In every end, there's a beginning

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In every end, there's a beginning

I found it in a card shop in Concord, N.H. - Caardvark's, a place that is now closed. It was hanging on a wall and it was perfect.

I'd been looking for perfect. My daughter was newly engaged and I wanted something special to celebrate the moment. For this was my baby who was getting married, my youngest child leaving home not for a little while, not for college, or for a summer, or to test her wings. But to fly away - with someone else - forever.

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Never Say Never

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“The tooth is missing. It will never come in. Missing teeth are common among children with Down syndrome,” the specialist told my daughter and son-in-law months ago.

He didn’t cushion his words. He didn’t say, “May not.” He said never.

And then last week, there it was – a lower right lateral incisor, next to her lower right central incisor, exactly where it belongs.

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Father Coen made it easier to keep the faith

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Father Coen made it easier to keep the faith

It was easier when Father Coen was alive. His faith was strong and certain, and as long as he was here, my faith was strong and certain, too. I called him my window through whom I saw God. And he said, "God is everywhere. You know that." I know it sometimes, but not all the time. Not enough of the time. Not the way I knew it when he was here to remind me…

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A new baby brings a song to her heart

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Lucy is my first grandbaby, and her song just came. I didn't expect it, so I didn't go looking for it. It found me.

I was singing all the time back then, when my first daughter was pregnant. "You Are The Sunshine of My Life" and "My Special Angel." "You'll Never Know Just How Much I Love You" and, of course, "Baby Love."

The baby wasn't even close to being born, but I was already head over heels in love. And people in love are known to do some strange things, like walk on clouds and burst into song.

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Releasing a treasure trove of memories

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Old memories, like flotsam and jetsam, bob to the surface at odd times. I am sitting in church with my granddaughter, Lucy, loving the feel of her arms around my neck. She is all mine in church, no distractions, no one to whisk her away. And I am thinking about Father Coen, and how he used to say that it didn't matter if children understood the Mass. Their presence was enough. That taking kids to church was like taking them to baseball games. Eventually they would come to know and love both.

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Memories, a faraway laugh, in a birthday phone call

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Memories, a faraway laugh, in a birthday phone call

`It's Janet’s birthday," I tell the person who answers the phone, expecting her to say, "It is? I'm so glad you mentioned this." Or "I know. We're having a little party this afternoon." But she says, "Oh." She says it flat, without inflection, in a way that means "I don't care. What difference does it make? Why are you telling me?"

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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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After decades of darkness, light

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After decades of darkness, light

Her history is hospitals. They're where she lived, where she grew up and where parts of her died. They were the best hospitals, the Ivy Leagues of psychiatric care. Her father, a heart surgeon, trusted these places, with their names that overshadowed their failures. They had big reputations and bigger price tags. He took her to one after another. But his daughter slipped deeper into herself and further away from him. He wouldn't give up. He refused to accept the "We're sorry, but there's nothing more we can do" he kept hearing. "If you try something four times and it doesn't work, then you try it again," says Dr. Frank Spencer, now in his 80s.

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I'm sure she knows I loved her

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I'm sure she knows I loved her

She died on a Monday in September between a weekend when my son was home and a Tuesday night pizza party. The sun didn't blink; the world didn't pause. Nothing happened - there was no presentiment of change, not even a flicker of feelings to make me think of her, my long ago friend, a woman I loved, a woman who was good to me, passing through and by and on. Flo Grossman died on Sept. 25 and I didn't know until Dec. 19. How can this be? The world should have felt different that Monday - slighter, duller, because the space filled by a vibrant life was suddenly left vacant.

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Helping one family at a time

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Helping one family at a time

Terry Orcutt spends her days on the phone and most evenings, too, listening, taking notes, asking questions. "Where do you live? What do you need? How many children do you have?" Her concern is real. Her love for people she doesn't know is real, too. It's what drives her and what sustains her, call after call. "Love one another as I love you." This is Christianity's number one rule. Terry Orcutt lives this rule. She loves without question. She sees God in all people. So does her husband, Jim.

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Gifts we count on every Christmas

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Gifts we count on every Christmas

It stays the same. That's what I love about Christmas. In a world that is always changing, Christmas doesn't. It may get a bit grander every year, yes, and the season starts a little sooner. But the hymns and the colors and the lights and the gift giving, the baby in the manger, Santa at the North Pole - the crazy, religious, secular mix that is this holy day/holiday hasn't changed in my lifetime. "Hark! The Herald Angels Sing" and "Here Comes Santa Claus" I sang as a kid and I'm singing now.

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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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The loneliness of old age cries out for comfort

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`They're all so busy." That's what she says whenever I ask about her family. She insists that they aren't ignoring her, that they're busy with work and school and friends and shopping and sports and meetings. That's why she doesn't see them often. She understands. She's not complaining. She used to be busy, too, her door always open, people coming and going, the phone ringing, then more people stopping by. It was a whirlwind for 20, 30, 40 years, and she was at the center, in the kitchen cooking, baking, the teapot always warm. She was a joiner, too. She belonged to church and civic groups. She rang other people's doorbells. She didn't stand still, not ever. Life was always too full of things to do.

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