Her Name Was Katherine

She called me My Frankie like it was one word, like the possessive was part of my name. I was her first grandson, and whatever that did to her heart, she never attempted to hide it from me.

You could hear her at my baseball games from anywhere in the park, or three zip codes away. A base hit got the same reaction as a walk-off home run or a groundout. So did a decent report card, or simply managing to breathe. She had one setting for the people she loved, and it was cranked to max volume. Everything I did was immaculate to her regardless of the outcome.

She and my grandfather would drive whenever they could if it meant they could see any of their grandchildren. New York to New Jersey, or wherever we happened to be, and their effort absolutely did not require an occasion, just needed to be a day that ended in ‘y.’

She made sure that Sundays smelled like sauce. Her meatballs have never been matched (sorry, love you Mom), and nobody on this earth has made pastina the way she made pastina. If she was around that would have cured my own cancer! She was not picky about what she fed you, only about whether you were full, and she asked more than once to be sure. My grandfather was the same. The two of them would have my dad’s friends over like it was assumed, like extra chairs were always going to be needed, because in their house they were.

The cooking came from the Italian side, my grandfather’s enormous family, or her sisters that also couldn’t resist that Italian culture, and she took to it like she had been born into it. Her and my grandfather then taught my mother, who has become an incredible cook, and my mother taught me. One day I hope to teach my wife and kids, and none of them will know that the recipe started with a goofy Irish woman who decided to learn.

Because she was Irish, proudly, she always wanted me to go to Notre Dame with a persistence I found funny at the time, and even funnier now since I went to Boston College (a rival). She held both of those things at once, the Irish pride and the Italian kitchen, and saw no conflict in it, which tells you most of what you need to know about her.

She was also a prankster. When I was young I had a blood vessel in my nose cauterized (nothing serious). The doctor had to numb my face, and she convinced me my nose was falling off. She really sold it. That was the joy in her, always looking for the opening, always laughing before the punchline landed. And if that wasn’t enough, she was also comically addicted to video games. We all maintain that there is still no human in history who could play Super Mario better than her.

The memory that first pops into my mind when thinking about her is so simple, maybe because I miss how simple life was in these moments. After school, if I did not have practice (extremely rare), we vegged out and watched Judge Judy together. That is it. Two people on a couch, doing nothing, no occasion, laughing at how silly people can be. I can’t remember ever not having a full schedule, and those minutes of nothing were the rarest thing I had. I didn’t even know it.

We lost her to cancer when I was entering high school, which was way too soon. Even close to the end she would fight like hell through the pain to laugh with us and crack jokes, staying bright for everyone in the room, because being the reason other people felt okay was simply who she was.

When I received my Confirmation, I took her name Katherine as mine in the eyes of the Church. The bishop actually called me over and prepared to give me a hard time about not taking the sacrament seriously, until I told him the background about the devout Catholic woman who inspired me.

I did not think of that as foreshadowing. It was just true. Her name was the one I wanted attached to mine, and I knew she wanted more than anything to be a part of my Sacrament.

And now she is attached to this. The Katherine Paleno Foundation exists because young adults facing cancer should receive the support that empowers them to take on this massive challenge as best they can. Ideally as well as my grandmother took it on. At the very least, no one should end up on an island. Everyone should have someone to show up, sit down, and stay a while when there is no occasion at all. Just like she did countless times for her grandchildren.

She was the loudest voice in the stands, and I want to be that for other people. Maybe you.