A HERO IN THE FAMILY

It is about 10 years now. The awful day back in June still lives with me, and the ensuing days that followed will never leave me. I got home from the city, and #2 son informed me that my brother-in-law Carl had passed on. I went to the phone and found a message from my niece, telling me her father was gone.


My immediate thoughts were how it could possibly be, and then they shifted to my sister, Mary Ann and her two children. Both Christopher and Annmarie were on summer break from college, a college they both shared at Fredonia. As I thought about my sister, I had this urgent need to rush over to her house and be there for her.


When I got there, the house was filled with caring people in support of her and her children. Relatives and friends had come all at once, bringing shoulders of support and arms of comfort, and their own tears of pain.


My sister was the strongest of us all. She stood there and took comfort in our being there, and gave comfort for our being there.

Her children wanted to end their education and stay home to help mom get through life. They were willing to sacrifice their futures for the sake of their mom’s! Mary Ann, my brave sister said: “No!” Her kids would get an education and that was it. Her children respected their parents and what Mom said: went.

Since those awful days, Mary Ann has been blessed with the support of family and friends. But her children gave her back her joy, her sunshine. Mary Ann has changed her career, made a new life for herself, watched her two children marry wonderful people, and even has a new love in her life, Alexander John Schneider, her grandson.

Heroes come and go: some are for many and some for a few. Mary Ann is a hero for all seasons, and my personal hero for life.

Today she celebrates her birthday! Today I celebrate her life, while she and I are still here on this earth, we will celebrate.

Mary Ann has quickness about her; it runs in my Dad’s family, and bang-bang-bang gets the job done attitude. When we were growing up, and she had a date, if it was her turn to do the dishes: you had better hurry up and eat, nothing would make her late. She could stand up for herself, often going toe to toe with any adversary that dared get in her way.

Nothing in this life will get her down, not while she and I share the earth as brother and sister.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY KID, I LOVE AND AM PROUD OF YOU!