Siobhan Limerick: Every month

Lately it’s more difficult it’s become, I can tell you, managing my children, all six of them. Ever since James has closed down Limerick’s Bricklayers, Patrick done nothing but haunt the house. Just because the lad is out of a job, it doesn’t mean he can just stay at home. I never had this difficulty with my son – always out and about, that one, gallivanting through Olde City with his friends from school, the good Lord doing God knows what. I just wish my brother had better influence with the lad. For goodness sakes, Patrick certainly saw enough of his Uncle Collin at St. Patrick’s School all those years.

At least Agnes is now out of the house. My daughter, always smart and lucky, she has a new job – working at the parish office at St. Monica’s. An easy job for the lass to get, I can tell you, for my brother holds a lot of sway with the priest at St. Monica’s and Lucy, that’s Agnes’s aunt on her father’s side, God rest is sainted soul, she’s been in the convent at St. Monica’s for more than twenty years.

Mother Limerick understands, but Patrick wouldn’t understand why, on the first Monday of every month, I head out to Gladwyn in the ’23 Ford his father bought for the family. Patrick mostly drives it this day, but I’m capable, too, you know. Simply because I’m a woman doesn’t mean I can’t drive. But it is a luxury, spending the money on gasoline, money being so scarce these days. But since Agnes is now bringing some money home, I can afford my monthly trips to St. Mary’s.

Today is a beautiful spring day – the beginning of June. All the trees have sprouted their leaves, the impatiens are in full bloom, and the geraniums are just around the corner. Philadelphia at its most lush, a sight to behold, even from behind my thick glasses and widow’s weeds. I’m going to visit my other four, just like I do every month, rain, snow, or shine.

St. Mary’s is just beyond the Stoneleigh estate, and I can see the twelve foot hedges surrounding the Hass family’s mansion. They’ve been so good to St. Mary’s, donating time and money to the park’s restoration. But for them, it might’ve gone to seedling pine. So I drive into the park and go up to my appointed spot – always the same, month in, month out. And I walk across the lawn to the burial ground. Always, today being no different, I make a sign of the cross and kneel at Martin’s grave. God bless my husband, now gone 13 years. And then I lean down to the empty space next to him – this one, without name and without stones, where my four babies rest, one on top of the other, the last one gone now more than twenty years ago. Perhaps one day