Northville — Kevin and Kathy Lynch said that one of their favorite memories of their late neighbor was simply having dinner with him.

“It would be the most splendid Italian cooking, combined with Polish as well,” remembers Kevin Lynch, who with his wife lived in the same Northville neighborhood as Cardinal Edmund C. Szoka in the years following his retirement.

The Lynches recall numerous meals with the cardinal, fellow neighbors Dr. Tim and Andrea Bliss, and the two Felician sisters who cared for Cardinal Szoka, Sr. Mary Hiacenta, CSSF, and Sr. Mary Damiana, CSSF.

Kathy Lynch said she remembers “a lot of laughter, a lot of sharing; we’d be over there for hours… he had such a dry sense of humor and loved to laugh, and loved to tell you history and things like that.”

“I think we learned more about global economics sitting at Cardinal Szoka’s dinner table, than you could ever learn in a college classroom,” she said.

Kevin Lynch said that Sr. Mary Hiacenta had actually hand-raised two young cardinals, a male and female, which to this day will return to visit Cardinal Szoka’s house.

“They were essentially cardinal-bird-pets. I thought it was very appropriate!” he said, adding that Sr. Mary Hiacenta would sing “Ave Maria,” and the birds would show up.

Kathy Lynch described Cardinal Szoka as a “good, kind man,” highlighting the story of when their son, Michael, studied abroad in Tunisia, and came down ill with a serious parasite.

Cardinal Szoka had already told Kevin and Kathy Lynch, who were in Rome at the time and planning to meet with their son, that if they needed anything to call his secretary from his days in the Vatican.

Calling the cardinal’s secretary, who was still in Rome, the Lynches were astonished to learn that their son was being brought to see a doctor in the Vatican.

“When Michael came back I said, ‘How was it?’” said Kathy Lynch. “And he said ‘It’s just like any other doctor’s office except I wasn’t a priest or a nun.’ This was the kind of thoughtfulness he had.”

The cardinal’s kindness extended to when Kathy Lynch’s father was very ill, “and had a lot of questions” about life and eternity. Having met Cardinal Szoka once before, he asked his daughter to ask the cardinal his questions.

“And so I would go over and we would have a conversation,” she remembers. “He was kind and generous and always sat and talked to me.”

Kathy Lynch, who is a convert to Catholicism, said that they joked that she was “his favorite former Lutheran.”

Kevin Lynch said the loss of Cardinal Szoka is still very surreal.

“We’re so used to seeing him and being with him,” he said. “(But) we know he’s gone; we know where he’s at; we’re going to miss him very much.”