“I come up here to think about life a lot,” I told him as we both looked out at the Connecticut River from our high perch. It was 1965, I was 15 years-old, and my grandmother and her third and best husband, Lieberson, were visiting me at my boarding prep school, Northfield School for Girls, in Massachusetts. “Ah, my Lieber,” she said to me when they were first married just a few years earlier--both of them in their 60s-- “he’s such a good man and so intelligent. Anything he doesn’t know he goes and looks it up. He reads everything. He’s interested in everyone. I’m so lucky to have such a husband so late in life.” And then, with a gleam in her eyes and a smile that dimpled her cheeks she added, “and he’s very lucky to have me!” And we’d both laugh at the truth of all her words. They were visiting The United States from their home in Montevideo, Uruguay and seeing me was their last stop before heading back home and then moving to Israel to retire. “This is one of the most beautiful places I’ve seen,” he told me as soon as they drove onto the campus, “will you walk around and show me your favorite spots?” While my grandmother took a nap in my room, Lieberson and I traipsed up and down the almost 300 acres of slowly goldening late September. “What are they singing there?” he asked as we passed the chapel where the choir was rehearsing. “That’s our school’s hymn, ‘Jerusalem’,” I explained just as the lines, “And did those feet in ancient time, Walk upon England’s mountains green” wafted through the open windows toward us. Lieberson sighed, “It’s so beautiful.” “Yes,” I agreed, “A beautiful hymn.” “No not just the music,“ he continued, “everything here. All of you girls gathered here learning art and history and math and science and…(He swept his arms out) life. Show me more please.” And so we walked on and found ourselves at “Roundtop” looking at the valley below and the mountains in the distance. “A lot of us come up here to look out and sit and talk. It’s just breathtakingly lovely some days,” I explained as we sat on the ground to take a rest. “If you look out that way you can see where three states all come together—Massachusetts, Vermont, and New Hampshire.” “And you, what do you think about when you come here?” he asked with kind bespectacled eyes studying my face. With a rush of tumbling words I told him how we had been studying modern European history and both World Wars. And how the atrocities and hatreds seemed to never abate. How the angers were so pointless and cruel and how people could be so unwaveringly prejudiced and petty. “And I’ve been thinking, lately, with all the horrors that have happened to so many, why was I able to be born? I mean, even in our family so many died in the wars and why then was I meant to be here? It seems like I don’t deserve it.” I had not expected to say all of this, but he seemed to take it all in, listening and nodding as I spoke. Then, quietly, he asked a confusing question: “Tell me—is someone buried here? I see gravestones. Who are they for?” “The founder of this school,” I began, still confused, “Dwight L. Moody and his wife.” “Ah, I thought so,” he continued, “I read a little about this place before we came. He was a Protestant minister, no? And he began this school in 1879 for girls—both rich and poor?” I could see that Lieberson had indeed found correct information. He continued, “It seems to me he was a remarkable man. Girls in those days didn’t have much chance to such education and if they were poor then there was no chance. What a visionary he was! And look, from that beginning the school grew and grew and became this. Why do you think he did this?” I had never thought about that. “I don’t know,” I began, “but I do know that his father died when he was young and his family was quite poor for a long time. He had a lot of brothers and sisters and there wasn’t enough food for everyone. There were a lot of sacrifices.” “Ah,” Lieberson exclaimed, “so maybe because of what his life was like and what he saw, he began to understand who he was and what he could contribute. And maybe part of that was starting a small school for those with limited chances—nothing grand—nothing glamorous. Just a small school where girls from many different backgrounds could explore their own minds and hearts and souls. And it grew and now, look, here you are learning so much!” I was beginning to see his point. He continued: “Maybe part of our purpose here on earth is to remember the past. No one knows why some live and some die. God knows, but in our Jewish religion, He doesn’t really make it clear to us.” Now he chuckled, shrugged his shoulders and continued, “Religions have tried to make sense