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Cassidy’s Corner | In Our Dotage
As I left the front door this morning, I saw the moonflower folding on its vine. A whiff of regret swept over me for the subtle and seductive scent dissolving, the green sepals forcing that purest white leaf inward. I stopped myself and looked hard at the dying...
Cassidy’s Corner | Home Equals Hope
Home Equals Hope: Edith Macefield's Legacy Sunday, I read an article on the front page of the NYTimes, "House That Wouldn't Budge (or Float Away) Faces a Last Stand." What struck me most in the article was this universal desire to live and die in our own homes. The...
Cassidy’s Corner | Children, Roses and the Aged Reflect Their Care
Nearing 90 by William Maxwell Out of the corner of my eye I see my 90th birthday approaching. It is one year and six months away. How long after that will I be the person I am now? I don't yet need a cane but I have a feeling that my table manners have deteriorated....
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...
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...
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...
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...