Only a mother could understand Margret’s love and devotion to her son.

And Margret knew a fair amount about devotion. Only 30 years earlier, before she became a wife and mother, Margret was married to the church.

For almost a decade she served in the Carmelite Order of Sisters. In addition to vows of poverty, obedience and celibacy, the Carmelites took the vow of silence. To hear Margret laugh, gossip and sing now, it is difficult to believe that she could remain silent for 23 hours of the day.

She didn’t leave the convent from any lack of faith or to escape the rigors of the vocation. She took a leave of absence to care for her dying mother. 

 Michael might be the kindest person I’ve ever met. 

Almost anyone who spent time with him could see his goodness. That glow of kindness stood by him through a broken home, a world that was often cruel to gentle people and the turmoil of the Vietnam War. 

Margret and Mike met at an Irish pub in a Boston suburb. She was still on leave from the Carmelites and having lunch with her brother. Mike and Maggie’s brother were friends and he asked Mike to join them. Introductions were made and lunch passed easily. When Mike learned his friend’s sister was going to be in town for a while, he said maybe they could go to a Red Sox game. Margret heard herself say, “They play the Yankees next week, how about then?”

By now, few of you will be surprised, when I tell you Mike and Margret fell in love and married. Their first child was named Jimmy after a Catholic Bishop. Two daughters followed. 

They raised three children in the same blue-collar neighborhood where Margret grew up. Mike was a loving dad, prone to worry and a little naïve. The kids might have gotten away with murder if not for their mother. Margret possessed a worldliness that belied her sheltered past. While Mike was the pushover, Margret would call her kids’ bluffs over broken curfews, bad grades or beer on their breath. The children grew up to be normal, happy, sometimes wild, mostly well-behaved kids.

Mike and Margret took a second mortgage on their home and put all three children through college. Jimmy was the least impressive academically, but like his father was a late bloomer. In four years he went from getting by to graduating with honors. He joined the Army Reserves to help pay for law school. He worked his way through school, graduated, passed the bar and got a job, while also satisfying his military obligations. 

When Jimmy was called up to serve in the Middle East, he accepted his responsibility with the same good-natured resolve that his father did when he was drafted in the 1960s. The fact that he was going to be driving a truck, not firing a gun, made his parents feel better on two levels.

Though card-carrying Republicans, they both had reservations over the morality of war and knew that Jimmy would be safer behind a steering wheel than the sights of a rifle. For over a year, they’ve been afraid to pick up the phone. The reality of their son being in harms way made the parents literally sick with fear.

Their best guess was that Jimmy might be home sometime in the spring. As the months rolled by, they became more anxious, never dreaming “more anxious” was possible.

Christmas Eve found Mike and Maggie at the home of their next door neighbors. Both families were drinking beer and eggnog before they headed to midnight Mass. They drank a toast to friends, family, the Red Sox, and asked God to protect our troops. 

The phone rang. The person on the other end asked to speak to either Mike or Margret. Both parents looked at each other with concern; Margret took the call. 

The room fell silent as Margret picked up the phone. It was only their priest, asking if they could help with the collection and Communion that night. When she turned back to the room, her son Jimmy was standing in the doorway. He said, “If eggnog was any good, we’d drink it all year. I’ll have a beer.” He had kept his discharge a secret. They missed Mass that night because Margret could not let go of her son. 

Some folks talk about faith, while others live it.        

Jeffrey Bergeron’s column “Biff America” publishes Mondays in the Summit Daily News. Bergeron has worked in TV and radio for more than 30 years, and his column can be read in several newspapers and magazines. He is the author of “Mind, Body, Soul.” Bergeron arrived in Breckenridge when there was plenty of parking and no stoplights. Contact him at biffbreck@yahoo.com.