Ted’s Funeral

I am shocked and gratified that Ted Kennedy’s funeral will be at Mission Church in Boston. My mother and her seven siblings grew up on Mission Hill and that was their church. It is the church in which my mother was baptized and married. I’ve spent a lot of time at Mission Church over the past year.

When my mother, who died four months ago, was sick last year and being treated at the Brigham and Womens Hospital only blocks away, I went to Mass every day at Mission Church before going up to the hospital to stay with her. On her darkest day, I and my siblings went to Mission Church to light a candle. We prayed that she be given more time – that we be given more time. Not that she be cured. We were simply not ready to say goodbye. That day she turned around and we had another year. And it was a very special year. My sister calls it “the miracle of Mission Church.” I so wish she was around to see this.