Dona Marciana and Golla lived together for many years in a part of town called La Colonia in a very tiny one-room house (I guess you could say two rooms if you count the kitchen). Golla is in her late 60’s, one of five of Dona Marciana’s children, the only one who still lives in General Cepeda. The rest have moved to cities father away and visited their mother when they were able to. Dona Marciana’s husband died many years ago and Golla’s husband passed away 7 years ago. Golla is a very holy woman who is sweet-natured, gentle, and always talks about her gratitude to the Lord for her life and the things in it. She is also very giggly and is an inspiration to me! To make money, Golla tends a little candy shop (a table with gum and other treats) outside of her house, which is mostly funded by children buying sweets. These two women became some of my closest friends. They both played a huge role in my life this past year and have showed me the meaning of holiness, family, and love. Dona Marciana passed away about a month ago after spending about two months on her deathbed. Nobody knows for sure how old Dona Marciana was. (I have heard anything from 85 to 98 from her and her family) Dona Marciana was such a wonderful and holy woman and will be remembered by so many! I would like to take a little time to share with you some stories about her and her daughter.
Dona Marciana grew up in a rancho (small village) near General Cepeda, where her dad and brothers all worked farming on a ranch. After she got married, she moved to General Cepeda with her husband and began to work in town making tortillas by hand. She loved talking about this and was proud of how she helped support her family by making tortillas. She loved her children very much and always spoke of their spouses and her grandchildren fondly. Dona Marciana had beautiful long grey hair, an infectious smile, and loved to stay busy and work when she was not sick. She called me Mi Gringita (my little white girl) and became a sort of Mexican grandmother to me. I love them both very much!
When I first visited Dona Marciana during my time of training, we entered the house and a fellow missionary leading the home visit began to speak in Spanish with Golla, who invited us to come meet her mother, who was bedridden and very ill. I sat next to the bed and gazed upon this ailing woman, who was crying and telling us all of the pain she was in. At the time I spoke almost no Spanish and was nervous about how to communicate with the people in Mexico with a huge language barrier holding me back. She quickly figured out I could not understand her, so she began to point to areas on her body where she was in pain. I felt her pain in my heart and her eyes met mine as we sat in silence communicating without words for what felt like hours. This bonded us, and when I found out I was being sent to Mexico to serve, I knew I wanted to visit her as much as I could.
I moved to General Cepeda last January and since then visited Dona Marciana and Golla at least once a week or so for the 10 months I lived in Mexico. Golla always welcomed me into their home warmly and with a huge hug. We would chat, catch up, pray together, and read Scripture together. Most of the time they offered me food and coffee even though they had almost none to spare. Dona Marciana was sick off and on throughout the year and would either be in her bed in pain or outside working in the sun (her idea of working was to move rocks around and organize them in the yard for hours to make things look nice). After a couple of months, Golla could no longer leave her mother alone at the house, as her health began to worsen. Dona Marciana began to eat less and less food, so I started bringing probiotic yogurt drinks and applesauce, which she loved. When her health became worse, I would spend some time with Dona Marciana every Sunday for a couple of months so that Golla could go to Sunday Mass. This was such a special time for me every week. Dona Marciana and I would spend time outside together moving rocks and eating figs when she was feeling well enough, and in more difficult times I would lay in bed with her, brush her hair and rub lotion on her joints to ease the pain as we sang her favorite songs together. Often other members of her family would visit while I was there and we would spend time together as well. Over time, I felt myself becoming a part of their family, which gave me a real sense of belonging and family during a time away from home.
Before I left Colorado for missions, I did home care for my grandmother a couple of days a week for two years. My grandma Ann became a huge part of my life, and it was very difficult for me to say goodbye to her when I left for Mexico, not knowing when or if I would see her again. Saying goodbye to my grandma was a very tangible sacrifice for me as I knew I was called to leave everything to follow where Jesus was leading me. Even so, Jesus always fills the desires of the heart, and He gave me Dona Marciana to become another grandmother to me. I spent time with her like I did with my own grandmother, which was such a source of peace and joy in my year. Jesus really provides when we give Him everything!
