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Then she calmly flipped it shut and stuck it back inside the bag.

I stared at her.

What's wrong? she asked.

Ma-when did you get a cell phone? I replied, my jaw dropping.

I dunno, Denis. But it sure comes in handy.

And with that she jumped in the limo and I jumped in my truck and we traveled the eight blocks to the church where everyone in my family-from my father twenty-something years ago to my cousin Jerry The Firefighter-had been celebrated and mourned in their passing.

As I followed the limo I considered a world where my mom has been given a portable form of communication-she could now chastise, cajole, remind and update us from anywhere on the planet.

Holy shit.

In the church, several of the grandkids got up on the altar and spoke about Aunt Margaret-one of the funniest and sweetest and most devoted moms of all time. Many little details were brought up-her love of tea and her ability to feed a house full of screaming children without a whisper of a complaint or even breaking a sweat. My favorite little fact emerged from the altar: one of the grandkids remembered a roomful of grandchildren creating such a loud ruckus during a giant kid brawl that Aunt Margaret rushed in and said "If you kids don't settle down right now goddammit I'll sell each and every one of ya's to the Indians!"

We all laughed.

We had heard it before from my ma.

The fear of being sold off to live on a reservation with a tribe of Mohawks or Mohegans would make us sit right down and quietly watch the TV.

Of course, nowadays, being sold to the Indians only means you get a nice cut of casino profits while you live in a McMansion in the Connecticut suburbs.

After the funeral Mass we went to the Catholic cemetery and Aunt Margaret was buried amidst all the others in our American family plot, which sits very close to the edge of the expressway. As trailer trucks and mid-morning traffic sped by we took family shots in front of various head-stones belonging to our dead relatives-smiling and throwing our arms over each other's shoulders (as if to say "Look at us! We're still alive!")-and several of us tossed our chewing gum and cigarette butts over the fence into the Protestant cemetery just next door.

Then we all sat down in the nearby restaurant that used to be a diner-still the same ownership, though-and where something like ten of us had worked over the years: my brother Johnny and I as dishwashers, my sisters and many of my female cousins as waitresses. The elders were seated with the four priests who had said the Mass and the kids-which in this case means anyone under the age of sixty-were seated at several sets of tables all pushed together. We naturally began a series of stories remembering all the fights and stitches and stolen money and drunken Irish brawls and interpersonal resentments and we laughed until our tits almost fell off. One of my ne'er-do-well cousins who used to be a short-order cook in the place was confronted with the question why weren't you at Jerry The Firefighter's funeral? He and Jerry had been close in age growing up and when Jerry and the five other firemen were killed it was all over CNN and even President Clinton had come to the memorial service to speak yet this guy claimed he had been in France.

France?

Believe me when I tell you-the closest this guy had ever come to being in France was when he ordered extra fries at the McDonald's five blocks away.

My brother Johnny had the best response, though.

He said: Who'd ya go to France with? The Goddam Coneheads?

We once again laughed our tits off.

Then the actual kids-the ones aged twenty-one and under-began to tell their stories of almost killing each other: setting each other on fire, throwing knives and forks at angry Thanksgiving meals, stealing robbing stomping kicking jabbing jawing from, at, upon and with each other.

I sat there and listened as one young nephew complained about having to be at a funeral during his college spring break. Which led to a huge discussion from the rest of us older "kids" about how spring