My mother in medical school. Five women in the class. Why not? Why not then? Why not now? Why not, more now? (Well, yes there are.)

It's personal.

The front of the house; Coral Gables only permits panels on external walls. At least I was able to tend to my accordion shutters myself (and was able to have some light enter the house during the daylight during the two-week aftermath before the electricity was restored).
The wooden door that could have blown in.

Praying very hard for the smallest possible impact on the Gulf Coast.

It's personal.

Monday, November 14, 2005
Anatomy of a House
For roughly six hours Monday morning, October 24, 2005, Wilma did everything she could to try to get into this house.She slammed against this front window, hurricane panels, notwithstanding, almost turning them--the panels, that is--yellow with months-old black olive pollen residue. She desperately tried to ruin the bougainvillea. A few blossoms valiantly withstood her attack.She knocked repeatedly against the outside of this door. Knocked? She banged, shook, rattled it even more than she did the panels. She whistled in and out of its sides. She let several bucketfuls of water seep in underneath (though--to be fair to her--not as much as her first cousin Katrina had splashed in). At least several times I was consumed with curiosity as to why she was so intent on entering. Fortunately I never made it to the how.Never good at directions, now I know: her southeastern 110 to 120 mph punches could have blown this door in.This palm tree escaped her wrath because I'd had it removed several months earlier. Just in case...The mango tree to its left was slated to be next. Hugging the house as it does, however, it withstood her onslaught (and possibly yielded some protection). It's more than earned its reprieve.Those black olives--aah, those black olives--fell and all but encased the house on both sides of this southeastern corner of the block. The street light's wiring fell and became entangled in the midst of the melee on this side of the house.In the unaccustomed to pitch blackness sun room, at around 1 a.m. on post-Wilma Tuesday, I got through to FPL. It was essential to report any downed power lines that were imminently life-threatening, FPL's automated system kept informing us, over and over. A crew from Hialeah showed up the following Sunday just to repair the line, much to the neighborhood's dismay.I'd been so scared the metal-framed awning covering the back porch would blow away. Like the mango tree, it held its ground. The table and chairs, however, were safe and secure inside the garage.The garage held the car, the treadmill in a corner, and the table, chairs, trash cans and every other possible projectile in the back. That TV hasn't been around in awhile.I'd also been scared her howling, clanging, and banging had blown the garage door wide open, but, as the awning and the mango tree, it held its own. That's a now truly defunct mango tree on the right.For almost two weeks, I continued to traipse through the hallway-like living and dining rooms, usually preceded by a narrow beam of light. Note the old living room furnishings, and both original chandeliers in place. There have been some changes......in the kitchen, however, it was business as usual. I didn't have to dump much in the refrig that mattered, with the sad exception of my penultimate bottle of Key West habanero hot sauce. I learned to make do with multi-course dinners consisting of increasingly wilted lettuce, with olive oil and balsamic vinegar splashed on to the dancing beam of a Rayovac floating lantern; pop-open, ready to eat containers of chicken with stars, spaghetti rings, or mini-raviolis; Baskin-Robbins flavored puddings; and 100-calorie peanut-shaped Planters peanut butter flavored treats. Definitely my favorite part of the meal. All washed down with the remnants of a bottle of Piper-Hiedsieck. But that's another story.For the first time since I moved into the house, I neglected the study. Note the old desk, the old computer--I can't believe I'm writing this, but I didn't miss it. Any of it.Ditto for the kitschy bathroom, except that I actually contemplated taking a cold shower there.But it was in the white-tiled master bathroom where I braved the waters, after holding out for my last warm shower until I wasn't sure when until post-Wilma Wednesday night. By the soft glow of candlelight, I luxuriated in this shower as a soon-to-be chilled to the bone wet woman lathering, and rinsing. I learned to dart after that, or did what I've been told I do best: I pretended. With a spritz of Jo Malone Nutmeg and Ginger Shower Gel in hand, I darted; pretended; darted; pretended. Anything is possible if you believe.Important enough to include. Trust me.And this is where I hung out most of the time, pre, during, and post Wilma, during the better part of two weeks: on the bed in the master bedroom. The following array of tools, gadgets, and accompanying whatnots became my best friends: flashlights; a tape recorder; audiobooks (I only made it as far as Frank McCourt's preparing to go fight in the Korean War: his lilting brogue kept lulling me to sleep); my night blinders and ear plugs; and the all-important battery-powered TV, with extra batteries on the ready. I quickly unplugged the 5+ Gigaherz metallic wonder phone and replaced it with my pink Barbie land line one. I lowered the lamp to the floor and placed candles on the nightstand. Night after night, I lit them, thereby reserving the floating lantern and the regular flashlight for forays into the dark, yet not unwelcoming, unknown. Ginger Peach: I chose a Ginger Peach candle at the Winn-Dixie to accompany the rapidly dwindling Indonesian leaf and raffia-encrusted one, part of my dear friend Harvey's birthday gift set from several years ago. Ginger must be soothing to the soul...Toward the end, my Coral Gables friend, Ceres, provided me with a sturdy flame that brightened the room up all the more.I slept; ate; spilled mini-raviolis all over the top sheet; and, for all intents and purposes, lived in the bed. My increasingly smelly, messy, yet ultimately comforting bed.Olivia kept me company.So did Mis Dos Papitos (I only have a picture of him in his most recent incarnation).So did Panni.And so did I. For the anatomy of the house in which I live is, ultimately, the anatomy of me.Thanks for helping me crack the egg wide open, Wilma!Now, begone!

