“I’d swear I heard your laughter as I gazed upon your face; that golden and contagious sound that nothing can replace. It brought back such sweet memories of how life used to be. Each picture now a time machine…that brings you back to me.”
It is true indeed, that life is like a time machine. I came across some pictures of my dad and I exploring our namesake city, St. Augustine, Florida, the oldest city in the US. I closed my eyes and there we were that long ago. It was his 80th birthday. It was my gift to him. Of course it turned out to be a gift to me as well. We shared a sleeping car on Amtrak. It was the most concentrated time I had ever spent with him. We visited the Fountain of Youth Archaeological Park, attributed to Spanish explorer Ponce de Leon representing a mythical spring of water that was known to extend life. We even bought a bottle of it. It clearly worked for you, dad, as you lived to nearly 101. As far as myself, it has yet to be determined:-)
When I was young whenever someone died, my dad was always fond of saying, “We all gotta go sometime.” It sounded fatalistic. But, the truth is, dad was a devout Catholic. He was a lay brother in his youth, though fell short of becoming a priest, which was a boon for me, as I wouldn’t be here telling this story given a priest’s vow of celibacy.
Dad, or Frank as I affectionately called him at times was a chaplain's aide in the US Army at Fort Sam Houston in San Antonio, TX, and Walter Reed Medical Hospital in Bethesda, Maryland. He used to pass the collection basket at The Church of Our Lady of Grace in Hoboken, NJ. He tended a small chapel in the store front of a storage room with a large bay window on the first floor of his five-unit apartment building I grew up in. Many passersby would stop for a few moments and bless them selves. He wasn’t preachy. He just lived his faith. In later years he became the Grand Knight of the Knights of Columbus, a fraternal organization.
At the age of 100, we revisited the subject of “death." He said: “It’s up to the man upstairs.” Teasingly I responded, "Or up to the woman upstairs." Right up to the end he received the Holy Communion wafer offered by a Eucharistic minister at his home. The Catholic faith is rooted in the belief that God made us to enjoy eternal life with him, and that death was not the end. In fact, there is an old expression that “Death takes the body. God takes the soul. Our mind holds the memories. Our heart keeps the love. Our faith lets us know we will meet again.”
Getting back to the time machine metaphor, as I looked at the photos of dad, some taken from his 75th birthday party where I arranged for an exotic dancer to entertain him and the guests who attended. It brought back such sweet memories. Frank was really a good sport.
