Last week at 11:11 I along with the world lost my grandma, Celia O’Malley. As a comedian I’ve come to understand timing is everything. She was light years ahead with her love of green smoothies, flaxseed, Jimmy Butler and hatred of processed foods, Donald Trump and Fox News.
She was a timeless beauty who had eleven children and fifteen grandchildren who she loved very deeply. She taught me that like tea, you never know how strong someone is until they’re in hot water.
She moved from Rockfield, Aughagower, Westport County Mayo at sixteen years old, arriving via a weeks long boat ride across the Atlantic, through Ellis Island in 1957 to meet her uncle in Columbus, Missouri.
Once there she was told if she wanted to meet Irish people she’d have to go to Chicago so she saved her money and made her way here. Unfortunately, once she was in Chicago she was robbed of all her luggage and money and had to beg for a dime to call her uncle in Missouri who told her to find a job—ASAP. So, ever the entrepreneur she began a job as a waitress that very day. And thank god above she did.
She made it to one of the Irish Pioneer dances where my grandpa’s band -The Frank O’Malley band was playing. Once she walked in the door time stood still and my grandpa said to a friend “I’m going to marry her” and on October 31 1959 he did just that.
Rumor has it, back in Ireland my grandpa saw our grandma on the street and said the same thing. As the bandleader, he would time out the song so it would end when she was center stage and facing him. Timing is everything afterall. They went on to have eleven children and my fifteen favorite people, my fourteen first cousins and ME!
Grandma was at every single ice skating recital, orchestra concert and cheerleading competition. She loved basketball and like me, only tolerated baseball.
In her golden years she was an avid walker who criss crossed the length of Park Ridge like it was nothing. Because to her it was! The flat grid of the Chicago suburbs was no match for the gams that carried her across the Irish countryside as a young girl nor the young woman who managed half a dozen children at a time.
I was so blessed to have a grandma right in my neighborhood. Growing up with all my cousins, aunts and uncles made me aware that community, however it presents, is the most important thing we have.
We had family dinners of smoke butt and cabbage,chili, lasagne and chicken adobo (YES she did branch out from Irish food) and
more Catherine Clark brownberry whole wheat bread and land o’lakes butter than I’d like to mention. At holidays we would have four types of potatoes because just mashed is just lazy! As grandma aged we were all lucky to learn her recipes. Although learning from a natural was not easy, a heap of this-a dash of that is hard to measure.
The truth is, I won’t remember any of those recipes. I will remember the warmth of her hugs, the smell of her Jessica McClintock perfume and the lesson that all we have in this scary world of Fox News, anti-immigration legislation and another year of the Bulls being a disappointed, is each other.
I used to wonder as I sat with a dozen of my family members at yet another cousins freezing cold soccer game-why are we here? I for one could be at home on the couch watching an E! True Hollywood story.
It’s only now that she’s gone I realize that she was being an example for the rest of us. Even if that soccer game didn’t mean anything—which let’s be clear it didn’t because I hated soccer and none of my cousins were bending it like Beckham at 7–it meant something that we were there to support each other.
Looking back after this week without her, a frigid October morning of kids soccer doesn’t feel like a huge inconvenience. Nor does an unseasonably warm spring day in a tiny gym watching the smelliest middle schoolers who ever did exist miss yet another layup.
We got through those hours together, as a family. Keeping score, sharing glances, Werthers from our coat pockets and hugs at the end. No matter win or lose.
Last week we lost our matriarch and it’s been a doozy to say the least. Thankfully, she prepared us for this just as she did our first communions, trips abroad and leaving for college. We do it together.
Our parting gift was her leaving us at 11:11, an Angel number. She was always our Angel, before we even knew it. Because timing is everything and so was she💜
Thin Skinned 