March 27, 2009
Following the traumatic brain injury suffered by her daughter
Michelle,
Marilyn Martone, Ph.D., felt she needed to develop a better
understanding of how all relationships, especially those with our
children, are gifts in our lives.
On March 18, students and faculty at St. John’s Staten Island
campus shared Dr. Martone’s discoveries in her presentation,
“Relationship as Gift.” An Associate Professor in the 
Department of Theology and Religious Studies at St.
John’s, Dr. Martone discussed how her relationship with Michelle
influenced her belief that all relationships are gifts to be
cherished.
During this Lenten season, St. John’s University’s Office of Campus
Ministry is offering a series of events allowing each of us to
reflect on our own faith journeys, highlighting specific themes
that resonate with the University’s Vincentian mission. See our
schedule of Lenten
events. The lecture was also presented as part of the University’s
celebration of Women’s Heritage Month.
From Joy to Hardship
The phone call that would change Dr. Martone’s life came in
February, 1998. Michelle, then a 21-year old senior at the
University of Chicago, was hit by a car while waiting outside her
dorm for the campus bus. She suffered severe brain trauma and was
on a ventilator.
As Dr. Martone and her family rushed to Michelle’s side, she
wondered if her daughter would still be alive when she
arrived.
Michelle’s accident prompted Dr. Martone to examine the theology of
parenting and the notion of children as gifts. “It was easy to
recognize Michelle as a gift in our lives when she brought us great
joy,” she said, adding, “Was she still a gift in our lives if she
brings us hardship?”
Dr. Martone observed that our culture has difficulty in
understanding the nature of gifts and gift-giving. In archaic
societies, she noted, giving a gift meant passing on a part of
oneself to the receiver. The inherent value of the object was not
important. The real value in the gift giving process was forming
bonds and establishing relationships.
“In a diluted way, we experience this in our culture, when we view
a gift that we have been given and begin to reminisce about the
person who gave us the gift,” she said. “We may not believe that
the gift carries the spirit of the giver, but the gift does connect
us, even if only momentarily, to the person who gave us the
gift.”
The key, said Dr. Martone is acknowledging that “everything we have
was freely given to us by God. We are not entitled to any of it,
but are to receive it gratefully and directed to use it by helping
others. It is not only our possessions but our very selves that are
gifts.”
God is the original giver of everything, Dr. Martone stressed. She
added that if everything about us is a gift then we must share them
because they are not meant for us alone. “It is in these giving and
receiving relationships that we establish connections with others
and form community.”
Children as Gifts
Dr. Martone emphasized that not everyone views children as gifts.
Some parents look upon them as a burden interfering with their
lifestyles. In some societies, they are an economic asset. Often,
they are viewed with satisfaction and pride.
“The fact that I viewed Michelle as a gift, and I viewed my family
and community as having been gifted by Michelle led me to respond
the way I did throughout this ordeal,” she explained.
Dr. Martone’s belief in God allowed her the perspective that if
children are gifts there must be a gift-giver. “There must be
someone who gives them life. All of us enter this world as the
result of someone giving us life. We can’t do it on our own.
“After our birth, we are totally dependent on someone to care for
us, to nourish us, to love us. There must be someone who gives of
themselves that we may survive and flourish.”
“Everything about us begins with others freely giving to us,” Dr.
Martone added.
Beyond the natural process of conception, there is a greater
creative force in the procreation of children, which Dr. Martone
said is God.
Dr. Martone observed that, in today’s society, prospective parents
try very hard to bring the reproductive process under their control
and create a child to their liking.
“This approach makes it difficult to think of a child as a gift,”
she stressed, adding that because it attempts to bring the arrival
of a child totally under our control, and we lose sight of the fact
that there is a giver other than ourselves.” As a society we have
lost much of the awe and wonder that goes along with the creation
of life.
We participate in bringing forth new life, but we are not the sole
creators of that life, Dr. Martone observed. “As parents, we are
only co-creators. Something more is needed besides our
participation…it needs an active and nurturing force.”
Children are entrusted to their parents care for a period of time.
Being a steward means to eventually let something go, but Dr.
Martone stressed that those bonds are unbreakable. No physical
separation can sever the relationship between parent and
child.
In the decade since Michelle’s accident her mother has never left
her side. Dr. Martone realized that that it was not just the gift
of Michelle that was important but the bonds that this gift
established.
“Michelle is not a gift in my life and the lives of others because
she has brought much joy, but because she is the child we had been
given and the child we had accepted. She is the child around whom
we had established bonds,” Dr. Martone observed.
“It is because of these bonds that I promise her, ‘No matter what
happens, Michelle, you will never go through this alone. I will
always be with you. You are my daughter, and I am your
mother.’”