A couple of weeks after my dad reposed, I was packing up our apartment in anticipation of moving into the house I grew up in. We had two children and were expecting our third, so Hannah was tired and crashed shortly after the kids went to bed. I was up by myself, packing up books and papers from the office-corner in our living room. The numbness of the past two weeks had worn off and I was shot through with emotion.

I missed my dad so much. In the month or so before he died he and I had been talking on the phone every day, and it seemed like it was a particularly close time in our up-and-down relationship. Even in the ‘down’ times, if I was in need of anything or was having a particularly hard time I knew that I could call my dad and he would help. But not now. It was the worst of need in a sense, and he was not there to help. I felt the harsh irony of the situation acutely.

I was sad for my brothers, who seemed to be taking the loss far worse than I did. I was especially sad for Chris, who lived 14 hours away and had to return so quickly to work after a brief visit home. I was angry, but not at anyone in particular. I wasn’t angry at God, nor at my dad. I was just angry, perhaps at the situation of my own helplessness. I was overwhelmingly hot with anger that I had no way and no right to express. So I didn’t fly in to a rage or throw things or strike the walls. I just kept packing.

I felt far form my Christian friends who decided to give me platitudes about God’s sovereignty instead of just saying they were sorry. I wasn’t really angry with them but I was kind of hurt that their theology seemed to preclude sympathy.

I felt most distance from God. I tried to pray but couldn’t. I tried to think theologically about the circumstance, but that just made me upset because my Calvinistic theology only allowed me to see it as an arbitrary work of God for the sake of his own glory, and that just wasn’t a good enough explanation for me. I didn’t really want to have anything to do with a God so arbitrary.

My faith was teetering, my whole being was a wreck, all those whom I could depend on were gone. In the midst of packing books and papers I lost composure completely and sank weeping to the floor. Unbidden, the words came to my lips:

Hail Mary, full of grace the Lord is with thee. Blessed art thou among women and blessed is the fruit of thy womb. Hail Mary, Mother of God pray for us sinners now and at the hour of our death.

What came after was not a beatific vision, not a light from heaven, not even a feeling as such. It was a simple knowing. Knowing that the Holy Virgin was there, knowing that she understood loss, knowing that she prayed for me. I could go to the Theotokos and ask her prayers and take strength from her intercession. It was this moment in which a great affection and love and devotion was born in my soul for Mary. After this, I did not need a theological reason to speak of her as my Mother or my Lady. It was simply so. I needed no historical examples for ascribing her exalted titles or later to venerate her icon, this was as natural as embracing any other beloved person. It was not argument that brought me to love the Theotokos, but her gentle intercession when I needed her.

Most Holy Theotokos, save us.