Published at Grotto Network: How to Help Someone Who Has Lost a Loved One

by Dan Masterton

My latest article at Grotto Network is up. In this one, I tried to share some practical, contextualized ways for people to walk with a friend who is processing loss. It starts:

In 2013, my mother passed away at the age of 60. She was less than two months into a cancer diagnosis and treatment plan when complications led to blood clotting and a fatal stroke.

We expected the treatment period to be challenging, but we did not anticipate that she wouldn’t survive it. We all gathered around her as she faded and passed, and even after her eyes were closed for good and her voice could no longer speak, her small gestures and hand squeezes told us she heard our final words and I-love-you’s. 

What followed was a week full of laughter, tears, and socializing that we retrospectively call “mom week” — when we planned and celebrated a memorial for my mom. I joined my brothers, future wife, sister-in-law, and dad, to gather photos and talk to friends and family. The whole experience helped me immensely, even though I was experiencing profound grief.

My mom eating pierogi with me
on our mom-son trip to Poland in 2012.

Most of what I thought and wrote came from my first-hand experience of losing my mom, and the way my family and I worked through it. Our process was pretty healthy, full of a lot of honest laughter and tears of both joy and grief. Many of you, dear readers, were loving companions and prayerful advocates during that time and continue to be. Between all of your shared memories and the legacy of our little Lucy Karen, mom's legacy of love is strong. And this reflection hopefully adds to it by how it may help others.

Read the whole article here, and check out Grotto Network's website, including its excellent social media.

So What Had Happened Was

by Dan Masterton

It's 6:30am on a Wednesday. I just hopped into the car -- well, now one of our cars. Not a unique thing across the world. But my context is a little different. (And it's fitting to say that I've now gone 14 days since I started writing this and now having a reasonable time to loop back and finish it!)

After getting up at 6 and showering and getting dressed, I headed down to our half bathroom. In my imperial quest to paint the house a little at a time, I've been trying to squeeze whatever I can into the two hours or so during which my daughter is napping. Yesterday, this segment was painting the half-bath, tricky for its nooks and crannies around the toilet and beside the sink/vanity but now complete. This morning, after the paint dried more overnight, I put the lid back on the toilet, rehung the mirror, and considered reattaching the outlet cover plates before thinking better of it and deciding to wait longer to put those back on (but not too tight or they stick to the top coat of paint!).

Then, I loaded my dad's once-empty cooler full of some of my the items my dad loaned us for the last month alongside a bucket of soap, tools, garbage bags, and more, and headed off -- a few hours of time to write, a few hours of orientation ahead of starting a new job, and a few hours to clean the old apartment and turn in our keys. There's a few things going on right now, and it impacts the degree to which I've been able to enjoy our old TRH world here. So let's do a little reset.

We're having another baby. We bought a house.

Our second daughter is due in September. I had sketched out a plan to stay in our 2-bedroom, 800-square-foot apartment with two kids, keeping the new baby in our bedroom for the first 6-12 months. But seeing Lucy grow up and become an earnest walker, climber, and explorer changed our gameplan. We worried not just about her enjoyment and recreation level in our little home but also her safety; she is basically a monkey -- not to mention some creature comforts like delicious in-unit laundry machines. We looked into 3-bedroom apartments and rental homes, but the cost was a bit much. When I crunched the numbers on a house in terms of monthly payments and what we could put down, the billed monthly cost of home ownership was less, albeit with the caveat of responsibility for repairs and breakdowns, so we decided to house hunt and trade the lower cost while accepting the risk.

Our first meal in the house, a low key meatball sub and chips night on the deck.

This is Bob.

A few weeks ago, we closed on our new house. We spent a few days painting and moving some initial stuff, and then we brought the whole lot of it over a bit later. We're now almost unpacked and nearing the point of hanging stuff on all the walls, as our house is starting to feel genuinely lived in. Heading out to the suburbs got us affordability, value, and proximity to family we wanted. Our house has a third bedroom for "Bob" (the codename for our daughter, who looked like a seahorse on her first ultrasound -- Bob is the seahorse in Finding Nemo), a fourth bedroom for Gramma or whoever else wants to visit, a two-car attached garage, and a deck, patio, and fenced-in backyard. Hooray! This just came with the need to purchase an economical second car for commutes (sad face for our carbon footprint, but we'll start composting soon) and a longer drive to work for both us.

So, my early mornings, midday Lucy nap times, and late nights are filled with whatever bite I want to chew off our now endless to-do list. It's a helpful exercise in trying to be thoughtful about what's important and what's not, about what's worth spending money on and what's not, and about how you make a house a home for you and your family. It's a slog, but we're really enjoying creating a home that we know our family can fill with life. And at some point, we'll throttle down on "the list."

