My Last Conversation With Father Frank

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I'd rather be here than there.

What do you mean, Father?

Cardinal Dolan always draws a big crowd and I don't want to be there
locked inside a box.

He was on Steven Colbert's show last week. Today, he is burying you!

Not exactly. Only my California nephew would make a statement like that.
The Cardinal is saying my "burial mass" in Tuckahoe and would have buried me–
as you say–if it had been arranged for me to be interred in Westchester County.

But you're being buried with Nuna and Nanootz on Long Island.

Yes, I am being laid to rest with my Mother and Father.

That's one small victory for the Oliverio family.

I wouldn't call it "small," Paul. And I'm surprised you referred to your grandfather
as "Nanootz." You once told me you thought it was Italian for "Knucklehead."

I'm sorry, Father. Please forgive me for that.

I forgive you for that...and one thousand other things but you more than made up for it
by traveling more than twenty thousand miles to visit me at the rest home.

That was not a penance, Father. That was an obligation.

Each year, from 2008 through 2011, you flew cross-country to organize family trips
with Long Island Oliverios–to visit me in the middle of Westchester County.

We loved every minute of it, Father.

But you were supposed to visit me earlier this year when you were less than an hour away.
She was going to give me the Good Shepherd portrait.
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AND THEN I AWOKE...

I immediately called Carol but did not tell her about this dream. She was getting ready to take
a train and a bus in order to attend Father Frank's burial mass. From 1981 through 1995,
he was her pastor at St. Anne's in Ossining, NY.

One hour later, I sent Carol a text:
Please say every prayer twice: once for you and once for me.

Last April, I spent five days with her in Westchester County. Visiting Father Frank was on our agenda
but due to inclement weather (and one thick Italian head), it never happened. Carol had re-drawn the
Good Shepherd portrait which was featured two pages ago.

The original–three times as large–was made for a special occasion at St. Anne's. When he saw it,
Father Frank told the artist, "I want to be buried with this portrait."

Carol attended Father Frank's wake on Tuesday. The original portrait was nowhere to be seen but my
fiancee gave the re-creation of the Good Shepherd to a church deacon who promised to place it
inside the casket.

The GoodFather of Math's first reference to the Good Shepherd accounted for the only fictional statement
on a page called FATHER wherein I credited someone named Tyrone Morse for the illustration. But it is
true that when Monsignor Oliverio was the "business manager" of St. Patrick's Cathedral,
the Catholic Church paid for the college education of reformed gangsters.

The actual illustrator, Carol Ann Robson, has an Art Degree from the Pratt Institute.

Carol would not have needed a train and a bus to attend Father Frank's burial mass if I had let her finance
a flight to New York. I would have driven us there. But instead of being three thousand miles away
from California, I am three hours away from a last conversation with my Uncle.
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