of this forever. Your hymn, Jerusalem, makes me think of that actual place. Three religions find their holy centers there, Christianity, Islam, Judaism—like your three states that you see from this hill. We keep struggling and searching to find that meaning from many different angles.” “So,” he continued as we stood up to head back, “your Mr. Moody took what was in his history—all the pain and joy and fear and wonder and he found ways to refashion and rebuild it in his present. And then it became the past and it also became the future—the one you are in right now standing here on his grave.” I could see what he was trying to say to me, although it would take me years to fully understand. We kept a companionable silence on our short walk to my dorm—each of us engrossed in our own thoughts. The air filled with the rustling sounds of early falling leaves gently landing on the browning grass. Suddenly I stopped and turned to him, “Lieberson, I just realized something—In the ‘Jerusalem’ hymn the writer of the lyrics—poet William Blake—tells us that if we want to have changes, we need to do what work we can to make it happen. And we need to remember the past to change the future. And we can start anywhere to help the world—and do it any time.” He smiled and hugged me and said—“From wherever I am in this great universe, I will be cheering you on.” Suddenly we both saw my now-rested and buoyant grandmother come happily toward us in the late golden light. As the chapel bells tolled the hour, and the three of us entwined our arms and walked down the path toward the waiting car, I could feel the roots of my life slowly growing downward toward the nourishing past as my limbs grew strong and reached upward toward the beckoning and mysterious future. When I walked in she was on the sofa crying. “There’s no hope for any of us,” my mother spurted out between sobs. Just then my father came into the room with a glass of water and two aspirin. “Here, Sara, take these. It will help.” She looked up at him gratefully and swallowed the pills. “Mom, what happened?” I asked. “Jaqueline Kennedy Onassis has just died. Died,” she answered as she set the glass down and began leaving the room, “And I’m going to lie down for a bit.” It was May 19, 1994, I was 44 years-old and my father and I were left to sort out the pieces of my mother’s grief. “I don’t really understand it, Daddy,” I began. “I mean, she hasn’t met the woman. She only knows her through stories in the paper and magazines and tv. Why is she so emotional?” Equally baffled my father posed some possibilities. “Well, they’re close to the same age. And maybe she’s afraid that if someone with so much power and money and connections can die, then, well….” Here he trailed off afraid to finish the sentence. But then looked me squarely in the face and did, “we can all die. We will all die. It’s a hard reality at our age and a sad, but inevitable, truth.” “You know,” he continued, “Jackie was beautiful and elegant, but your mother was so much more so. When I first met her I thought she was the most glamorous woman I had ever known. She still is you know,” he sighed. I had never really thought about their first meetings. Fresh out of a New York University Master’s program in economics, my American father had gone to Montevideo, Uruguay to start a branch of the Schick razor company. He was 25 years old. He spoke little Spanish and knew right away he needed help with not only the language but also the customs of the country. “When she walked into my office I found it hard to say anything. Her raven-black hair fell in waves on her shoulders and when she reached out her white-gloved hand to take mine, I knew I was a gonner.” He laughed remembering the details. “She didn’t seem like she had much experience as a secretary and really, after she started working, she was abysmal at it. Tried firing her twice, but she wouldn’t stay away and neither could I. When we formally became a couple I was finally able to meet her three-year-old daughter, you,” he smiled, “and I loved you from the first moment as well.” He hugged me and continued, “You know she had been in medical school but then stopped. She married Harry and you were born and then Harry was horrible to both of you. When he disappeared, everyone was relieved. And then we met, fell in love, got married, and moved here to the U.S.” It seemed so simple when he told it. But I knew there was more. Now she came back into the living room, her eyes red and puffy, a tissue clutched in her hand, and sat down next to me. My father took this as a cue to leave us alone and wandered off into the kitchen. “I want to explain,” she began, “what troubles me so