Wee bit o'blarney!

What do you give a friend's mother who's celebrating her 93rd birthday? A dozen American Beauty roses? A box of Godiva chocolates? Obvious choices. A very special occasion requires a very special gift.
I met the nonagenarian, Virginia Johns, through her daughter Mary Ellen. Virginia and Mary Ellen read Parting Glances religiously. Both are partial to the comings and goings of Sr. Serena Scatterpin, Renegade Sisters of Mary.
Mary Ellen drives across town to pick up a copy of BTL (and delicious baked goods) at Avalon Bakery. Mother and daughter thrive on Sister's friendly tips on living and high fashion advice.
Virginia's convinced that I'm a Recovering Catholic. (Virginia's not – she been attending Historic St. Anne's for over 80 years.) The truth is that I'm a Turncoat Southern Baptist, saved – if I may use that investment term – by realizing at 18 I was gay and forsaking (thank God!) the fundamentalist mindset.
Mary Ellen came out to her mother a few years ago, after returning home from Florida where she had been living because the Michigan climate's bad for asthma. Since then Virginia has often attended services at the Metropolitan Community Church of Detroit with Mary Ellen.
I thought long and somewhat prayerfully about what to give Virginia. She's a baseball fan and had worked at Tiger Stadium for over 20 years. (She and Mary Ellen are living in the house that once was the home of legendary baseball great Tiger Hank Greenberg.)
As I know nothing about playing left field, catching flies, or scoring (in a non-gay sense), I thought better of giving Virginia, say, a year's subscription to Sport's Illustrated. Instead, because Virginia at 93 is smart as home plate I had one of my all time bright ideas.
While making my daily pilgrimage to Wayne State University's Barnes & Noble (after having my morning two bananas, carrot cake, milk, coffee and three creams at the on-campus Potato Place), I found an item on remainder and bought two copies. One for myself, one for Virginia.
As I presently subscribe to the magazine, I was already primed for my purchase: a hefty volume of "The Complete Cartoons of the New Yorker," with (be still my funny bone) a CD-ROM containing all 70,363 cartoons. Eight decades worth, one shy of Virginia's nine.
I figure that if Virginia reads and chuckles over 200 cartoons a day (taking time to explain the more off-the-wall ones to Mary Ellen), she'll have finished in exactly one year, and next birthday Mary-go-round I'll have to come up with something equally thought provoking. ("352 Recovering Catholic Saints in 352 Days")
Virginia's birthday party was an intimate affair, with eight family members and, greatly honored to be there, myself. (Sr. Scatterpin was in Temple Square protesting the Mormon Church's $5 million funding in support of Prop 8. Her sign: "Joseph Smith, Jr. had 30 wives. Brigham Young, 54. But who's counting?")
Dinner for the gala event was corned beef and cabbage, in honor of Virginia's Irish ancestry. I sat across from another Irish colleen – who radiated happiness, highlighted by a winking touch of storytelling blarney. Her name is Anna. And – it must be something in the baptismal water – she's 94! Alive. Living fully in the moment.
In the course of her long life Anna had 15 children, now has 30 or 40 grandkids, and a number of great grandkids, two of whom – a boy, 15 months and a girl, three years – were at Virginia's birthday party.
God bless you, Virginia! You go, Anna! (Hopefully, we'll all catch up.)