Grandfather leaves a model of courage, duty

/

The grandfather is the hero in this story, a humble, hardworking man who dedicated his life to his family, who had no dreams except theirs. "We didn't know," his grandchildren said. They'd heard the tales of his hardships - didn't all grandparents walk to school uphill both ways? - but they hadn't listened. One week ago, at his funeral, they listened and wept. Vincenzo Tagliarini was 13 in 1926 and living in Sicily, the oldest of four when his father died. He became a man overnight. He quit school and took over the family farm. He grew vegetables and olives, not just to eat but to sell. When his sister fell off a horse and died, he helped bury her, then returned to the fields to work.

Read More

TRAPPED IN HER BODY, SHE STILL TOUCHES HIS HEART

/
TRAPPED IN HER BODY, SHE STILL TOUCHES HIS HEART

They met in Virginia in 1946. They were in their 20s. She was a Navy nurse, and he was a Navy doctor. He noticed her in the cafeteria, then on the dance floor. "All the fly boys liked to dance with her." He liked how she walked - "Lily had her own kind of gait." And how "she could recite poetry like mad." And how, at the age of 16, "all on her own she decided to become a Catholic." There wasn't anything that Dr. Jack Manning didn't like about Lily Sharpe Fields. They married at the US Naval Chapel in Portsmouth, Va., and a year later Jack Manning brought his new bride and infant son home to Taunton…

Read More

Harsh images distort our outlook on life

/
Harsh images distort our outlook on life

They stood at the bottom of an escalator at T.F. Green Airport in Providence Thursday afternoon, three little boys and their grandparents, the oldest boy no more than 4. He was holding a sign that spelled out with different-colored crayons, ``WELCOME HOME, MOM AND DAD.'' The sign was bigger than he was. I wasn't the only one riding the escalator who smiled and then swallowed hard seeing this. A lady who'd been on my flight wiped tears from her face. Even the hardest faces softened. I didn't hear the grandmother say, ``Look. There they are!'' But I watched her point and saw the boys - all three of them - find their parents in the crowd and light up the way only children can, everything that matters to them on that escalator coming back home to them…

Read More

ST. ORDINARY: MOTHER TERESA'S HUMBLE LESSON

/
ST. ORDINARY: MOTHER TERESA'S HUMBLE LESSON

Last Sunday, in Roman Catholic churches around the world, the Gospel told the familiar tale of a rich man's quest for Paradise.

"It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of God," Jesus said.

This is a bold statement. But what does it mean? That the rich are doomed? That in the afterlife the poor finally get what they never had on Earth?

Read More

Mary was everyone's nice aunt

/
Mary was everyone's nice aunt

Aunt Mary wasn't my aunt. But that's what I called her. That's what most everyone who met her through her nephew, George, called her.

"This is my Aunt Mary," he'd say. And the name stuck, for it was a perfect fit for a woman who was like a favorite aunt - the one who always likes what you're wearing and praises your food and admires what you've done to your house and tells you you have nice children, even on days when they're not being so nice.

Read More

Canton loses Mr. Bright, a selfless citizen

/

Of course he had to die sometime. He was 86 and much as we wish it could be, people don't live forever. But it seemed that he would. It seemed as if he would always be sitting in his rocking chair on his front porch, his wife beside him, or making his way down Chapman Street to the L'il White Store, Cassie's now, but always the L'il White to him.

Read More

Mentor was the inspiration for a lifetime of memories

/
Mentor was the inspiration for a lifetime of memories

I met Bob Cormier in the fall of '81, nearly 20 years ago. Hard to believe. I drove to his house in Leominster to interview him, not knowing how to interview, winging it, freelancing for The Patriot Ledger, but what did I know? I wasn't a real writer. Bob Cormier was. I'd spent the summer reading his books, one right after the other, while my kids played, while my husband drove, while whatever was cooking on the stove burned. I loved his work. Could I come and talk to him? I wrote.

He answered on the thin, shiny, erasable bond paper that I will always associate with him. "I'd be happy to meet you and talk and be interviewed. I write at home. My telephone number is" and there it was.

He was that accessible.

Read More

A family grows yet forever stays the same

/

For years our two families went to the same church. The Thomas pew was down front on the right and ours was in the row behind them. They filled an entire pew because even 30 years ago there were a lot of them. I can picture them as they were: George and Barbara, the parents, old to me then, but not old to me now, sitting in their place at the end of the pew. Caryn, their eldest, was beside them. Then came Cheryl, Susan, George and Pam.

Read More

A good man remembered

/
A good man remembered

The present tense dominates the conversation:

"Brian's the most organized, disorganized person I know."

"He's my best friend."

"He's the kind of guy who, when there's an event coming, you hope he's there."

"He bought me a corsage. He called me up and asked what color my dress was. That's how he is."

They have come to talk about Brian Cody. They crowd around a conference table at Saint Patrick's rectory in Stoneham on a hot Sunday night. Some talk about Brian as a friend, teacher, brother, son. All talk about Brian as a man they love.

Read More

Some angels take human form

/
Some angels take human form

The poster has been hanging on my office door for nearly two years now. It's an angel poster. I've read it a hundred times. "Angels are the guardians of hope and wonder, the keepers of magic and dreams," it begins. Angels, as in spirits, heavenly visitors who keep you from harm's way; phantoms, shadows, apparitions, guardians from another world. That's what I've always thought…

Read More

Mother Teresa: Her message is love

/
Mother Teresa: Her message is love

I think of it as myth, now, as a fairy tale I once believed. Truth has been downsized to fit a package I can carry around with me. The whole truth grew too heavy and cumbersome with age. The whole truth demanded a responsibility I continue to shun.

But I remember the child who accepted the whole truth, the child I was, who knew that life on Earth was only a test, that Heaven was the reward, not anything we might win here on Earth, and that the sole purpose of existence was to love God in this world and be happy with Him in the next.

Read More

A place that gave women a chance closes shop

/

Celeste House is quiet these days. The old convent, converted four years ago into a home for recovering homeless substance-abusing women and their children, is closing shop.

Most of the beds on the second floor have been stripped clean. Photographs that once covered the walls are gone. In the playroom there is just one child, for only one mother remains here. All the others have been transferred to other homes for substance-abusing women throughout the state.

Read More

Thanks for all the good folks

/

I love this story: A Colombian scientist who has developed the first vaccine against malaria announced last week he is refusing offers of millions of dollars from American drug companies and giving his vaccine to the world.

Dr. Manuel Elkin Patarroyo has turned over all legal rights for the vaccine to the World Health Organization. His is a selfless act in a selfish world.

Read More

Everyone needs another mom

/

She was a shadow figure for years, made up of parts, never a whole. Her hands washed dishes, scrubbed pots, filled pans with oils and meats and spices. Her feet walked from the table to the countertop to the stove. Her voice was soft, and always friendly. "Do you two want something to drink?" Even when it was firm, it was never harsh. She suggested; she didn't demand.

Read More

Suburbs still fulfill the dream

/

New to this city, to this country, he wanted to know about suburbs. What they are, exactly? What they are like?

"They're safer than cities, are they not?" he asked. And though I said, yes, they are, I didn't explain that this is not their essence; that suburbs weren't born out of a need for safety. Suburbs, after all, have their roots, not in today's fears, but in yesterday's dreams.

Read More