by Anonymous
I’m sitting here next to my mother. She’s laying in a bed beside me, in the final stages of dying. She’s sleeping, her breathing is shallow, and at this moment she looks peaceful. She’s had a long and difficult decline, so this is not a tragedy at all, but it is filled with all kinds of feelings for me.
Yesterday while my mom’s dear cousin Evelyn and I were gathered around her bed as she slept, my older brother arrived. He walked into her room and said, “I feel impressed to give her a blessing, specifically a blessing of release.” When he announced that he wanted to give her a blessing, my first thought was “fine”… but the way he announced it made me bristle – it felt full of hubris and very patriarchal for him to walk into a room with three women and announce that.
I didn’t think he would react well if I asked if I could put my hands on her head as well, so I quickly took my mom’s hands and placed one in her cousin’s hand and one in mine. At least she could feel our presence as well as hear my brother’s voice.
His blessing was extremely orthodox. “You have kept your covenants.” “You have attended the temple.” “You have remained active in the church.” “You will be welcomed home, and you should feel released to go.” My mom was orthodox in many ways, but she was also a fierce ally to the marginalized, and she acknowledged that the institutional church had been a harmful experience for some of her kids and certainly to some of her grandkids — some of whom are queer and/or are choosing a different path than the institutional church. Love for her family came first for her. But I think she appreciated the blessing from my brother; orthodoxy was one way that she connected with him. He is the oldest of her kids, and he feels a lot of pride in leading out in staying loyal to the Church.
I don’t mean to diminish the experience of this blessing for my brother or for my mom, but I really felt the patriarchal squeeze. The whole event had an air of arrogance to me, and felt as much bitter as sweet — he announced it, he pronounced it, and he wanted to talk about it afterward. It was hard.
That was yesterday. This morning, I arrived to find my mom in about the same state as when I left last night, still firmly on the path to transitioning to her next life. She stirred a bit when they came in to freshen her up, and I sat beside her and rubbed her arms to help her relax.
At that moment, I thought, “What is keeping me from putting my hands on her head, and blessing her from my heart?”
Is it just what I had heard my whole life, that God only recognized the voices of men in a hands-on-head blessing? It was such a foreign thought — that this might be completely false, and that God would honor my voice just as much as that of my brother. I felt sad that I was hesitant to push past that feeling and give her my blessing for fear of being wrong.
If I were to do it, I thought, I would close the door to her room so that her aides or my brother would not stumble upon the scene . . . unlike when my brother felt free to perform his blessing in full view of — but without participation of or consultation with — the women in attendance, as we do in the church. Such strange feelings.
So.
I closed the door, laid my hands on her head and began:
“Dear God, please let my mom hear this blessing from my heart . . . .”
And I’m sure she did. And it was sweet, and I’m glad I did it.
I don’t hate the patriarchy; maybe it serves a purpose in running the church. But I don’t think it’s the pattern our Heavenly Parents would use. Whatever the rhetoric about “women have the same priesthood authority as men do in the church” — those are just words. The truth is that patriarchy does privilege one gender over the other. Maybe we need to flex our muscles a bit more in helping our girls understand that they would not be struck down for placing their hands on their dying mother’s head to give her a daughter’s blessing.
And that they should be able to leave the door open when they do.
Anonymous describes herself in this way: I’m a lifelong Mormon woman and mother of four wonderful children including a queer daughter. I was raised and spent much of my adult life in orthodoxy and patriarchy; I now look beyond this and find meaning in focusing on the marginalized in our church and community. I love reading, sewing, quilting, cooking, and making a home our kids like to come home to once in a while.
6 Responses
Sometimes, I think the greatest gift my husband could give me is to ask me to bless him. What a beautiful thing it would be to connect us.
Once I was with my mom in the emergency room for heart trouble. As we waited for the team to arrive to do a procedure, my mom said to me, “I wish your husband was here. It would be nice to have a blessing.”
I understood the desire for the comfort and care of a blessing. But in that moment where we were both concerned about her well-being, it was painful to hear that she would have preferred the prayers of her son-in-law over the prayers of her own daughter. She didn’t think he was a better person, but she had absorbed the lesson that his words to heaven were superior to mine.
The blessing itself rankles me a little bit – she checked the boxes so she’ll be welcome in heaven. Insinuating that other people will not be … I’m reminded of a general conference talk from a Seventy (Elder Gay, maybe?) in which he was giving a blessing to his sister at her passing. His sister had NOT attended the temple, kept her covenants, or stayed active in the Church. But he was reprimanded by the Spirit that she was a good person and loved by God.
Oh yes, here it is. I love that story and refer to it often.
https://www.churchofjesuschrist.org/study/ensign/2018/11/sunday-afternoon-session/taking-upon-ourselves-the-name-of-jesus-christ?lang=eng
I love this post, thank you so much for sharing this beautiful and intimate moment. I was recently reading new age spirituality type book about dreams. I don’t really recommend this book because it was too dogmatic overall. But there are some ideas from it I really liked. It suggested that dreams can reveal that we have diverse spiritual gifts we’re meant to use. One of the gifts is “hands on healing.” In this framework, gender doesn’t matter at all. I really do believe that women are meant to have equal access to performing sacred rituals as men. I also really loved how this book talked about how in our dreams, our subconscious will direct us to stop perceiving our gender identity as a limitation. To view both genders as completely equal. and to take up space and claim what’s ours whatever our gender. I loved that, and I do see that in my own dreams. I’m glad you had the boldness to perform a ritual and have the experience you wanted to have as your mom was passing.
Thank you so much for sharing this poignant story. In my earlier life (before I learned to accept and embrace my feminine self), I’m sure I was very much like your brother – definitely well intentioned, but so totally clueless as to how patriarchy lands on loving, devout women. I wish there were a way for many other men, be they nuanced or not, to listen to and consider this story carefully. A few months ago, while attending another denomination’s worship services, I was privileged to receive a blessing at the hands of two women. Though they made no claims to any special authority, it was a powerful and uplifting experience. I am so glad you blessed your mom. I hope women everywhere take the opportunity to bless those they love and care for, including those who happen to be male priesthood holders. It will make the world a better place.
Ah…I love that last line! I’m so grateful you had the wisdom and skill to share this experience. So many of us—women and men—need to envision a new way of doing things in order to summon the courage to act. Reading about your experience has planted a seed for me that may grow in my daughters. They’ll leave the door open.