A couple of months ago, Golla sent for me to come visit her mother and pray with them, as Dona Marciana was doing very very bad (muy muy malita in Spanish). I went to their home, where the whole extended family had gathered to say their goodbyes and care for her. She hadn’t eaten in 3 days because she couldn’t keep any food down, and she was so small and frail you could barely see her legs in bed. I hadn’t realized how bad she had gotten until I saw her small form in that bed, barely able to move and immediately vomiting after drinking only a spoonful of water. The family sent me to fetch our priest to hear her last confession and give her last rights. It feels like an out of body experience remembering myself run around the town trying to find the priest to come minister to my dear friend. We waited for Father to come back from a visit to the city, and all the while Dona Marciana was sobbing, trying but unable to shift in her bed and loudly praying to Jesus to take her to Heaven. Her family all thought she would pass before the night was over. Her body temperature changed drastically, going from sweats to shivers. Even though I have almost no medical knowledge and am not at all qualified as a doctor or a nurse, the family seemed to see me as an expert there to bring their beloved Dona Marciana back to health. I asked for a blanket when she was cold and a wet rag to put on her forehead when she was hot. I felt like a surgeon throwing out requests for rags and blankets “stat”, followed by family members running around the house bringing me what I had asked for as soon as they could. They looked at me with hope and respect, like I had the capability to heal their beloved relative with blankets and wet rags.
After a little while, dinner was ready and the whole family began to chatter and eat very loudly. It was hard to focus on Dona Marciana and care for her with all of the noise surrounding the bed. In a hospice in the states, family members would leave the room to eat or chat with each other, but in this small house there was nowhere else to go. I had to quiet them down many times to hear Dona Marciana’s pleas for food or complaints of severe pain. I suddenly became totally responsible for her needs for the next couple of hours, with visitors popping in and out to speak with her or ask how she was doing. Golla stayed in the room, taking a little cat nap after a week of total exhaustion caring for her mother. At around 11 o’clock at night, Father arrived to administer the Sacraments and instructed us all to leave the house to give them privacy. While outside, Golla and I went on a little walk around the town. We spoke of her week, how it was visiting with all of her family members and how she was doing during this difficult time. She express how truly exhausted she was, and she shared how she was not able to sleep at night due to her mother’s sobbing and constant needs. I tried to give her a little encouragement, and she spoke of Jesus’s love for her and her mother. She expressed her desire for her mother to be dying in a hospital bed somewhere safe with doctors, but then stopped walking and looked me right in the eyes as she said “I praise God my mother has a bed to die in. So many people have less than we do and so many people have to die on the floor. Thank you God for the bed you have given us for my mother to die in.” Her eyes filled with tears of gratitude as she praised the Lord for her mother’s bed. I couldn’t believe it! Here she was, in so much financial need she was not able to buy food, with her mother dying as we spoke, and her first inclination was to thank our Lord for the bed her mother was dying in. What a remarkable and holy woman!
That night and every night for the next week or so I came to their house during the afternoon to visit and bring diapers and fresh IV’s, and at night I came to take care of Dona Marciana during the night so the rest of the family (Golla and two of Dona Marciana’s siblings) could sleep. They were utterly exhausted and needed to rest. I was worried about falling asleep and hearing Dona Marciana topple out of bed onto the cold floor, so I made a sort of fort on the bed to keep her safe and sat by her head consoling her, caring for her, and reminded her to close her eyes to try to get some sleep. She was so extremely weak that she couldn’t even lift her neck to adjust her head on the pillow. The rest of the family slept on the bed right next to us, so exhausted they never even moved. I put them to sleep and gave them blankets when they looked cold. I slept a little bit, but mostly read Scripture or prayed over her in her severe pain. We cried together and sat in silence together. Although she did not speak much, over time I began to understand what she needed just with one glance of eye contact.
