So I decided to wrap up my book by having one more conversation with my mother.
She seems to be a beacon of common sense and working-class creativity, her main interests in life born of the pure family values the Republican Right is always nattering on about-kids, God and country-even though she has voted as a Democrat in every single election since she came to America.
Her sister-my Aunt Margaret-had died a few weeks back, a mere four days after her husband of fifty-something years, my Uncle Connie. It was one of those rare forms of love you don't see anymore-like a baseball player who plays for the same team his entire career-Uncle Connie and Aunt Margaret raise their kids and oversee their grandkids and grow old and get ill together and then when one dies the other can't wait to get to heaven and join the spouse up there in the ever-after. Connie was buried with his beloved Red Sox cap and Margaret with her favorite emerald-green tea mug.
I stood in my mom's driveway the morning of Aunt Margaret's funeral as we waved at the funeral home limo which was picking up Margaret's kids-she had lived a block or so from my mom-to make sure they knew Ma was ready to roll. Then-something strange happened.
My mom's purse rang. 2
Thinking it must be MY cell, I reached into my pocket just as Ma reached into her bag and produced a cell phone-flipping it open to say:
Okay, Sheila. Can you see us? Okay, sweetheart.
Then she calmly flipped it shut and stuck it back inside the bag.
I stared at her.
What's wrong? she asked.
Ma-when did you get a cell phone? I replied, my jaw dropping.
I dunno, Denis. But it sure comes in handy.
And with that she jumped in the limo and I jumped in my truck and we traveled the eight blocks to the church where everyone in my family-from my father twenty-something years ago to my cousin Jerry The Firefighter-had been celebrated and mourned in their passing.
As I followed the limo I considered a world where my mom has been given a portable form of communication-she could now chastise, cajole, remind and update us from anywhere on the planet.
Holy shit.
In the church, several of the grandkids got up on the altar and spoke about Aunt Margaret-one of the funniest and sweetest and most devoted moms of all time. Many little details were brought up-her love of tea and her ability to feed a house full of screaming children without a whisper of a complaint or even breaking a sweat. My favorite little fact emerged from the altar: one of the grandkids remembered a roomful of grandchildren creating such a loud ruckus during a giant kid brawl that Aunt Margaret rushed in and said "If you kids don't settle down right now goddammit I'll sell each and every one of ya's to the Indians!"
We all laughed.
We had heard it before from my ma.
The fear of being sold off to live on a reservation with a tribe of Mohawks or Mohegans would make us sit right down and quietly watch the TV.
Of course, nowadays, being sold to the Indians only means you get a nice cut of casino profits while you live in a McMansion in the Connecticut suburbs.
After the funeral Mass we went to the Catholic cemetery and Aunt Margaret was buried amidst all the others in our American family plot, which sits very close to the edge of the expressway. As trailer trucks and mid-morning traffic sped by we took family shots in front of various head-stones belonging to our dead relatives-smiling and throwing our arms over each other's shoulders (as if to say "Look at us! We're still alive!")-and several of us tossed our chewing gum and cigarette butts over the fence into the Protestant cemetery just next door.
Then we all sat down in the nearby restaurant that used to be a diner-still the same ownership, though-and where something like ten of us had worked over the years: my brother Johnny and I as dishwashers, my sisters and many of my female cousins as waitresses. The elders were seated with the four priests who had said the Mass and the kids-which in this case means anyone under the age of sixty-were seated at several sets of tables all pushed together. We naturally began a series of stories remembering all the fights and stitches and stolen money and drunken Irish brawls and interpersonal resentments and we laughed until our tits almost fell off. One of my ne'er-do-well cousins who used to be a short-order cook in the place was confronted with the question why weren't you at Jerry The Firefighter's funeral? He and Jerry had been close in age growing up and when Jerry and the five other firemen were killed it was all over CNN and even President Clinton had come to the memorial service to speak yet this guy claimed he had been in France.
France?
Believe me when I tell you-the closest this guy had ever come to being in France was when he ordered extra fries at the McDonald's five blocks away.
My brother Johnny had the best response, though.
He said: Who'd ya go to France with? The Goddam Coneheads?
We once again laughed our tits off.
Then the actual kids-the ones aged twenty-one and under-began to tell their stories of almost killing each other: setting each other on fire, throwing knives and forks at angry Thanksgiving meals, stealing robbing stomping kicking jabbing jawing from, at, upon and with each other.
I sat there and listened as one young nephew complained about having to be at a funeral during his college spring break. Which led to a huge discussion from the rest of us older "kids" about how spring break for us meant working extra hours in the very diner we were eating in and how no one in this family even knew what spring break was until Denis-me-got hired by MTV to do episodes of the game show Remote Control FROM spring break in Florida during the late 1980s.
We screamed and argued and laughed and argued and resented and guffawed and ate and elbowed and pointed and screamed and shrieked and smirked and bellowed and busted balls and it dawned on me just how functional this dysfunctional family actually was-we sit in a diner screaming at each other and laughing about how we have spent decades trying to off one another and then my cell phone rang and I fumbled it out of my pocket and answered with a loud hello-it was my mom calling from the head table asking us to keep the cadology down.
Okay Ma, I said.
Driving home that day I knew I was living in a different world.
Soon a series of calls from what I now refer to as Mobile Mom began to ensue.
She would call to update me on Uncle Angus's hip cancer.
Uncle Sean's bladder cancer.
Eileen found a lump in her breast.
Kiernan has a strange mole on his face.
Several more calls in the next few days about Bridget's Bizarre Blood Clot and Galen's Rotten Gums and Uncle Donal's Deep Chest Cough That Just Won't Disappear made the issue dawn on me:
My mom's new cell phone had become The Official Cancer Hotline.
