Thoughts from the Tower: An Beochaoineadh

This past Sunday, the Saint Ignatius soccer team hosted the annual alumni-varsity game. Every year I find this to be a wonderful opportunity to reconnect with our older alumni, but also with some of the younger men—both newly-minted college grads and those who have just graduated from Saint Ignatius. In our brief “catch-up,” one of our recently graduated seniors confided in me that while he was excited to go away to school, he was also a little bit apprehensive. In a sweetly vulnerable moment, he shared how he was feeling for his mother who is clearly going through a difficult time seeing him go: he being the oldest in his family and the first to go off to college.

I’ve found over the years that there is a decidedly different reaction within families as a new academic year dawns. Parents find relief in grade schoolers and high schoolers going from the craziness of summer vacation to the structure of a school year. But for those sending children off to college, it is—I’ve come to see—an often more painful enterprise. I can remember years ago sending our Kathleen off to college, and even though I had absolute confidence in her decision-making and in her university’s care, I felt a palpable pain in my heart as we left her on campus for the first time. It was no easier for me when our Annie went off to John Carroll (a mere 45 minutes away), and despite years of experience sending our kids to school, it was no easier when Danny left.

I suspect all of this happens because we realize that when our children go away to school that our relationship with them changes: they come back more independent, more self-sufficient and brimming with ideas that may not align with our visions of the world. Deep down we realize that there is always the risk that in going off to school they may not return to our homes on a full-time basis anymore. I found this with our Danny when he discovered a great love of working as an interpretive ranger and historian for the National Park Service. It became apparent that the likelihood of his coming home to live in the Cleveland area anytime soon is very, very remote.                              

There was, after all, no “Battle of Bay Village” during the Civil War (his area of study) and therefore no nearby battlefield where he could work. 

And so we grieve. And let’s be honest and admit that that is exactly what we deal with (or have dealt with) in these moments: grief. Grief at the loss of our children’s youth, at the loss of a family dynamic, which—while it can be stressful and overwhelming at times—is still comfortable and “normal” and, in its own way, reassuring for us. And so many families right now, even before their children leave home, are mourning.

Grieving the transition of a child to the military or college (or to a new city) is, sadly, a foreshadowing (or reflection) of the deeper grief many of us feel as we watch the decline of our parents due to the physical frailty brought on by old age or the onset of dementia, or the wasting destruction caused by a terminal illness afflicting someone about whom we care deeply. We know how these things end. And there is nothing we can do about it.

And it hurts like Hell.

The Irish have a name for this: beochaoineadh (pronounced "beo-queen-nah") a word that doesn’t lend itself easily to English translation. In short, beochaoineadh is the grief and sense of loss one feels even while the person we are mourning is still alive, but is slipping away from us or permanently gone. One experiences it even in anticipation of the loss. It is a term that comes from a country which, for the last 200 years, has been characterized by persistent emigration. There is within the culture, for example, what has been called the “American wake“ in which families would have a final gathering the night before their loved ones set sail for the United States. Marked by singing and dancing, the American wake was also characterized by tears because (especially in the 19th century) a move to the United States was—more often than not—the last time that families would ever see their loved ones. Irish-American songwriter Peter Jones composed his heartwrenching Kilkelly, Ireland using letters from Ireland to his great-great grandfather that spoke of the pain and loss accompanying migration in a way that resonates across cultures.

It is, I believe, the most heartbreaking song ever written.

Beochaoineadh is what Our Blessed Lord endured in His Last Supper and in the Garden of Gethsemane when He bid a farewell to His confused Apostles. Knowing that He would soon suffer and die, and even though aware that He would rise again, He was also painfully conscious that His relationship with His disciples would forever change.

But it had to. Jesus had to be about the redemption of humanity: His Paschal sacrifice involved His suffering, death, resurrection, and ascension to Heaven. His disciples needed to take up their parts in building the Kingdom in union with the Spirit. As our loved ones are always with us in spirit, even when not always with us physically, so our Blessed Lord remains with His disciples. But it’s not the same.   

Relationships change and evolve. We say goodbye to those we love: perhaps for months or for decades. Sometimes until after death. But our Faith reminds us that we will see our loved ones again, and we should take comfort in that. But in the meantime it hurts. In those moments as we begin the grieving process even (and especially) with our soon-to-be departed loved ones near us, we do as Jesus did with His Apostles at the Last Supper and say what needs to be said, to hold those we love in prayer, and to trust that God will lead them to where they need to be.

Love is the greatest thing there is. It is the very nature of God himself. But living in love comes at a cost. Our experience of beochaoineadh is evidence of that cost.

But it is a price worth paying to be able to love and to be loved.

A.M.D.G./B.M.V.H.