The end of the day

How lucky I am.

After the wake I walked down to my parents house where my father was alone in the kitchen. He had his back to me, doing something on the counter. I walked up behind him and hugged him lightly. We are not a touchy family. He laughed and teasingly asked me where I had been. Then I went into the living room where my mother was sitting with her brother Jim and his wife Connie. We argued about politics, talked about old times, discussed who had attended the wake and who would go to the funeral tomorrow. We smiled about the newest of our clan scheduled to be born next month.

Tonight was difficult. To realize that Sis was the last of seven on my grandmothers side; Grace, Helen, John, Freddie, Sis, Mary and Peg. That there is only one left on my grandfathers side, Tim, the last of Owen, Tommy, John, Joe, George, Kay, Danny and Jimmy. But how fortunate was I to have been a part of this, to have known them and loved them? Very.

Of Mama Kelley's family (my grandmother Grace), my sons had the most contact with Sis and Peg. Frankie would always mix their names up and so he gave up trying. He called Sis, his "poker aunt", Frankie and Sis were wicked gamblers and she played endless games of poker with him on the porch of the cottage. He called Peg his "butterscotch aunt". She always had hard candies in her purse that she would load their pockets with candy when she saw them. They would always thank her profusely and hug her. You would have thought she were passing out gold coins. I have never loved my boys so much as on those occassions......they abhor butterscotch.

How lucky I am.