Cynicism and Hope

I’d like to believe about my mother and me that the apple hasn’t fallen far from the tree. But I’m not sure that I deserve such a high compliment.

What I do know is that her legacy lives on in each of her five children. That’s why we nominated her for Cincinnati Woman of the Year for 2010. She didn’t win, but she should have. My nominating letter tells why:

On behalf of her five children and her extended family, I nominate my mom, Pat Sweeney, as a Cincinnati Woman of the Year for 2010.

I was told that in this nomination I should focus on my mom’s work as a board member—and now board president—of Greater Cincinnati Behavioral Health Services. She has made a great contribution there, raising the agency’s visibility and starting Champions of Hope to raise funds, recognize community leaders in the field, and educate the community about living with mental illness.

But to me, Mom’s role on the GCB board is not a standout accomplishment, something to set apart from everything else she does and is. Heading the board of the agency that has long served her youngest son is simply a logical next step in a lifetime of service to her family and the community. “GCB was a place I could go for help in a difficult situation,” she told me. “I wanted to help make that available to others.”

This is Mom. Practical, generous, and above all determined. Ask her how she made it through the early 80s—managing a house full of teenagers after she and my dad divorced—and she will say simply: “You do what you gotta do.”

A lot of people survive divorce. They do what must be done to keep their children on track and enough money coming in while they are suffering the greatest crisis of their lives. Mom did all of that too. But here’s why she’s a standout:

Mom knows that what you “gotta do” is a lot more than take good care of the people who live in your house. She knows that just as healthy families require time and commitment and hard work, so does a healthy community.

At every phase of her life, Mom has devoted herself to building the Cincinnati community. My memory is filled with snapshots of my mother serving others. As a preschooler I watched her cut out cardboard figures for my Montessori class. When I was eight years old we saw her on TV as she served communion during Archbishop Joseph Bernardin’s installation service. A few years later we chatted in her bedroom as she organized donations for an auction to benefit the Resident Home for the Mentally Retarded. When I was in high school she would hustle out of the house one evening each month for “Network”—the Cincinnati Women’s Network, which she and some friends founded. When one of my sister’s friends was going through a family crisis, Mom took her in as another daughter.

And she did much more that I didn’t see. Mom volunteered for the United Way for years and chaired one of its allocations committees. She served on the pastoral council and co-chaired the Family Life Bureau of the Archdiocese of Cincinnati. She served on the boards of 4Cs (Comprehensive Community Child Care) and the neighborhood homeowners association.

Mom had to cut back on her volunteer work during the years when she traveled frequently on business, but when her sixty-fifth birthday approached in 2005, she was all set to retire and take on a full slate of new commitments. Right away, she joined the boards of GCB and Women Helping Women, whose Sunday Salons she chaired in 2007 and 2008. She conducted architectural tours and served as a poll watcher and continued to devote a lot of time to parenting her youngest son.

Here is Mom’s lesson to me and my siblings: It takes time, hard work, and unflagging commitment to raise a healthy family—especially when all seems to be falling down around you—and you must give extra time to the ones who need you most. But if you steadfastly press on, someday you will see the fruits of your labor: a healthy new generation, interdependent and compassionate, carrying your legacy forward.

Likewise, building a healthy community requires time, hard work, unflagging commitment and extra care for those who need it most. But if we follow Pat Sweeney’s example and do what we gotta do, we will see Cincinnati make it through these trying times and emerge stronger, healthier, more interdependent and more compassionate, carrying on the legacy of the city’s most dedicated leaders.

I love you, Mom. Happy Mother’s Day.

Says my neighbor who spends her days walking, “By your house is always clean. You know I many walk. Thank you.” Then she beckons me to the unshoveled section where the alley crosses the sidewalk. Saying “Please,” she motions for me to shovel there too. I do, and I enjoy her gratitude.

A friend just sent around an email thanking members of our congregation for sharing the burden of cleanup after a bullet came through her window in the middle of the night earlier this week. (Apparently it was from a random shot into the air from the street four stories below. No one was hurt.) She named five people—a pastoral team member, two other adults, and two preteens—who came over to help clean up the mess, then wrote:

Thanks for the fussin’! By asking for help, I got to dwell on thoughts of the team effort this community is for us. We’ve laughed through this, a way to cope with stress. With everyone’s care, it’s a light burden. We’re so glad to be here on the corner!

I’m most struck by the joy conveyed in the last sentence, the peace in a place of danger.

When the folks at Wipf and Stock (publishers of Cascade books) designed the cover of the Cynicism and Hope book, they make the “o” in “Hope” a bullet hole. Like my friend’s email, the cover perfectly captures the theme of this blog, the book, and the conference that preceded it.