I have to put on my glasses to see out the window these days. It's a sign of age, I know. Snooping probably is, too, but I've always done this. Lately I'm just enjoying it more. That's because Al lives across the street - Al and his wife Katherine. I don't see Katherine all that much. Most days she's at her daughter's, babysitting her granddaughter. Al is the one I see outside, no matter what the season, a whirling dervish powered by…
Read MoreI've saved the clipping for years A minor British stage actress died ages ago while I was visiting London and a newspaper dedicated nearly a quarter of a page to a remembrance of her life. It's a great obituary, so typical of the British. They don't just tell you that someone…
Read MoreA senior in college sends me a story she wrote. What do you think, she asks. Is it good enough? Am I good enough? An 80-year-old mails me an essay. 'I know it needs work. I know it could be better,' he explains. 'What do you think?'
I think that my opinion shouldn't matter…
Read MoreDamir Vrankic is 30 years old. He moved into a rented apartment in Allston last week. He has a bed, a table and two chairs. He owns a couple of changes of clothes and a watch someone gave him.
He doesn't have a car or a job. His family and friends live an ocean plus half a continent away. He has met a few people in Boston…
Read MoreThey're 16, sophomores in high school. Last time I saw them they were freshmen. He wore braces. She wore her hair long and loose like a child's. They sat on opposite ends of a long table. She talked about poetry and plays. He talked about school. They hardly noticed each other.
Now they hardly notice anyone else…
Read MoreA 75-year-old New Hampshire woman who jumped out of her car just seconds before a train demolished it last Monday, was quoted as saying, 'All I thought was, thank God. My blood pressure was sky-high. I was shaken and cold, but these things happen…
Read Morehe 22-year-old came home from work sick the other day, collapsed on the family room couch, turned on Maury Povich then yelled for me. 'You've got to come here, Mom. Now. You're not gonna believe this.’
I didn’t.
The subject of the day was phone sex. Phone sex, in case you…
Read MoreShe buys me a package of 'Good and Plenty,' my favorite candy, because she knows I'm blue. 'Here you are,' she says fresh from the outdoors, the cold still clinging to her. 'I thought these would make you feel better.'
And they do. Candy makes me feel like a kid again.
'The doctor will give you a lollipop…
Read MoreI've had 'The Principles of Fighting the Blahs' stick-pinned to the bulletin board above my computer for months. I knew I'd need them some day. I'm looking at them now because 'some day' arrived Wednesday.
Remember Wednesday? More snow…
Read MoreThis was the headline that ran on Page 1 Nov. 18 'Helping stranger cost him his life.'
You might remember the story. Keith Willwerth, 22, of Melrose died of massive head injuries after stopping to help move a drunken stranger off a sidewalk near Faneuil Hall. The young man was carrying flowers for his girlfriend when he was attacked and beaten by a group…
Read MoreIt's happened again. I should have learned by now. I know this. Nothing is forever. Things change. People change. Parents age. Children grow. People get sick. Friends move. Colleagues switch jobs. Schools that you went to get boarded up. Hotels where you once stayed get torn down. The world is in constant flux. And yet, when something…
Read MoreIt would be nice if just once in a while you ran into some fair, thoughtful, truthful, unbiased news stories. But it's all laced with gossip these days. He said. She said. Overheard. Alleged. According to unnamed sources. Witnesses maintain. Or it's inappropriate cleverness, a.k.a. the Bobbitt and the Michael Jackson stories…
Read MoreYesterday marked the beginning, once again, of 'Ordinary Times.' I noticed the reappearance of the words in church Sunday, a phrase I pondered last summer when the term leaped out and struck me as if I were hearing it for the first time.
The words startled me, affronted me almost back then, because I…
Read MoreI have to piece together their love story. I know so little of it. I don't know him, and I hardly know her, for I have been privy to only the briefest outline of her life. And yet she inspires me. She's 90 and still in love with her husband - not just fond of him, or devoted to him, or committed to fulfilling an obligation. She's in love. She says his name and her face softens. She tells stories about him and her eyes shine like a girl’s…
Read MoreShe will arrive sometime today, having packed up the van with food and gifts and clothing for a couple of days, having strapped five kids - ages 11, 10, 7, 3 and 7 months - into a vehicle with no radio for a three-hour drive. She will pull into the driveway and the children will spill out, the oldest helping the youngest, and they will all be smiling…
Read MoreWe are trying to keep our sense of humor and our priorities straight. We are trying not to let the little things get us down. We are trying to look on the bright side of life. But . . .It's less than two weeks until Christmas and we are behind…
Read MoreWhat you want when you or someone you love is sick is a caring human being on the other end of a telephone line. You don't want voice-mail. ("Press your party's extension, now.") You don't want to be put on hold. You don't want to be told that the doctor returns all phone calls after 5:00 p.m. and doesn't have an opening until March 13. You want someone to listen to you, to advise you, to treat you as if you matter…
Read MoreIt isn't a flawless movie, but it's powerful. "My Life" is about a man, diagnosed with terminal cancer, who decides to make a video for his unborn child so the child will know his father.
The man, who has about four months to live, sets a camera on a tripod, sits in front of it and talks, hesitantly at first, uncomfortable before the mechanical eye.
After a while, the process gets easier and he begins to record everything. He reads a Dr. Seuss book to his unborn son. He teaches him to shave. He demonstrates the correct way to walk into a room, not self-consciously but with confidence.
Read MoreIt was a small ad that ran in the theater section of the New York Times last Thursday. The graphics were simple; nothing clever stood out. Even the words were old, the promotion a cliche: "Cyrano. The Musical. The Greatest Love Of All." And yet it has stuck with me, nagged at me. “The Greatest Love of All?” Most everyone knows the story of Cyrano de Bergerac, a love-struck young man who pens eloquent, romantic letters to the woman he loves, only in another man's name. Because he is ugly, Cyrano fears rejection. Because he doesn't trust in the power of love, Cyrano hides his identity. And so he writes love letters for a handsome man who uses his words and emotions to woe Roxanne.
Read MoreIt's 10 days after the operation and everything is getting back to normal. The hole that opened in the earth has closed, and falling into it is almost - though not quite - a memory. All's well that ends well is what we say, what we repeat, what we believe. My husband is home. He is healing. Life, as we've known it, returns a little more each day to the way it was, to the way we want it to be. That's the goal, getting back to normal, putting the operation behind…
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