It was as if the surgeon general had personally asked her to inform her progeny of all medical updates-immediately. Keep them updated and warn them of the dangers.
And every conversation ended with the same admonition: Denis, I'm not gonna say this again-quit that smoking.
Which, of course, she would say again-the very next time she called.
Which might be fifteen minutes later.
So I thought asking my mom a few questions that pertain to subjects in this book would be a nice, neat wrap-up. I prepared a list of six or so things-Politics, The Pope, Raising Children, Coming To America-I wanted to get her final take on and end the book with a little (hopefully) synchronicity. God knows I'd have no problem getting her on the phone-wherever she might be, that goddam phone was sure to be with her.
This is exactly what happened:
[the phone rings three times-as it is answered, the background is full of loud, ear-throttling noise]
Hello.
Ma?
Johnny?
It's Denis.
Oh-hello Denis.
Ma-what is all that noise?
Hang on hang on.
[the phone is placed on a table or something that causes a loud clattering sound-then a moment or so later the noise in the background is lowered and I hear footsteps until I hear more loud clattering]
Is that better, Denis?
Yeah. What was that?
We're just watching Dr. Phil.
What?
Dr. Phil is on.
What's he talking about?
He's talking about Mother's Day and all that crap.
How often do you watch Dr. Phil? 2
Oh-three or four times a week I suppose. Uncle Denis and Aunt Nell are here from Ireland.
I heard. You guys like Dr. Phil?
He's alright I suppose. His wife gets on my nerves.
His wife?
She's on the show too. Although God knows why. She just sits there like a showpiece just staring up at him. She's a doctor too I think. Who isn't a doctor these days. You know that.
Do you think Dr. Phil makes a difference?
He does I suppose. He's got some idjits [Irish for idiot] on there now-the wife had gained a lot of weight and she's ripping into the husband because he doesn't pay attention to her anymore and now he does like three things at once and never talks to her and Dr. Phil is speechifying about their kids and Dr. Phil's wife is just sitting there. Who knows with all these crazy parents. Neil said you looked up cadology on some computer or something?
Yeah, I did. I found out what it meant but I cannot find a definition of the word "blighyarding" anywhere, Ma. I've looked it up online I've looked in my Irish-English dictionary I've gone through my Gaelic dictionary-can't find it. I had to make up the spelling I think.
Oh Jesus-I don't even know how to spell it. [yelling off the phone] Denis and Nell-what does blighyarding mean? [some mumbling in the background] Uncle Denis thinks it means misbehaving. [to Uncle Denis] Is it Gaelic, Denis? [back to me] He thinks it's Gaelic. Well you know what I meant whenever I said it-you kids were causing trouble and I was telling you to stop it.
Who's yelling now there?
The fat wife is yelling at the husband-Dr. Phil is trying to get them all to shut up.
Ma-I had some questions here I wanted to ask for the end of my book.
Yes.
Did you regret ever coming to America?
No no-I mean, we were brokenhearted when we first came because we had just left home and been on a boat for God knows how long and we come into New York off of a farm and New York was so huge and it was just a big shock to our systems but Denis-we had no choice and we went to work and we raised our kids and this country allowed us to do whatever we could do and we could go to the church we chose and there were no people telling us what to do and you couldn't go home because it was too expensive to fly on a plane then and we were happy and we were able to put our kids through school and get a house and we voted and Jack Kennedy and guys like him who were only the same age as this Obama but they had tons and tons of experience in the war and everything and these people ran the country and as long as you were hardworking everything was available to you and your father always had a good job and he was able to make good money for an honest day's work and you kids got a great education and everything worked out great.
So you would do it the same way all over again.
No way-I'd never leave Ireland now, not with all the money and the jobs they have over there now. No-I wouldn't dream of leaving Ireland now. The only reason to leave Ireland now would be the weather. The husband is being given a good talking to by Dr. Phil now.
So Denis, once your children are successful and good citizens-then that's it. You are so lucky that your Ann was such a good mother to raise those two kids and now you'll send them off and you'll find out whether they're going to make their way or not-that's the thing, Denis-you've done all you can do and once you drop them off on those college steps that's it-when Daddy and I dropped you off on that stoop in downtown Boston I was in the car blubbering and he said Nora it will either make him or break him and that's it. That father of that Lindsay Lohan-he was a drunk so what did he expect his daughter to turn out to be? These crazy parents-half the parents are crazy people who shouldn't be parents at all. The damage is done and then you have to do something else to fix it. Anyways, Denis-I need a picture of you for Uncle Denis and Aunt Nell to give to Denis Cronin down in New York when they come down to see you-but you need to write your name on it for them and Jim and Pat Malone saw a woman in the hospital and she said she only smiles when she watches you on Rescue Me so-I told this to you when I called you before.
When?
When I called you about the tumor in Angus Grady's neck.
Right right-I forgot.
Well I'm telling it to you again now-this woman she needs to have you sign a picture but not just a picture of your face she needs a picture where you are dressed up like on Rescue Me, okay?
Okay Ma.
Okay sweetheart, we have to get back to Dr. Phil now. Thanks for calling. Quit smoking, Denis. I love you.
CLICK.
I can't think of a better ending.
My mom sitting with my Uncle Denis and my Aunt Nell watching Dr. Phil try to calm down an angry, overweight wife as she yells at her disappointed and attention-deficit-disordered husband.
Somewhere on a wall in that room hang pictures of us in America and Ireland as babies and kids and teenagers and adults.
Alongside photos of John F. Kennedy, Jesus and my dad.