What’s worse than getting dumped by your hot new girlfriend? Well, having to apologize to your grandmother for stealing from her certainly ranks right up there. It was the evening after Halloween, All Saints Day ironically enough, and this teenage sinner was sitting on the couch next to his senile nana in the home of Marie, Uncle Al’s sister, the place where the sin took place some seven weeks before. Marie was too pissed off to even be in the living room with us. Uncle Al was breathing down my neck from the chair to my left. My embarrassed mother, mascara running down her cheeks, was sobbing into her wad of Kleenex in the chair to my right.
“Nana, this is your grandson Vincent,” Uncle Al had reminded her moments before, putting the final peaceful touches on the nasty, draining confrontation earlier in the day that produced this painful encounter. “He’s here to make a confession.”
I held my grandmother’s frail hand and looked into her slightly bewildered blue eyes behind thick glasses and under curly, short gray hair. I thought back to a time not all that long ago when she still had all her wits about her and she warned me “life is not all a bowl of cherries.” I fought back tears and made my confession.
“Nana, I stole some things of yours to pay off a gambling debt,” I said softly. “I was wrong. It was one of the worst things a grandson could ever do. I’m so, so sorry.”
My mother’s sobbing grew louder and that sent me over the edge. I broke down and put my head in my hand as I sat next to nana.
My grandmother let me off the hook pretty easy.
“What’s he crying for?” she asked my Uncle Al.
Al paused and thought of something to say. Apparently, nothing came to mind. Awkward silence and competing sobs from my mother and myself continued for several more seconds. Then nana tapped into her deep reservoir of Catholic memories and offered this gem:
“Say two ‘Our Fathers,’ three ‘Hail Mary’s’ and make sure it never happens again,” she said.