The voice was stunning - throaty, hoarse, old; not the voice of youth which routinely comes out of the radio but of a woman long lived. I happened on it in the car last weekend. Press ``seek'' and look what ye shall find..
Read MoreIn all the words written about the death of Rosemary Kennedy last week, no one has said what is most important. That she changed everything. The slow one. The one the father tried to hide and the mother tried to protect. This woman, whom the world wrote off, changed the mindset of the world…
Read MoreThe waves are gentle, the ocean in the background wide and calm. Reporters stand on the sand with their back to the water. You'd envy them normally. Snow here. Sun there.
Nobody says, ``This is exactly how it was 12 days ago.'' Light dancing on the water. Waves lapping the shore. Nobody has to…
Read MoreIt was an act of faith on his part to let me pick out the couch. A couch, after all, is not a dress. You can't take it home, walk around in it for a while, ask everyone's opinion, come to the startling realization that flowers on your backside are not the most flattering thing, then bring the dress back for a full and cheerful refund. A couch, specifically a sectional, special-ordered 12 weeks ago, cannot be returned or exchanged…
Read MoreMy living room is all dressed up for a party. It's never looked better. It's bedecked and bespangled, garland over the fireplace, a tree in the middle of the room, white lights, fake snow. Think Lana Turner in ``Imitation of Life.''
I peek at it every day and think, ``I should sit in here and enjoy this for a while.''
But I don't.
Read MoreNo 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.
Read MoreIt doesn't exactly answer the question of where Brown Bear went. But it raises some possibilities. The headline boasted: ``Fossil Indicates Brown Bear Went South,'' which, if you're a scientist or rationally inclined, would indicate that something big had been uncovered in nature. But I read the headline and thought, ``Brown Bear went south? Is this a clue? Is Brown Bear in the cellar? Or in South Boston, maybe, though South Boston is really north of me. Or maybe ``south'' means simply ``under something.'' Under a cushion? Under a bed? Could Brown Bear be hiding?
Read MoreHe wasn't raised to kill. Marine Lance Corp. Jeff Lucey grew up in Belchertown with his mother, father and two sisters. He was a Cub Scout. He played Whiffle ball and team sports. He had lots of friends but only one girl. He had a great life…
Read MoreThe conference at Brandeis University was for teachers and it was sold out.
I too went to learn, but I likely wouldn't have gone before Lucy came into our lives.
Read MoreWe've been meeting for nine years, now - nine years, once a year, for only four hours. Which means we've spent just 36 hours together. You'd think that a single friendship, never mind a group friendship, wouldn't thrive with so little time. You'd think that too much would happen between the years to be able to pick up, in conversation and in feeling, where we left off. You'd think that women who don't see each other regularly and don't share the same work or hobbies would grow apart. Instead we grow closer…
Read MoreI would have more in common with her now. I would sit at her kitchen table and drink my tea and eat the Pepperidge Farm oatmeal raisin cookies she always bought for me and not have one eye on the clock and one foot out the door. I would listen to her stories and take her advice and not be so quick to say, ``But things are different.'' ``But I'm not you.'' ``But you don't understand.''
She understood…
Read MoreThere's something about growing older that makes a person a little nutty about the seasons. It makes a person behave as if she's never before seen a tree turned all orange, or a pumpkin, or a garden transformed by mums. ``Hey, what do you know? It's fall, already. Hard to believe that summer is over. Where did it go?'' What child says these things? Or adolescent walking to school? ``Look at the way the sun lights up that yard. And the berries on that mountain ash. Wow.'' This does not happen. But adults? We're consumed by the changes a season brings…
Read MoreThe nose is missing. My father says it has to be in the glove compartment of my car because that's where I told him I'd put it. He said I called specifically to say that the nose was in a baggie ``in my glove compartment, Dad'' so that I'd have it with me the next time I visited.
Read MoreI buckle her in her car seat and tighten the straps, leaving her just enough room to breathe and I head out into the world with this baby who is my daughter's and son-in-law's life, who had to fight so hard for life, who is our gift and our joy. She babbles as I drive, unaware of how vulnerable she is despite straps and padding. But I'm aware. I've been aware since her mother was pregnant with her and we were in a cab and the driver was speeding and I said, slow down, she's having a baby.
Read MoreThis was the summer of my content, months I will look back on always with gratitude. A time I will miss and wish for every day for the rest of my life, but that I will be thankful I had. This was the summer my family truly celebrated life, not every minute of every day, and not with balloons or parties or prayers, though there were these things, too. But with a keen and constant awareness of all the good moments an ordinary day brings, and of how lucky we were to be having them…
Read MoreThey would have been married 58 years today. Hard to believe, but not hard to imagine. I imagine they would have been good years.
I remember when they were married for only a decade. I was nine then, my mother 31 and prettier than any mother I knew: tall and thin with dark blond hair, which she claimed was hard to curl but it always looked perfect to me. She wore dresses every day. And high-heeled shoes. And a hat and gloves to church every Sunday.
Read MoreShe said she doesn't love him anymore.
She said, ``I don't feel the way I used to. He annoys me. He won't do what he's told. He whines all the time. And there's the issue of his hair. It's everywhere - all over the rugs, all over the furniture.''
But she still loves him, I know, because when he went missing the other night, she called in a panic and insisted, as only someone blinded by love could, that he wasn't lost but that he had been stolen.
Read MoreKids do it all the time. Maybe that's why they're happy. Rain or shine, summer or winter, they wake up every day, eager for the day because the world is their playground. The littlest kids are the happiest. A book entertains them - or a pot, or a sliver of sunlight shimmering on the floor. I watch Adam, who is 4 months, smile at his mother and follow her with his eyes…
Read MoreNatalie Babbitt created this day. Not intentionally. And not really. She simply pointed out in her wonderful children's book ``Tuck Everlasting'' that ``the first week of August hangs at the very top of summer, the top of the live-long year, like the highest seat of a Ferris wheel when it pauses in its turning. The weeks that come before are only a climb from balmy spring, and those that follow a drop to the chill of autumn, but the first week of August is motionless and hot.''
Read MoreThey invoke God and quote Scripture and past presidents (Lincoln, FDR and Kennedy are the favorites). And include catch phrases like ``My fellow Americans'' and ``My friends.'' And they all talk about getting America back on track.
Democrat or Republican, the acceptance speeches by presidential nominees are the same. They're like milk. Hood or Garelick, who can tell the difference? Only the fat content varies. (Some are so thin you can see right through them.) And delivery. Delivery - with milk or speeches - is key.
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