That time of sleeping over at their house every night was exhausting, both physically and emotionally, but it was one of the most beautiful weeks of my life. How had I, a young twenty-something from another country, become a part of this family? How had I become closer to these women than I had with most of my family back in the states? It was all truly grace from the Lord Himself, a beautiful gift given to all of us during such a trying time.
A couple of days later, one of Dona Mariana’s daughters brought her to a hospital in Saltillo, a city about an hour away, where she stayed for a couple of weeks with Golla and some of her other children by her side. Her family hoped being properly cared for with lots of fluid and attention would bring her out of darkness and help her to live many more years. Unfortunately, Dona Marciana’s body and mind were too weak from so many years of living, so her time in the hospital merely kept her alive but still in agonizing pain. Her family decided there was nothing more to do, and brought her back to General Cepeda to spend her last days with family and friends in the quiet of her home. For the next month or so, I continued to visit frequently and spend time with Golla and Dona Marciana. I continued to buy food and other necessities weekly for my friends, and I continued to bring people on mission trips to visit them in their house, who all instantly fell in love with this amazing family.
The day I left General Cepeda, Golla and Dona Marciana were some of the last of my beloved friends I was able to say goodbye to. We spent some time chatting and expressing our love and gratitude for each other in tears as we held hands and gathered around Dona Marciana in her bed. There was a real sadness in the room, but also a feeling of great and powerful love. Before I left, Golla prayed over me and gave me her blessing, a special honor in Mexican culture given by elders when a person goes on a journey. After, Golla helped Dona Marciana give me a blessing as well. She could no longer speak or move her arms, so Golla woke her up, prayed a blessing over me as her mother would, and lifted Dona Marciana’s withered and small hand to bless me with the sign of the Cross. Dona Marciana had one tear running down her cheek, reminding me of her love for me and how present she was there with us without being able to speak. After many hugs and kisses, we all said goodbye, knowing we might not see each other again until we meet in Heaven.
Dona Marciana remained on her deathbed until December 15th at around 7pm, when she breathed her last breath. I think about her every day; she is who I offer Mass for and who I think of at night when I can’t sleep. I have no doubt in my heart that she will soon, if not already, be in Paradise with Our Lord, telling Jesus about how she made tortillas by hand and praying for her Gringita.
The morning after Dona Marciana passed away, I received at least 5 different Facebook messages and a few phone calls from her family and friends who wanted to make sure I heard the sad news and was able to pray for them. This was a real honor: they thought to call me and reach out to me during such a difficult time for all of them because they knew what a beautiful friendship I had with Dona Marciana. They wanted me to know how much Dona Marciana loved her Gringita, and how she asked for me the night she passed. This news was really hard for me to hear. I was in the car with my mom on the way to Sunday Mass and wasn’t sure how to react. It was strange to digest the news of her death when I was not able to be there. My heart ached for my people and all I wanted was to be there with them at her funeral in General Cepeda, hugging and crying with them in mourning. I decided to offer Mass for her soul and for her family. The funeral and Sunday Mass were at the exact same time; I felt weirdly and mysteriously connected with the funeral happening so many miles away. I prayed before Mass that the Lord would hear my prayer and would help me to understand what was going on, why I could not be there when I wanted to so badly. I asked him to console me in my sorrow and give me strength. I prayed for the intercession of Dona Marciana. I wasn’t sure how he would answer my prayer, but then I read the readings before Mass began and heard His voice very clearly.
