Guilty

Mea culpa: That’s part of the old Catholic  prayer called The Confiteor in which you ask for pardon for all the bad things you did this week. Anyone remember the old-school sacrament of Penance and all that sweating-it-out we once did in the Confessional? As a little child my poor mom once offered up the fact that she had torn the wallpaper as her big sin. “DON’T WASTE THE PRIEST’S TIME” came the icy voice from the behind the darkened screen, shaming the girl even more.I can tell you I never wasted the priest’s time and if this were a less family-oriented blog I’d tell you the terrible follow-up question a priest once asked me when I admitted to having impure thoughts. (That was the umbrella term you’d use for mortal sins like French kissing or Kissing For More Than Five Minutes which no word of a lie were actually capable of sending you to Hell and I can tell you they were about as 'mortal' as we got since there was no birth control back then. Plus we all wanted to get in to Heaven or at least that’s all I wanted: To get in to Heaven and to college, preferably with a  scholarship to each.)But here’s the really bad thing I did, I who am always semi-whining about the time I spend caring for Uncle Ed even though I love him. I get a little sore see because he sometimes tries to guilt people. For example my kid in Brooklyn asked him on Thanksgiving what he did for his birthday the week before. “I was all alone,” Uncle sadly intoned. “Nobody called. Nobody came.”  Whaaaat? Hadn’t I organized a visit by no fewer then seven people that day, plus didn't I send him something  AND call AND write an early-morning email before showing up with the all these family members who brought flowers and gifts and food and two sweet little children to delight him?  It really ticked me off, his saying this - until whoops! The realization came just the other day when the pharmacy kept not finding him in their records by his date of birth as I recited it. The sad truth? After 40 years knowing the man, after being his closest friend and the executor of his very will I still, after 42 years, get his birthday a little wrong. I showed up with that caravan of family members the Day AFTER his 89^th birthday, so he really did spend the day all alone! Mea Culpa is right!