much. Jackie Kennedy Onassis was a really complicated woman. She had a hard life.” I jumped in, “Sure. Her husband was president and then he was assassinated in the car, right next to her.” Now my mother continued, “Well, of course there was that terrible trauma. But, she was full of so many tragedies. She had miscarriages, and her husband had so many affairs. He was terrible to her. She only married him because everyone said that since she was already in her twenties she was getting very old to find a husband. She went to college and had a job at a magazine, but was told she really should just get married. I understand this. It was like that in those days.” Now she sipped the water she’d left behind, and I noticed a hint of her newly-applied lipstick on the rim. Even in her sadness my mother wanted to look “put-together” as she called it. “So she married JFK, helped him become president, had two children, and when he died, she was alone. Alone. All that wealth and popularity and beauty, and still alone.” “But then she married one of the richest men in the world, right?” I said. She continued, “Who knows why she did that? Maybe she loved him. Maybe she saw no choice. Maybe she was lonely. Maybe it was security. But that too wasn’t happy.” Now she looked at the large clock on the wall and fell silent. We could hear it tick, tick, tick the seconds away. She looked at me again. “When he died, she came back to the U.S. She began working with the arts and with publishing. You know, the press was not kind to her. But she kept going. Kept going. Until today.” Now my mother’s head folded down into her hands. “Mom,” I said as I put my arm around her shoulder, “Is it upsetting to you that if she can die, we all can? I’m trying to understand.” “No, it’s not really that,” she said as her tear-filled eyes searched mine, “It’s her story. Who tells her story now? How will we know about her life, her struggles, her energies?” Maybe my mother had a sense then that her arteries were starting their hardening, her heart beating out a new staccato rhythm, not allowing enough oxygen for her brain to connect the wandering memories. “Sylvia,” she continued, “I’m afraid that all our own stories will be lost. What will happen to all of the life we led? Where will it go?” “Tell me about the time you and father got the car stuck in the thick mud on your way to Brazil,” I began, making us both chuckle at an old family tale. We got out photo albums and talked over tea. My father grilled some steaks and we kept talking over dinner. And into the chill of the May night we laughed. Five years later, my father died of cancer. Five years after that my mother died of her heart conditions. And today I am here right now telling you, dear readers, their stories—keeping them alive. “Mom, I’m going downstairs to tell them about the dance practice.” It was 1962, and I was 12 years old and living in an apartment building in New York City. My friends were coming over tomorrow after school to practice some new dances we’d seen on American Bandstand—especially “The Mashed Potatoes”. We were a noisy bunch and generally gathered at Ruthie’s house. But tomorrow was my turn. I thought the polite thing to do was to let Mrs. Green, who lived directly below us in 5L, know ahead of time. I didn’t know her or her husband very well, but I had met them in the elevator a few times. Mrs. Green with her thick German accent, curly gray hair, and bright blue eyes, looked and sounded a lot like my grandmother Annette who I had left behind in Uruguay when my family moved to The United States 4 years ago. She died two years later, and truth was, I still missed her. And my grandfather, Max. When Mrs. Green opened her door, she looked scared and shaky. “Come in dear,” she began, “I’m just waiting for an important phone call.” I walked with her to the big yellowish armchair with doilies barely covering its worn arms and back. I sat on the floor next to her. “What happened? Are you OK?” I asked wondering if I should call someone for help. “No, I’ll be fine. I just need to get my mind off of it until the call comes. Tell me something about yourself. Tell me a story,” she pleaded with her voice and her eyes, and continued, “Did you ever have to wait for news?” I hung my head down and began, “I can tell you about last week.” And so I explained how by accident I learned that my beloved grandfather had died a whole year ago and no one ever told me. How I searched the mail for weeks for a letter from him and none came. And finally, my parents gave me the letter from our relative in Montevideo explaining it all. “I was so angry,” I said looking up at Mrs. Green’s eyes, “because he died, because