Families Struggling to Satisfy Their Deepest Yen : To Love and Be Loved ( part two of two parts )

Next Sunday: They lived in hell yet experienced 

a different kind of freedom. It's about clergy

who amazingly survived years of life behind 

barbed wire of a Nazi concentration camp.

 Part 2 of 2 parts 

                             What vehicle is more powerful to invite

                              us into loving relationships where we

                             actually come to know God because we

                             are cherished, because we belong, because

                             there are human arms to embrace and

                             hold us, because others do not give up on

                              us despite our shortcomings, where forgiveness

                              heals, and where joy and laughter create

                              memories that bind? (JoAnne Mullen-Muhr, 

                             former director of faith formation, St. James

                             church,  Arlington Heights, Illinois )

                             Healthy marriages are. . . . good for  children;

                             growing up in a happy home protects children

                              from mental, physical, educational and social

                              problems. (The American Psychological Association )

                             The family is the basic cell of society. It is the

                             cradle of life and love, the place in which the

                             individual is  'born' and 'grows.' (Saint John Paul II ) 

Reported by Robert R. Schwarz

        As we wrote in Part One, this concluding  report is about  families whom the author has interviewed (except for one) over the past 11 years. It tells of their  joys, sadness,  strengths and weaknesses. Their lives proclaim  the compelling advice (also for children):  stay connected as long as possible to  your  family members—even that distant,  un-liked  cousin, uncle, or aunt. And also trust  what many wise men  and women through the ages have proclaimed: that one of  the deepest  yens of all humankind  is being able to love someone unconditionally  and to be loved BY someone unconditionally. Might we agree that being fully alive as a family member is a sure way to have a taste of this deep need that  aches within all of us?

Featuring …

     I    A 97-year-old grandfather  who cooks an occasional diner for his family      members                            

   II  And a mother who loved her son as an angel might

       Jim Hahn, the grandfather…

   

Jim greeting his grandson

  Mr. Jim Hahn was 94 when we first interviewed him. His Rx for a simple regimen for a life which today still brings him joy is to go daily to church, trust God, love his  neighbor, eat well, and exercise. To handle serious  stress, he says, is  to let God handle it.  Oh, and to play some golf  now and then.  His  car license plate —Mother to 10— is a tribute  to the number of children he and  Mrs. Hahn brought into the world. 

       Jim, whose son is a deacon in his father's church in a suburb of Chicago,  has  weathered a few storms in life. One was the Japanese bombing of Okinawa, where he served in the U.S.  Navy during World War II.  Soon after that war, Jim was admitted to the Naval officers training  school at the prestigious Northwestern University in Evanston, Illinois.    The university was close to his girlfriend's house, Joan,  who would become Jim's  wife  for 63 years. 

             Jim and  Joan's  first home was in Arlington  Heights, Illinois, where  they lived from 1950 to 1956, paying off a  $9,500 mortgage in only two years.   A steadily increasing family  size required  larger home space for the Hahn's eventual nine children. Staying in the  same suburb, they moved  into a two-floor house with cedar shingles  painted greenish-gray. It  sits on a corner in a quiet residential neighborhood of  tidy lawns and abundant shrubs and trees. The outside porch faces a  sidewalk and has a bench where Jim and Joan (now deceased)  held hands on summer nights.

          Inside is a crammed bookcase. One of its books is entitled "Unbroken", the true story about an American pilot shot down over the Pacific Ocean and his  horrific struggle  after the war  to forgive  the Japanese prison guard who for years had tortured him. Eventually forgiving the guard, the pilot  converted to Christianity.

          In our interview, Jim said he had read this  book more than once. Then he  paused for a thought and added,  "I learned about forgiveness from my family."   He also recalled that he learned to forgive  some  builders and retailers whom, he claimed, once cheated him.   

          Jim  cooks occasionally in his kitchen for family members. His favorite dish is minestrone soup.  He says he never eats out, but on this particular night his daughter and her husband were taking him out  to dinner.   "I'm going to order lentil soup and French fries, " he said smiling.  His  family includes daughters Mary—a project manager for Abbot  Laboratories—and Jean, a housewife;  sons Nicholas, a retired United Airlines reservation agent living with his wife in the Philippines; Jim, a published  author; Tom, a retired registered nurse;  Peter, a retired supervisor of a country  club; Daniel, a landscaper;  Anthony, an arborist; and his deacon son, Matt. "Two of these sons of my sons, though they  don't regularly  go to church, nevertheless follow the Gospel," Jim said.  A son, Gerald, died during child birth.

        

Always at work in his home's office...

    Jim wanted to describe  more about  his faith life:  "When Joan and I married, we decided we were  going to live a Catholic life." His faith in God's love and omnipotence was put to the test, he recalled,   when his wife began  "hemorrhaging fiercely" at home when  about to give  birth to their sixth child.  "We believed she was dying." Joan was rushed to the hospital, and when Jim told the nurse to call for a doctor, he remembers  the nurse replying, "This is not a case for a doctor but  for the chaplain."  Mother and child lived.   Today,  "My faith is stronger; I'm older and stronger."

