CHRISTMAS VISIT

The Christmas Visit

The wind, blowing across Lake Erie from the west, was chilling on this cold December day in Buffalo, N.Y. The snows had not yet come, but the temperature had fallen to the 20's and the air was frigid. The clouds were a dark, dirty gray and pregnant with snow that was to come.

I drove East along Ridge Rd passing by, and admiring as always, the ornate, marble epiphany of Our Lady of Victory Basilica in Lackawanna. Just past the Basilica, the solid iron fencing, around the perimeter of the Holy Cross Cemetery, is a familiar sight to me. Five generations of my family lie here interred. I have been a frequent visitor to this quiet gathering of the clan. I navigated through the open and ornate iron gates of the Ridge Rd. entrance and on into this garden of weatherworn limestone memorials. As always, the rhythmic cadence, of the names on the head stones, caught my attention and drew a smile to my face. O'Reilly, O'Malley, O'Toole, Deegan, Dugan and Dunne. It spelled out for me a Litany of the Gaels, that had crossed the broad ocean to settle in this area. They had come from the 1840's onward, when "the hunger had stricken their homeland. My people were among them and now lie peacefully at rest in this eternal village of their neighbors, friends and descendants.

I drove along the Southern edge of the grounds in search of the St. Jude Garden of plots. For it is here that the current generation of Martins had interred several of our family members. At the very Southeast corner of the St. Jude Garden, a long oval of plots that runs South to North and beneath the shelter of the second tree from the road, lies my brother Edward J. Martin. He had passed on at age 42, leaving a loving wife and three children. Memories of him are still strong within me, for "Eddie had been a visceral presence whose force of personality and strong will had carved a life time of stories, and episodes in the small community of South Buffalo, in a short number of years. His stone reads "U.S. Navy, reflecting his service time in the 1960's. I have many other thoughts of him but will save them for another story. I said a prayer for Eddie, admiring the green Christmas wreath that his wife Susan had left by his resting place.

Three rows of graves to the West of Eddie, and 5 plots to the South, lie my dad, sister Maureen and brother Danny. Maureen, only a year younger than I, had been taken from us at age 18 by a reckless driver, while crossing busy Rte. # 5 near Sunset Bay. Memories of her are the dimmest for me. I think the remembered pain of her passing always makes me block them out. She was a slip of a thing, at just over 5 feet tall. She had the raven hair and startling blue eyes of the 'black Irish in our line. She was gentle of nature and always solicitous of her family. Losing her broke my father's heart. It was a difficult time for all of us. 'Moe, as we called her, had just graduated from Mount Mercy Academy and was headed for college when she was struck down on that late June evening in 1968.

And Danny, poor Danny, Daniel Eugene Martin was never one meant to survive. Intellectually, he was the most gifted in a family of very bright people. His common sense levels were predictably and sometimes humorously non-existent. I remember with a smile the times when mom sent him for milk at a nearby milk machine on Cazenovia St. Danny, absent minded as ever, would put the quarter into the slot and remove the two pennies in change from the return slot. Much to my mother's exasperation though, he would often forget to take the quart of milk that he had just paid for. He did manage to get through the University of Buffalo and then saw service in the U.S. Army in Germany, before heading down the dark path that took so many of the Irish before him. "The creature had claimed him the same as if she were a great snarling beast that devoured the souls of the Irish. We buried him at age 34.

I said a few prayers for them and talked with my dad for a time, telling him of the family's progress since last we had talked. Francis Harold Martin had loomed large in all of our lives. His death, at age 61 in 1976, had shaken us all. Even now, some 29 years later, the memories of him are still strong. A Eulogy of him that I wrote, published in the old Buffalo Beat magazine, spelled out the caliber of the man and what he meant to all of us.

The chill of the wind broke my reverie. I walked the 90 yards or so to the Southeast, into the "Garden of the Annunciation. There, a grand, black-marble monument, etched on its face with the "claddagh hands clasped announced the final resting-place of another brother lost, John Francis Martin. Jack, or "Marty as his friends called him, was a bon-vivant of the first caliber. We lost him at age 40, in a car accident on a lonely stretch of highway in Boston. His wife Kathy had been near inconsolable at the loss. I think most now of Jack I guess, because he was the last one that left us. It always hurts more to lose those younger than you. Somehow, the feeling that I should have protected him more lingers within me. He was much loved by family and friends and a character of the first magnitude in the neighborhood taverns, his favorite haunt after working hours at the post office. I said a final prayer for Jack and told him that his wife was fine and recovering as best she could. The Christmas wreath, on his grave, looked festive against the black marble. I nodded, as I left, to Tom Brook's grave. It faces Jack's. His wife, Kathleen Ryan our cousin, had adorned his resting place with a shamrock shaped marble stone with the words of an Irish prayer engraved on the lower portions. Such is the force of the claim of our far away ancestry on all of us.

And way up by the fence, along Ridge Rd., our smallest and younger brother Kevin lies peacefully with My dad's parents Emmanuel and Mary Martin. Kevin had been taken from us in child hood. He was but the whisp of a memory to even the oldest of us. And then I nodded my head to the winds, in tribute to Brother Paddy, a roving creature of the vagabond wind. Patrick M. Martin lies now at rest in a military cemetery, North of Concord New Hampshire. He had seen service, as a combat medic in the central highlands of Viet Nam, during that awful conflict. He now lies with another band of brothers, who made that terrible journey with him.

And all of them now lay at peace, with the hundreds of ancestors and thousands of friends and neighbors who had preceded us into Holy Cross, this garden of weather-worn limestone epiphanies. I come here, not often but yearly, to wish them all well and tell them that I still remember them, as they were in life, vibrant and alive. The presence of them in my memories makes me sad sometimes. But I wish it that way, for it causes me to remember and come and visit them, to honor who they were and what they meant to me. I like not Christmas much, but I wished them one and all our fondest sentiments as we neared this, the most spiritual of all Holidays. I will remember each of you this Christmas morning and say a prayer that all of those whom you left behind are safe and well this day.

Merry Christmas Dad, Maureen, Danny, Jack, Eddie, Kevin,Paddy and all of those many that came before us. You will live on through me, and the others who remember you, as long as any of us walk this earth.

-30-

The Christmas Season

Joseph Xavier Martin