The readings shouted at me a message of rejoicing in the good news of Jesus Christ. I wanted to be sad at the loss of a friend, but Jesus wanted to remind me of His mission for me. The first reading from Zephaniah exhorted us to “Shout with joy, O daughter Zion! Sing joyfully, O Israel! Be glad and exult with all your heart, O daughter Jerusalem! The King of Israel, the Lord, is in your midst, you have no further misfortune to fear.” (Zephaniah 3: 14-16) The responsorial psalm from Isaiah exhorted us to “Sing praise to the LORD for his glorious achievement; let this be known throughout all the earth. Shout with exultation, O city of Zion, for great in your midst is the Holy One of Israel!” (Isaiah 12: 5-6). The second reading from Philippians exhorted us to “Rejoice in the Lord always. I shall say it again: rejoice!” After reading all of these messages of joy, I had a moment of doubt in my heart, praying “Jesus, why do you want me to rejoice right now? My friend is gone and she suffered so much. Shouldn’t I be mourning after hearing such bad news?” Then the Gospel came. It was about John the Baptist baptizing others before Jesus came. After he had baptized many, “he preached good news to the people.” (Luke 3:18) The Holy Spirit illumined my mind and all of a sudden it made sense. Death can be very GOOD NEWS! Death can be something to REJOICE about! Why? Jesus died and rose from the dead so that we could be with him in Heaven after we die! Death is the only way to be with Him in Heaven. So long ago God made Dona Marciana from nothing with the hope and plan that one day she would be with him for eternity. He died on the Cross to make that possible, and He rose to ensure it. He walked with Dona Marciana her whole life, leading her to December 15th, 2018, the day she would be able to be with him forever. What a miracle! The God of the entire universe called Dona Marciana to himself! Yes, she suffered very greatly for very many years, which I’m sure Jesus wept about often, but her suffering became a reflection of the Cross through her own excruciating death. As Christians, we believe in the Resurrection. We believe that the horrendous suffering of Jesus on the Cross had a beautiful purpose. He died an agonizing death, but then he ROSE! What an amazing thing! We as humans are made in the image and likeness of God Himself. God died and rose from the dead. We will all die one day too, but God wants us to rise with Him! He wants us to experience the Resurrection of the Body after we die and leave everything behind to be with Him and to rise with Him to Paradise! THIS IS GOOD NEWS - we need to rejoice in it and preach it! Suffering is an evil and not the plan of God, but he always uses it for good. He wants to resurrect suffering and death to bring joy and life! There is no reason to dwell on our mourning, but instead we must give our suffering to Jesus Himself and let Him fill us with resurrection joy as He reminds us of His victory over sin and death.
So, why do we visit the sick? How does visiting someone help them? Often, we can’t save lives. Often, we don’t know what to say or maybe can’t even speak the language needed to console a person who is dying. Many missionaries (including myself) have never had any medical training or are queasy around blood or disease. No matter our experience or fears, we should strive to do as much as we can to minister to a person’s physical needs when facing death. We should pour ourselves out tirelessly and go the extra mile to eliminate poverty and comfort those in the midst of it. But remember, we serve the body AND the soul. Visiting the sick will not profit if we do not also bring with us the good news of the Risen Christ. God brings love and good news through Jesus Christ our Savior, and so should we! A lot of times the dying and the sick are ignored or cast out in society. People often don’t treat sick people well or give them the care and love they deserve. This is so unfortunate, because the dying are the people around us closest to Heaven. They are people who deserve our utmost attention and respect: the dying are saints among us! When we visit people like Dona Marciana, we are visiting saints. Who would refuse an opportunity to care for Mother Teresa, Saint Therese, or Saint Francis on their deathbed? To visit the sick and the dying is an act of mercy. Before we die, we need people to minister to us and remind us of Heaven, to remind us of the good news and joy of Jesus Christ. We must remember this when we visit and pray for the sick and dying of the world, especially those nearest to us.
When was the last time you visited an elderly home or a hospital to visit those on the verge of death? Remember that you do not need to be a foreign missionary to console Jesus on the Cross through those around you. Remember to pray for Dona Marciana and the family members and friends you have lost. Remember to pray for their intercession and pray for a holy death when it is your time to enter into eternity! Remember that Jesus won the Victory over death through His Resurrection. Remember to rejoice always and to bring the good news of Jesus Christ.
Dona Marciana, pray for your Gringita and pray for all of us!