Meanwhile, Bob is due September 25th. Lucy came five days late and via long labor and eventual C-section; we hope Bob will be more cooperative. We have splurge tickets to see Nick Offerman on September 15, so Bob is sure to come a few hours before showtime. We're excited to add another little one to the mix. Lucy seems to understand that "Mama has a baby in her tummy" and has taken to it well so far. Katherine will have some paid leave, and we'll do some figuring on how long we can stretch that out; I, on the other hand don't get paid leave in a part-time job and...

I have a new job. Again.

I just finished my year at Cristo Rey Jesuit High School, an amazing school in the Pilsen neighborhood of Chicago, a primarily Hispanic neighborhood on Chicago's near southwest side. We are the original Cristo Rey school, after which a network of over thirty schools has sprouted up nationwide. I was the part-time Associate Campus Minister, and I had been invited back to try the part-time role for at least one more year. For various reasons relating to the sustainability of being part-time in a pastoral accompaniment role, to our move and family situation, and to a host of discernment questions, I decided not to return.

I had been talking on the side with my friend, Br. John, CSV. John is the Director of Vocation Ministry for the Viatorians, and had recently been asked to return from his work with young adults in Bourbonnais to take the post of VP of Viatorian Mission and Identity at Saint Viator High School, my alma mater. Between that big new job and continuing studies, John felt the vocations ministry wasn't getting due attention. So, he talked to me about various high priority needs in that regard as well as bigger picture, long-term ideas for the ministry and for the community. We could sense a resonance between my gifts and passions and these needs, and the potential for a part-time position with the ability to do half the work remotely was strong. Over time, the pieces to this puzzle came together with great synergy. The draw of this organically assembled position was strong.

The Viatorians neat seal.

The mix of my still strong connections to the Viatorians, the appeal of greater work-time flexibility to sustain being a stay-at-home-dad who makes a little money for the family, and the misgivings about the tensions in my job all drew me to consider this seriously. Plus the fit was too good to pass up. This week, I've started work as Assistant Vocations Minister, striving to support the Viatorian mission in a new part-time role.

Other things are happening.

In the meantime -- you know, the down time that sort of doesn't exist -- the rest of my vocational world has kept spinning, and sort of accelerated at that. I've always felt sound and peaceful in my call to pastoral ministry, especially ministry of accompaniment and formation. One of the things I've most enjoyed in that regard is writing, speaking, and teaching. While I'm not a gifted pedagogue like my colleagues who teach, I enjoy the chance to present Catholic teaching, especially social teaching, in a way that lays out the core tenets, applies it to society and our morality, and invites a critical dialogue.

Over the years, this blog has been a fun, if humble and small, way to have that engagement, offering reflections and happily receiving feedback and replies in various ways. In my work in teaching high school theology and executing high school campus ministry, I've gotten to catechize, form, and engage high schoolers. But then, I've also enjoyed the periodic chances I've had to publish writing to larger platforms, to facilitate retreats and faith formation for communities, and especially to give Theology on Tap presentations. So here's what's going on.

I'm writing periodically for Grotto Network. The previous post here at The Restless Hearts explained this a little further and shared my first post. In the meantime, my second article has gone up, and a few more are on the way. I'll share the links via my social media, but I strongly recommend following Grotto Network's social media accounts. They do a great job providing thoughtful content to seep into your feeds. Additionally, I have connected with a few other folks with whom I may publish some stuff in the near future.

I'm working on a book draft with some other campus ministers. This one is still fluid, as we're only currently formulating outlines, sequencing chapters, and attempting to write early drafts. Our goal is to create a basic, brief handbook for a new high school campus minister that could lay the groundwork for them to succeed in a new position or in starting campus ministry from scratch. By focusing a little bit on the why and a lot on the how, we think we can create a potent and practical resource for peers across the country. Maybe more news coming this fall.

Here's the flyer for the North Center ToT's!

I am giving two Theology on Tap talks this summer. On the invitation of the young adults in Orland Hills and Tinley Park, I will be speaking on Thursday, July 25 at 7pm at SideStreet Tavern in Tinley Park on Encounter, Witness, and Pilgrimage: One Person's Way of Trying to Carry Faith through Everyday Life. Then, on the invitation of the young adults in North Center in Chicago, I will be speaking on Thursday, August 1 at 6:45pm at Mrs. Murphy and Sons' Irish Bistro on community and long-arcing journey, called What a Bunch of Characters! A Chance to Marvel at Community and Story. It'd be great to see you there!

This blog and anyone who stops by to read is and always will be important to me.

One of the casualties on this time crunch is this blog. I always get frustrated when people say they're too busy for certain things; to me, it feels like most of the time, anyone can make time for just about anything, if they choose to do so. In this case, the way life crowded up crunched out my blogging focus, and I chose to let that happen.

My intention is to reconnect with my teammates and reevaluate our strategy going forward. This blog was just me for a while; then it grew; then it grew again; then it shrank. I'm not sure what's going to happen next. But rest assured, I will continue writing here, riding the roller coaster toward and beyond this blog's tenth anniversary this fall!

As always, thanks for reading. And seriously, God bless you!