ALL I WANT FOR CHRISTMAS

I will be spending Christmas with people I hardly know aside from my family, yet these people are who I want to spend it with and thankfully looking forward to it. Sometimes God sends us little gifts, gifts that go unnoticed until it becomes apparent that it is a gift indeed. Our lives are so consumed that we forget that there are other people living lives of decency and principle, who give out of love and sometimes just for the decency of it all.

Three of the guests are very humble people, people who have the work ethic as their guide, who fear God because, why else would they be so powerful in their presence especially as a family? There is Marta, the wife, and mother, there is Victor the father and inspiration to what dads should be and there is Alex, who has the good fortune to be blessed with two such wonderful parents and has a blend of both his parents. They are the people who clean #1 Son’s (Anthony) home. They attack #1 Son’s home it as if it were an invasion rolling a perfectly coordinated and precisely executed operation. But when the day is done, they seek out all who happen to be nearby and with a smile and quiet continence, respectfully learning English because they want to, and want a piece of the American dream, just like my Grandpa Joe did over a century ago when he came to America from Italy.

But their visit is not done when the vacuum is turned off and the cleaning products and tools are put away, he shows a more Christian or Jewish spirit of giving, seeking out those things #1 Son may need in his quest to feed his children and provide them with a future. Things like shelves are built, plumbing is done and other extraordinary events such as taking my granddaughter Darby out for a fun day. These are good people.

Often I think of Ireland as a magical place, with its rain all day and the sun rising in the evening, turning the green, green, grass of the old sod into an emerald domain of freshness and natural beauty on the rainiest days and the dawning of full life in the morning when the sun rises to start the day. It has given us great American immigrants full of life and joy, and people who are just like my paisanos, but speak English with that magnificent brogue. I can attest to this from the life experience of my father-in-law, one Jim Manning who raised his kids with the same work ethics and values of Victor.

Then there is Our Lady of the Emerald Isle, Cricket, who has a smile that belongs in some warm climate that accommodates her smile and supplements her love of the children she cares for to help #1 Son so he can work and provide. The children love her, she gives them the mother or woman touch that goes with growing up as a child and she loves them as her own. Under the circumstances that God left my son with, although it can’t be the perfect circumstances that I would wish for, it is the next best thing.

Thank God for such wonderful people.

MERRY CHRISTMAS AND HAPPY NEW YEAR!