Mortal Blessings
A Sacramental Farewell
by Angela Alaimo O'Donnell
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Pub Date Sep 08 2014 | Archive Date Oct 02 2014
Description
With Joan Didion’s grasp of grief, the spiritual playfulness of Mary Karr, and the poetic agility of Kathleen Norris, Angela Alaimo O’Donnell narrates the events that followed her mother’s fall and the broken hip that led to surgery. As O’Donnell and her sisters cared for their mother’s failing body during the last days of her life, they unconsciously observed rituals that began to take on a deeper importance. Bathing her each morning was a kind of baptism, the nightly feeding of pie took on a Eucharistic significance, trimming and polishing nails became a kind of anointing. Beyond the seven there are the myriad sacraments they made up: the sacrament of community via cell phone, the sacrament of wheelchair pilgrimage around the nursing home, and the sacrament of humor and laughter. This deeply human portrait of loss is balanced by the surprising grace found in letting go; it will resonate with any spiritual reader but especially caregivers and those currently in grief.
Advance Praise
“Mortal Blessings is
a stunning meditation on the sacramentality of our living and our
dying. As practical as it is inspiring, its wisdom will be a gift of
hope and peace for many.”
Ron Hansen
Author of Mariette in Ecstasy
“In this beautiful and beautifully written book, Angela Alaimo O’Donnell shows us that there are many more than just seven sacraments. By meditating deeply on what might seem ordinary moments, she shows us how life can be extraordinary indeed. This is a lovely book.”
Rev. James Martin, S.J.
Author of Jesus: A Pilgrimage
“On
a short list of pivotal life experiences, helping your mother
die—especially when the relationship has always been a difficult
one—ranks near the top. Mortal Blessings, Angela Alaimo
O’Donnell’s meditation on her mother’s forty-eight-day death process, is
not only hauntingly beautiful, extraordinarily moving, and utterly
memorable, it is one of the most grown-up books I’ve ever read.”
Paula Huston
Author of A Season of Mystery
“In Mortal Blessings,Angela
O’Donnell brilliantly reads our final acts of caretaking, not as
repetitive and meaningless, but as significant, holy ritual. Cutting a
loved one’s hair, bringing her pie, engaging in conversation, even
though it’s repetitive—all gain evocative meaning. In a culture obsessed
with youth, a culture that hides illness and death, we need O’Donnell’s
thoughtful memoir about how her mother’s last days became sacramental.”
Jeanne Murray Walker
Author of The Geography of Memory
“This is a memoir of a tangled and difficult mother-daughter
relationship that will compel you to read on. It is a mortal story of
flawed people facing illness and life’s end. There is nothing pietistic
or saccharine here, but there are blessings as O’Donnell confronts
these hard realities through creative sacramental practices and literary
insight. This narrative of failure and forgiveness will provoke
daughters of every stripe to reflect on their most primal relationship.”
Dana Greene
Dean Emerita of Oxford College Emory University
“Angela O’Donnell invites us to ponder the gratuity and importance of
ordinary gestures amidst the silence and helplessness of accompanying
loved ones through illness, intrusive memory, and death. Through her
eyes we discover that the ‘holy folly’ we engage in at such times takes
on a sacred poignancy that we already knew, but never imagined.”
Rev. Mark Mossa, S.J.
Author of Already There: Letting God Find You
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Available Editions
| EDITION | Paperback |
| ISBN | 9781594714085 |
| PRICE | $15.95 (USD) |
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Featured Reviews
Kari B, Reviewer
Early in this book, O’Donnell quotes Andre Dubus: “A sacrament is an outward sign of God’s love, they taught me when I was a boy, and in the Catholic Church there are seven. But no, I say, for the Church is catholic, the world is catholic, and there are seven times seventy sacraments, to infinity.” A few paragraphs later, O’Donnell says, “Holy objects or ‘sacramentals’ hint at this presence of the divine in the ordinary, but an imaginative engagement of the world enlarges our ability to see that all objects are potentially holy–or ‘sacramentals’–as are all human activities and, most important, all human beings.” This book is the way that O’Donnell explores these thoughts about finding the sacred in the moments of caring for her ill mother. The topics vary from the serious to the somewhat silly, from the importance of speaking to and with her mother to the afternoon they spent watching Dirty Dancing. (Any book with a section entitled, “The Sacrament of Dirty Dancing” is going to be okay by me.) Mortal Blessings is a thoughtful book that I would recommend for anyone who is caring for an ill parent.
Sr. Marie P, Media/Journalist
Angela Alaimo O'Donnell is an artist in every way. Her poetry lives in the reader's imagination and heart. In Mortal Blessings, Angela writes the story and struggle of her alcoholic mother who despite efforts to overcome her battle, succumbed. In Mortal Blessings Angela Alaimo O'Donnell let's us grow through the eyes of a little girl become woman as she experiences the wonder, weakness and faith that made a fallible mother a memory of love. It's a book that can't be put down once you begin to read! I love anything that Angela writes - poetry or prose. She's one of my favorite interviews!
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