In Memory Of Joe Kralik

This afternoon, nine years ago today, I visited with my dad in the nursing home where he was being taken care of.

When I got to the wing, I pressed the button by the locked doors. Staff at the nurses station responded by pushing a button that unlocked the doors so I could enter. I checked with them and they told me that my dad was sitting in the day-room.

He was alone in the room.

Snoozing.

I simply sat there quietly for a while. I don’t know how long I sat. It was for a while. He was breathing quite well, but there was a sound in his breathing, in his chest, that sounded wet.

After a while I got up, stood beside him, touched him softly on his left shoulder, and spoke to him. “Daddy, it’s me, David. I’m here to see you and visit with you. Are you going to wake up and talk with me?”

He stirred a little, opened his eyes a little, and looked at me as though I was a total stranger.

“Daddy, it’s me, David.”

His eyes opened wide …. I am quite certain that he recognized me … and began to speak excitedly to me while pointing repeatedly toward the ceiling. I could not understand a word that he was saying. He was speaking in Czech, the first and primary language taught to him by his immigrant Czech parents, a language that he thought was of no value to teach to his 2^nd Generation American children.

“Daddy, you’re talking in Bohunky. I can’t understand a thing you’re saying. Talk in English.”

He kept on. Talking excitedly in his first language. Repeatedly pointing upward. Deep rattle in his chest as he talked and breathed. He never said a word in English. He spoke only in Czech.

I stayed with him for a good while before having to make my way home.

My phone rang around supper time, one of my sisters on the other end. “They’ve call from the nursing home and are calling the family in.” My response was, “I’m not surprised. We’ll be there in a little bit.”

My dad drew his last rattling breath a few hours later.

There are a lot of memories that I could share about my dad. One particular memory stands out among them all.

I remember when I sat with him and told him that Shirli and I had gone through the classes and become Catholics. I had no idea of how he would respond. His response? He simply looked at me, like only Joe Kralik could look at you, and said, “I am Catholic. I was baptized Catholic. The old man (speaking of his dad) was anti-Christ and wouldn’t let Ma take us to church after we were baptized.”

My phone rings a number of months after the conversation with my dad, my oldest brother (now gone to his rest as well) on the other end. “Daddy told me to tell you that he wants you to take him to the Catholic Church with you this Sunday.” My response was, “Really? You’re not pulling my leg are you?” “No. I’m not pulling your leg. That’s what daddy told me last night.”

After spending some time talking with my dad, I stopped in to see if our priest was where I could talk with him for a few minutes. He was.

I explained our situation, about the request that my dad had made the previous night, and that my dad was insistent that he needed to come to the church and take communion – something that, in all his (at the time) ninety years of life, he had never done in the Catholic Church. Father told me to bring him to Mass … that, considering the circumstances and my dad’s age, it was important that this happen.

It was a bit of a job to get him to Mass that Sunday morning. His ability to get around on two legs was pretty much gone. My brother stayed with him Saturday night, helped get him dressed and ready to go, helped me wheel him out of the house, down the steps, and loaded onto the seat of my truck. He and I in my truck. My brother and his wife in their car. Shirli in her car. We had us a little Kralik convoy into town.

We sat in a pew and my dad sat beside us in his wheelchair. When it was time to go forward to receive the Body and Blood of Jesus, I leaned over and asked my dad, “Are you sure that you want to go forward?” He looked at me and simply nodded his head with an affirmative nod. Words are unable to express the feelings of emotion that went through me as I rolled my dad to the front of the church and watched as he received the Body and Blood of Christ for the first time in his ninety years of life.

Shirli and I went for a drive today on the ninth anniversary of my dad’s death. We drove down to the cemetery where he is buried to simply honor him, hang out with him, and to pray for him. We took along a couple of camp chairs, a light picnic (Friday is, after all, a day of Fasting and Abstinence), a tall votive candle with Our Lady of Guadalupe on it, a simple Rosary to leave at his grave, and a breviary to recite the Office for the Dead.

Cemeteries are peaceful places.

They can also be painful places, places full of emotions and memories.

Cemeteries, every grave and headstone, are a visual reminder that the day is coming when each of us, too, must join those that rest beneath the soil.

Lord, hear our prayers.

By raising your Son from the dead, you have given us faith.

Strengthen our hope that Joe Kralik, both our earthly dad and brother, will share in his resurrection.

We ask this through our Lord Jesus Christ, your Son, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever.