DailyConnections.net

FRIDAY THOUGHT 5/8/09

God Bless the Mothers
 
It’s the mothers, guys, whether we want to admit it or not.  As I’ve often written, it has been the women in my life (especially my mother and grandmother) — their prayers and belief in me — that are the reason I’m alive and not wearing prison stripes today.  This coming Tuesday evening, May 12, I will be speaking about “Women of Faith and Strength” at a Knights of Columbus gathering honoring mothers.  One of the things I will share is a bit of family folklore about my mother.
 
Sarah Helen Koch was born in 1918.  She was raised Lutheran.  She met my father in January of 1942, in the early days of World War II.  She was an army nurse, he a doctor.  As the story goes, they met in January, became engaged in February, were married in March … and he was shipped overseas in April to Australia and New Guinea,  not returning for 30 months. As a good Catholic Italian boy, Pop insisted that Mom convert to Catholicism when they wed.  She did while he was gone.  (That was perhaps the only time she actually listened to him, though she adored him until the day she died.)  Unfortunately, life and war being what they are, he returned home in 1945 and said he wanted a divorce.  My mother and God being what they are, her response is now part of our family history.  It is a response that saved our family and, though it was often an uneasy truce, kept them together until her death in 1981. 
 
My point:  Thank you, all you wondrous women of faith and strength.  I admire and miss it in my mother.  I beam with joy as I see it in my daughter, Angie, and in my daughter-in-law, Liz, two ferociously loyal mothers and wives.  Us guys would be nothing without you.  God bless you. — jri
 
“I cannot divorce you.  I am a
Catholic.”
    –    Sarah Helen Koch Ingrisano