I didn’t know, because they kept such a big secret from me.” She looked down at me and said, “Ay, schatzi,” she began with a sigh, “sometimes things are kept from us because others think it will be too much for us. Sometimes they think the truth is so big that it might swallow us up.” I nodded in agreement and I continued, “my mom told me that after my grandmother died I was so upset that she couldn’t stand to tell me about my grandfather.” Mrs. Green sighed and swept her hand about the room, “Look around here.” I suddenly noticed the faces and hands and landscape paintings jamming the expansive whiteness of the walls. She continued, “I painted all of these from my memory. It’s all I have—my memory—of my homeland and my family.” She told me the story of how in Germany as a young woman she saw children and families herded into trucks and trains. She asked her parents what was happening, and they did not tell her. She saw her father taking down all symbols of their Jewish religion—the mezuzah by the door, the menorah on the mantle—but they did not explain. When the banging on the door came and she, her baby brother, and her parents were shipped to Dachau and separated, no one said what would happen. Now she looked up at her paintings, “They divided us up—sent me away again. They found I could paint and draw, so I worked in a big room making Nazi posters. Nazi posters. My art talent saved my life but look what I had to do with it to survive.” Now she was in tears, but she continued, “When the tanks rolled in and I saw that American flag I thought it was the most beautiful thing in the world. People had come to save us. To save us. That’s when I met Jimmy.” “Oh,” I interjected, “Mr. Green!” She smiled. “Yes. It was the worst time of my life and then it became the best. We fell in love. He brought me here.” “What happened to your family?” I asked, hopefully. “They were all killed right away. No one was left but me. And so I started painting my memories as soon as I could. It was all I had, but it was a lot. The more I painted the more I could bring them all back to me.” I looked around. Even my own 12-year-old eyes could see the vividness of the colors, the clarity and precision on the hands, the hair, the eyes of the people on her walls. “Ay, Liebchen,” she said, “art saved my life many times. It saves me now.” The sudden ringing of the black phone by her chair started us both. She picked up the heavy receiver and nodded as she listened. I stood up and walked around the room looking at the memories and remembering my own grandparents. When she hung up the phone, I went back to her. “Is it OK?” I asked. “No,” she stated frankly. It is not. “The results of the tests are not good. My health is not good.” Right then Mr. Green came through the front door jauntily and stopped suddenly when he saw his wife’s face. “Gertie?” he asked—he pleaded. I knew I was invading a private moment and quickly left. Ruthie agreed to have the dance event at her house the next day. I stopped in frequently to see Mrs. Green over the next few weeks. By the end, she could not leave her bed. A month after her death Mr. Green began moving out of apartment 5L. “I will go to Michigan to live with my sister and her family,” he told me when I saw him in the elevator. “I’m packing all of those paintings so carefully. I want my nieces to know these memories—these stories. Did I ever tell you how I met my Gertie?” We were now on the 5th floor and both got out and walked to the apartment where movers were wrapping and storing things. He began, “she was Dachau concentration camp. When our Army Division arrived to liberate them, the people there looked like ghosts. They were so thin and weak and afraid. Many threw themselves on the ground and wept. We gave them food and they took it and hid it in their shirts or pants—afraid it would disappear. But not Gertie. I saw her, a woman who could barely walk and was carrying paint brushes in her hands, take the bread, smile, thank us and break it in two pieces, giving half to some small child who was holding her leg and crying. I had never seen such kindness in my life.” Now Mr. Green was crumpled in a lone chair by the door. He continued, “She never spoke ill of anyone. But she wanted to keep the story of her family alive, and she wanted to remember beauty, and kindness, and humanity, and love. So she painted. What art do you have in your heart, Sylvia?” he asked. No one had ever asked me that before. “I can’t paint, I can’t sing, I can barely dance. I don’t think I have any.” I answered sadly. And then I brightened, “I love words. I can paint with them and tell stories!” He smiled. “If you give life to people you