         

    Asked what makes him sad, he was silent for a long moment. "Yes, losing my wife.  I miss her very much." And what might Jim like to be remembered for?  He quickly said, "As  a man who  worked well, never doing work half-way, and  that I did something good by working  at Northwestern [as a teacher ] for 46 years."

II   A Mother Who Loved Her Son as an Angel             Might…

 She was  beatified May 4, 2019 by Pope Francis for her exemplary life as a wife, mother, and writer in Mexico. In 1884 she married Francisco Armida, with whom she had nine children between 1885 and 1899. In 1901, when she was 39 years old, her husband died and she had to care for her children, the youngest of whom was two years old. Her life as a widow was not made any easier by the fact that the Mexican Revolution raged from 1910 to 1921, taking the lives of 900,000 in  Mexico's population.  Yet her writings reflect an amazing tranquility amid the chaos that surrounded her. ( from Wikipedia )… The holy mother “built many relationships with bishops, was obedient to her spiritual directors,” stated a nun who knew her. “And at the same time, she cooked and was able to read, pray, teach her kids to pray, talk to her spiritual director, and  visit the sick. She always looked for a way to help; as a wife, she never neglected Francisco , whom she truly loved.” ( from the website  Ave Maria )  ]

[  This is a letter once written by Blessed Concepcion Cabrera de Armida ( aka) Conchita ) to her son Pancho. ]

Pancho, my beloved son ...

"Avoid the least quarrel and do not stop at any sacrifice to have peace in your home .... It is better to bend than to break; with prudence, education and certain common sense, many troubles can be avoided. Oh, my son,  never forget that everything you are, all that you have and the happiness you now enjoy, you owe to the good Jesus who has loved you with such tenderness! From how many dangers he has delivered you! How he has cared for you since you became an orphan!    Truly divine providence has taken care of you, has covered you with its shadow and led you gently, opening new horizons for your future. Be grateful, my son: recognize with gratitude the fatherly tenderness of God over you and demonstrate your gratitude by your actions, and never be ashamed of being a good Christian.           

        "Before putting an end to this letter, I am going  to give you a little advice poured out from the heart  that most loves you on earth… Keep your faith even in the great burdens of your life: the religion you profess, the only true one, must be your shield and your pride....teaching them to love it and respect it as the greatest thing upon earth .... Be dignified with everyone but never haughty. Keep on being honest under every circumstance. Do not soil your soul with business deals that extort your fellowmen. You understand me. May your soul be always clean—poverty does not soil or shame one—and you will be happy .... 

          May your home, dear Pancho, be a model of Christian homes where the Lord reigns and a worldly atmosphere does not enter; where the peace and happiness that are born from the accomplishment of one's duty, be settled there. Take care to receive the sacraments frequently and never abandon them under any circumstance in your life .... Never spend more than you have , not even all that you earn: thrift helps marriages avoid a lot of trouble. But do not be avaricious; aim for a happy medium, maintaining a decent and fitting social standing, not living in luxury, even if you become rich. Let the poor be considered one of your ordinary expenses, and God will not fail you. Don't limit your piety to exterior observances but rather practice the virtues, being patient in adversity, resigned to the adverse events of life because if we receive from the Lord so many goods, why should we not also receive the sufferings he desires to send us? .. 

       

  I hope the Lord will still leave me upon earth to enjoy your happiness, but as you are going away and I am so often ill, I thought about writing this advice for the future; if you follow it you shall be very joyful. Forgive me my son, for all the bad example I might have given you,  and do not follow it .... 

      Your humble mother who blesses                                                                                      you. 

BLESSED CONCEPCION CABRERA DE ARMIDA 

An after thought...

One Sunday in church I was sitting behind the grandparents of  a two-year-old , a three-year-old, and a babe whose grandpa and grandma  had been rotating them constantly for nearly an hour, very tenderly from arms to arms.  Naturally, the grandpa and grandma's  energy as well as their  patience was ebbing. The babe was now crying  incessantly,    and  the three-year-old breaking  loose  from the family corral and running down the aisle  and  the two –year-old now  squirming every  direction. 

As the congregation  was about to share in the handshake of peace,  the restlessness of the two-year-old girl  intensified. She suddenly  re- anchored her body and mind from both  grandparents,  turned around  and, with that smile unique to child innocence,  extended her small hand over the back of the pew, obviously wanting me  to shake it. It was a mannerism she had clearly and often  seen Mom and Dad do when prompted by the priest to give the handshake of  peace. The child and I exchanged little handshakes and  smiles.   Holding her hand  for  a second or two  and then glancing at her family now hugging each other ( no pandemic then ) , reinforced the truth that I  was  member of a  body of world-wide family—indeed, a family both infinite and eternal .  

The End

comments  welcome at

rrschwarz7@wowway.com

©  2020 . 2022 Robert R. Schwarz