{"id":1050,"date":"2015-01-07T00:00:01","date_gmt":"2015-01-07T05:00:01","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/sites.udmercy.edu\/mission-and-identity\/?p=1050"},"modified":"2019-09-18T16:49:53","modified_gmt":"2019-09-18T20:49:53","slug":"wed-jan-7-remembering-mike-witkowski","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sites.udmercy.edu\/poetry\/2015\/01\/07\/wed-jan-7-remembering-mike-witkowski\/","title":{"rendered":"Wed  Jan 7  &#8211;  Remembering Mike Witkowski"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Wednesday, January 7 &#8211; \u00a0grief and hope, goodbye and new birth<\/p>\n<p>One of UofD\u2019s graduates before we were UDM majored in biology, and then spent time as a Jesuit Volunteer in New Jersey where she and her husband Pat met and fell in love. \u00a0Now, years later, Kathy Lilla Cox is a professor of theology at the College of St. Benedict and St. John\u2019s University in Collegeville, MN. \u00a0Pat, like 10 of my relatives, is an attorney. \u00a0Kathy did me a favor a few days ago and sent me this poem about the power of blessings in the midst of loss. \u00a0The poet, Jan Richardson lost her husband to sudden death a year ago, December 2013.<\/p>\n<p>Reading the poem brings me back into UDM\u2019s chapel on Monday when many of us gathered with Mike Witkowski\u2019s family to say goodbye to this good man. \u00a0Ike McKinnon, former Chief of Police in Detroit, a UDM professor on leave to serve as Deputy Mayor of Detroit, offered the eulogy. \u00a0\u201c\u2018Mike and Ike\u2019 we called ourselves when we conducted training sessions for law enforcement officers around the upper midwest. Sometimes we called ourselves \u2018the American Dream,\u2019 \u00a0both of us grew up poor on the East Side of Detroit; \u00a0one black, one white, and now we are professors at UDM.\u201d \u00a0Soul friends. \u00a0Mike died a young sixty. \u00a0Lots of us will miss him.<\/p>\n<p>It\u2019s best to read the poem out loud, with some pauses.<\/p>\n<p>Have a good day.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>john sj<\/p>\n<p><strong>Blessing When the World is Ending<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Look, the world<br \/>\nis always ending<br \/>\nsomewhere.<\/p>\n<p>Somewhere<br \/>\nthe sun has come<br \/>\ncrashing down.<\/p>\n<p>Somewhere<br \/>\nit has gone<br \/>\ncompletely dark.<\/p>\n<p>Somewhere<br \/>\nit has ended<br \/>\nwith the gun<br \/>\nthe knife<br \/>\nthe fist.<\/p>\n<p>Somewhere<br \/>\nit has ended<br \/>\nwith the slammed door<br \/>\nthe shattered hope.<\/p>\n<p>Somewhere<br \/>\nit has ended<br \/>\nwith the utter quiet<br \/>\nthat follows the news<br \/>\nfrom the phone<br \/>\nthe television<br \/>\nthe hospital room.<\/p>\n<p>Somewhere<br \/>\nit has ended<br \/>\nwith a tenderness<br \/>\nthat will break<br \/>\nyour heart.<\/p>\n<p>But, listen,<br \/>\nthis blessing means<br \/>\nto be anything<br \/>\nbut morose.<br \/>\nIt has not come<br \/>\nto cause despair.<\/p>\n<p>It is simply here<br \/>\nbecause there is nothing<br \/>\na blessing<br \/>\nis better suited for<br \/>\nthan an ending,<br \/>\nnothing that cries out more<br \/>\nfor a blessing<br \/>\nthan when a world<br \/>\nis falling apart.<\/p>\n<p>This blessing<br \/>\nwill not fix you<br \/>\nwill not mend you<br \/>\nwill not give you<br \/>\nfalse comfort;<br \/>\nit will not talk to you<br \/>\nabout one door opening<br \/>\nwhen another one closes.<\/p>\n<p>It will simply<br \/>\nsit itself beside you<br \/>\namong the shards<br \/>\nand gently turn your face<br \/>\ntoward the direction<br \/>\nfrom which the light<br \/>\nwill come,<br \/>\ngathering itself<br \/>\nabout you<br \/>\nas the world begins<br \/>\nagain.<\/p>\n<p>-Jan Richardson<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/sites.udmercy.edu\/poetry\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/170\/2015\/01\/Jan-Richardson.jpg\"><img decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" class=\"alignleft size-full wp-image-1051\" src=\"https:\/\/sites.udmercy.edu\/poetry\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/170\/2015\/01\/Jan-Richardson.jpg\" alt=\"Jan-Richardson\" width=\"225\" height=\"690\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Wednesday, January 7 &#8211; \u00a0grief and hope, goodbye and new birth One of UofD\u2019s graduates before we were UDM majored in biology, and then spent time as a Jesuit Volunteer in New Jersey where she and her husband Pat met &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/sites.udmercy.edu\/poetry\/2015\/01\/07\/wed-jan-7-remembering-mike-witkowski\/\">Continue reading <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":139,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[11641],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.udmercy.edu\/poetry\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1050"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.udmercy.edu\/poetry\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.udmercy.edu\/poetry\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.udmercy.edu\/poetry\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/139"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.udmercy.edu\/poetry\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1050"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/sites.udmercy.edu\/poetry\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1050\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1052,"href":"https:\/\/sites.udmercy.edu\/poetry\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1050\/revisions\/1052"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.udmercy.edu\/poetry\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1050"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.udmercy.edu\/poetry\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1050"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.udmercy.edu\/poetry\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1050"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}