One More Miracle

First Apparition of the Virgin of Guadalupe, Unknown authorship (Puebla). Oil on canvas c. 1690-1720 was displayed at the Prado in Madrid this year, 2025

After nearly a year of attempting to write about my mother’s passing, here it is. For the first few months writing felt impossible. During the months after that, sentences came slowly like little scraps. Then for a few more months, I abandoned the idea of the whole thing. Yet as the Earth knelt its North again to the Heavens, it felt like it was time for me to let this be released.

My dad never calls me, but that December morning, my phone lit up with little note: a missed call from Dad… at 4am… on a Saturday? Wandering to the kitchen with each step increasing the gravity in my chest, I returned his call.

All I remember from that brief exchange was my dad speaking an ancient saying:

“We do not know the hour, we do not know the day”.¹

With those words, I was on the next flight that would take me from my outpost in the Northwest wilderness to the most Southern California metropolis. Arriving at the hospital in the evening, I began my last twenty-four hours with my mother on this side of eternity. She was already sleeping.

The next morning, San Diego sunshine spilled into her room. The sterile tiles and white washed walls were no match for the colors coming through. It was as though the glass had been stained to remind us of sacred things. My mother’s eyes were closed and heavy. She no longer formed sentences and could only will weak whispers resembling words. There was no more medicine, no more machines, no more beeping. Nothing between her and passing.

It had been three years of cancer, remission, and complications. We met every season with modern technologies and ancestral orations.

Two weeks earlier we had been celebrating Thanksgiving. My mother had the whole house adorned with gourds. Warm earthen tones touched everything from table cloths to bottle tops. By the magic of my mother, the Saltillo tiles and Spanish walls of our family home hummed. We had four generations present, collective centuries of life came together for a moment. My parents, my grandparents, my wife and my son, all joined by uncles and cousins.

My mother had gifted my son, Leon, a cream colored sweater to wear on this particular holiday. Sewn across the garment in bold letters were the words: “Big Brother”. We watched with smiles as one by one our guests were electrified by the announcement of our coming child. These were the kinds of things my mom enjoyed most with our family.

The day following Thanksgiving, I began to ask my mother about the sacred things. Mom, I asked her directly, do we believe the Eucharist is Jesus really? She smiled, nodding her head gracefully as if to say to me claro que sí. Then I asked her about her earliest memories…

As a little girl, she would visit a chapel in Tijuana with her grandmother. There they would light a candle, then file into their seats and pray. In my mother’s youth she didn’t yet have a veil, and so her grandmother would pull a tissue from her purse and pin it to her hair. As she told these stories, I could see my mother as a little child, trading smiles with her grandmother as colored light spilled through to the wooden pews.

Now I was seated beside my mother. The same sun that illuminated those stained glass saints over half a century ago was pouring into her hospital room. I read to her from the Psalms of Ascent, then a collection of gospel stories beginning with the raising of Lazarus. As evening approached, I was reading to my mother the story of the infirm woman and the daughter of Jairus when I noticed two words in Aramaic. They were the words spoken by Jesus over that little girl he raised from the dead. Both in English and Spanish, no respectable translation dared attempt to transform those two words from the original gospel language.

I flipped through my Vulgate in disbelief. There they were again, even in the original Latin. Two words in Aramaic. My heart began to hammer in its corporeal cage. My synapses strained. I couldn’t imagine what would happen if I spoke those same two words over my mother on this day.

I wondered if the Magi had been as terrified on their way to Bethlehem as they considered the everlasting mysteries that could command stars into being. My mind traversed time considering the mysterious things my ancestors had seen. Lights in the dark forests of Spain.² Castilian roses spilling forth on a Mexican day.³ Wasn’t I made in the lineage of those same great women and men of faith?

Beginning aloud the account of Jairus and his daughter⁴, I felt that same despair the servants shared when they said “do not bother the teacher”. Then like the Phoenician woman, I approached that final verse from this passage. My tongue let loose those ancient words as they filled the room:

Talithia Kuom

Delicately my mother reached for me and softly said with a smile on her lips, I want to get up.

Her skin began to renew as though she had returned to her youth. Every impurity on her flesh began to illuminate like stars, then slowly every pigment of her skin was transformed into radiant constellations. Her breathing had lost its labor and was now drawn with delight. She sat up straight as day became night.

At that moment I had seen millions of things. Questions I am still searching for were settled instantly. I shared a final smile with her as she looked at me. Then, with the miracle complete, I began to read her final Psalm quietly:

The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want.

He makes me lie down in green pastures;

He leads me beside quiet waters.

He restores my soul;

He guides me in the paths of righteousness for his name’s sake.

Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death

I fear no evil for you are with me;

Your rod and your staff, they comfort me.

You prepare a table before me in the presence of my enemies;

You have anointed my head with oil;

My cup overflows.

Surely goodness and lovingkindness will follow me all the days of my life.

And I will dwell in the house of the Lord forever.

Finishing this prayer, I kissed my mother on the head and let her rest. That December evening, in the darkening days of Advent, my mother went to be with all the Angels and Saints as they continue their worship of the Lord.

I have heard English speakers say that my mother is dead, to which I reject. He is not the God of the dead but of the living, for to Him all are alive.⁵

Some English speakers, meaning well, offer sentiments such as “I am sorry for your loss” but we have lost no one and nothing. We know where souls reside and where bodies wait for the day to be raised.⁶

Even those who say, “Your mother has passed away” must know this too isn’t true.

Humanity put Christ on the Cross not because he was a good teacher or a good person but because he proclaimed the arrival of the Kingdom of Heaven. And he did not stop there, he said when two or more are gathered in his name there he would be in their midst and when he said, repent, it was not because heaven was coming but that heaven is already here.⁷

In Spanish we translate that nearness of Heaven as acerca meaning about or around. Heaven is so close it is against our skin touching every moment of our existence. My mother passed into the very nearness of heaven. Now in quiet moments of contemplation, I can hear her illuminating the unkempt corners of my heart. She is in league with the King of Kings. The one whose rule is unending.

Today, I find myself more frequently sitting before the Eucharist. For the first time in my life I feel like I finally know who it is in the monstrance. I could gaze for the remainder of my days into that great mystery. Only there do I still see my mother, now as a child, playing at the feet of the King of Eternity.

¡Viva Cristo Rey!

-Steven

PS. My special thanks to James Bailey and Chris Coffman for your enduring patronage and personal support over the years. A thank you to those who have been patrons of this page with any contribution made. And to all of you who have spent time reading any of my pieces or watching any of my works, thank you for giving me a place to put out a part of my heart. I pray for your abundant blessing always.

If you haven’t yet read my book Restored in the Rhythm, you can purchase it here. A 28 day devotional dedicated to the scriptural beauty of the Bible, delivered in a way most English speakers have never experienced. Thank you to all of you who have already read it.

1. Matthew 25:13

2. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iria_Flavia

3. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Our_Lady_of_Guadalupe

4. Mark 5:21–43

5. Luke 20:38

6. Daniel 12:2, John 6:54

7. Matthew 12:28, Luke 11:20