Cousin Lou

He was twelve, and I was only six, so he really didn’t want to acknowledge me. But I walked in his shadow watching him sit quietly at his Mother’s wake, and observed that if he wept, it was never in public.

After his Father died, my Dad (his Mom’s younger brother) became a surrogate parent, and Lou was in our home a good deal. It sounds great, but my Mother wasn’t thrilled about inheriting this tall, quiet boy. Her world was complicated enough, and she had little patience or interest.

And she never understand the lack of public grief, or the fact that he and his siblings found the ability to laugh. Their mirth was totally incomprehensible for this good woman already overburdened with her own dependent adult siblings.

It was a barrier between any real communication connecting her philosophy and theirs, and sadly never improved as the years went on. Mom made certain the four orphaned teen agers she had inherited were never hungry or cold or without medical attention, but she was unable to give them approval or love or even welcome in our home. And she never could understand their sense of humor since it was so lacking in her own family.

Yet I rejoiced in their presence, the magic of their humor and the strength of their devotion to each other.

When I was fifteen I drove with his brothers to Lou’s wedding in Johnstown, Pa. It was an alien world to me, and I was angry that he was leaving mine. That ended when I met Mary the Polish princess who changed his life and stayed by his side from that moment on

Their babies came quickly, and mine did not too very long after. Then there were years of silence until decades later when John, my oldest son moved to Export, a neighboring town to Johnstown. Communication rekindled and remained intact from that time on.

Lou was totally confident in the new world of technology and our phone calls quickly subsided into FaceTime calls. They were a haven of comfort when my own love died, and he guided me through a grief that is beyond description. He knew how to do that since he had said goodbye to his beloved Mary a few years earlier.

Recently, he approved of my move to be closer to one of my children, and miraculously spent an hour via a FaceTime visit telling Will stories about Bill Donlon, who was, in truth, Father to both of us, and Will’s Great Grandfather.

I could not sleep last night, but earlier in the day had researched the date for Good Friday, 1937, the day our grandmother died. It was March 26th that year.

March 26, 2018 was the day Mary Kelly Donlon came back to bring her youngest grandson home to join those he loved.

And now the torch has again been passed. I hope I can carry it as well as Lou did.

R.I.P. dear cousin.