The Priceless Gift of Family

Since I can remember, I have been unwillingly entwined with the inescapable web that is the Catholic religion. It began when I started elementary, forced into catholic school and continued even after I joined a public high school in the form of Confraternity of Christian Doctrine, more commonly referred as CCD. Though over the years the church has left a sour taste in my mouth someone has kept me from calling myself an Atheist and stick with the less conventional “non-practicing” Catholic. That horrifyingly brilliant woman is my grandmother. Nani, my family calls her, has inspired me in astronomical ways not just with her actions but also surprisingly with her dedication to her faith. While the rest of the family doesn’t attend church every Sunday she rises before daybreak and strolls down the algid San Francisco streets to light a candle for my late grandfather. A simple ritual, but to her it’s everything. Even when she is miles away from her church she finds some method of paying respect to him and her God. This small practice keeps the fires of hope alive, burning deep within her being that she will reunite with her husband, my grandfather, in the everlasting kingdom.

Nani considers herself a practicing Catholic not because she directly follows the bible but because she absorbs the principles and responsibilities of the text and applies them to her everyday life. When her church held petitions in front of mass to achieve signatures opposing LGBT rights she slapped the priest on the wrist, an inexcusable assault on the holy man, but necessary because she was disgusted by the way her fellow believers were acting. The code she lives by is not something that is documented but spiritualized and unwritten between her and God. And like her code the creed is not the same aged scripture that is recited every mass but the shadowed example of the code created by her and her maker. Her meaning, her life, her purpose is more than just a golden trimmed book but the actions applied from lessons learned from the Holy Bible and everyday occurrences.

Unlike Sunday mass, my family and I spend every Christmas and Easter together attending the extended ceremonies that take place on the special occasions. My grandmother leads the prayer before every meal and insists the food is untouched until she is done. She also bakes her famous Yorkshire puddings that also make everyone feel at home. During the Christmas mass in particular Nani again lights a candle for my grandfather but also lights a second. A few years back I asked her why she took the time to light two and she looked up at me and smiled, “I light another for the gift of family and that we are all safe, healthy and together again. That is all that is important to me.” This made me really think about not only what religion meant to her but what it meant for me. Through my ignorance I believed that religion was simply going through the motions and doing my duty as a Catholic but to her it was and is much more than that. It is a lifestyle choice but whether or not she chose it is irrelevant. Religion is apart of her now it is who she is. It defines her just as much as her English ancestry, if not more. She considers her family a gift from God, a community that will always be there for her. She holds to these simple traditions, these fragile moments in time together because that is what she gets out of her religion and her beliefs the most, the gift of family.