Carmel: Most Beautiful of Women

It was a warm blustery Sunday evening on Hastings pier...

Waiting for news of Carmel
Waiting for Carmel to leave
Not that I wanted her to go
I would like her to stay on and on

We all would

But she had to go
It was her time
Her time was coming
And God was calling
And I was five hundred miles
Away

She is my aunt
-in-law
But really my aunt
In affection
Sixty odd years  of it

When I was a boy of eight or so
She came to Raford from Birmingham
Young wife and mother
Josie's wife
Marian's mother
Josie was my uncle

Raford is the Carty homestead
It became Carmel's home

Over the past 36 years
It has been hers
Since Josie died

She came to embody Raford
She became Raford

For me
For my family

To the eight-year-old boy
She was bright, beautiful and warm

Very caring

We were down by the big metal gate
Closing it
And my heel got caught in it
I cried more loudly than was necessary
And Carmel brought me in, took off my white ankle socks, bathed and bandaged my wound as she would bandage the wounds of my heart many years later in my adult life.

I heard her cry once
A great, big childlike cry
That rose out of the depths
Of her tiredness and her aloneness
It was the night of grandad's funeral
And she had no adult of her own flesh and blood.

The whole tumult of the Carty clan was there in the kitchen that night. Maybe all nine siblings were there after a day in Mary Wards. 

And Carmel cried because she felt alone. I was fifteen years old and the sound of her cry went through me. I can feel it still.

But mostly she will be remembered as one who smiled with us, for us and upon us.

She gave her all to her family, her children, her children's children. And to us, to all of us who came there these sixty years or so.

There's a quality to her that has no adequate word to describe it. A sensation of knowing you were in the presence of a rare purity, sheer goodness, one who did not judge, rarely said anything against another.

And faith. She was stalwart in faith. Unashamedly faithful to God, to the Blessed Virgin, to prayer.

On occasions when I would celebrate family Mass, where others were bashful, giddy or silent, I could be sure that Carmel would answer out the prayers with no self-consciousness in her at all.

Faith and prayer were at the heart of my relationship with her. Faith beyond words or thoughts. Just faith. Living faith. And Love. Always Love.

Being so deeply immersed in Faith means an encounter with suffering that is up close and very personal. An encounter with Christ and His Mother that  is up close and personal. They suffered. We suffer. Faith is not a drug to numb the pain. It is pain borne with loving fortitude. It demands great stamina, steadfastness. Carmel has great spiritual stamina.

She needed it now at the end because she was suffering greatly. Like she was giving birth all over again and herself being born to new life in the Labour pangs of death. How hard it was for her loved ones to witness this and not be able to take it away.

During my last visit with her after Easter we had some time alone, thanks to Marian who was looking after her that day. She talked about the early years when I stayed with her there in Raford and we prayed. I anointed her and she said, "I might not be here the next time you come."

She won't be there and it will never be the same again. It cannot be the same. A new generation will give shape to a new home that was hers and that is how it should be but something of her will linger there for a long time to come.

I can feel the touch of her hand, I can feel the sound, the tone of her voice, the sound of her laugh. The brightness of her smile.

She embraced life as it came to her and was not one to complain.
She welcomed, received every person openly and without prejudice or judgement.

While we were waiting for Carmel's departure it seemed that she was waiting for the arrival of her sister Phil who was with her for the final few hours and then Carmel died on July 25th. The day before my Mother's anniversary and three days before my sister Maura's.

Obliging to the end, the timing meant that I could come home for the funeral and be back in Hastings for a wedding the following day.

In Raford Tom gave me time alone with Carmel's body which was laid out in the room where she had slept for the last number of years, surrounded by photos of her family, photos of herself - radiant. I slipped my Medjugorje rosary beads with my name into the coffin, wanting to send something of myself with her.

The funeral took place on July 28th, Maura's 24th anniversary, an appropriately dignified, beautiful and prayerful event. Tom spoke at the beginning of Mass, not a eulogy but Carmel's own words of gratitude to her family, to God and to so many people, including these words for me, "Eamonn I love you very much!" Sending tears to my eyes and a tremor to my voice. It was hard to speak.

The music was superb. Harry joined  Ciaran Cannon and the Kiltullagh choir and it helped make everything more bearable. 

Ann and Ursula prepared the Readings, Geraldine and Teresa brought up the gifts which were preceded by the grandchildren and it was lovely that Ann, who is my first god-daughter, gave out Holy Communion with me.

Father Mac has been in Kiltullagh for 37 years now. Ageing and somewhat feeble, he has been a wonderful presence in the parish, has shared in all of the Carty milestones and now is very lovingly supported by the local community. A very good sign of who he is and who they are. He has always been very welcoming to me.

Carmel's own children have been so impressive throughout her illness. Present, faithful, loving. Just like herself. Each one of them, including her daughter-in-law Mary. One of the tender moments that expresses the love they all had was when Marian lay in bed with her mother to hold and comfort her. And all of her grandchildren - the loveliest of young women and men. 

Photographs have played an important part in our grieving and remembering. One, taken by her sister's grandson Mark, shows her empty chair in the kitchen with her dog Coco looking over at it from the couch. Everything is in black and white except for the lamp over the chair which is in colour. Very poignant.

Two photos shown me by Teresa are special. Both are of Carmel walking alone down the road by the well. In one she is half turned, looking backwards and in the other she is walking on down the road towards the bridge and the beautiful Raford River. This for me is symbolic of her journey away from home in this world and the river symbolic of the River of Life that flows into Eternity. The choir sang with Harry the haunting words of 'The Rose of Mooncoin' - "flow on lovely river...."

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A month has passed now and today we gathered for the Month's Mind Mass, a less pressured time for the family but in a way somewhat lonelier. There's a lost look in our faces, a kind of disorientation for children and grandchildren in moving further into life without the anchor of a Mother. I feel out of sorts myself, something pulling at an emptiness of my gut, my soul. This is a day which I can't wait to end, like everything is lost and I just want to go to bed and cover my head and if I feel like that, then how must her own dear children feel.

Tomorrow is another day and God is with us. It is the promise of Christ, "I am with you always." He is our companion on the way and part of everything we engage in - in our waking, our working, our studying, in the games that the young have gone out to play and He is with us in our sleeping. Most of all on a day like this he is consolation in our sorrow, strength in our weakness, He cries in our tears and promises to turn them into laughter.

Rest in peace dear Carmel, most beautiful of women.

Carmel with her children and sister Phil