Baby Jesus

I arrived at the cafe Thursday night and in walks this vibrant lady. Penny, a knit night regular, sees her come in and called her over to our table.

Penny was at a local vegetable market during the day and saw the most wonderful sweater and just KNEW it was hand made. She followed the lady all throughout the market and then finally asked her about the item attracting her attention. Right there in the middle of the isle, these two women became fast friends and were actually asked to leave the store because they were talking too long! Penny tells this lady with the wonderful sweater about knit night.

"Mary, welcome!" exclaims Penny as she starts to rattle off names. Mary sat next to me and I'm very glad she did as that lady sure does know how to spin a great yarn. We were in stitches that entire night and I have to admit, we didn't get much knitting accomplished.

Mary was from Malta and immigrated to the United States with her father when she about 20. She met Tony and they wed. For their honeymoon, they decided to spend about 3 weeks in Malta and then go to Spain to visit an Uncle before heading back to the United States.

Mary wanted just one thing to remember her trip and when she found a statue of Baby Jesus she decided that "this was it." She and Tony carefully packaged the Infant in some tissue paper and placed Him in a shoe box in order to survive the long travels.

In Spain, Mary's uncle gave her some pickled pigs feet wrapped in a cloth. She said that Tony had "no idea what pickled pigs feet were and wanted to know what you do with them."

"well you eat them of course" she explained.

"oh, ok"

Faced with the dilemma of getting the delicacy back home, she took the Baby Jesus out of his shoe box, wrapped Him in the dirty laundry and put the pickled pigs feet into the shoe box. Tony, of course, was none the wiser.

At Customs in New York, they were living in New York at the time, the officer asked if they had anything to delcare. Mary tried to tell him about the pickled pigs feet while Tony tried to "shush" her.

"Well I was a bit mad at him for shushing me. I don't like that. Shush Shush. How would he like it if I shushed him?"

The officer seeing this, asked them to open their luggage. The shoe box grabbed his attention.

"what's in the box?"

"Its... the...." Mary tries to explain.

"Shush"

"But Tony..."

"Shush. Its Baby Jesus Officer."

The officer asked them to open the box. As Tony opened the box he was mortified to find the pickled pigs feet. Clearly confused, he looked to Mary who explained everything.

The officer told them that he had seen it all but this put the icing on the cake!

Mary had us in stitches that night and there were times we were crying from laughing so hard.

Today I found out that Mary had passed away. Last November she was diagnosed with stage 4 lung cancer. Rest in peace Mary, I will always remember your great stories.