I only knew my mom’s mother while I was growing up. I was told my other three grandparents had gone to heaven before I was born. While she was by no means a wealthy widow, whenever Grandma Rossi visited our home, she always managed to give 10 cents to each of us seven kids. As a tyke, and thanks to her generosity, I quickly learned there was no difference in the monetary worth of 10 pennies or two nickels or one dime — even though the latter was the smallest of those treasured, hard-earned coins. The size of her heart far exceeded the size of her purse, and we loved her a million times over and told her so with hugs and kisses.

Besides love, we also learned the virtue of gratitude due to her charity and the virtue of respect for the years of experience she displayed through the careworn features in her ever-smiling face. In fact, we learned to be deferential toward all of our elders and to be especially helpful and gentle if they sported a head full of gray hair.

When I was 6, I instinctively knew I could easily outrun all the senior citizens in our neighborhood, but I didn’t dare. I was expected to walk at their pace and to listen carefully to whatever they had to say. They always had words of wisdom to share. We children were to speak only when they spoke to us and to answer loudly if they asked a question. Hearing aids were expensive and unnecessary since young lungs could shout louder than any siren. Actually being allowed to scream became a sort of fun game to get them to say we didn’t have to yell because they could hear us just fine — even though they couldn’t really.

I had the great privilege of adopting my godmother’s dad as a surrogate grandfather. He would walk with me every Sunday afternoon to the catechism classes held in the church where I was baptized. As the teacher prepared us for the sacraments of first confession and Holy Communion which we would receive the following year, my “gramps” waited patiently for the entire hour, kneeling and praying in the last pew of St. Francis Church. Then he would walk with me up the steep road until I was safely inside my folk’s house to get ready for school on Monday. He returned down the hill, with his St. Joseph Daily Missal in one hand and his rosary in the other. Displays of faith were commonplace in those days and men were not embarrassed to finger their prayer beads in public.

Thank you, grandma and grandpop, for knowing that the Catholic faith is caught as well as taught. Your wisdom and love showed us how to open the door as Jesus stands knocking, wanting to enter into our hearts, our minds, and our souls.

Holy Homework

Since Halloween is an opportunity for trick-or-treaters to don a costume of their favorite — often fictitious — champions, let’s help them honor the authentic stars in life. Dressed up with suspenders and granny glasses and powdered white hair, let’s celebrate All Hallows’ Eve with a tribute to our true heroes: those grandparents without whom we would never have had the gift of life, in spirit or in truth!

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