The Beauty of Spiritual Motherhood: A Tribute to My Aunt and Godmother, Cora Cain

(Photo provided)

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 the month of July at the bedside of my mother’s sister, my aunt and godmother, Cora Cain. She passed away a little while ago, at the age of 96. That time with her was beautiful — and exhausting.

Recently, I’ve been looking back — both at her final days and 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.

I have realized that, in Cora’s case, one of the beautiful themes of her life was spiritual motherhood.

Cora married the love of her life, my late uncle and godfather, Jim Cain, in late 1959. But they were unable to conceive, so despite her great desire to do so, she never gave birth to her own 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 didn’t give birth to my cousins Pat and Stephanie, but I never saw that make any difference. She was their mother 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, fed them nutritious meals and loved on them 24/7.

At an age when she could have stepped back, she stepped in as more than a grandmother. She became, in many ways, their mother and built a beautiful maternal relationship with them.

When Pat had just begun dating the woman who would become his second wife, the two were involved 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 own home and cared for her. She stayed with them for months. Cora was a mother to Michelle when her own mother couldn’t do it.

A spiritual mother.

Families are supposed to follow a certain path. Grandparents die first, then the children, then the grandchildren remain to carry on. But life doesn’t always follow a script. In 2014, Cora’s grandson, PJ, passed away. Two years later, 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. I think I would wind up curled in a ball in a basement somewhere and never come out. But Cora was made of strong German stock. She cried, certainly. But she never faltered. She missed her family terribly. She remembered them fondly. But 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, had the same sense of humor, 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 ten 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, shared our sense of humor and wanted to be a part of our lives. And who loved us.

A spiritual mother.

I had the great privilege, along with Cora’s very devoted granddaughter and daughter-in-law, of caring for Cora in the weeks before she left this life. It was not a burden. It was my small way — our way — of thanking her for everything she did for us. It was our final opportunity to “mother” her, as she had done for us for so many years.

As a woman who has never given birth, the concept of spiritual motherhood has always been close to my heart. I had a spiritual director who 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, look out for us, share life with us and love us.

Cora did that so beautifully for so many of us. The more I look back on the totality of her life, the more I realize what a model of spiritual motherhood she offers to us.

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.

But also, ask her to pray for you. 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!!