love, people you meet, people who you care about, the stories will give you life. Art keeps the world alive.” He was right. “I’m just so totally confused,” I said to my father. It was 1967 and I was home from my first year of college for Christmas break. I had been taking some intense courses in philosophy and in psychology and the ideas I encountered sent me into a mental vortex. I continued, “There’s so much pain and grief in the world and I know that I’m just one person. Why would I bother doing anything about it? It just doesn’t matter.” We were in our living room in apartment 6L in the New York City community we had lived in for the past seven years. The sky was the same gray as the concrete of the sidewalk below, the freezing temperature was reflected in the coat-bundled crowds rushing from one street to the next. When it started to sleet I felt that the universe itself was a metaphor for my dark mood.
Our doorbell rang. It was Mrs. Schneider from apartment 4E. “Oh, Sylvia it’s so wonderful to see you!” she exclaimed as I opened the door. “Here is something for you. I just baked it this morning.” She smiled and hugged me as she handed me a cloth-wrapped challah bread. “Hirshie helped me make this.” I thanked her and asked how Hirshie, her son, was doing. “Oh, he’s a fine boy you know. We are helping him as much as we can at home now. But he says we’re not as good as Miss Sylvia,” she chuckled. I laughed and said, “Well, please tell him that I’ll stop by to see him in a few days and that I have a new cross-word puzzle I made for him.” Then she left. “Where did that come from?” my father asked as he watched me put the bread on our kitchen counter. I explained. He nodded in recognition, “Wasn’t he the boy you tutored for several years? The one who the school said was unteachable?” Indeed, he was. Six years earlier when he was 6, the public school had said they were not able to keep him in class. He was disruptive and his behavior was so abnormal that he was expelled from first grade. His mother didn’t know what to do. I saw her carrying satchels of groceries in the elevator the day after his expulsion and she was crying. I got off at her floor with her as she explained the situation. “I don’t know what to do,” she continued in her thick Polish accent. “Max and me, we came to this country with nothing and we work so hard. I just want my little Hirshie to have a chance at life better than ours.” By now we were at her door. I helped her with her bags and met her rambunctious, curly-haired son. He tried to pull me down and then, unsuccessful, he started yelling at me. His words were only half comprehensible and when I didn’t respond, he hit my leg. His mother was horrified and admonished him in Polish. I recognized something in his scared and angry eyes—something I understood. Grabbing his small hand, I sat down on the floor with him and took an apple out of the grocery bag I was holding. “Say it, Hirchie—say A-p-el—” I demanded, sounding out the fruit’s name. At first he looked away, but I turned his face to look at mine. “In English. Say A-p-el.” I gently moved his mouth. When he said the word clearly, I clapped. We three smiled. Then I asked Mrs. Schneider to say the word in Polish, which to me sounded like “yabuko” and to tell him it was Polish. And so we began. It became more and more clear that Hishie was trying to combine the two languages he heard daily and with a young child’s frustration at not being understood, he lashed out in anger. I remembered learning English myself at that very age. Until I went off to boarding prep-school a few years later, I visited with Hirshie several times a week. I went with Mrs. Schneider to talk to the principal and help explain the situation. “Aha,” Mr. Wagner exclaimed. “Why, we should have figured that out. I am so sorry for this,” he continued. “I promise we will help him.” And they did. Every time I was home for school vacations I would stop in to see him or take him to the playground. By the time I went off to college in the fall of 1967 he was entering 8th grade and thriving. And now, this bleak winter day in 1967 as my father and I pulled apart the newly baked challah bread and smothered each slice with butter, he addressed my life-questions. “So, there’s too much pain in the world. You’re absolutely right, my daughter, there is. There is harshness and cruelty, and indifference, and down-right inhumanity.” We each took giant bites of the bread feeling its almost-sweetness and eggy richness. Then he continued, “What then should we each do? Do we do nothing? Maybe it feels like very little when you do something. Like with Hirshie. He’s just one boy. Why did you help