Rupp Hilda - Fly while you still have wings : and other lessons my resilient mother taught me

Every page of Joyce Rupps beautiful book is filled with practical wisdom. By meditating on the rich life of her own mother, Rupp not only shares with us timeless and life-changing lessons, but also reminds us that holiness always makes its home in humanity, and that saints are everywhere. I loved this book!

James Martin, S.J.

Author of Jesus: A Pilgrimage

Joyce Rupps memoir of her mother Hilda is beautiful, honest, and graced with astonishing insights into what it means to be a daughter, a mother, a human being. Her account of how this resilient woman raised eight children on an Iowa farm at first reminded me of Tim Russerts loving memoir of his fatherthe stories are that good. But when I got to Joyces tender journey with her mother through the process of dying I could not help but think of C. S. Lewiss A Grief Observed the book is that good. When I finished reading, I put the book down and could think of nothing other than what I had just read. Fly While You Still Have Wings is Joyce Rupps best book ever, a total original, and I would not be surprised if it became a classic.

Michael Leach

Author of Why Stay Catholic?

This beautiful memoir of her mother displays the remarkable gifts that have earned Joyce Rupp so many loyal readers: engaging storytelling, moving poetry, personal experiences shared with honesty and insight, and depictions of grace breaking into the most ordinary human events. In Joyces deft telling, her mothers story becomes not only the inspiring portrait of a strong woman, but also a primer on the mother-daughter relationship and the meaning of love and limits, suffering and courage, grief and healing. Her books most important contribution may be the wisdom she offers on how to meet the challenges and discover the blessings of giving and receiving care in lifes later years.

Kathleen Fischer

Author of Winter Grace: Spirituality and Aging

Joyce Rupps best book yet. How many of us would like to pay tribute to our mothers by acknowledging the lessons learned from them that still guide us, and reflect on what we wished we had done in her later years and failed to do, or what we did do and wished we had not? Joyce does this beautifully and becomes our teacher in this honest memoir.

Trish Herbert

Author of Journeywell: A Guide to Quality Aging

Excerpt from the poem Riverflow from Riverflow: New & Selected Poems by David Whyte, copyright 2012 by David Whyte. Used with permission of the author and Many Rivers Press (www.davidwhyte.com).

If You Have Nothing by Jessica Powers from The Selected Poetry of Jessica Powers edited by R. Siegfried and Robert Morneau, copyright 1989, 1999 by Carmelite Monastery, Pewaukee, WI. Used with permission.

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2015 by Joyce Rupp

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever, except in the case of reprints in the context of reviews, without written permission from Sorin Books, P.O. Box 428, Notre Dame, IN 46556-0428, 1-800-282-1865.

www.sorinbooks.com

Paperback: ISBN-13 978-1-933495-84-2

E-book: ISBN-13 978-1-933495-85-9

Cover image Thinkstock.com.

Cover and text design by Brian C. Conley.

Printed and bound in the United States of America.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data is available.

Contents

Acknowledgments

Whenever I complete a manuscript and send it off to the publishing company, I do so with a keen awareness that many people have helped to bring the book to birth. This is certainly true for Fly While You Still Have Wings : so many have directly or indirectly touched its pages with the gift of their insights, critiques, information, supportive prayer, and presence.

Pieces of my mothers history were lost to me until I found them through my siblings and other relatives who generously shared their stories. My older sister Lois Chettinger, who lived near our mother and provided immense help and consolation to Mom as she aged, filled in many of the missing pieces in the manuscript with her treasured remembrances. She offered valuable suggestions and endless encouragement. My older brother Jerry Rupp and his wife, Melanie, were also a source of memories and continually cheered me on. One of my younger sisters, Jeanne Somsky, provided the genealogy details.

Moms sister Della Broderson and her two first cousins Dorothy Schnoes and Kitty Kohn gifted me with their experiences and recollections of my mothers early family life in Remsen, Iowa. My cousin Robert Sanders had no idea how much his words would influence my work on this memoir. His note came when I languished in doubt about how to proceed: I think that memoir will be an amazing new reflection on living and dying. And not only a great-to-come addition to your body of work, but probably a healing and intimate experience for you to write. I kept that note next to my computer for an entire year. It helped me turn a significant corner in my willingness to complete the memoir and stay on course.

Close friends and authors assisted with valuable writing helps. How much I learned from Mary Kay Shanley, who teaches memoir, as I listened to her presentations when we co-led writing retreats for women. Macrina Wiederkehr listened patiently as I read chapters of the manuscript to her. Trish Herbert shared the wisdom she gleaned from writing and teaching about the journey of aging. Trish, along with Robin Kline, helped immensely with honest critiques of my first draft.

Two friends from Toronto, CanadaJohn Pollard, presenter of workshops on Mindful Living and Conscious Dying , and Austin Repath, who writes with vulnerable insight regarding his own movement into the later years of lifeinfluenced my resolve to trust the healing aspect of writing the memoir.

Then there are those amazingly kind persons whose hospitality of a quiet place for solitude and beauty allowed me the opportunity to hide out and delve deeply into the writing process: Katie Bloom, Tim and Trudy Barry, Mike and Mary Mahoney, and Bill Walker. Likewise, I am greatly indebted to Beth Waterhouse, director of the Ernest Oberholtzer Foundation on Mallard Island in Rainy Lake, Minnesota. One of my most profound moments in writing this book took place during the time I spent there.

While I was absorbed in working with the manuscript, Faye Williamson managed my website with attentive care, as she always does. Janet Barnes and Frieda Molinelli continued to support my life and ministry with the treasured gift of their daily prayer. The members of the weekly reflection group to which I belong kept my heart humming with hope: Rebecca Kemble, Shelley Erickson, Mary Ferring, Joyce Hutchison, Mary Jones, Mary Mahoney, Kathy Quinn, Kathy Reardon, and Kathi Sircy.

I learned a lot about aging from members of my Servite community as I observed how they approach their entrance into elderhood. Im grateful for their kind support along with all those persons older than I am who inspire me with their ability to fly while they still have wings.

My greatest thanks go to my faithful and skilled editor, Robert Hamma. His kind manner, wise suggestions, and constant enthusiasm for this book provided me with what I required to hone and craft it into a final version that we both could applaud. I am also conscious of how much the staff in each department at Ave Maria Press supports my published work. In particular, I wish to thank Kristen Hornyak Bonelli and Brian Conley for their sensitive and magical ability to create a cover for this book that truly expresses what lies within it.