Stories From My Life #4

My mother's funeral mass was attended by the entire student population of St. Joseph's Catholic Church and School. According to a boy in my third grade class, it was very long and boring.

After the mass we reconvened at the grave site. I cannot remember much about the cemetery from that time, but I do remember my dad instructing Terry and I to kiss the casket and tell our mother goodbye for the last time. I also remember that the color of the casket was the same color as the Toyota Camry I bought when I first received my teaching credential and got my first teaching position in California.

At the reception at our apartment, my grandmother just rocked in her rocking chair and cried. She held me and we cried together. My grandma, Nina, my mother's mother was the most important person in my life (not including my brother.)

She took me to eat tea and finger sandwiches. She took me to her senior center and exposed me to art. She played piano and was teaching Terry and I how to play. We watched Lawrence Welk with her ~ Sissy and Bobby made me want to dance. She was a good person who taught her children to be good people and she and my mother taught Terry and I to be good people.

If you ever think that what you say and do for others doesn't have an impact, think about this. My mother died when I was nine and I never saw my grandmother after that last Christmas, but I think of them both everyday of my life and how they shaped me.