It was on our first day in Italy, a Sunday. Dad and Mom, Anne and Chuck, Robert and Mary Davidson, Mary Helen and Mark, and Robert and I had just spent our first night at our beautiful villa on the rocky Mediterranean coast of Amalfi. We drove into the picturesque village of Amalfi, for mass at the Cathedral of Saint Andrew, the patron saint, and for our first shopping excursion. From the top of the grand stairs that leads up to the cathedral from the village square we took in the breathtaking views of the village, the cliffs, and the sea. We toured the famous Cloister of Paradise, next door to the cathedral, and the crypt of St. Andrew deep below the original Basilica of the Crucifix. Robert scouted out a quaint little restaurant on one of those winding and narrow pedestrian streets that go up and down the steep hillside village. After a nice pasta lunch, we were all “reconnoitering” at the old fountain in the public square at the foot of the staircase entrance to the cathedral. For some reason, we were breaking off informally into two smaller groups. Some folks were off on their first hunt for the noted ceramics of the Amalfi region and others were off to get the equally famous lemoncella (a local liqueur made of lemons) and lemon ice, limone. We began to depart into our groups, all of us excited to go exploring. Dad and Mom were kind of being led away from each other. Dad was going one way with half the group, and Mom was being led off with the other group. They stopped to look back at each other, a little surprised at being pulled apart in different directions. Dad jokingly used some body language motioning with his hands like he was being pulled in two different directions, kind of dancing a cha cha cha. He looked at Mom and said “you going with them Mary”? Mom looked at Dad and emphatically and in all seriousness said “Norb, I will never leave you”. I think maybe I was the only one to witness this, but it has stuck in my mind. After over sixty years together, it was so touching to witness an example of two people growing and remaining so loving and close to each other. Needless to say, they walked off together, arm in arm.

On another morning, we left our villa, off on another one of our exciting excursions. Maybe we were off to see the ancient temples of Paestum, or one of the quaint villages we visited along the coast, Positano, Romalu, or Amalfi. As we drove along the narrow road on the edge of the cliffs along the coast, Dad led us in some morning prayers, “for peace and for the missions”. Robert did all the driving, with Dad in the shotgun seat and Mom and me in the middle row of seats. The Strehls and the Davidsons followed behind in their minivan. We stayed in touch with walkie talkies. The road along the coast is considered a two lane road, but in actuality it is usually just a lane and a half wide, with small wider areas along the way for you to get out of the way of something big like a truck or tour bus. Cliffs everywhere, above and below, winding turns around each rock outcropping, and the road frequently cantilevered out over the cliff and the water. Picture this: you drive along, checking out the unbelievably beautiful views of the coast on one side, while watching and feeling the car swerve around parked cars, motor scooters passing you on the left and right, don’t hit the pedestrians, houses and stores stuck in crevices and hanging out over the edge, ancient fortresses here and there, full sized tour buses squeezing through in both directions, just inches away. That is driving the Amalfi Coast.

Well, in the car that morning, after the prayers, our conversation revolved around prayer. We reminisced about saying the rosary when we were young. We retold the story of “stop yooking at me”. We talked about how when were very young, we didn’t really know what we were saying in the prayers that we recited over and over, and sometimes kind of slurred the words or made up our own. The rosary in the evening was really the only time we were all together. Breakfast, lunch and dinner depended on what the older kids had going on that day, always something going on. We remembered when we were newly moved to Schenectady, when Joe had his accident with the elevator in our house on Douglas Road, we all gathered outside scared for Joe, and said the rosary as the rescuers freed him. Then we talked with Dad and Mom how they still say the rosary together every day, at least once, with each other and whoever else is with them in the family. Sometimes they start a rosary in the morning and finish it immediately. They often follow that up with a rosary in the evening too. Other times they start a rosary in the morning and complete it later during the day, maybe while driving on an errand, or even later in bed. Sometimes they’ll start a rosary late at night, fall asleep half way through, wake up later and finish it. Dad and Mom told Robert and me how when one of them is sick and not really able to say the rosary, the healthy one will say the rosary out loud for both of them, all the Hail Mary’s and all the Holy Mary’s too. They told us how comforting it was for them, when one was under the weather, to have the other one praying for both. It is comforting for the one hearing the prayers and comforting for the one saying the prayers. It is comforting to know that they love each other and all of us so much that they continue to pray together for us and for all the world too.