Mama’s death

All the details of my Mother’s illness are still present to me and I recall especially the last weeks she spent on earth. Céline and I were like two poor little exiles, for every morning Mme. Leriche²⁹ came to get us and brought us to her home where we spent the day. One morning we didn’t have time to say our prayers and during the trip Céline whispered: “Should we tell her we didn’t say our prayers?” “Oh! yes,” I answered. So very timidly Céline told Mme. Leriche, who said: “Well, my little girls, you will say them,” and placing us both in a large room, she left. Céline looked at me and we said: “Oh! this is not like Mama! She always had us say our prayers with her.”

When we were playing with the children, the thought of our dear Mother was with us constantly. Once Céline was given a beautiful apricot, and she bent down and said to me: “We are not going to eat it; I will give it to Mama.” Alas, poor little Mother was already too sick to eat the fruits of the earth; she was to be satisfied only in heaven with God’s glory and was to drink the mysterious wine He spoke about at the Last Supper, saying He would share it with us in His Father’s Kingdom.³⁰

The touching ceremony of the last anointing is also deeply impressed on my mind.³¹ I can still see the spot where I was by Céline’s side. All five of us were lined up according to age, and Papa was there too, sobbing.

The day of Mama’s departure or the day after, Papa took me in his arms and said: “Come, kiss your poor little Mother for the last time.” Without a word I placed my lips on her forehead. I don’t recall having cried very much, neither did I speak to anyone about the feelings I experienced. I looked and listened in silence. No one had any time to pay any attention to me, and I saw many things they would have hidden from me. For instance, once I was standing before the lid of the coffin which had been placed upright in the hall. I stopped for a long time gazing at it. Though I’d never seen one before, I understood what it was. I was so little that in spite of Mama’s small stature, I had to raise my head to take in it full height. It appeared large and dismal.

Fifteen years later, I was to stand before another coffin, Mother Geneviève’s.³² It was similar in size. I imagined myself back once again in the days of my childhood and all those memories flooded into my mind. True, it was the same Thérèse who looked, but she’d grown up and the coffin appeared smaller. I had no need to raise my head to see and, in fact, no longer raised it but to contemplate heaven which to me was filled with joy. All my trials had come to an end and the winter of my soul had passed on forever.