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| Our Lady of Loreto Church |
On November 16th 1940 in Our Lady of Loreto
Catholic Church on Sackman Street in Brooklyn two newly married people began
their life long adventure together.
It goes without saying that I completely missed the wedding,
being how Mom and Dad hadn’t had me yet!
Today would have been their 74th wedding
anniversary, and they like many other couples from this world are no longer
here to celebrate that event, but it is funny how we do remember such events
even after they are gone and keep them alive in our hearts and minds.
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| Inside the church |
This year is unique because it will be the first time they
will be together since Dad passed in 1991, and I will pay a little visit to
their grave and talk to them.
A lot has happened in all those years they lived as a couple:
children and grandchildren and yet they missed out on great grandchildren by
months when Dad died in 1991! From a little 3-story flat in Brooklyn came a
rather large family, 5 children and so many grand and great grandchildren, one
wonders how it all happened and how it all passed just as quickly. We live and
die and leave a memory, sometimes good sometimes bad and mostly both. But
memories are what keep us whole, because they record the legacy so accurately,
not just with words or mental pictures, but also with emotions and feelings,
and we pass those on to the next generations. Looking back over those years, my
generation can mark the beginning of time to their grandparents for the most
part, those who emigrated here to make a life and give us life, a truly
remarkable thing as Mom and Dad just pass on the legacy.
Mom and Dad had their ups and downs, just like other couples,
most days were good and some days were not, just like all other couples. But
they never lost sight of their commitment to each other, their goals as
parents, their love and devotion to family was all important, and it was
instilled in their children by certain innocuous rules such as: being home on
time for supper, wholesome conversations and modesty, looking out for each
other and finding good people to marry. In our home laughter was a very
important part of our lives, we lived, loved, teased and laughed, as well as
cried and suffered together. We were so poor we couldn’t afford to pay
attention. But the home was warm, with Mom’s cooking and baking, Dad’s paying the
bills, teasing us and our teasing him back, Mom’s having supper saved for when
one of us was late from work as we got older, and of course the magnificent
holidays, magnificent and holy to some degree.
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| Off to celebrate their 50th |
We were kept together by them, we shared our bread and our
thoughts as well as our pain, never shaming ourselves and never shaming them,
no policeman ever came to the door except for one medical emergency. That same pride
was carried over to our relatives from our grandparents on both sides of the
family, all good people, aunts and uncles and cousins.
Love is a wonderful thing, it binds a family to each member,
it forgives and it even builds, and so I go to their grave today and say ‘thank
you’ for all they did. I wish I were smart enough to say it to them when they
were alive.
Happy Anniversary!
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