A FINE IRISH SURPRISE JOSIE'S `ROSES' HERE IN TIME FOR MICHAEL.

Byline: DENNIS McCARTHY 

Send the roses while someone is alive, Sister Elizabeth Sheehy always told her students at Alemany High.

``Don't be filling the coffers of florists after they're gone.''

Michael Heffernan's roses arrived from Ireland last week: Four nieces and one nephew -- his late sister Josie Mulvihill's children.

That's when the five, who had pooled their money, flew to Los Angeles to pay their only uncle on their mother's side a surprise visit.

To tell him ``thank you'' in person for not forgetting them back in Ireland all the years after he came to America in 1960 in search of a future.

``Our mom died young and dear old Uncle Michael never forgot our birthdays,'' said niece Noreen Collins. ``Not once. If we needed a helping hand, he was there for us.

``When you're growing up in a poor country going through hard times, a birthday card with some money in it from America meant an awful lot.''

When Josie's children learned their 77-year-old uncle wasn't feeling well enough to travel to Ireland to see them for maybe the last time, they arranged with Michael's daughter, Michele, to pay him a surprise visit.

``You should have seen his face when he saw us,'' said niece Ina Ahern. ``It was so beautiful. All the memories came flooding out. We all cried like babies.''

By Friday afternoon, a week of sightseeing and day tours were over. Josie Mulvihill's children had a plane to catch back to Ireland early Saturday morning.

Friday night, they would sit at the dinner table with their uncle, his wife, Patty, and their two children, Michele and Brian.

They would share stories, a lot of laughs and a few tears. Sister Elizabeth joined them.

She spent 25 years teaching at Alemany High in Mission Hills and grew up across the street from Michael in the town of Clounamno in County Kerry, Ireland.

``Liz was best friends with Josie, and I was friends with her two brothers,'' Michael said, breaking bread. ``I always liked to give her a bad time growing up, but watch out for her. She's a real troublemaker, that one.''

Everyone laughs because Michael's right. She is a real troublemaker. When you've been a nun for 61 years, you've learned a lesson or two, and you'd better listen to what she has to say or she'll give you the ``what for.''

Don't wait: Make sure the roses arrive before it's too late.

``Being in his home, together with his entire family right now in his life, was the greatest blessing Michael could have ever asked for,'' Sister Elizabeth would say later.

And, of course, she was right.

It was 1945 when she went off to a convent in Northern Ireland while Michael stayed in County Kerry with all the other young men -- trying to scrape out a living in a poor country going through hard, violent times.

``Everyone was poor, and there was no future any of us could see,'' Michael said.

In 1960, he arrived in America to find that future, beginning a job that became a career as a lab technician in the motion-picture business -- and marrying Patty, his wife of 43 years.

All the while remembering every niece and nephew back home and making sure his sister Josie's kids always got what they needed, including that birthday card every year with some cash in it from America.

Sister Elizabeth had lost track of the kid she grew up across the street from in Ireland. She didn't realize he had followed her to America until one Saturday in late 1960, when she returned to the convent at St. Genevieve's Church in Panorama City.

``A gentleman had come to see you,'' one of the other nuns said. ``He had a box of chocolates with him. Said his name was Michael.''

Sister Elizabeth smiled as she looked around the dinner table at her old childhood friend and his family Friday night, laughing and having a wonderful time sharing their memories.

Sending roses while someone is alive. Not filling the coffers of florists after they're gone.

dennis.mccarthy(at)dailynews.com

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Photo:

Michael Heffernan, seated, is surrounded by, from left, Mary Fitzgerald, Ina Ahern, Donie Mulvihill, Noreen Collins and Joan Dee, his nieces and nephew who traveled from Ireland to visit him at his home in Granada Hills.

Tom Mendoza/Staff Photographer