Still seems so impossible to conceive. My sweet, beautiful, fun loving, game loving niece Henrietta – fierce Tiddly Winks competitor – won’t grace our family and friends with her physical presence this Christmas.
I call her Penelope. She just looked like a Penelope to me from the time she was a little girl. “Merry Christmas Penelope,” I would greet her each Christmas Eve at my brother Brian’s in South Philly. She would always smile and give that warm, little Hen laugh of appreciation, “Hmmm, Merry Christmas, Uncle Kevin.”
On this earth, Henrietta also went by “Henny Penny,” ”Rigotta” or simply, "Hen" -- just a few of the seemingly endless affectionate nicknames that her father, Brian and mother, Mary had for their beloved baby girl.
Older sisters, Jessica and Angela had their own little names for their baby sister. In fact, I’m not sure anyone has ever had more pet names – each one a touching example of how love exhaustively looks for new, endearing ways to express itself.
“Uncle Kevin, we’ve been playing Clue,” I can still hear Henrietta saying in her excited, scratchy little voice. One year, I had given the board game Clue to the family for Christmas. We played into the night Christmas and most of the next day. We’d play when I visited. And they’d play as a family, from time to time.
I’m not sure how it started, but each year I would buy Henrietta some little nick-knack game for Christmas – a barrel of elephants, a mini bowling game, a mini sure shot basketball game, Tiddly Winks, and so it went.
Now, is as good a time as any to make a confession. In part, I gave Hen these simple little games because I knew that I could rely on her to play them with me on Christmas Day.
Little Miss Penelope, Henny Penny, the Henster and I were kindred spirits like that. Along with her Dad, my oldest brother Brian, we appreciated the simple things. We loved the family fun and good natured competition. Sometimes we’d play for hours on the family room floor or dining room table.
When it came to Tiddly Winks, forget about it. Henrietta had her father’s genes. Allow me to digress. In case you weren’t aware, my brother Brian was the Tiddly Winks champion at Bonner High School many moons ago.
He informed my younger brother Brendan and I of that undisputed fact one day in the family room when we were kids. Brian laid out the bath towel on the coffee table and placed a shallow white glass cup in the center. He dumped the colored tiddlies, or winks, on the towel and the rest is history. He proceeded to give Brendan and I a good thrashing and a valuable lesson in the art of Tiddly Winking.
Over the years, Brian and I would get engrossed in serious Tiddly Wink tournaments, typically at Christmas time, that would nearly threaten our brotherly love for each other. For the most part, Brian reigned as champ.
Then Henrietta showed up on the scene. Sure, we can let little Hen try to play. But remember honey, this is an adult’s game, big man’s game, really. Henrietta’s first shot from the sidelines was all cup.
Brian and I looked at each other, amazed. Hen, wide-eyed, was just as surprised and looked as if she had done something wrong. Needless to say, Hen would knock me out in the early rounds. From then on it was father – daughter, all the way.
“Oh, my gosh,” Hen laughed, when I gave a her giant deck of playing cards for Christmas once. She took the cards out of the box and tried to shuffle them, laughing. “Look how big these cards are, Mom. So funny.” Mary would join us for a game of fish, or crazy eights, laughing along with Hen.
So, here we are on Christmas. And what comes to mind is John 3:16: “For God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten son. For whoever so loved him would have eternal life.” Christmas celebrates the birth of Jesus, God incarnate, who came to save the world.
Henrietta was just 22 years old. Way, way, way too young, of course. But God’s ways are not our ways. He has a plan. In the same way that God loved us enough to send his only son as a sacrifice for us, God so loved lovely Henrietta that he decided it was time for any pain to end. He wanted her to be with him in the kingdom of kingdoms in the sky.
I’m convinced – scratch that – I know, that God finds ways to reach out and comfort us in such indescribable times of sadness. And somehow he allows our departed loved ones, now by his side, to lend a hand in the healing process.
A couple nights after Hen’s passing, I found myself watching a movie with a relatively unknown Spanish actress who reminded me of Henrietta. It was somehow comforting. Next night, I popped in another movie. Same actress, some years later.
For all I know, they were the only two movies this actress made. Yet somehow God made sure I watched them back to back nights – because they reminded me of Penelope and gave me comfort. “Blessed are those who mourn, for they shall be comforted.”
The thing about it is that even though Henrietta is with God, she’s also somehow close by. We don’t know how it all works. God is multi-dimensional. We may not figure it out even after we’ve crossed over ourselves to that better place in the sky with God and Hen.
It should simply be enough to know that, “With God all things are possible.”
And that “God will even take what the devil means to destroy us with – and turn it for our good.” The timing of Hen’s passing and memorial was incredibly sad, but held special meaning, somehow. It was said by Hen's little nephew Gregory that God needed Hen pronto as a babysitter for the 20 kids who lost their lives in Newton, Conn.
Henrietta’s memorial send off was December 21, 2012 – which also happened to be my Ol’ Da’s 10th birthday anniversary since he passed. He would have been 84. Then, within days of learning about Henrietta’s passing, we got the sad, sad news that our loving and generous Uncle Ted from my mother’s side of the family had gone on as well. He was memorialized the same day as Hen.
Uncle Ted was a long sitting Common Pleas Court judge, longtime holder of “favorite uncle” status, and exemplary family man to his four lovely daughters, sons-in-law and ever growing brood of grand kids.
The way I see it, Henrietta had a fatherly figure as an escort into heaven – a man familiar enough with the limitations of the law in this world to unflinchingly believe and advocate in the authenticity of the true Supreme Court in the sky.
As he was so good at doing for all his extended family, Uncle Ted would assuage any possible anxieties Hen had, and the two would walk through the pearly gates together. Mom, aka "Mamby," my O’l Da’ and Aunt Betts would be among a host of departed loved ones to greet them.
I can’t begin to know the deep sense of loss that only my brother, his wife and my two beautiful loving nieces feel. But I know I hurt. And if I hurt, their pain is that much greater. But there is hope. Always is.
Last night, family and I sent up a sky lantern to Henrietta. In the boatyard where I live, I lit the burner and held the lantern. We watched as the flame grew and the hot air quickly expanded the red paper lantern with silver snow flakes.
I held it tight until I felt a gentle tug and was sure it was time to let go. The lantern immediately lifted up in the cold Christmas Eve eve night air to an array of ohh’s and ahh’s. Even a nearby seabird in the marina called out with a screech as the mini hot air balloon-like lantern launched. Better than fireworks.
Like a hot air balloon it rose rapidly, wasting no time heading for the Atlantic Ocean. It happened so fast. Soon it looked like the flashing light of an airplane high overhead. Even from such a great distance though, it visibly flashed and glowed red a couple of times, prompting more ahh’s.
Then, within a couple minutes, it became a bright twinkling star in the eastern sky. A star in the east – two days before Christmas. Henrietta was smiling down. God was winking.
Finally, the lantern was so far away, that we couldn’t see it anymore. It was invisible to the naked eye. But we knew that it was still out there somewhere – soaring higher and higher towards Heaven. Free at last.
