My Heavenly Encounter with Mom

Chapter 1:
Life in the North Country
I didn’t know anything different and knew of nothing better. From a newborn baby girl to a pre-teen, I grew up in a small country town not too far from the Saint Lawrence River and Lake Ontario. Having a French Canadian/Mohawk Indian descent, we were only ten minutes south of the Canadian border and lived off of a highway route between two neighboring cities in northern New York. It was an area full of tourism between the borders. People would come everywhere to see the different sites and attractions throughout our county. I was really blessed with the ability to take school field trips and Girl Scout outings to many of the places that surrounded my hometown.
It was an awesome, memorable time growing up as a young girl in the early seventies and eighties. I have a large and happy, very close family with my grandparents and many aunts, uncles and cousins from both sides. My cousins and I were more like brothers and sisters than we were cousins. We never fought; we always loved to play together as children and were always excited when we came over to visit each other’s houses with our parents. There were so many good times I cannot even begin to count them all. I love them all dearly.
And there was never a bad time nor a boring moment with myself and my next door neighbors. We were all close and had a wonderful time over the years. We were either busy climbing trees, playing with the farm animals or playing after school games in the pastures like ‘Red Light, Green Light’ or ‘Red Rover’. On birthdays, we would stage talent shows outside by the garage doors and have our parents and other family members watch as we either sang or danced to the different vinyl records playing on my Mickey Mouse record player. It was so much fun!
I wasn’t raised in a Christian home. I was born into Catholicism, but my mom, sister and I only practiced it on Christmas, Palm Sunday, Easter and Mother’s Day. You know, the kind where you were born into a religion and followed it because Grandma and Grandpa and ancestors before that were in it and it was just something you were supposed to do. We went through the motions: Baby Baptism, First Communion in the first grade, etc… For a couple of years on Wednesday afternoons, I and several other classmates at school would have a half day and then be picked up by school buses and transported to Catholic Church school for the last two hours of the day. I cannot honestly tell you I learned very much. I just knew to respect God’s house, do what you were told and don’t make the nuns upset. I vaguely remember a few times that Mom took me and my sister to confession. I will be honest, when the priest asked what my sins were, I honestly didn’t know. I mean, how much could a seven year old really do? The only thing I could think of at such a small age was maybe arguing with my sister once in a while. I never understood why that alone was a punishment for saying fifteen “Our Father’s” and twenty “Hail Mary’s.”
I do know that in my mind and heart I had made an awful mistake when I was a little girl thinking that only people of the Catholic faith were going to Heaven. I am not sure if I had heard it from someone or it was just a thought I had put in my own mind. I ended up telling one of my Baptist girl classmates while swinging on the swingset at school that ‘too bad she wasn’t going to make it into Heaven like the rest of us.’ Boy, was I sure wrong and apologized to her many years later since that day when we were adults. It is not a religion or anything you say or do that gives you a ticket into Heaven, it is a true and divine relationship with the Lord and believing and accepting what He did for you on Calvary’s Cross so long ago. He paid a great price for us and for that I am forever grateful.