him?” I thought about this and answered, “Because I had to. He was suffering, and his parents were suffering. Something needed to be done and I found a way to help. But it wasn’t hard. I didn’t sacrifice. And it was so little. There are such big things in the world that need help and I feel like it’s impossible.” My father put down his bread and took my hand, “You opened a whole world to him and his family. You gave him the whole world by your actions. It’s what we can all do. One person at a time. It’s what we’re meant to do, one action at a time. That’s how we help the world.” In 1971, after I graduated from college, after I moved to Maryland, and after I began my teaching career, Mrs. Schneider enrolled in adult education courses. A few years later she became an elementary school teacher specializing in students who needed to learn in an English as a second language class. Hirshie went on to become a bio-chemist and he has helped to bring life-saving vaccines, one shot at a time—one person at a time, into the world. “This is the pattern we will all follow,” our teacher, Mrs. Carlisle, told us as she held up a Simplicity pattern number 4972 envelope. It was late February in 1963 and here, in our Home Economics Class, in Public School 63 in New York City, we were starting the work of sewing our 8th grade graduation dresses. She carefully explained the process we would be following over the next several months working once a week on our projects, and then instructed us in how to take precise measurements. “Now girls, be sure to go to the store and get the right size pattern.” As we left the room chattering excitedly, I noticed that Sally Ann stayed behind to talk to the teacher. She looked worried. She was the smartest girl in the entire grade, always winning spelling bees and geography games but she could never go over to anyone’s house after school because she had to help out at home. Her mother was overwhelmed with Sally Ann’s five young brothers and sisters and she always had to help. She seemed generally cheerful about this except for one time. That was the day, a few weeks back, when we had a special event after school where a famous writer came to talk to us. But she couldn’t stay. “Got to go help at home. My dad’s in a bad way and mom just can’t do any more,” she told us sadly. “You know her dad’s a drunk, don’t you?” Ruthie told me when we walked home. I did not. She continued, “He used to be an electrician, but something happened and he lost his job so now he drinks all the time. They keep getting poorer and poorer. My mom says it’s a real shame how they have to live.”
Now I waited for Sally Ann to finish talking to Mrs. Carlisle. She looked sad when she came out into the hall. “Are you OK?” I asked her. “Yes,” she sighed, “I’m fine, just sort of tired.” We walked silently together to English class. My mother had no interest in sewing and no understanding of the process, so I went to the fabric store on my own that afternoon. I pulled out the drawer with the appropriate number on the card displayed in the front, and immediately found the pattern in my size. The dizzying amount of instructions made me appreciate that I’d have a teacher to guide me along. I paid the 65 cents and excitedly wandered through the fabrics. In a few weeks we would get to pick those out—but not yet. Our dresses were required to be white, but we could each choose our own fabric and our color for the cummerbund. The next week we filed into Home Ec. and sat at our designated sewing tables. My partner was Sally Ann and I excitedly chatted with her about the fabric store. Then I noticed she didn’t bring her pattern. “Oh, I didn’t have time to go,” she explained. This was odd because the store was right around the corner from her house. The teacher started class and asked each of us to hold up our pattern envelopes, and turn them to the back where the requirements were listed. “You’ll see the precise amount of fabric and the various notions you’ll need—thread, zipper, buttons. Look at those carefully as I come around to help you.” Chattering began as heads pored over the details. Mrs. Carlisle came over to us first. “Sally Ann I was hoping you’d do me a favor. As it turns out I made a mistake and got the wrong size and since I opened it I can’t return it. Can you please use this one? I think it might be your size.” As she handed her the envelope Sally Anne’s face lit up and her blond curls bounced as she excitedly said, “This is perfect!” Class continued. We learned to determine exactly what we would need. Then the instructions were to go to the store to have the fabric for the next week. After school I walked to the fabric store with Ruthie