Today is St. Patrick's Day, a holy holiday in the McKeon family. A wonderful holiday for me full of sweet memories.My mother always had a green milk for breakfast, and for dinner. Sure we had corned beef and cabbage, but the green milk was always the highlight of our day.
My father loved to sing Irish songs, my favorite was Mother MaCree, the most poignant time when my Aunt Marie passed away and everyone was sitting around at her funeral. They started with, "Buddy, sing Danny Boy." Then it was "Buddy, sing Rose of Tralee," until finally, "Buddy, sing Mother Macree." He could never finish that song without a tear in his eye, and my grandmother blubbering. Since both of the Kelly sisters had departed for the sweet hereafter, my father sang it for both of them, the rest of the family doing the blubbering for him.
I traveled to Ireland with my father and my Aunt on the "trip of a lifetime," both of them finally getting to a place of their dreams. I'll never forget standing on top of the Blarney Castle, my father laughing and saying, "You don't need to kiss the stone Kelly, you already have the gift of gab!" We traveled downtown Dublin, making sure to stop at the Guiness factory, my father happily taking the extra tickets from our travel group to the "tasting room." My Dad was the only person who ever called me Kate, I have a card for my birthday in Gaelic, saying, "We'll never have this again, our birthdays in Ireland, Kate."I went back to Ireland with my family and my Mother. I will never forget the flight to the Aran Islands in a small aircraft prompting my mother to say, "My Volkswagon has more aerodynamics than this plane." She wasn't happy when they weighed all of us before deciding where we sit on the airplane, something about distribution of weight ("Why am I in the back," my mother asked.) The plane flew off of a cliff, dropped then came up slowly over the ocean before starting toward the island. I will never forget the look on my mother's face when the plane dropped.
For my 40th birthday, the family went to Ireland for a week. One of my fondest memories, was Wolfgang, 3 at the time, going into a hole with his Shilelagh trying to find a Leprechaun to "Bop" on the head and take home to be his friend.Now we create our own St. Patrick's Day Memories, just like my Mom, no holiday is complete without the green milk, green pancakes and a visit from Buddy McShae, our resident leprechaun. He's a grumpy old fella, who short sheets the beds, leaves green glitter AND doesn't flush the toilet.
Make your memories now because they become your favorite memories later.
And old Irish proverb once said,
