PRECIOUS GIFTS

“To everything there is a season, and a time to every purpose under the heaven.” Ecclesiastes 3:1

Mom died in her sleep. Her heart simply failed. But it had been a good, strong heart for seventy-five years, pumping out abundant generosity and zest for life. Mom, like dad, had been a gregarious extrovert, and her wake was well attended by family and friends. St. Ann’s Church, New Britain, Connecticut, was nearly full at her funeral mass the following day. The singing of Ave Maria, my mom’s favorite hymn, was especially moving. My eyes grew misty as I vainly fought back the tears. After Holy Communion, my sister, Dee and I read a heartfelt eulogy for our mom that we had prepared the previous day. At the conclusion of the mass the casket was wheeled to the rear of the church where a final blessing was given. I wanted to reach out one last time to touch mom and hold her to my heart. But the pallbearers picked up the coffin and slowly made their way to a waiting hearse. I had to let her go.

When we returned to my sister Dee’s house after the funeral and social gathering, a package was waiting at the front door. It was a package of Valentine’s Day gifts I had sent from California eight days earlier. My mom had still been alive when I mailed it. How ironic it should arrive the day of her funeral, I thought. Before the package was opened, my sister began sorting through some of mom’s personal effects. When she came across mom’s billfold, she handed it her seven year old daughter, Carly, and said, “This was Grandma’s. Now it is yours. Find a nice, safe place to keep it.” That moment when Dee and Carly’s hands both grasped the billfold was pure magic. I instantly saw the connection between the generations and between yesterday, today, and tomorrow. Our mom was gone, but in the many compartments of that billfold, secret hopes, dreams, and memories waited to be discovered and explored. Now it was Carly’s turn to begin her adventure in life.

Several hours later, Joey, Dee’s eight-year-old son, began opening the mysterious package that had arrived that day. With all the enthusiasm of a child opening a gaily-wrapped package, he eagerly tore open the smallest one first. It contained a baseball my mom had mailed to me after my dad’s death in 1989. My dad had caught it at Yankee Stadium on June 4, 1938 in a game between the Yankees and Tigers. It had been my dad’s twenty-first birthday. The baseball, now yellowed with age, had been hit and autographed by the legendary Yankee centerfielder, Joe DiMaggio. Now I was giving my nephew, Joey that prized baseball. As he examined the faded autograph and date, I explained the history of this family heirloom to him. My sister and her husband reinforced the importance of this gift by telling their son that he was never to take it out of its protective case, nor should it ever leave the house. The second and third gifts Joey opened, an essay about Joe DiMaggio I had composed and dedicated to Joey and a large book with many photographs of the Yankee Clipper, completed this gift set. The remaining gifts to Dee’s family were then opened.

On that cold, blustery winter day in New England, February 13, 1996, the seasons changed for our family. Having given the gift of life and so much more to my three sisters and I, our parents had passed into the land of memories. But the values they had taught us, symbolized by the billfold and baseball, are precious gifts which we will cherish always. Their legacy of love is now being seeded in a new generation. Hope and dignity, courage and generosity, responsibility and fidelity, honesty and integrity, appreciation for music, nature, and education, and respect for life; these are the roots which have nourished our family tree. These, too, are its branches. They will bear the fruit of tomorrow’s dreams.

Essay #7
March 16, 1996
Atascadero, California