So you can get on Ancestry.com and start or connect to your family tree. Since I have been doing this breakfast, the friend tree to me is more interesting. Tom Kutz did this on his basketball pool once and tracked how everyone came to join in. If it was not for Holly Dame and Mary Kay Gorman, there might never have been good friends Sarah and Michele. If it was not for Shona Clarkson, well pretty much everyone in Uganda and all my T/EX friends which means no Brooklyn Rose baby this past year at my parent's house.
Back a decade or so ago, we would have 50 or 60 freshmen students try out for Nerinx basketball. It was one of my favorite days of the year, on one of those big days, I met a skinny, goofy laughing kid named Lauren Lampe. She would instantly become one of my favorites. Short story, she once got poked in the eye during a game and refused to come out. Then while still blinking and holding her eye, she called for the ball because she was open for a 3. She made the shot.
I met Andrea Seper her best friend through Lauren and soon they were both signed up and ready to go to Biloxi. I remember I gave Andrea the nickname "Kickster" and Lauren busted her chops on the nickname, because she called Andrea the least likely to ever be a kickster. I remember how that whole conversation went down. You could tell they had known each other for a long time and this was just going to be one more laugh to share.
Mike Seper was one of the dads over the years who decided he was going to join his daughter in Biloxi and take a week off of work, (never easy for anyone, but HOLY COW the work that dads have done to be with their daughters on this week is amazing). Mike was always a guy ready to pitch in, the group was so large then, I do not know if Mike has any skills or not. I just know he was always ready to do more, to work harder, and to add that extra special touch. We were working on a house on Heidenheim. Right down the street from a house, we helped build from the ground up. There was a lot of green algae or growth on this house, and our job was just to make everything look better. Mike noticed that the front porch had a wood railing and exactly one spindle or vertical piece was missing. He then made it his mission to find this piece, paint it up and get in installed. I do not always see the special touches that over 100 parents have added to this trip, but I remember quite a few. Mike was relentless in getting this right and making it look good. I am not sure how many stores he went to or how many trips it took, but it was going to get done. With just a lot of power washing, some new green paint, and Mike's spindle. This house looked immensely better in just a couple of days. There was a Bank of America commercial that advocated service a couple of years ago. They used a song from Antje Duvekot that used the line , "someone got a paint brush and is painting over doubt." hear it.
We all need a paint brush, a good coat of paint on the worst house brings promise and hope, it gets rid of doubt. Maybe no one saw the spindle, but maybe this small kindness "tossed petals in the stream" for someone and started a ripple that gave someone their worth. I know stories and their next chapters for a lot of people that we work with in Biloxi, but what we try to do is just share kindness and treat people like the wonderful people they are-- on their best day.
I know that Mike Seper has been Facebook friends with my parents for some time. They often laugh at his posts or his puns. When I told them that I was going to breakfast with the Sepers, they had forgotten all about the Biloxi connection. I think I might have been the branch for the Linda and Mike Seper and Jane and Jack Magee to connect. I know that every time the Sepers saw my parents at St. Dominic Savio Mass, he walked up to them, greeted them with a smile, and wished them well. He then would tell them how good they looked, sometimes this was after hospital stays, new hips or some kind of health problems. I know his words made my parents feel loved. This is the parish that is no more. Mike and Linda are kind of a half generation between me and my parents. I think of the friends that my parents had at St. Dominic's, there was the Holyoke bunch and the old neighbors--friend for more than 50 years, but there was also new friends like Mike that they had met somewhere along the way. Who knows whose Faith was increased just a little by the example of Jane and Jack Magee. Maybe just a couple, maybe more and who knows how many older people living alone who go to Mass each week because Mike Seper or Linda will say hi to them. This is what community looks like. Sadly that is over for the people of this parish.
I am a teacher...but because I stepped up either foolishly or compassionately I have had many different jobs in the last 10 years. Mike told me at breakfast, many of the different things he has done over the years. The last being a short, but wonderful stint at Tower Tee. (damn, another part of my youth that is gone). Linda watched young children and Mike kept working trying their best to do their best for their two children. I do not know their son, but I know Andrea and she is moving forward and now starting her own family. She does not have to look far for examples on how to live or how to love.
Mike Seper is a good guy. That is how I would introduce him if I was called to. He sold cars, he loves hockey, he has his own sense of humor. My friend Tony and I met the new boyfriend of a young woman we knew. As we left the bar he said, "That's all you want out of a guy, to be pleasant and to tell a couple of good stories." Mike and Linda told a couple of good stories while we enjoyed breakfast together. I am glad they both are in my life. Somewhere in the conversation, Mike said he had been married 45 years? and was quite happy. It was just an off the cuff remark about loyalty and love. I think they both know what they have -- a wonderful marriage where they both worked hard to do their best for their children. Now they get to sit back and see the smiles of their grandkids and watch their own children build their lives. I am jealous, I would like to be Mike Seper for a week.
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