Sweet Memory

   On August 24, 2014, 2:00 P.M., Theodore Ronald David Schroder was baptized at St. Mary's Church in Holliston, Massachusetts.  Godparents were Nikola Smy and Daniel Schroder, in whose absence Dave Schroder Sr. acted as proxy.  The ceremony was lovely and enjoyed by all, but I couldn't help but think how happy, and yes, relieved, Theo's maternal great grandmother would have been, and indeed, I hope is, in another plane of being.  I say she would have been relieved because Theo was eight months old, not the eight days she would have preferred.  Hers was the time when the belief was that unbaptized babies who died were consigned to Limbo, not Heaven, so the idea was to baptize as early as possible.  Back in the day, infant deaths were frequent, and  therefore the reason for haste. 
    "David's son."    
          My mother used to collect grocery stamps, mostly S&H, I believe.  She acquired a great number of them as she cooked for a lot of people and in generous amounts.  She would redeem the stamps for merchandise, and when the grandchildren arrived, it was her pleasure to spend her stamps on items for them---youth chairs, toys, tricycles, little 2-wheeled bikes with training wheels for the very beginners.  The first five grandchildren were spaced a year apart, so hand-me-down items were usual.  Some of the outgrown items eventually disappeared, either worn out or given to another family.  But there was one item my mother did not want to part with: A red tricycle, very sturdy and in very nice condition after passing through the five stages of use.  She put it away, in the small room at the top of the stairs.  She said she was "saving it for David's son."    David was probably about nine years old at the time, and why she specified his son, I don't know.  The tricycle remained in that room until after my mother died; what became of it is lost in time, but she did anticipate the time that David would have a son.