Posted by For writer and author Maria Morera Johnson, enduring a stroke at age 49 served as a wake-up call, leading her to reflect on how she wanted to live as she got older. Guiding her in those decisions were not only God, but several saints and notable women who Maria admires. She shares her story in the book “A Beautiful Second Act: Saints and Soul Sisters Who Taught Me to Age with Grace,” and we discussed it recently on “Christopher Closeup” (podcast below)..
Prior to her stroke, Maria worked a high stress teaching job at a technical college. She was also putting on weight, becoming an empty nester, and supporting her husband through his early stages of ALS. “I was running myself ragged trying to take care of everyone else,” she explained.
Maria had found some fulfillment in writing popular blog posts about the saints and occasional articles for CatholicMom.com, but life’s pressures still overwhelmed her.
Then came the stroke, which included a loss of vision (temporary, thankfully). As Maria initially entered the ER, doctors designated it a “high end stroke” and rushed to give her the medication to stop it. They soon discovered that because Maria is bilingual, her brain is wired differently. That’s one of the reasons the doctors changed their diagnosis to a mini-stroke which left little lasting damage.
Though Maria suffered few physical after-effects of the incident, the mental, emotional, and spiritual consequences became life-changing. She said, “It made me think about the health choices that I had been making, but also what the stressors were in my life that I could control. I couldn’t control my children; they were growing up and doing their thing and, as parents, that’s what we want them to do…I couldn’t change my husband’s illness, so I had to change how work was affecting me. That led to an early retirement and a lot of conversations with my girlfriends who were experiencing a lot of the same things.”
Maria prayed for discernment to learn what her best path forward would be. For some time, she had been a regular visitor to a Trappist monastery near her home. She recalled, “When I would go to adoration, there were times when I just couldn’t be quiet and listen to [God]. I vented, and He lovingly just listened. And I think that that’s okay sometimes, to be a little angry or to be a little upset. I remember I made some demands in one adoration session where I wanted an email. I said [to God], ‘Why can’t You just send me an email? I’m happy to do Your will. I want to do Your will. I don’t know what it is.’ And it was pretty funny because, in fact, I did have an email that was in my inbox inviting me to go work at CatholicMom.com. So God can take it, and He can dish it out way better than what you expect.”
Maria went on to opt for early retirement from her teaching job. She and her husband then moved to Mobile Bay on the Gulf Coast of Alabama. “It was originally named the Bay of the Holy Spirit,” she said. “So, we had a nice little wharf house and a pier, and I would sit down at the water and soak in the sun [and] the Holy Spirit. It drew me to doing what I’ve been doing best these past many years: to look at the saints for guidance.”
The saints and other figures Maria chose to highlight in “A Beautiful Second Act” are an eclectic bunch who made major life changes. “The concept of the book,” she explained, “is pairing these notable women with saints. The reason I do that is that we live in the world, and some of us maybe are not likely to pick up a heavy book about the saints, but would pick up something that’s a little lighter fare that reaches you in the culture. So, I find these amazing women – scientists, actresses, personalities that we might encounter – and I look at their human virtues and say, ‘That is something that’s worth emulating. But what happens if you sprinkle a little bit of grace on there? What happens if you look to those same human virtues that have turned into lives of holiness and sanctity?’ You find canonized saints that match.”
For instance, Maria begins the book by pairing glamorous Hollywood actress Hedy Lamarr with Servant of God Elisabeth Leseur. On the surface, these women share nothing in common. Lamarr’s life was a bit scandalous, but she was also a scientist and inventor. “During World War II,” Maria noted, “she was working with a sound engineer while they were on set for a movie. She was taking her breaks and doing her experiments. And together they discovered hopping frequencies, which is what is used today in Wi-Fi and Bluetooth. They offered it to the United States Navy for help during World War II, and the Navy said, ‘No thanks.’ But it became sonar. So, that’s an interesting story.”
Elisabeth Leseur, on the other hand, faced different battles. A devout Catholic, she learned early in her marriage that her husband was an atheist. “It changed the way that their relationship played out,” Maria observed. “They loved each other very much. They had a good marriage, but they were not equally yoked in the faith, and it caused a lot of heartache for her because he was hostile to the faith and worked at trying to convert her to his point of view…She had nowhere to express her faith, so she turned to an interior exploration of her faith [and] followed through her relationship with the Lord on the page in these secret journals that she kept. Sadly, she died at the age of 48 from breast cancer. But she left behind those journals, and her husband discovered them. An amazing thing happened. Not only was he converted to the faith, but he became a priest.”
Again, on the surface, these two women seem to have nothing in common. But looking deeper, Maria found a connection, writing: “Both Elisabeth and Hedy faced their challenges with a spirit of resilience in diverse contexts. They were intellectually brilliant and had an impact on the culture outside of their roles, breaking stereotypes while they lived and making an impact on the world after they died. I identify with both these women, in different ways. Like Hedy Lamarr, I suffered in my career, never feeling I could reach my full potential, and yet, like her, I had a secret hobby that would prove to be the making of a Second Act. Elisabeth Leseur suffered both physical and spiritual crises, as I did.”
In the chapter about Mother Teresa and St. Marianne Cope, Maria looks back at another pivotal moment in her life that changed her perspective on serving the poor. When one of her children was in high school, she drove a group of teens to a local soup kitchen to do volunteer work. Once they arrived, Maria was asked to help serve meals to the mothers with young children who had come there. Though it made her uncomfortable initially, she benefited from the experience.
Maria recalled, “I have to give credit to the gentleman who was the director of the center, because he said, ‘You can feed them. That’s fine. What you want to do today is acknowledge their humanity.’ It was a huge lesson for me, this idea of making eye contact, of smiling, of serving. I thought this was for the kids, but this was very much for me. I moved into working for the Society of St. Vincent DePaul, specifically because of my experience that day that we need to look into the eyes and acknowledge the human being that’s in front of you.”
There are numerous other figures in “A Beautiful Second Act” that readers will either immediately recognize or be introduced to for the first time. All their stories, Maria believes, will be relatable and inspiring in their own way. She concluded, “There were certainly lots of late-in-life saints who were inspiring to me, but also some younger ones. This isn’t a book for middle-aged women and older. It’s a book for anyone who has had to pivot, who has had to face change in their lives.”
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