Blessings

I usually choose to highlight my Italian heritage. After all, my father (technically half-Italian, half-Scots-with-a-hint-of-Cherokee-thrown-in) was raised by his Italian mother and her came-over-from-the-old-country parents. My mother loved her family but didn’t love the way she grew up – she’s a biopsychosocial oddity among the rednecks that are her kin, and so when raising my sister and I, they patterned our upbringing as closely as they could on his. Hence, daughters who were ¼ Italian by blood, but full-blooded third generation Italian-American in almost every other way. So I tend to neglect the parts of my heritage that aren’t consistent with that.

The rest of my heritage, incidentally, is a hodge-podge. My mother is what I call Generic Northern European White Mutt-Puppy, a blend of Scots, Welsh, English, Irish, probably a little French, maybe even some Polish or German. It’s hard to trace, for various reasons. All I can tell for sure, is that somewhere along the line, thanks to my Nana, we have Celtic heritage. (Pronounced KEL-tik, by the way – the NBA has millions of people mispronouncing it.) And there are parts of that heritage that have trickled down, though I’d best not get into the details of that. Still, the only Irish wisdom I remember from my Nana, consists of things like, “If you’re going to kill each other, do it quietly, and for God’s sake don’t leave a mess for me to clean up!”

I get just as sappy and weepy as anyone else, though, when I hear the old Irish blessings. More beautiful still are the rare times when it is heard in the original Gaelic, though even an Irish accent will do. My favorite, of course, is probably the best known of them all.

RCT- 8 will be on their way home soon. They’ve taken a lot of hits throughout their deployment; it seems that every time you hear about four or five Marines getting KIA, it’s some of these guys. One of mine from this group is already home (hi, Bob!!!) and soon to be a civilian. Another, my Baby Bruvver, will spend his 22nd birthday in transit. A third one of my guys, too, is part of this unit and will be heading home. And my favorite Chaplain (okay, my only Chaplain) will be, as well. And so, with every last bit of my Celtic heritage, and the rights and privileges thereof, I say to Naterz, Soup, and Dale:

May the road rise up to meet you.
May the wind always be at your back.
May the sun shine warm upon your face,
and rains fall soft upon your fields.
And until we meet again,
May God hold you in the palm of His hand.