Feel

If anyone had told me earlier than mid-February or so that I'd be rooting for Hillary Clinton today, I would have told him or her to go jump in the lake...

I barely remember anything from the early 90's--I was so wrapped up in my own dramas. On Election Day, 1992, I entered the polling booth and numbly voted for George H.W. Bush's second term. I knew there were a number of spoilers--well, actually, quite a few of them--for Russ Perot. "Oh, no, I can't do that," I remember telling someone. The Clintons were young; energetic. I was not prepared to see a First Lady become so personally involved in public policy. National health care: did I discuss this with my mother? I was more wrapped up in returning to a more grown-up existence in Florida; to meandering up and down the East Coast; traveling to the West Coast, and beyond. November 1996 found me in Upstate New York. By then my mother was sold on Bill Clinton: "He feels," she said. In her own way she was trying to convert me. She lost one of her best friends in the process, at least in this lifetime. I've realized why she'd "turned": she was so very smart herself, yet she did not wear her empathy on her sleeve (unless you really knew her: her adopted family in Cuba; staff and patients at South Florida State Hospital; and a select handful of friends had been the beneficiaries of her emotional largesse...but not necessarily members of her own family, I now realize).

Through Bill, she felt. Believe it or not, she almost convinced me. However, by the time I'd entered the polling station in Ithaca, I had a crisis of conscience...and voted for Bob Dole. Monicagate ensued soon afterward, by which time I was ensconced up the street at Rodman, glued to CNN, and/or reading The Post, for all they were worth...We discussed the issue on the phone. Once again, she tried to intervene: "Mitterand's mistress attended his funeral," she said to me on more than one occasion. As I'd been raised--well, let's just say that now I understand better than ever. In the long run she backtracked a bit: for the sake of the various levels of national shame/pain her adopted country was experiencing? Should I translate this to mean, her shame/pain? Perhaps. Anyway, her current events focus was usually global: she was still keeping an eye on Saddam Hussein. She periodically used to send me news clippings on developments in the Middle East, and elsewhere. Or else--usually--she was focused on me. She passed away just shy of the end of November of 1999; the pre-2000 election jitters were already under way. Was she paying attention before she had the final stroke the first weekend of November? Knowing her, probably. Was I? I was becoming excited about the governor of Texas. However, I was more concerned about Y2K...That's the way I began my return to Miami. There was so much to do. Election Eve 2000 found me in my third home that year--I remember staying up til after 3 a.m.; as well as keeping an eye on the weeks that followed. Hanging chads? I think I had a butterfly ballot. I don't have to tell you who I'd voted for. That's when Hillary became Senator from New York; all I thought at the time was, "How ambitious." She quickly joined Rudy in the aftermath of 9/11. All well and good; and proper. Afghanistan (and how did I remember my little Afghani refugees in Nashville in the late eighties). "Shock and awe": even as I watched, that first day and night, shamelessly glued to the tube, I also thought: "Vietnam." My pre-teen through my early adolescence: had nothing filtered through? Obviously something had...Moving along in Miami by now, I watched both conventions in 2004. As mesmerized as I was by Barack's speech, Kerry couldn't motivate me...and, sure enough, I voted for 43 again. I noted, however, that Colin Powell--whom my mother had admired immeasurably--got out. I'd begun to perk up. It was an interview Byron Pitts had with some soldiers on CBS that resurrected my teenaged memories once and for all. Now what to do? The 2008 race was shaping up. I didn't fully tune back in until I returned to D.C. I was fully back on board by the Iowa Caucus: reading (usually online this time); and watching the tube into the wee hours of the morning. Reading; watching; listening; and...yes, making up my mind: for myself; and by myself. I'm not going to go into a blow by blow at this point, except to say that, by the time I'd heard Ed Rendell and Terry McAuliffe and Kiki McLean and other Clinton surrogates endorse Hillary for the umpteenth time--and I was paying attention to the Obama presentations, too--I began to realize what she stood for, and what it means for me, as a woman: what her nomination could--and would--mean. By then I'd remembered one of my mother's most oft-mentioned stories: about how, when my parents had spent time at the University of Michigan during World War II, one of the things she'd noticed was that women worked in the laboratories, awaiting their turn to be able to enroll in the medical school. There were quotas...(as opposed to the relative self-attrition that seemed to be more the norm in Europe). And how could I forget that one of her aunts had been the third woman doctor in Hungary? Ilonka hadn't practiced, for she'd married a wealthy man, but she'd made it. Pioneers: my great-aunt; my mother; and now, you. All it took was for me to make this connection, between the woman who wanted to feel; and the wife of the man who feels--who does, herself, feel. You didn't just make dents in the ceiling, Hillary: you broke through. On this, the 88th anniversary of a woman's right to vote in this country you and my mother love so much (and she did), I salute you!

