Ah, peace aboard the Quiet Car

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The Quiet Car. Quiet. Even the word is hushed. Silent. Calm. Not busy or active. No talking in a LOUD voice to the person next to you. No talking on the phone. No radios blaring. No movies. No TV. No intrusive sounds at all.

The Quiet Car is Amtrak Acela's semisecret sanctum, and my once-in-a-while refuge, a place where noise of any kind is not allowed. Which is not always what I want, to be unplugged and silent and still, not when I'm traveling with friends or family or children. "Want some M&Ms? Want to play `Go Fish'? You really want me to read `Bear Snores On' again?" Sometimes noise is important.

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Lucy's learning. But are doctors?

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Lucy's learning. But are doctors?

When I brush my granddaughter Lucy's hair and put it in a ponytail, I always kiss the back of her neck. And she giggles. She is 3. She talks. She dances. She goes to school. She plays house and tea, and kick ball and follow the leader. She loves books and Bambi and church and playing with her cousin Adam. Lucy has Down syndrome. She looks and acts more like a 2-year-old than a 3-year-old. But is this so awful? Don't we say, "Children grow up too fast"? Lucy isn't growing up too fast. She's taking her time.

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House a symbol of what's wrong

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House a symbol of what's wrong

Beverly Beckham

It sits on top of a hill, overlooking a busy road - a big, pink stucco house that dwarfs all the houses around it. It is conspicuous consumption at its worst, or at its best, depending on your point of view. It's not the biggest house around. There are many bigger - one just a few miles from where I live, perched not on top of a hill but practically on the offramp of a highway. So many smaller houses have been knocked down to make room for these…

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Mourning the hidden tragedy in Iraq

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Mourning the hidden tragedy in Iraq

Adam is my prism. I look at life through his eyes. He is 20 months old, and everything is new to him. And so far, everything is good. He's loved. He's healthy. He sees the world as a safe place. I know the world isn't safe. And it scares me sometimes, the difference between what he sees and what I know. Life is fragile. It's why we swaddle infants, and put bumper pads in cribs and seat belts in cars and inoculate against disease. It's why parents don't sleep some nights, many nights, worrying about all that can go wrong.

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When we compare, we lose

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I am trying not to compare. Not stuffing. Not apple pie. Not last year with this year. Not table settings. Not houses. Not family rooms or family dynamics. Not anything.

Comparison, I've come to believe, is the eighth deadly sin.

I used to compare myself with Rosemary. We met in second grade. She had straight hair. Mine was curly. She wore skirts and sweaters. I wore frilly dresses. She had her very own kitchen drawer, which was filled with paper, books, paints and crayons. I had to keep my things in a toy box in my room.

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FEARING THE BAD WHEN LIFE IS GOOD

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FEARING THE BAD WHEN LIFE IS GOOD

You try to teach them the eternals, that life is good, and people are kind, and nothing is so bad that you can't get through it. And most days you believe this. But then you replay history, or you watch the news, or you pick up a paper and see the face of yet another person maimed, killed, robbed, blown up, beaten, kidnapped, raped, sick and dying, and you think you're selling your kids a pack of lies.

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WE'RE HOPING ALL OUR FEARS ARE WRONG

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WE'RE HOPING ALL OUR FEARS ARE WRONG

I am on the phone with Rosemary, my best friend since second grade. I used to talk to her on the old black phone in the kitchen of the house I grew up in. And she used to talk to me on the old black phone that sat on a table to the left of her front door.

"Want to come over?"

"I'll ask my mother."

Fifty-two years. At least a million conversations. This one is hard. They've all been hard since her son, Mark, left for Iraq.

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THEIR HOUSE WAS NOT A HEALTHY HOME

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THEIR HOUSE WAS NOT A HEALTHY HOME

Everything about the child is beautiful. She has beautiful hair, beautiful eyes (made even more beautiful by silver glitter she wears on the day we meet), a beautiful smile, and a beautiful soul. You can see a child's soul when they're new. "Where did you come from, baby dear? Out of the everywhere into the here." So says the poem. But as they age? Souls often hide.

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FRIEND'S LOVE CAN'T CALM MOTHER'S FEAR

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FRIEND'S LOVE CAN'T CALM MOTHER'S FEAR

It's not something we talked about, and we talked about everything. But not this. Not then. Not now. Not ever. Our imagined husbands might go off to fight a war someday, we said, and our sons, if we had sons, might someday be called to fight. We were, even as small children, familiar with battle. We'd read the poetry my father had written in combat. We'd watched "The Fighting Sullivans." But we never imagined the kind of war we're mired in now. We never anticipated raising a child and seeing him grown and married and settled, then suddenly unsettled and terrifyingly vulnerable. We never expected that at 35 he'd be called to serve.

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KEEPING THE BIG PICTURE IN FOCUS

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KEEPING THE BIG PICTURE IN FOCUS

What I know now, what I've learned but what I have to remind myself every day, is that none of it matters. The snow. Sitting in traffic. Missing a flight. Forgetting to TiVo "Lost." A bad cup of $2 coffee. A woman sitting in her car, WHAT IS SHE DOING JUST SITTING??? while you are waiting with your blinker clicking for her to pull out of a space so you can pull in because the parking lot is that crowded and it's not even a Saturday.

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`Baby Talk' contest takes down a barrier

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No hurt was intended. In fact, the young woman from the modeling agency was apologetic. In New York, it's different, she said. In New York, babies with special needs model for lots of companies. Boston just isn't there yet.

I didn't expect that Lucy would be chosen. I just didn't expect that she wouldn't be given a chance solely because she has Down syndrome.

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Truth amid Moore's propaganda

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No one I know goes to the movies anymore. My father says he can't sit that long. My daughter says she can't deal with the crowds. My friends say they haven't the time. My neighbors say they can't remember the last movie they saw. Even the guy who came to inject pellets into one of my trees last week said it has been years since he's been to a movie.

I tell them they need to see ``Fahrenheit 9/11.''

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Kindest words needn't be saved for the funeral

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Kindest words needn't be saved for the funeral

Before Ronald Reagan died we were talking about wakes and funerals. Before we heard the news on the radio, before the tributes and the retrospectives and the state funeral. Before his biggest event ever, my youngest daughter and I were sitting at the kitchen table discussing how sad it is that the ultimate celebration of a human life doesn't come until after a person is dead.

The dead can't smell the flowers people send. The dead can't enjoy the feel of a new suit. The dead can't smile at family stories or laugh at old jokes or look at someone he's known his whole life and put his hand on his shoulder and say, ``I never knew you felt that way.''

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Giving thanks always in season

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Giving thanks always in season

The thing about a thank-you note, says my friend Anne, who is the Dalai Lama of thank-you notes, who returns home after a quiet day with a friend and writes, ``I had the BEST time! Let's not wait so long to do this again,'' is that it has to be written immediately, while the moment is fresh. No putting off until tomorrow what should be done today. A thank-you note, like a popover, is best served fresh.

Not long ago, I sent Anne flowers to thank her for something - my thank you, of course, as stale as bread crumbs. ``Thank you for watching my children, when was it? In the spring of '84?'' And the next day, what did I get in the mail? Two pictures of the flowers - front view, back view - tucked in a note that said, ``I LOVE them!! Thank you.''

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