroken. That's what it was. That's what it still is. It is six years since she died. You just grow around it. It doesn't diminish. You just go around your grief. 

Well, again, thank you for sharing that, Maggie. I think listeners will appreciate how very different that experience has been and is. Than as you say, losing a parent, which we can kind of foresee.  If it's okay to move on, in your work you brought that sense of loss and that experience of bereavement into your work at CAFOD now in a different role, and I'm wondering how that feels. I remember seeing, I think, in a bulletin somewhere that you had taken on that role and just feeling, gosh, when you've experienced bereavement, to actually be working in that area, you know, what will that feel like? Will it keep opening a wound, or will it be healing in some way? So tell us about that role and and how you are finding it.

So my role with CAFOD now is that I work with supporters who donate to CAFOD in memory of someone who's died. So it's not a legacy. It's not where people are leaving a legacy in a will. It's either, they're donating from a funeral collection that they've had. They're getting in touch to make a donation in memory. CAFOD have a candlelight fund where people can have an online page where they can share photos and memories of the person they love, and they can donate to CAFOD in memory of that person, whether it's,  some funds we have are for babies that didn't survive pregnancy. Some are for young children who died tragically. Some are for wives of 67 years. There's lots of different reasons why people have a candlelight fund for the person. It's a real privilege to be able to have those conversations and hold that relationship with those supporters. I was worried. Anna had only died three years previously. Yeah, oh, I don't know whether this is the right thing to do. Maybe it's too much. But, you know, it's been really  - sometimes I use the word sacramental. Some of the relationships and the conversations that you can have with people, they really are sacramental, giving people the opportunity to speak about the person who has died, whether it's a son or a daughter or a husband or wife or a parent who died twenty five years ago. I remember just last year speaking to somebody who rang. She has a candlelight fund for her two sisters who died. People either phone or write or but when people phone in to make a donation, I always say, oh, yeah. You're going to donate to so and so's fund. And this time, Teresa said to me, at the end of the conversation, she said, I really value that you say their names. It really means a lot that you say their names. And so I shared that with my colleagues. And I said, if somebody says to you, oh, my nan died or my close friend died, and they don't say a name, ask them what the person's name is, or say the name back when you're talking to them and acknowledging that they've told you somebody they love has died. Say the person's name. So important. Because for some people, part of the grief process is they can't say the name. I remember after Anna died, I really struggled looking at a photo of her. I just couldn't look at her photo, and I felt awful that I couldn't look at her, but it was just, it was just too too painful. Whereas now, it's not as hard. It's still heartbreaking, but not as hard as it was then. It was too painful. Grief is a very different experience for everybody, and there's no progression from the stages of griefs that we hear about. It's messy and not linear. Scrappy.

That's reminded me, Maggie, about, we were talking before we started recording. Let's just have one little go at changing the world in this episode. You mentioned that Cafod, at the time of your bereavement, was a sensitive employer, And I had experienced when my father-in-law died. I don't wanna say who my employer was at that time, but they were not sensitive, and I was not entitled to any leave even to attend the funeral of my father-in-law. And so I think you had a different experience, and perhaps you’d just share that.

Definitely. So when mom was dying, we had a two person rota during the week, and it was really hard coming back from Liverpool to here. And I remember talking to my manager, and she just said, what do you need? And I said, can I work out of the Liverpool office? She said, of course you can. You know, it wasn't even just about that somebody's died and you need to go to a funeral. It's just that acceptance and that compassion supporting somebody through this process of wanting to accompany somebody who is dying. It was such a privilege to have that journey with mom. I always say to people as well, you know, we're always keen to go and say hello and greet the new baby. You should not be afraid of wanting to go and say goodbye. We really need to have courage and compassion where we can, when we have that opportunity to go and say goodbye to somebody and thank them for their role in our lives. 

I think at this time of this assisted dying bill being read, it is good to hear examples of how we can support people who are experiencing natural death of family members, how important that is to be with that experience. Even if it's uncomfortable and painful, still it's an important part of life, isn't it, in living? 

Yes. 

I often ask people if there's some prayer or piece of scripture that they keep coming back to that supports them in their faith. And so maybe as part of this journey of feeling grief and bereavement, but also maybe elsewhere in your life, there's something that actually nourishes you, that has stood the test of time amongst all the prayers and practices and scripture readings we can embrace as Catholics? What is there for you that matters? 

I love singing, and I love singing in a choir, and I love some of the more beautiful hymns. Every Wednesday morning, we have an online prayer group that I started during the pandemic. They're still going, and I and I join that most Wednesday mornings. I still find singing and singing hymns a lovely way to pray for me. I just feel it just brings an extra something to the prayer to be singing it. 

There'll be lots of listeners nodding along while you're saying that, Maggie. That will resonate with lots of people. 

But the other thing that I have, it's a quote from Romero, obviously, Saint Oscar Romero. I've always loved this quote: Aspire not to have more, but to be more. I think in some of the choices I try to make about my lifestyle or what I'm doing or what I'm spending my money on. You know, it's not about what I have. It's about who I am, how we live our life and try to enrich it, not just for ourselves, but for others.

So it's been really lovely talking to you today, Maggie. It's been great to hear the difference you're trying to make in the world and how you've grown into who you are through your experiences and through your work. And I'm really grateful that you've spoken about bereavement because I think that's that's so important for people to hear that part of life being talked about, as you say, and saying the names of the people you've lost along the way because I think that will give other people permission to talk about their experience too. So thanks ever so much for making the time to join me. It's been really lovely.

Thank you for inviting me to be a guest. It's been a real privilege, so thank you, Theresa. 

And listeners, I'd just like to dedicate today's episode to the memories of Maggie's mum, Tess, and her daughter, Anna. 

Thanks so much for joining me on All Kinds of Catholic this time. I hope today's conversation has resonated with you. A new episode is released each Wednesday. Follow All Kinds of Catholic on the usual podcast platforms. Rate and review to help others find it. And follow our X, Twitter and Facebook accounts, @kindsofCatholic. You can comment on episodes and be part of the dialogue there. You can also text me if you're listening to the podcast on your phone, although I won't be able to reply to those texts. Until the next time.