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Do angels have a sense of humor? I'd like to say that I'll find out one day, but for now, it's only a guess because of my ability to botch the most innocent of situations like your typical half-hour TV sitcom.
Case-in-point: Easter Sunday.
I was trying to do the right thing, but that doesn't always work for me. After watching my church service on the internet, I decided to go to the cemetery to take decorations for my father, mother and my brother Stevie's tombstone.
Maggie, my daughter, and one of my sons, Vincent, were working on putting their decorations in front of my mom and dad's site. My other son, Dominic, and I were putting our gift in front of Stevie's tombstone.
As Dominic was holding the piece, I began to dig a hole with a piece of wood, my arms going side-to-side in the process. Then. … boom! I knocked over the tombstone and the giant angel that was on top of the tombstone, which had been at the cemetery since Stevie was buried there in May 1963.
I've been going to that cemetery, across from Bishop Guilfoyle, all of my life. It's safe to say that this had never happened before to me.
I was sick, just sick.
Maggie and Vincent stared at me stunned and asked how I knocked it over. I know I'm a big guy, and I know my wife calls me a "bull in a china shop," but I'm telling you, I grazed it.
Dominic came to my defense, and knowing that I am hardly the strongest guy in our house, spoke up to say I barely touched it.
The four of us tried to lift it back up, and it was heavier than we thought, but we got it upright. Looking back now, a few weeks later, I'm stunned I didn't recreate a scene from "I Love Lucy" in trying to rectify the situation.
So I called my brother, John, gave him a quick description of the "Three Stooges" event that happened, triggered by me, and then awaited his arrival. I thought he was going to be upset, but he wasn't.
He came with a sense of humor.
As he was assessing the situation, he starts telling me about the scene from Chevy Chase's "European Vacation" movie in which Chase -- Clark Griswold -- backs into one of the stones at Stonehenge, and then drives away, knocking all of them over like he was playing dominoes.
He thought he was going to see that upon arriving.
My kids were ready to defend me, but as soon as they saw Uncle Johnny laughing, they also started to laugh. I could not laugh yet.
There was a debate among my brother and my kids about whether my mom and dad were laughing at me, or with me.
My daughter called home to alert my wife, who was probably thinking that if you can make a virtual trip to the cemetery in the future, now was the time for her to figure one out for me.
Every time I told the story to a friend, they kept telling me, "You've got to put that in your column."
I didn't start to feel better until my brother informed me that the cemetery took care of things and fixed the tombstone.
Now when I get to heaven -- hopefully no time soon -- the first thing I have to do is apologize to everyone involved.
I think my dad will just smile and wink, but as to how my mother viewed everything, I'll just hope she still has that sense of humor I inherited from her.
That's why I consider her my guardian angel.
Mirror Sports Writer/Copy Editor Scott Franco writes a monthly column.