This past weekend the wife and I
packed our two baby girls into their car seats and drove upstate (upstate
defined as north of the Bronx/Westchester border) to celebrate the 90th birthday of my Grandmother, Mary
Sheahan.
They don’t make New Yorkers like
Mary Sheahan anymore. My Grandmother immigrated from Ireland and went through Ellis Island as a
child in 1925. She grew up in the Mott Haven section of The Bronx. She raised
seven children in The Bronx and is a grandmother to nine and a great
grandmother to three. My Grandmother remained in The Bronx as long as possible
and then stayed a little longer. She has never been far from the city and still
visits frequently. Her last child left the five boroughs only a few years ago
(after living in the city more than 60 years) and she has two grandchildren
living here now.
No person I have ever met
represents unconditional love and the joy of living and loving family like my
grandmother. You would be hard pressed to meet a better person in all of the
world. Go ahead and try. You might find someone you think is pretty good but
they won’t hold a candle to my grandmother. If you think you’ve got someone who
can compare in kindness and sweetness I’m sure you’ll find something terrible
if you dig a little deeper, like they torture cats in their spare time or
something.
My grandmother is so sweet she
even gives homes to insane dogs, like her current pet, Misty, a friendly but
mentally ill and hyperactive beast who would be put into KungPao form in no time if it were up to anyone else other than Grandma.
I don’t know how she manages to walk that crazy animal at age 90 but she
manages somehow. I always make a point to walk that damn dog when I visit her
so she’ll have at least a few hours of freedom from it.
But that’s one of the minor
points about my grandmother’s excellence. Having her as my Grandma has been a
great privilege. In my younger years, especially when I was a teenager, I was a
jaded and angry person who hated theworld. Even today I find it hard not to
consider much of the world and the people in it loathsome. But no one can keep
that disposition for long in the presence of my grandmother. Even in my
angriest and most obnoxious teenage years when I thought it might be cool to
murder my parents and live the life of an itinerant assassin for hire, I could
never find it in my black heart to think a mean thought about my grandmother.
My grandmother’s wit is sharp as
ever and she stays active. She can still drive and she walks under her own
power, and I still try and promote the idea that she secretly runs a criminal
empire and is just successful at not getting caught. It would be fun to learn
that my Grandma has strangled
mobsters with piano wire and
brained drug lords with shovels.
It was great to introduce my own
daughters to my grandmother and to take photos of her with her kids, most of
her grandkids and all of her great grandkids. Grandma was happy as ever to have
so many of her family in one place at one time. Her children and grandchildren
now live all over the country. Family flew in from as far away as Georgia and
Wisconsin to celebrate Mary Sheahan’s 90th birthday.
I am exceptionally lucky to have
the family I have. And my family is exceptionally fortunate to have Mary
Sheahan as its matriarch.
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