Those Who Mourn

by Marvin Wilmes

” I consider that our present sufferings are not worth comparing with the glory that will be revealed in us. For the creation waits in eager expectation for the children of God to be revealed. For the creation was subjected to frustration, not by its own choice, but by the will of the one who subjected it, in hope that the creation itself will be liberated from its bondage to decay and brought into the freedom and glory of the children of God.”
Romans 8:18-21 

The crucifix pinned to my mother’s clothing became a constant in a year when nothing else was. It clung to her bathrobe, nightgown, and blouses, catching light and breath with every step she took. By then, it wasn’t just jewelry; it was testimony. Her faith was stitched into her days, and that crucifix—plain, steady, unpretentious—was the thread holding them together.

Returning to my childhood home felt like stepping into a story I wasn’t ready to read. Hobbs, New Mexico, still clung to my clothes in the smell of dust and distant radio jingles, but northwest Missouri was home, and home was where the sickness was. My rediscovery of Catholicism had begun as a quiet ember. Still, now it flickered against the wind of perfectionism—my mistaken belief that God wanted me polished before He’d meet me in my mess. He didn’t. He met me on the farmhouse porch.

I was halfway up the walk when she jumped from around the corner.

“Boo.”

It wasn’t the joke that startled me. It was her face—no longer drained by the hospital’s gray light but bright with some fierce, anchored joy. She’d always had this way of looking at you like life would be okay because she knew something you didn’t. In that moment, I believed her.

Inside, cards and letters had taken over the house. Stacks of envelopes—handwriting from every direction—leaned against lamps, were tucked into bowls, and slid between books. People she had helped and comforted in quiet ways were now sending their voices back to her: stories, prayers, pieces of Scripture, clippings with folded edges. She had touched so many lives that the mail looked like a topographical map of her kindness.

Buried among the notes was a letter from a young priest named Father John. He’d visited and left a small package—a crucifix—and his story.

“I was given this crucifix at a crucial crossroads in my own life,” he wrote. “The person who gave it to me received it when he was in crisis. He encouraged me to pass it on when I found someone who needed it more.”

He had kept it until his own storm cleared. Then he paid it forward, as promised. And now it was my mother’s.

I found myself wondering what brought him to his knees—what doubt, what loss—but I didn’t need the details to understand the weight of his gift. The chain was thin, the cross simple. But meaning isn’t measured in metal. A crucifix isn’t meant to be pretty; it’s meant to be true. Our traditions keep Christ on the cross not because we deny the resurrection, but because we remember the road to it. Jesus said, “Deny yourself. Pick up your cross and follow me.” We rush past that sentence as if discipleship were a sprint to an empty tomb. But the road to dawn runs through a hill called Golgotha.

What astonished me most wasn’t the crucifix itself; it was my mother’s fidelity to it. She wore it like one wears breath. When she bent to tie a shoe, it swung. When she laughed, it danced. When pain came, it rested still against her chest. It became her witness—her hand raised on the stand of suffering, testifying that hope is real.

Photo by Anuja Tilj on Unsplash

By then, cancer had taken up residence in our home. On paper, the facts were cold: it had spread to her liver. In life, the facts burned. My parents did everything the family doctor recommended, but as a family, we were undereducated about the disease—about stages, protocols, and specialists. In 1984, cancer was a single bleak word to me. I didn’t yet know it was a maze requiring both courage and a map.

“Don’t worry,” she’d say. “I will beat this.” She meant it. She had to. Seven children were still under her roof. She couldn’t imagine God granting their births without also granting her the strength to raise them.

Aunt Dee, who was more like a big sister than an aunt, would later tell me that my abrupt departure from my first radio job in New Mexico had been a mercy disguised as a disappointment. “If it had been wonderful,” she said, “it wouldn’t have been easy to leave. God had a plan. It wasn’t time for your career to work out—your parents needed you now.” I didn’t yet know her full story of faith, but I trusted her. We’d grown up together, after all—her showing me what steady looked like, me looking up to her with the kind of respect that never quite leaves.

My parents were a team. Mom had long been the heartbeat of our home, and in recent years, once Roland and Karl started school, she’d become a pillar in our parish—reliable, wise, endlessly willing. That’s why nuns, priests, and laypeople flowed toward her bedside when the news broke. Among them: Father John and his crucifix.

Almost a month after the diagnosis, I drove Mom to see our family doctor. She was hoping for a referral to a radiologist. Dad met us in town because he’d taken another car for servicing. Even then, Mom prized her independence; she went in alone while I idled in the car, the radio mumbling news and songs I didn’t really hear. I didn’t know better. Our roles had always been clear: she supported us. We didn’t yet know how to support her.

When she returned, she didn’t speak at first. She gripped the steering wheel, breathed, then turned to me. Her voice trembled, but her eyes were flint.

“We have to go get your father.”

The way she said “your father” told me something had broken. “What happened?”

Her composure cracked, just a little. “He asked if I’d started taking pain pills yet.” She blinked back tears. “Can you believe it? He’s already given up.”

The cruelty landed slowly, then all at once. In that sterile room, a sentence had been handed to her like a prescription for surrender. But something rose in her, in us—instinct, love, revolt—and that same day we sought a second opinion. We drove past pride, past habit, past the comfort of what we knew, and headed toward St. Luke’s Hospital in Kansas City, Missouri. That day, we reclaimed her care. That day, we insisted on more than two months. That day, we learned that time—real time, hope-filled time—is worth more than gold.

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With Mom’s faith as our compass, we didn’t let bitterness become our god. She led us in forgiveness—as fiercely and hard-won as any battle. I struggled with blame; I won’t lie about that. But she lived the kind of quiet sainthood that makes accusations feel small.

By then, I was in my seventh year of conversion, and Satan knew where to press. Would my faith hold under the weight? Would I trust God not as an idea but as a lifeline? Some days the answer was yes. Other days it was simply the crucifix against her collarbone, warm from her skin, reminding me that love meets suffering with presence, not platitudes.

I think of Father John’s letter often—the way one act of kindness can become a lineage. Someone once reached out to him. He reached out to Mom. Mom reached back to everyone who loved her with courage that made us braver. The crucifix moved from hand to hand, life to life, because the cross itself has always been a story of passing on: mercy received, mercy given.

If you ask me what changed that year, I could give you dates and doctors, hospital floors, and challenging conversations. But what I remember most is simple: the sound of a small chain when my mother turned her head; the way light gathered on a worn metal Christ; the steadiness of a woman who believed—not that suffering wouldn’t come, but that it wouldn’t get the last word.

We picked up our cross and followed. And somehow, there was grace enough for the road.

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