A time to recall friendly ghosts, thanks to Mom
Halloween originated with the ancient Celts of western Europe as a celebration of ghosts and spirits in acknowledgement of and hope for an afterlife, according to The History Channel.
Yet, my mother Gertrude McGrath may have had a better idea, which we learned about this past summer.
Mom died ten years ago, but it wasn’t till last July, during a family get-together in Wisconsin, that my sister Nancy hauled out all Mom’s old photographs for us to see.
Predictably, we did a lot of reminiscing that night, laughing, drinking, and shedding some tears while sorting through old black and whites. There was Uncle Eddie in a thin jacket and his “Untouchables” era fedora, pushing Nancy and Kevin on a sled down “Piggy Toe Mountain." Or Grandpa Joe, a wad of TipTop Tobacco in his cheek, standing next to a fuel pump at his gas station.
Suddenly, Nancy dug into another of the shoeboxes and pulled out a thick wad of cards bound with a wide brown rubber band, and she handed the stack to me.
The card on top was a two by four inch satiny color photo of a smiling Jesus, his heart visible and aflame. I slid it out of the stack and read this inscription on the other side: In Loving Memory of Daniel J. Whitters, Born Into Life September 7, 1916; Born Into Eternity September 26, 1992.
“Oh, man, Uncle Dan!” I said. “I used to lie on the floor on Saturday afternoons, listening to him and Dad talk baseball, while they drank Drewry’s beer. This holy card must be from his wake.”
“There must be two or three hundred of those in the pile,” said my son in law Kevin. “Did Catholics collect those like trading cards, or what?”
Not that I knew of. Kids collected stamps, movie posters, hit records, coins, and comic books. But my mother was the only person I’ve ever known with a treasure trove of funeral cards.
If you ever attended a wake, you likely received one. They’re a little smaller than playing cards, with a saint or a religious scene on one side, and the name of the deceased on the other, with their birth and death dates, and the time and place of their funeral and burial.
Below their i.d. is a prayer, perhaps authored by the saint pictured, which you could read or recite, thereby earning “indulgences” or time off from Purgatory for the dearly departed and for yourself.
Mom’s hoarding them was news to me. I knew my parents attended wakes every month, but she never mentioned her impressive collection.
I read aloud another card with the same Jesus picture, same flaming heart: William Doyle, At Rest December 23rd, 1976.
“Bill was Uncle Jimmy’s best friend,” I said. “He had penetrating blue eyes, so when he dressed up like Santa Claus at our house one year, all the little kids knew it was Bill because of those eyes.”
We took turns reading:
Katherine Z. Chrustec, 1896-1979; Section 35, Plot 198. She was the mother of my mom’s friend Stella who lived in Naples. Certainly, Mom didn’t fly to Florida for the wake, so she must have gotten it in the mail after sending a sympathy card.
William McGrath at Rest, November 1, 1988. “ Wild” Uncle Bill used to sing a-cappella when he visited, like the comedy actor George Burns. Old Bill would start tap dancing right there in our kitchen.
Edward J. Cichoszewski, “Kayo,”1922-2006: my mom’s brother. You could see in some of the old snapshots how when he was a kid, he resembled the character Kayo from the “Moon Mullins” comic strip.
As we dredged up our memories of the departed, the neighbors, relatives, and friends whom I had not thought of in decades were reincarnated right there on our Wisconsin hotel balcony. Their faces, their individual voices, the look in their eyes: All sparked alive thanks to Mom.
We read some more:
Ray Russell…our late neighbor from two doors down. William J. Farrell, M.D. …the McGrath family doctor. Ted Iverson…He let our family vacation at his Saddle Lake home where I caught my first bass. Mary “Monty” McGrath, Born Into Eternity 2010. When she first started dating my brother, she passed muster with all of us kids by instigating a huge water fight in the backyard.
Thomas Dunne, 1910-1976. Shortly after meeting Tom, my father-in-law, I took him perch fishing in the lakefront. But I had to tend his pole, since he walked up and down the lakefront all afternoon socializing with the other anglers.
Often at gravesites, priests, rabbis and ministers routinely say the same old words about how the dead will go on living in our hearts.
But to my Mom, talk was cheap, and she took matters into her own hands, making a special place for our beloved “ghosts,” so that she and her descendants would remember them always.
And we will, Mom, thanks to you.
Former English professor at Florida Southwestern State College, David McGrath is author of SOUTH SIDERS. Email him at profmcgrath2004@yahoo.com
This article originally appeared on Fort Myers News-Press: A time to recall friendly ghosts, thanks to Mom
