HOLY FAMILY CHURCH

On Sunday, November 28th, I visited my godmother, MC and her husband, JC. My brother VL was so nice to drive us all the way from Bensonhurst, Brooklyn, to Pelham Parkway in the Bronx. Originally we planned to take the subway there and that would have taken us 2 hours being that it was on the weekend and we had to wait to transfer from one train to another. MC and JC are both in their 90s yet, they are so vibrant, sharp and in better shape than I am. MC said she volunteers at nursing home twice a week “to take care of old people”!

I met my godmother, MC when I worked at my first job in America. A few times when I stayed overnight at MC’s place, we would go to church together. Back then I would sit and waited while MC receiving communion. This time, we received communion together. MC has always been kind to me and my family without expecting anything in return. I believe God has brought us together and our Catholic faith has kept us closer.

After church and then lunch, it was time to say goodbye. We hugged and promised to keep in touch often.

Here is what I wrote in a previous post about how I met MC:
KINDNESS OF STRANGERS

"Feel better?", MC said to me after showing me how to rub the Vaseline lotion on my hands and thru the fingers. We could not communicate much since my English was limited when we met (in 1980) one week after I started working at MK Company. MC just came back to work after a week of vacation in Florida. MC was responsible for rotating the displays of merchandise in the show room, working with photographers of various magazines to feature new items and selecting pieces of jewelry that would go well with certain outfits for the models at upcoming fashion shows.

After we met and MC saw how dried my hands were, during lunch MC went out to purchase a bottle of hand lotion to give to me. That was the beginning of our friendship. I will always remember the little things MC did to help me. Instead of eating in her comfortable office, MC would bring her lunch to the breakroom. While we ate, MC would talk to me and encouraged me to share with her what I learned from English classes. She corrected my pronunciation, grammar and taught me American expressions. During the summer months, when we walked around the blocks at lunch time, MC would teach me about New York City, about America and about being a young woman (I was 19 years old). I laughed so hard the first time MC asked me whether I had been kissed by a boy and if I liked it. Perhaps because the subject of kissing was such a taboo in conversations in the Asian culture, I laughed to avoid giving MC an answer. As I became aware of my maturity as a young woman, I asked MC many questions that I would not dare to ask my own mother. These questions probably would make mother very uncomfortable and I had no business discussing the topics until I got married anyway.

MC provided words of encouragement during my years of working full time and seeking a college education. We remained good friends when I moved to Michigan. MC visited me when JC came to St. Louis to attend a convention for World War II veterans. We have continued to keep in touch regularly by letters, phone calls and now by email. I felt so blessed to have such wonderful friends like MC and her husband. The kindness they extended to me and my family over the last 27 years has lessened some of the difficulties on my journey being a refugee in the new land. Very often in life, kindness of strangers is the thing we most likely depend on. Thanks, MC and JC, for all your support and encouragement.”