The Catholic New World: Passing the torch

Edited by Joseph A. Walsh

When does the torch uniting a family pass from parents to children?

Being a group of nine adult brothers and sisters has many rewards and a few challenges. Dividing and closing the family homestead after our mother died put each of these at center stage.

Although basic estate plan and key roles were in place, involving nine adults and families in any organized effort requires some creativity. Our first task was to sell Mother's house. It sold the first day on the market, catapulting us into a three-month flurry combined of orderly and task-oriented, but mostly fun, transactions. With conferred responsibility, a brother and sister coordinated a process of writing down (don't be shy now!) what tangible items each sibling hoped to receive, whether jewelry, furniture, keepsakes, practical household items, decorations or heirlooms. We also asked each other to note specific items that we thought "should have a good home in the family" but not in our own home, and to describe the history of items to be gathered for others who didn't know that part of the whole.

And so during three weekends carved from the three summer months all nine of us (plus wonderfully supportive spouses and children) gathered. We talked; we laughed; we cried; we savored. We reminisced about memory-laden objects in our parents' home, reminders of the good times, the hard times, the character of our parents, and what goes on in our own homes to this day. We found that we cherished "things" differently and indeed different things. And the memories of one brought different meaning to all. If you made it or gave it and they had kept it (for one to 50 years) it was yours * to reclaim, give or let go.

We were very honest with one another, a certain sign of the trust and the awareness of the opportunity. "This is important to me, to my child, to our family because *" "Oh, that's great! It doesn't have that same meaning for me; please, it's yours."

As we found out, clearing out anyone's garage, kitchen cupboards, basement storeroom and closet shelves is plain hard work (and spidery, too)! The experiences brought home again that we ourselves have always been gifts to one another, a responsibility, a commitment and a comforting grace.

The folks' bedroom held perhaps the mother lode of sentiment. Dresser drawers unburdened wistful treasures: necklaces made by grandchildren, jewelry given during their dating days, fraternity pins, letters, Mother's/Father's Day cards, antique tools emblazoned with the hand-carved initials of even earlier generations.

Our stalwart spouses brought food, swept floors, packed boxes, listened to stories, wiped tears, held hands and offered carefully couched, discreet suggestions for tossing out "questionable" mementos. We had our own afternoon version of the last supper when our sister-in-law arrived with Italian lemonade for the 14 siblings and spouses who had just made their eighth run to the Salvation Army Thrift Store. Sitting on the remaining picnic benches on the breezeway, now devoid of even the "pick what you like" tables, we might have mourned. Rather, we felt comforted in the uniqueness of each of our talents brought to the task and the beginning of the "together, we're really doing this!"

Finally, we had some important core treasures that could not be given away but could not stretch to the nine children, 34 grandchildren and beyond. The crucifix from over the folks' bed, anything with "Caed Mile Failte" on it (a Gaelic phrase, special to our parents, meaning "A Hundred Thousand Welcomes"), the folks' wedding gifts from six decades earlier, Pa's pipes. And so several sisters came up with the idea of having a "Sister Constance pick."

This family ritual was rooted in visits to our aunt at her rural convents and the return to our home with boxes of items that she had saved for us all year, from ironed-out floral ribbons to unclaimed lost-and-found treasures. We would, then as younger siblings, get to pick a number for our place in the choosing (for a change, not going from eldest to youngest or the reverse—all equal) and then choose until all of the treasures were claimed. As adults we still found this both just and fun. Beginning with reading a blessing about having good parents and a poem which our sister had written, we viewed Pa's hats and pocketknives, Mother's rosaries and treasured wall-hangings spread on the living room floor. We cheered one another on and consulted on the picks for the two who weren't with us. Moving into the dining room, we distributed crystal and silver, great-aunts' plates and knick-knacks, achieving the divide-up with fairness and humor.

Near the end of our labors, we saved an evening to have dinner together in a restaurant. Over saganaki at Roditys we reminisced, thought of details yet to be done, and laughed at family stories—told for the hundredth time. We savored the love of each other and celebrated owning the torch of unity which we, too, would some day pass.

And on Sunday morning after Mass, we stood on the steps and on the lawn and we thanked the Lord for the home which our parents had made and to which we were always welcomed and always sent forth again with a blessing. We blew bubbles from a niece's wedding into the air. We blessed the house to the health, growth and faith of the family who would take it as their place of growth and comfort, sorrow and joy. We each went back to our own homes united in new ways by this ending and with new awareness of the God who is with us always and wherever.

Walsh writes from Loyola University, but said this column was "submitted on behalf of the nine adult children of Joseph and Bertille Walsh."