Today is the feast of St. Anne.  She is one of my favorite saints and coincidentally is my patron saint.  My middle name is Anne which is quite appropriate since I have 7 children and 10 grandchildren.  However, today is also an anniversary of the death of one of my dearest friends in the world.  Her name was Roxine and she was in a wheel chair and was a brittle diabetic.  Young people should take a page out of her book because that wheel chair and that disease  did not stop her from doing anything. 

She had to take a special van to get to church on Sunday.  She lived on the 7th floor of a very run down building in a dangerous area of the city.  Every Sunday without fail she showed up for Mass.  In those days our church was at the top of a long, winding  set of steps and she relied on many strong young men to carry her up.  I loved her so much that I chose her to be the Godmother of my youngest child Christopher.  I can tell you that no one outside of his parents loved Christopher more than her!  She would scooter her way to the store every week and buy him little trinkets but she never forgot the rest of the family either. 

 One time she surprised me with a set of dishes that were being given away week by week at a grocery store if you purchased a certain amount.  I'll never forget the beautiful look on her face when she gave them to me.  She was so happy and proud to be able to "pay" me back for my friendship.  The only thing is that I should have been paying her because I was getting a much better bargain than she was!  One time we were having a little financial difficulty which is common in large families from time to time.  I made an off comment about paying the phone bill.  Something to the effect of  "we better get some money to pay this bill or they will shut off our phone".  The very next day this saintly woman got on her scooter, drove to the Wisconsin Bell office on 35th Street and paid our phone bill!  She called me and said "there I paid it - I could never, ever live without hearing your voice!"  

After she died, we found a can of money - $500 - which she had saved out of her meager monthly pittance.  Her request was that Christopher be given that money on his 18th birthday.  She figured he would need it for school or a car and even though it wasn't much, it was the "widow's mite" for her!

People often say to me how terrible it was that I lost my mother so young - and it was!  But God, in His wisdom always  made sure there was someone wonderful to take her place.  Roxine was that person until July 26, 1999 at St. Joseph's Hospital.  I was there and so were our parish priests praying over her.  If charity covers a multitude of sins, and Our Lord said it does, then this awesome woman went straight to heaven.  Just in case though, I pray for her daily and think of her often.  I try to emulate her any way I can and hope that by sharing this story with you, you will emulate her charitable ways as well!