| After hearing my brogue, many Americans will make a reference to the "Fighting Irish" of Notre Dame. Descriptions of some great game against Navy or some such usually follow. Then there is "Touchdown Jesus", an enormous mural of Jesus with hand uplifted for things more important than football scores - unless you're a Notre Dame football fan. Few conversations about Notre Dame end without mention of the "Golden Dome" - the building crowned with a golden statue of Mary. One neighbor of mine, raised on the buckle of the Bible belt in Texas, attended a game while in South Bend on business. "Tom," says he, "I came out of that game and looked up. I nearly became a Catholic there and then". A few months ago, my daughter was accepted into the Masters Program in English at Notre Dame. Graduates of Notre Dame and friends living in Austin were delighted for both of us. To be sending a daughter to Notre Dame must be sheer bliss for an Irish father, they opined. Even non-'Fighting Irish' Irish-Americans congratulated me on this singular success. A graduate of Boston College, while 'knowing' that the Jesuits at BC were superior to the Holy Cross fathers and Notre Dame in everything - including football - opined that her acceptance at Notre Dame was a wonderful thing for an Irish man. I was delighted to take part in this sharing of joy, but I had to admit to myself that I had no idea why the excitement. It is just a university, right? Oh, boy...
The drive from Austin, Texas to South Bend, Indiana, a distance of 1200 miles - or approximately three times the length of Ireland - was grist for my 'wandering gene' mill. "Sure 'tis the fine itinerant was lost in me" as the Kerryman said. Her brother, John, and I provided heavy lifting and driving support as we took this emotion-filled road trip. The irony of another Irish family crossing America's heartland on a journey filled with a profound sense of separation was not lost on any of us. The more things change the more they stay the same. We arrived in South Bend midmorning Sunday and, too excited to rest or eat, we headed to the campus devoted to Our Lady - Notre Dame. Small wonder all Notre Dame fans are hard-core with so beautiful a thing to love! Flowers in full bloom set in casually geometrical beds inset in lush lawns. Tall stately trees providing generous shade across the walkways between the lawns.
Then we saw her. The backdrop of the blue, totally cloudless sky against the gold of the Virgin and Dome was simply breathtaking. Surely this is the best representation of the Queen of Heaven in all her glory anywhere. And I will fight any man who says it isn't so!
We decided not to enter the Basilica during Mass, but we did not want to get too far away, eager as we were to see the famed beauty of the Basilica's interior. We walked, snapped, chatted, walked some more and desperately suppressed separation anxiety (mine). As I watched Samara's reaction she subtly caught mine. She was worried about me, not herself. She was happy to be in her new home.
I told Samara as we walked how my father, who died before she was born, would have felt knowing that one of his own had achieved such academic distinction as to enter this place of Catholic and Irish and American learning on a fellowship. He had little more than a third-grade education, and felt the loss of it his whole life. He dreamt of education for all his children - but a grandchild to be at Notre Dame! "Well, yeh can beat a drum and yeh can beat an ass but yeh can't beat an education", he probably would have said.
If only she could have heard it from his lips. I put an arm around her shoulder as we walked and I told her how very proud of her I was. How I would miss her presence in our home. The long conversations we had. I remembered her guts - one time she, the 'quiet one', surprised us all by publicly asking Representative Barney Frank what he thought about the group The Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence having their San Francisco parade on Good Friday, an obvious affront to Catholics. Frank responded that they were entitled to exercise their First Amendment rights, but that he also thought they were being jerks. Boy, the Irish take it to you, don't they?
"Let's see if we can find the Grotto", she said. The grotto is a grace-, spirit-, and prayer-filled place. Samara went inside the grotto as if to absorb it all. Then she stopped to pray as many, I am sure, have done before her.
John remarked, "This is definitely a holy place. You can feel the prayers." He was surely right. I knelt and prayed, too. For her success and happiness. In gratitude for our Irish and American and Catholic forbears who had built this seat of learning for their posterity, among whom was my American and Catholic and Irish daughter.
We settled back to the Basilica which had now emptied, with the exception of an alert usher, two tourists, and ourselves. We walked quietly, taking in this astonishingly beautiful place of worship. Looking up at the ceiling I saw the man himself, St Patrick, holding an extra-large shamrock - resignedly, I thought, as if instructing some amadawn who stubbornly insisted on his right to pantheistic beliefs. I wondered if St Patrick, Aspal Mor na hEireann, knew that the legacy he left would survive 1600 years and flourish on the Indiana prairie in the 21st century. Of course he did.
We returned to Samara's new home, a comfortable apartment near campus, and said our goodbyes. The separation was made easier by a truly marvellous day and her obvious delight at being where she wanted to be. She picked a few remaining items from her car and headed toward her apartment. She stopped halfway up the steps to the first floor. A robust shout and a wave and she was out of sight. Her brother and I were very happy for her. Sorting out all the emotional turmoil on the 22-hour journey home would test a roller coaster designer. All that satisfies is, I get more than my fair share of blessings in this life. The Irishman in America must sometimes be the envy of the world. |
