Remembering my mother

With my mother in 2006

It was 10 years ago today that my mother Mary passed away into eternal life, one day short of her 81st birthday. We knew she was nearing the end, and so I had decided to spend the last month and a half here with my family. Her last night was very restless, as she kept talking to my sister, feeling very agitated. By 6:30AM I anointed her and as I prayed my Breviary next to her, and she slipped away peacefully and quietly. She outlived my father by 8 years, but little did she know that merely 8 months later, my brother Paul will follow her so unexpectedly and so suddenly. We all have great memories of our mother as she molded in each of her children a sense of duty, spirituality, proprietness, cleanliness, diligence, creativity, self-respect, foresight and love for the simple things in life. 

My parents' wedding day July 24, 1948.

She never had a job by today’s standards, but she worked 24 hours a day, all her life, providing for us, with our father, everything we ever needed. She and my father were inseparable and enjoyed 54 years of a happy marriage, surrounded and respected by 5 hard-working children, two grandsons, now both of them doctors, many admiring relatives, and plenty of faithful friends. A few days before she died I gave her to read a biography I did of my childhood, just to show her what great influence she and my father had on me and my vocation. Rest in peace, dear mother, until we meet again.