The memory is a selective thing

As a kid my parents divorced when I was 10 years old. I didn't quite understand how such a thing could happen. But, my positive outlook helped me to make the best out of a bad situation. After a year or two both of my parents had remarried and then began to settle in, at least for my 12 year old mind. (I may be off on ages by a year or so, but you get the picture, I was a pre-teen). Anyway one of the best parts of the whole situation was that my brother and I had a 3rd set of grandparents; we did not know exactly what to call them so we took our dads lead and called them Mr and Mrs B. They were wonderful! I can remember only good times with them, probably because we only saw them every 2 or 3 weeks. Most of the time we saw them was on Friday nights for seafood. Mr B was an old time catholic who still didn't eat meat on Friday's. Even though the church stopped teaching that we had to abstain from meat on Friday. So, we'd go over to Dads for the weekend and it always started with Shrimp stew and boiled crabs or crawfish at Mr and Mrs B's house. My memory of these nights is how Mr B would always spend the whole night at his end of the table enjoying a cold beer and the seafood with his wife, daughter, son in law and his grand-children. Even after the meal he would stay at the table and watch TV from there.

I remember after a couple of years Mrs B started getting sick and the times where we would go eat over on Friday's seemed to get less frequent. Mrs B finally succumbed to Cancer. That was the first funeral I remember going to. I remember seeing Mr B and wondering how he was holding it all together. Then I remembered that he was the first person who truly evangelized me. He gave me a couple of books that got me thinking how important Jesus was in my life. He gave me a book written by an Irish priest about his conversion from a playboy to a priest and then he gave me a couple of books by Og Mandino that showed me examples of how Christ can work in our lives. These made an impression on me a few years later.

Yesterday October 29, 2008 at about 5:30am Mr B passed away in Tulsa Oklahoma. He will be brought back to New Orleans this weekend for his burial. I take great comfort in knowing that he is reunited with Mrs B in heaven. I also take comfort in that I now have another advocate in heaven right before all saints/all souls days.

Rest In Peace Mr B.