This column is late. And we are taking another break from our Theology of the Body series, to which we will return next time. Because I’ve had a lot going on, and I have some thoughts I really want to share.
I spent most of last month at the bedside of my mother’s sister, my aunt and godmother Cora Cain, before she passed away at the age of 96. That time with her was beautiful — and exhausting.
I’ve been looking back at her final days and at her life as a whole. It’s funny, the perspective we get on a person’s life once the last chapter has been written and the manuscript is completed. Trends and themes become apparent. God’s hand appears more clearly.
One of the beautiful themes of Cora’s life was spiritual motherhood.
Cora married the love of her life, my late uncle and godfather Jim Cain, in late 1959. They were unable to conceive, so, despite her great desire to do so, she never gave birth to biological children.
As is often the case, the cross became a blessing, as she and Jim adopted two children and built a beautiful family. She was mother to my cousins Pat and Stephanie in every sense of the word.
Pat married young, and the marriage didn’t last. In the aftermath, his two young children needed more care than their young parents were equipped to give. So, Cora stepped in. Most grandmothers visit periodically, spoil the children and go home. Not Cora. She kept the kids at her house. She brought them to and from school. She helped them with homework and fed them nutritious meals and loved on them 24/7.
When Pat had just begun dating the woman who would become his second wife, the two were in a serious motorcycle accident. Michelle’s foot was badly injured, and she couldn’t live on her own. Her own mother was living abroad at the time. So, once again, Cora stepped in. She and Jim moved Michelle into their home and cared for her for months. Cora was a mother to Michelle when her own mother couldn’t do it.
A spiritual mother.
In 2014, Cora’s grandson PJ passed away. Two years later, her son Pat succumbed to cancer. In 2023, his sister Stephanie followed him. And December of that year, her beloved Jim died.
She buried her entire immediate family. I can’t imagine the pain.
Cora was made of strong German stock. She cried, certainly. But she never faltered. She missed her family terribly. She remembered them fondly. Yet she never got too caught up in looking back. She was always living in the present — smiling, laughing and living life to the fullest.
Her faith in God shone through it all. She believed — really believed — that she would see them again.
Cora and my mother were particularly close. They looked alike, they had the same sense of humor, they both dressed well and loved a good Manhattan. And they both loved their Catholic faith. As young single women, they left Minnesota together and built new lives in Colorado. They lived together for years, until Cora married Jim. When we were growing up, our two families spent holidays together, and a lot of time in between.
So, naturally, when I lost my mother first to dementia and then to death, I gravitated to Cora. She was childless and I was motherless. It was a natural fit.
And I wasn’t the only one. Cora was the eighth of 10 children. She outlived all of her siblings but one. As my cousins lost their mothers, they too gravitated to Cora. It wasn’t anything she deliberately sought out. It just happened naturally, organically. For the daughters of her sisters Irene and Marie, she likewise reminded them of their own mothers. For all of us, we saw a woman we had known our whole lives, who knew our stories and shared our sense of humor and wanted to be a part of our lives. And who loved us.
A spiritual mother.
As a woman who has never given birth, the concept of spiritual motherhood has always been close to my heart. A spiritual director once told me that there is a great deal of physical motherhood in the world, but a dire shortage of spiritual motherhood. I truly believe that all women, whether we have given birth or not, are fundamentally mothers. A physical mother gives physical life. Our spiritual mothers didn’t bring us into the world. But they, in some way, bring life. They nurture us and look out for us and share life with us and love us. Cora did that beautifully for so many.
Now that she is gone, please pray for the repose of her soul. She was a devout Catholic, she believed in the reality of purgatory, and she wanted those prayers.
Ask her to pray for you, too. I figure if she lived spiritual motherhood so beautifully in this life, imagine how much more she can do when she is part of the “great cloud of witnesses” cheering us on from heaven.
Cora Cain, pray for us!
Bonacci is a syndicated columnist based in Denver.
