LOOKING BEHIND II

I wish I knew more of dad’s affiliation with a four or five Italian guys who often ate at our house, sometimes late at night…I knew these ‘uncles’ quite well but never knew what they did for a living…my Mom could prepare a spaghetti dinner faster than I could recite penance…it was the duty of a French Canadian wife according to Italian men…

Later on when my daughters were older they would talk to their Nana about such treatment by husbands but Nana never changed her ways…“she was born to serve” she always said, no doubt looking back…

Going to the cemetery every Sunday morning was a routine…after Mass we’d jump in the Buick and head off to Mount Royal Cemetery meeting our uncles and aunts to visit dead relatives…relatives in the ground watched us pray and eat lunches packed with pepperoni, provolone and Greek olives soaked in olive oil with sprinkles of cayenne pepper, Dad had a habit of passing out his loose change to my cousins…only now do I wonder if the money came out of his portion of the slot machine pickings or if he’d stolen my stash…

After kneeling and saying a few prayers and finishing our picnic food we would roam the cemetery with our cousins admiring tombstones, some ten feet high and as wide, some scary with ornate ornamental iron gates, gargoyles and cherubs sitting on the roofs and hanging from every corner…it may have been the fashion in those days made by the survivors of those dead people who thought they had a lot of class, or money, even if the deceased couldn't take it to Heaven, Hell, Limbo or Purgatory …Catholics were thought they’d be sent to one of these places if they died with sins on their souls…this rule left no one going straight to Heaven…if you went to Purgatory it would mean Heaven would be attained after years of ‘burning’ there…an un-baptized person’s soul would be banished to Limbo to stay there forever…later the Catholic Church abolished Purgatory and Limbo… I often wonder if the ones who died and spent time in Limbo or Purgatory, before the Catholic rules abolished them, ever made it out of wherever they were…looking behind can be spooky.