POST 24: "If We Only Have Love"
Mom, "Grandma D. holding week-old Andrew for the first time in September, 1990, in our apartment at Union Theological Seminary. She died eight months later.
“I am not sure exactly what heaven will be like, but I know that when we die and it comes time for God to judge us, he will not ask, ‘How many good things have you done in your life?’ rather he will ask, ‘How much love did you put into what you did?’” Mother Teresa
During the 1990s Barry produced several albums that captured the complicated relationship I had with my parents. Showstoppers came out in 1991, (the year my mom died), “Swinging with the Big Bands” was released in 1994, and then Manilow Sings Sinatra was a 1998 tribute to the great entertainer and legend who died the same year my father died of Alzheimer’s Disease (1998).
While I grieved my mother’s passing, we never were close, despite several tries on both of our parts. However I knew she wanted the best for us. When Benjamin and I were both struggling to finish graduate school, working and raising a new baby, I knew she meant it when she said, “If I had the money I’d just give it to you.”
My first Mother’s Day as a new mother was also my first Mother’s Day without my mother. She had died the Sunday before of a massive heart attack. My brother Michael called me that Sunday and I grabbed Andrew and got the next plane to Cleveland. So surrounded by her surviving children, she peacefully slipped away, literally of a broken heart. I think of the song “If We Only Have Love,” from Jacques Brel Is Alive and Well and Living in Paris (from Showstoppers) and it captures the yearning for a love that always eluded her.
We came home from the hospital and shifted into hyper speed to not only prepare for her funeral but also to dismantle her apartment with the one-week time that we had. Mom was a semi-hoarder. She had every shade and texture of yarn stacked in her basement. She had recipe clippings dating back to the days of the first human campfire. She had kept every letter I had ever written to her from college. Working day and night, we completed our task. On the plane ride back to New York, Andrew nestled on my lap, I thought how easy it was to dispense with worldly possessions. Even human remains. What was left was my final assignment at seminary, a sermon in my course, The Revitalization of the Nation through Preaching taught by the Rev. Dr. James Forbes.
Dr. Forbes, now the Senior Minister Emeritus of the Riverside Church, had served as its first African American pastor for 18 years. He is called a “preacher’s preacher,” nationally and internationally known as a speaker, preacher and teacher and was named one of the 12 ‘most effective preachers’ in the English-speaking world by Newsweek magazine.” More recently, Dr. Forbes has been President and Founder of the Healing of the Nations Foundation, a national and global ministry for spiritual renewal and holistic health.
So I owed Dr. Forbes a sermon. The problem was, once I was back in New York, the sermon I was working on, well, no longer worked. All I could think about was my mother. What she did with her life. She had a hard life raising us but she still fought injustice in the workplace and she still fed the hungry. I discovered, in going through her records, that she had even ran for public office in 1962. She had a campaign card with my baby face on it and the slogan “time for a new change.” She lost, but it made me think hard; here was a woman, barely holding it together for her kids yet she still wanted to build a better world for them. So those thoughts formed my sermon. I turned a eulogy to my mother into a theme for revitalization of the nation. If we love our children, we will make the world a better place. I turned in my sermon, hoping against hope that Dr. Forbes would have mercy and pass me.
I was called to his office in Riverside Church. He led me into the very imposing sanctuary, and up to the lectern. He sat down in the third row and said, “Now preach your sermon.” Stunned doesn’t begin to describe how I felt. With the reassurance that torture would be over in twenty minutes, I delivered my sermon. I talked about the good my mother did. She fought to make a more equal workplace. How love inspired her to do this, and how we too must be inspired to build a better world for those we love. Something like that. I was just trying not to make a fool of myself in front of one of the finest preachers in the world, here in one of the most beautiful sanctuaries in New York City.
When I had finished, Dr. Forbes looked at me straight in the eye and said, “Now was this your original sermon?”
"No, Dr. Forbes,” I confessed.
I explained it all. I said, “This is what the Holy Spirit led me to share.” He just looked at me for a long minute and simply said, “You are going to be alright.”
Yes, I passed the course. And mom got her eulogy at Riverside Church in New York City.
Notes:
“I am not sure exactly what heaven will be like,www.goodreads.com/quotes/6303-i-am-not-sure-exactly-what-heaven-will-be-like
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/rev-dr-james-a-forbes-jr/
Give the gift of music to the next generation through donations to:
The Manilow Music Project
8295 South La Cienega Boulevard
Inglewood, CA 90301
[email protected]
Click here to go to the next post or click here to return to the previous post.