and Amy and Betty. “I think Mrs. Carlisle gave Sally Ann the pattern on purpose. I think maybe she didn’t have the money to buy it,” Ruthie said. I hadn’t thought about this. What would she do? Fabric was expensive and so were all those notions. “Do you know her mom is going to have another baby? My mom says that they’re having trouble feeding everyone,” Betty continued. “How is she going to be able to have a dress for graduation? This is a terrible situation. We need to figure this out,” I stated. By the time we got to the store we had hatched a plan. The next week we put it into operation. “Mrs. Carlisle is going to be so mad at me,” I whispered to Sally Ann a few days later. “I bought twice the amount of fabric I should have. I read the envelope wrong. She’s going to think I’m stupid. Can I just cut it in half and give you the extra part? I don’t want her to know.” She beamed. “Sure. That would be great. It’ll save me the trouble of going to the store.” And so, for the next several weeks we continued laying out the patterns and pinning them; cutting and basting; giggling and measuring. An extra zipper was found on the floor in the back and buttons were plentiful when we all put them in a box and picked a few we liked. Slowly and surely we sewed and created our dresses, carefully following the rules laid out for us—carefully following the patterns. By the end of May we were almost finished. The fabric for our cummerbunds was all we had left to get, and our own personal color was a very significant choice. “Sally Ann,” Amy asked, “what’s your favorite color?” “Oh, I love pink so much,” she declared. Amy, whose clear choice was always yellow declared that pink was hers too and continued: “Wow! Great. My aunt says she’s going to treat me to that fabric. I’ll get some for you too.” Our dresses were finished just in time and Mrs. Carlisle was proud of all of them. “You girls are so beautiful,” she told us, “And not just because of the dresses. Dresses are important, following patterns and learning to sew are important skills, but real beauty comes from inside your soul. You are beautiful, girls. Remember that.” At graduation the next week we all filed into the auditorium in our dresses feeling very grown up. We took our seats and at the end of the program filed out into the cafeteria where there were tables of cookies and Hawaiian punch. I was surprised to see Sally Ann’s mother there with all five little kids. They surrounded her excitedly, tugging at her dress and dancing around. My parents waved to me from the back of the room and as I headed there, Sally Ann’s mom stopped me. “Oh, don’t you girls look so lovely!” she gushed, and continued, “we’re all so proud of our girl. She’s so smart. And look how you all sewed your dresses! And the school giving all of you all the fabric and necessities for free. So generous of them to do that for all of you.” I saw my friend look down and I quickly responded, “I know! We’re so lucky!” Sally Anne hugged me while fiercely wiping away some tears. And as I walked away and toward my parents, I heard her mom call out, “You are all so beautiful.” The following year I went to a boarding prep school in New England and as happens, I lost touch with many of my early schoolmates. Every now and then I would hear about one or the other of them. The late sixties and then the seventies were turbulent times for the country and for us all. Time marched on. The eighties. The nineties. And then, a few years ago I heard from Betty. She had just settled into a retirement community in Florida and while clearing out her old home had found some pictures from our 8th grade graduation which she sent me via email. I was delighted and called her immediately. After getting caught up on our own lives I asked her if she knew anything about Sally Ann’s life. “Well, she had a pretty hard time of it. Helped her mom raise her brothers and sisters, and right after high school worked day and night so they could all go to college and trade schools. But, wouldn’t you know it, when she was fifty-five years old she herself went to college. Got a scholarship and everything. Graduated in just three years. Then she kept going. And now she’s going to get her PhD. In philosophy. Imagine that. At our age!” she chuckled delightedly into the phone, and then continued, “Told me the title of her dissertation but I didn’t understand all those words. So, she explained to me that she researched and studied what beauty is. I didn’t remember anything about this, but she said Mrs. Carlisle and we were the first to help her learn the true definition of that word. Imagine that!” |
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