“Under the Coral Tree”
Life Stories, Wisdom, Care Conversations & Thanks
Cassidy’s Corner | Pope to the Bishop of Brambles
Lexie and Ian knew each other from childhood on the outskirts of Glasgow. Ian was an only child, eager for Lexie’s sisterly advice and culinary tips for his wild bounty of berries: raspberries, brambles, blaeberries and sloes collected from the countryside. Ian...
Wisdom | It Is Beautiful to Be Old! ~ Pope Benedict XVI
Last Saturday, I read these striking words of reminder from the retired Pope in the Our Lady Queen of Angels bulletin. WORDS OF HIS HOLINESS BENEDICT XVI Rome, Monday 12 November 2012 "I come to you as Bishop of Rome, but also as an old man visiting his peers. It...
Cassidy’s Corner | Shortbread and Brawn
My father-in-law liked to read, eat sweets and drink whisky. Most of all he liked to make money. He had an unconscious habit of shaking coins in his hand–a reminder? My mother-in-law used to call him moneybags but that was after they were divorced. Mr. Mac, as I used...
Our Friends | His Strong Toil of Grace
Doug said he didn’t like Shakespeare: “too difficult.” Yet, he quoted Macbeth as he remembered reading every work of Faulkner when he was serving his country in Taiwan in 1967: "A tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing.” Towards the end of...
Cassidy’s Corner | The Orchard of My Mother
My mother loved to read and to drive fast. When she crashed her car into the handicapped elevator at the back of the library, she didn’t stop reading but she did decide to stop driving. Wisdom does come with age–she was 84. Two years before on Christmas Eve, we had...
Our Friends | The Step of Faith into the Self: Sharon’s Art, Patently Patten
I first knew Sharon Patten sitting next to my cousin Kathe, both their heads upside down, scratching their dandruff into the folds of a magazine with Elvis booming in the background, “I’m all shook up.” Uh-huh-huh, uh-huh-huh, scratch again. Who could shed the most...
Cassidy’s Corner | Looking for Miss Davis: “Lord Help Us and Save Us”
Aunt Roseanne lived in the back bedroom in my grandmother Katie’s house. Roseanne was Katie’s first cousin. Katie always had a room for anyone in need. Roseanne, by profession, a social worker and by nature, always helping others, had a need. Her husband, Pat Darnell,...
Cassidy’s Corner | Not Saint Agnes but Mother: Superior
It’s so easy to remember awkward, embarrassing situations with people — laugh and forget about them. It is much harder to search through all those ordinary moments shared and find what bound us. Donald and I still laugh remembering when (we were living in Johannesburg...
Cassidy’s Corner | The Frogman, a Prince
My dad lost a lot. When he was two years old he lost his father who died from complications from being gassed in the trenches during the Great War. He lost his mother next, who had to go to work to support her two sons. Jack was angry at her, not understanding her...
Our Friends | Art over Disease
I don’t have a photo of Inez but every time I see kelp and seaweed, I look again because of Inez. I had watched her sketching the kelp, holding her pencil like a claw, her art opening despite her arthritic fingers. Her smile was huge, scalloped like the shore despite...