Seven

My mother was born to a family of ten children; six girls and four boys.  The first one for heaven was Anthony, the one they called Brother.  He was different than his other brothers and sisters.  While they all had dark hair and dark eyes, like their Italian father, he had blonde hair and Downs Syndrome.  He died unexpectedly when he was seventeen.  My mother said she was walking home and saw a crowd gathering at her house and thought it was her youngest brother who had died because he had been ill.  She was shocked to find out it was Brother who had passed.  Years later for reasons I do not know Brother was exhumed and reburied.  My mother said she begged to see his body even though he had been long dead because she knew in her heart he would be uncorrupted, like a saint, and she wanted to see his face once more.  That’s how much she loved him.

The second sibling to make it to heaven was the youngest girl of the family, Angela.  Angela was the baby girl, the petite one, one who could sing and dance.  I was in my late 20s when she passed so I knew her well.  She had a contagious laugh and just enough sass to keep you on your toes.  Personality-wise I compared her to her mother, a big firecracker in a little package.  She died in April only two months after my sister.  Looking back I know that it must have been a heavy load for my mother to bear.  In less than two months she had to walk twice into her church and face a casket, the first holding her daughter and the second her baby sister.  That must have been a gut-wrenching experience.  But she did it for her sister’s sake, and she kept it all together.  That’s how much she loved her.

The next one to enter The Gates was Rita.  I always pictured Rita as the rebel child, the one who eloped in her young teens (so I’ve been told).  I remember her telling me one time that when my Granny would get angry at her and the other children they would run circles around her until she got dizzy and passed out.  She laughed so hard telling me that.  She laughed a lot and she talked a lot and I listened to every word.  She laughed and talked and talked and laughed until the ugly veil of Alzheimer’s fell over her and silenced her all the way to the grave.  A few years after Rita died my mother was struck with the West Nile virus.  In her clouded stupor she called for Rita again and again.  That’s how much she loved her.

Gertrude was the fourth of the ten to leave us.  She was an expatriate of sorts, moving all the way up to Rhode Island to live in her G.I. husband's hometown.   My mother would visit her when her children were born, helping to care for the older ones while she was tending the baby.  Our summer vacations, the few we had, centered on working in a visit to see Gertrude.  She was talker and a laugher too, but her Providence accent had a different ring to it, and I couldn’t get enough of it.  She also reminded me of my Granny, another firecracker hidden below the surface of an always smiling face.  Gertrude’s death was a blow to my mother because she didn’t even know Gertrude was that sick.  She hid her cancer from her sisters and brothers.  Maybe that’s how much she loved them.

My Uncle Jimmy was the fifth one.  He was a twin and my grandmother had a colorful story about their birth that included a scene where one of them “shot across the floor” and she had to pull him back by his umbilical cord.  The twins were younger than my mother and she always spoke of them as her babies.  I didn’t realize until Uncle Jimmy died that they were only 18 months apart in age.  Upon hearing the news of his sudden death in June 2011 my mother, who was already in poor health, began to grow weaker day by day.  A week later she fell out of bed and broke her hip.  Physically she may have been able to overcome her injury, but she was tired, sad, and ready to go.  A week after that she died, too.  That is how much she loved Jimmy.

Today heaven welcomes the seventh Mordica saint, the oldest of the ten, my 96 year-old Aunt Mary.  Up until just a year or so ago she lived alone and managed.  Her mind was sharp and her wit was sharper.  She was another large life in a small package.  She had to stop driving a few years ago because macular degeneration robbed her of her eyesight, and I know that was an aggravation to her.  There are so many things I loved about her I can’t even begin to write them all down.  She just was.  Now she is.  She is reunited with her husband, her son she lost to cancer, and her baby that barely breathed, if at all.  She and my mother were very close, and they were always at each other's side for anything and everything.  It thrills me to no end to know they are together again as well as with their parents, sisters, and brothers.  She is free from the debilitating health she had been experiencing lately and she is free from the bonds of old age that took away her fierce independence.

Aunt Mary is in heaven now and her eyes are clear again.  She is looking at our Lord, and she is wrapped in the light of God’s magnificent glory.  Even though I did not see her often I will miss her presence on this earth and I am grieving for my loss of it.  But these tears that fall even as I write the words are tears of joy for her freedom from her broken body and the new body she has now.  That is how much I love her.