GOD IS WITH US

Is there another realm of existence to which we go after death and a God that intervenes in our lives? In my own life I have experienced signs that there is a spiritual  world intertwined with our lives. Two incidents especially inspired me to do the research which resulted in this book.

Both incidents involved my mother Hattie.  The daughter of Polish immigrants who lived in Brooklyn, she grew up in poor Catholic family.   Her father, a wheelwright,  went to Alaska  at one point hoping to strike it rich in the Klondike gold rush, but came back two years later flat broke.  Her mother helped support  the family with her sewing, and Hattie had to leave school in eighth grade to work in a hat factory.  But the family’s scrimping and saving enabled the one boy in the family to attend medical school,  and Hattie eventually married one of his friends, another doctor named John,  known to most just as Doc.

    Life with Doc could be difficult because he was sometimes verbally abusive to Hattie and called her stupid because of her lack of education.  But Hattie was a tough woman and held her own.  Robust, stern, ramroad straight, she could take on anyone.  She would even go down into our dank, dark cellar with a baseball bat at night if she heard a noise,  instead of waking Doc,  ready to do battle with any burglar who dared enter her home.

We had all the material things we wanted when I was growing up, but one thing was lacking—the influence of religion.  Doc, although raised a Catholic,  had turned against the faith and frequently criticized and blasphemed the religion and mocked those who practiced it. Although my mother had managed to have me make my First Communion, and she and I  sometimes went to church,  because of Doc’s influence she never went to Confession and Communion.

            After Doc died of cancer,  my mother sold  our house in Brooklyn and went to live with her sister Ann in Douglaston, Long Island.    Since I felt prayers had helped bring my father back to the faith in his last days,  I started praying for my mother to return to the sacraments.   I talked to her about it,  but she didn’t seem interested.  We visited them in Douglaston now and then, or she would come stay with us in Connecticut for a week occasionally.  Her three grandchildren brought her joy, and she loved making  outfits and sweaters for them.

   Then about three years after my father’s death,  I got a phone call from mother one Saturday in the spring.  She told me she and Ann had just been to Confession.  They were going on a trip to Florida the next week—mother had always wanted to see Florida—and they thought it might be a good idea before traveling.  It came about because they had met one of the priests on the street, and  mother told him she was

thinking of going to Confession, but was hesitant because she hadn’t been in so long.  The priest encouraged her,  and was very nice to her when she went to him for Confession.  “He didn’t even bawl me out,” she said.  So she and Ann received Communion the next day, and went off to Florida by train the following week.

              They returned just before Easter.  We went down to spend Easter weekend with them.  Mother had come back from Florida with a bad cold,  but she still made all the preparations for our Easter celebration. Since she didn’t drive, she walked to the butcher and carried a big heavy ham home Saturday.   I was angry with her and said she should have asked Paul to drive her to the store.

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