Don’t Perform Your Goodness - Just Live It
The guy came to the United States in 1954. He mastered broken English, and as a carpenter, he could fix just about anything with his hands. Unlike the other Italian kids in my neighborhood who had more traditional names for their grandfathers, we just called him Grandpa. That was pretty American of us, considering the adult table conversations were still mostly in Italian – especially as they sipped homemade wine and nibbled on sliced meats that had been hanging in my grandfather’s basement for months.
During one of his hospital stays before he passed away, I was sitting with him in his room, which he shared with some other guy who was totally out of it. A curtain separated the two beds. I remember many of Grandpa’s stories – like how his thumb got to looking the way it did (it was awful), or his thoughts on going to church. The only time I ever saw him set foot in a church was for baptisms and weddings. He had a lot to say about priests, collection baskets, stained-glass windows, and those giant mahogany doors. Even though his wife of 56 years went every Sunday – and a few weekdays in between – he wouldn’t go. His house was literally 1,100 feet from St. Joseph’s Roman Catholic Church, where I was baptized. It wasn’t just that he had no interest – he actively disliked the place. It annoyed him.
So I’m sitting there with him in that hospital room, and he’s jabbing at me again about the church. It’s incredible how vivid that memory still is. His bed was to the right as I walked in, propped halfway between sitting and lying down. The guard rails were up on his left side, but not on the right. That’s where I sat, in a gray pleather padded chair. Back then, the remote control was still on a cord. Volume dial, three buttons: on/off, channel up, channel down.
Left to Right: My Uncle; My Grandfather: My Dad - No Clue who the Soprano’s looking fella on the porch is
By the ‘90s, real remotes were everywhere – but not at Niagara Falls Memorial Medical Center. There, the TVs were mounted on metal swivels protruding from the wall, and you couldn’t even turn them on without that old-school umbilical remote. If you got admitted, you had to wait for someone to activate your TV. And no, it wasn’t included in your hospital stay. Gotta pay extra to watch the tube.
I don’t know when the nickel-and-diming BS of everything began, but recently, I paid $165/hour for movers – then $4 per roll of packing tape. Tape costs fifty cents when bought in bulk. They said they used 25 rolls. Some restaurants now charge extra for blue cheese with your wings. Airlines charge extra to bring luggage. I imagine some people sat in those hospital rooms for days, in silence, because they couldn’t afford the damn TV. That had to suck.
Oh, and paying extra for blue cheese is like paying extra for a ketchup packet with your hot dog. Does that make sense to you?
Back to the hospital. While I’m sitting there, a priest walks in. It’s Sunday – so he’s making rounds, asking if patients would like Communion or a blessing. For the non-Catholics: Communion is a tiny wafer. It melts in your mouth quickly – not slow, like an M&M. The priest says, “Rafaelle, would you like Holy Communion or a blessing?”
I sit up. This is going to be good.
Without hesitation, not even a blink, my grandfather points to the container of wafers. “Rafaelle, receive the body of Christ,” the priest says. Grandpa opens his mouth, accepts the wafer, and the priest moves on.
I was floored. “WHAT?!” I laughed. “You don’t even go to church!”
Grandpa just shrugged. “No gonna hurt.”
I pushed: “But you hate church.”
He replied, “You see…the church, it come-a here. I no go to da church.”
He had a point.
Then he said something that’s stayed with me ever since. He told me he didn’t go to church because in his whole life, he never went out of his way to hurt anybody. And if he could help someone, he helped them. He said there are people at church who hurt others on purpose. They go out of their way to do it. So they must go to church. They do bad all week, then sit in a pew on Sunday, only to go out and do it again the following week.
He wasn’t wrong.
He wasn’t educated in theology. He couldn’t quote scripture. But the man lived by his values. He worked hard. He fed his family. He opened his doors. He helped when he could. And he never needed titles, praise, or applause. In his eyes, you were either good to people, or you weren’t. You either showed up when it mattered, or you didn’t.
We’ve made things so complicated in this world. We rate people by résumés, judge them by headlines, and cancel them faster than we forgive them. But Grandpa reminded me that real goodness is quiet. It’s not performative. It lives in the little things. It's who you are when nobody’s watching – or maybe, when your grandson is watching.
That day in the hospital stuck with me. Because it reminded me that grace can show up in unexpected places – even in a worn hospital room, with a three-cent wafer and a man who hadn’t been to a Mass in decades.
I’ve learned a lot since then. About failure. About redemption. About what truly matters. And now, as I raise a son of my own in a world that often chooses image over integrity, I think about my grandfather more than ever.
So here’s what I’ll pass down:
Don’t perform your goodness…just live it
Help when you can
Apologize when you should
And don’t be afraid to receive grace – especially when it comes late, and even if you think you don’t deserve it
Because maybe the church didn’t need my Grandfather.
But his family sure did.