Lessons from a Fig Tree

My story, I believe, is the story of many a Cajun grandmother––past, present, and future. It could be the story of any woman of any unique culture who is fruitful––who works and loves; suffers and laughs; strives to be the best she can be by using well the gifts her God has given her. No matter their race, creed, or color, all women are connected; we bleed the same red blood; we cry out in childbirth, we weep in barrenness; we glory in goodness and abhor evil. This is the story of only one woman, obviously smiled upon by life, and yet her life––like all others––has not been without its own suffering and pain. The details may differ, but the deep themes of joy and sorrow are similar. The lives of other Cajun women reverberate with mine, just as two harps in the same room will vibrate exactly the same tone after a single string has been plucked. Therefore, I pray that my story will grace many Cajun mothers and grandmothers to see more clearly the great blessings we share as a culture! In my own family, both paternal and maternal families have experienced tremendous tragedies. It takes time and age to ponder these things in our hearts, and to weep in the kinship felt for one’s long dead suffering ancestors. My paternal great-grandmother experienced the blessing of healthy fraternal twin grandchildren on the day following Christmas many, many years ago. Yet the young mother delivering her first babies died in childbirth. I cannot imagine the deep pain of any woman as she prepares for the funeral of her daughter (in law) and faces the fear in her heart for those two precious tiny babies. Soon afterwards, she lost her strong and beloved husband suddenly as well. How great must have been her courage beginning a new little family after having completed the rearing of her own ten children, but this time alone. Oh, what extraordinary strength our Catholic faith gives! In my maternal family, it was my grandmother who passed away in childbirth, delivering her beautiful identical twin boys, leaving them and her other eleven children to her two older daughters to “raise”. The scars of desertion from the father who went on to marry another, and then father another family were never healed. As the commercials today query––what is a woman to do? Except to pray! Surely our modern lives are filled with stress, but we cannot blame our dysfunction––women have borne burdens of tremendous weight since Eve tempted Adam. Once, at prayer, I pondered how we each have significant dates on the calendar––days when our lives were changed forever, by the birth or death of a beloved. I realized then, that every single day on the calendar has been D-Day or 9/11 for some soul in some century. There is a woundedness that is common to all men and women––just as it was to our dear Lord and Savior, who was a Man born of woman, and therefore, destined at that very moment of birth, to suffer and to die.