I was five years old when I drew a wrapped parcel from a school lucky dip that contained a little statue of Mary. She wore a white veil and a blue cloak over a white dress. She was standing on the head of a snake. Her hands were spread wide, as if in welcome. Other little girls that day drew out parcels containing hair elastics or clips and I was pleased to have received something so unique, so beautiful.
Mary would become my guide through life, the gentle heavenly mother, easy to relate to through the example of my own mother, who was uplifting and creative, completely selfless and endlessly loving. Mary was my second mother, a model of strength and grace, someone to turn to in difficult times.
When my husband was diagnosed with stage four cancer three years ago, a friend asked me how that revelation affected our faith. Perhaps she expected that we would be angry or bitter and rail against the unfairness of this unexpected fork in the road of our very happy life. We found that our faith only deepened through adversity.
I now felt on a visceral level the suffering of Mary standing in the shadow of the cross in her powerlessness. I had a sense of progress in faith, of reaching a stage beyond thinking of Christ on the cross, and instead seeing Christ as restored to strength with heart blazing with compassion for humanity.
My husband, in his last days, had a clear sense of God as strong, caring and in control. He was unafraid. Even so, I prayed for a miracle, for a reprieve. I argued to God that it was in His interest to restore my husband to health because my husband was such a light in the world. He was kind, he was well loved, and loving. He left people feeling better about themselves. He was a force for good.
When my husband passed despite my prayers, I wondered if God and I might have trust issues. After all, he had not given me what I desperately wanted. Could I trust God?
The answer is, I suppose, this: Mary trusted God when she was unmarried and pregnant in unforgiving times. She trusted God when Simeon foretold that she would suffer as if a sword had pierced her soul. And when Christ was on the cross, and Mary stood brokenhearted at its foot, Mary still trusted God. If she could trust God despite her unimaginable hardships, what right did I have not to do so?
That little statue of Mary still sits on my bedside table. Part of its base is missing, broken off in the chaos of life. A smooth shell, inserted in the place of the missing part, keeps it upright. It gives me comfort to have it there, a reminder that we have travelled through so much of life together.
And as for my husband and others we love who have passed, I don’t believe they are ever really gone. They are just a little further ahead of us on a path all of us must one day travel.
Melissa Coburn is a Melbourne writer.
