So anyway my father died last week.
Wake, funeral, etc.
His death was not unexpected, and he was pretty old and somewhat sickly & suffering, so the services were more on the “celebration of life” type rather than the “holy crap someone just died” variety. Here’s more on him.
I have a large family, and many people from our past came to the wake. One of the great things was that alot of the people who were a part of Annunciation Catholic Parish on Pittsburgh’s North Side came. We had a really special thing going on there during the early 70s.
We had an inner city, post-riots, post-Vatican II milieu of influences. There was a group of earnest, dedicated priests and nuns who were gentle and loving– I never had the cliched Catholic Elementary School ruler-on-knuckles experience. My first grade teacher was a nun who brought in her own guitar and sang us “Day by Day” and other felt-banner-style songs of love & religion. I did my First Reconciliation on the stairs of my school, just “rapping” with Fr. Ryan.
We had a core group of strong families who were dedicated to living in and near the projects, in the worst part of town, and raising loads of kids there. My adult examples were ushers, lectors, community leaders, fighters. My service as an altar boy was predetermined when the time came– there was no question I would be one.
Very often it is difficult to see that you are living in your glory days. And we have different types of glory days all throughout our lifetimes. In the early 70s, as a little boy in what seemed like a big city, I was lucky enough to have my first.