During the 1990s Barry produced several albums that captured the complicated relationship I had with my parents. Showstoppers came out in 1991, (the year my mom died), “Swinging with the Big Bands” was released in 1994, and then Manilow Sings Sinatra was a 1998 tribute to the great entertainer and legend who died the same year my father died of Alzheimer’s Disease (1998).
While I grieved my mother’s passing, we never were close, despite several tries on both of our parts. However I knew she wanted the best for us. When Benjamin and I were both struggling to finish graduate school, working and raising a new baby, I knew she meant it when she said, “If I had the money I’d just give it to you.”
My first Mother’s Day as a new mother was also my first Mother’s Day without my mother. She had died the Sunday before of a massive heart attack. My brother Michael called me that Sunday and I grabbed Andrew and got the next plane to Cleveland. So surrounded by her surviving children, she peacefully slipped away, literally of a broken heart. I think of the song “If We Only Have Love,” from Jacques Brel Is Alive and Well and Living in Paris (from Showstoppers) and it captures the yearning for a love that always eluded her.
We came home from the hospital and shifted into hyper speed to not only prepare for her funeral but also to dismantle her apartment with the one-week time that we had. Mom was a semi-hoarder. She had every shade and texture of yarn stacked in her basement. She had recipe clippings dating back to the days of the first human campfire. She had kept every letter I had ever written to her from college. Working day and night, we completed our task. On the plane ride back to New York, Andrew nestled on my lap, I thought how easy it was to dispense with worldly possessions. Even human remains. What was left was my final assignment at seminary, a sermon in my course, The Revitalization of the Nation through Preaching taught by the Rev. Dr. James Forbes.
Dr. Forbes, now the Senior Minister Emeritus of the Riverside Church, had served as its first African American pastor for 18 years. He is called a “preacher’s preacher,” nationally and internationally known as a speaker, preacher and teacher and was named one of the 12 ‘most effective preachers’ in the English-speaking world by Newsweek magazine.” More recently, Dr. Forbes has been President and Founder of the Healing of the Nations Foundation, a national and global ministry for spiritual renewal and holistic health.
So I owed Dr. Forbes a sermon. The problem was, once I was back in New York, the sermon I was working on, well, no longer worked. All I could think about was my mother. What she did with her life. She had a hard life raising us but she still fought injustice in the workplace and she still fed the hungry. I discovered, in going through her records, that she had even ran for public office in 1962. She had a campaign card with my baby face on it and the slogan “time for a new change.” She lost, but it made me think hard; here was a woman, barely holding it together for her kids yet she still wanted to build a better world for them. So those thoughts formed my sermon. I turned a eulogy to my mother into a theme for revitalization of the nation. If we love our children, we will make the world a better place. I turned in my sermon, hoping against hope that Dr. Forbes would have mercy and pass me.
I was called to his office in Riverside Church. He led me into the very imposing sanctuary, and up to the lectern. He sat down in the third row and said, “Now preach your sermon.” Stunned doesn’t begin to describe how I felt. With the reassurance that torture would be over in twenty minutes, I delivered my sermon. I talked about the good my mother did. She fought to make a more equal workplace. How love inspired her to do this, and how we too must be inspired to build a better world for those we love. Something like that. I was just trying not to make a fool of myself in front of one of the finest preachers in the world, here in one of the most beautiful sanctuaries in New York City.
When I had finished, Dr. Forbes looked at me straight in the eye and said, “Now was this your original sermon?”
"No, Dr. Forbes,” I confessed.
I explained it all. I said, “This is what the Holy Spirit led me to share.” He just looked at me for a long minute and simply said, “You are going to be alright.”
Yes, I passed the course. And mom got her eulogy at Riverside Church in New York City.
Notes:
“I am not sure exactly what heaven will be like,www.goodreads.com/quotes/6303-i-am-not-sure-exactly-what-heaven-will-be-like
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/rev-dr-james-a-forbes-jr/
Give the gift of music to the next generation through donations to:
The Manilow Music Project
8295 South La Cienega Boulevard
Inglewood, CA 90301
[email protected]
Click here to go to the next post or click here to return to the previous post.