For Hillary Rodham Clinton, Ana Raab Marrero, and Rosario Camacho de Golderos

Craig in 1935: A Record to Hold On To

Here we go again...

With Florida about to be assaulted by (hopefully not more than Tropical Storm) Fay, it's hard for me not to be there in heart and mind. Lower Keys; Middle Keys; Upper Keys: it's still The Keys. Here's a little something I wrote as Rita was pounding the area around a little town named, Craig, back in 2005. It was in 1935, however, that a record was set there that's--shall we say--worth holding on to?

Tuesday, September 20, 2005

Tres Aguitas and Seventy Years

From Jerry Wilkinson, History of Upper Matecumbe Key Website.

TRES AGUITAS AND SEVENTY YEARS
BY GEORGINA MARRERO

Tuesday, September 20, 2005, 5 p.m.: The National Hurricane Center just lifted the Tropical Storm Warnings from Miami-Dade and Broward Counties. I’m breathing a sigh of relief.

About an hour before, I’d been watching the removal of debris from US 1 in the Lower Matecumbe area. Upper Matecumbe is now known as Islamorada.

Lots of flooding in the Upper and Middle Keys: the Overseas Highway had HAD to be cleared, or else no one could have reached the folks in the Lower Keys.

Not too bad in Key West, the city’s mayor stated within the last hour. Rita’s done less damage to our Southernmost City than either Dennis or Katrina, he said.

The bad stuff’s still coming down in the Middle Keys.

Matecumbe: what a pretty name. I always notice it on the way down. Upper, and Lower

A BIG one. A HUGE one, hit the area in 1935. It’s still known as the Labor Day Hurricane. It destroyed about forty miles worth of tracks, on Henry Flagler’s Overseas Railroad. The eye stretched from Craig (yes, there was a family named Craig) to Long Key.

The township of Craig boasted—and still boasts—the lowest barometric pressure ever recorded on the mainland of the United States: 26.35 inches.

The Hurricane of 1935 was a Category 5 storm. Twenty-five years later, Category 4 Donna again wreaked havoc in roughly the same area.

Seventy years later, along comes Category 2 Rita. It’s pounding Marathon as I write this.

For all intents and purposes, we in Dade and Broward Counties got away with tres aguitas.

As Rita proceeds on her headlong rush toward landfall somewhere in Texas, all we can hope for is that a little town, somewhere between Upper and Lower Matecumbe, retains the record it set seventy years ago.

Shakshuka!

Shakshuka!

Shakshuka: a Moroccan dish of eggs poached in tangy stewed tomatoes, which makes a good breakfast but is eaten any time. (Lonely Planet guide to Israel & the Palestinian Territories, 5^th edition, March 2007, p. 63.)

By Sunday at 8:00 a.m., I was on my own. The money changer at the Hotel Dan wouldn’t open until 9 a.m. My cousin had told me I’d find restaurants right on the beach, so I headed down toward Frishman Beach.

Down; and then up; and then, down again, just to be sure (and to while away the time until 9 a.m.). At the appointed time—sharp—I crossed the money changer’s threshold and promptly changed $330 US into 1089 NIS. The exchange rate was 3.3 scheckels to one American dollar on that first Sunday of my trip.

With mainly crisp 100 NIS notes in my purse, I headed back down to the first sand-side place I’d stumbled into. I still hadn’t gotten the hang of the NIS—or New Israeli Scheckel—U.S. dollar conversion, so I was a bit of a captive audience. However, I was quite hungry.

Other than a la carte, there appeared to be three specials. They all came with juice, bread, and coffee. I remembered reading about shakshuka in Lonely Planet. Tomatoes sometimes give me heartburn, but I decided to take a chance.

I hadn’t had a glass of juice since the States. I was about to find out that, unless you order a fresh-squeezed glass of some juice or the other (and it is, indeed, some of the very best in the world), you’re presented with something that remotely resembles Tang. The coffee turned out to be strong enough: more than American; less than, say, Turkish (which is also often available). It was quite palatable.

And then the shakshuka arrived, with three perfectly just this side of runny eggs gently continuing to cook in a boiling sea of stewed tomatoes. Stewed—and seasoned—as it turned out: I added an unnecessary dash of pepper out of habit.

Tearing off a piece of bread, I dunked it into the shakshuka. True to form, I cautiously worked my way around the egg yolks. Soon enough, though, I couldn’t resist. How could I? Hell, though my HDL is blessedly through the roof, all this cholesterol ingestion wouldn’t help my cause on this beach-side and increasingly hot day in Tel Aviv, Israel. But I was hungry, and so I went to town, devouring every bit of egg white and egg yolk in that skillet. As I could already feel the heartburn rising, though, I refrained from finishing all those seasoned stewed tomatoes.

As in other Mediterranean climes, the bill came in its own good time: 48 NIS. Should I tip, I wondered? I handed the waitress one of those crisp 100 NIS bills; she returned with two twenties and change. Change enough—though I still hardly knew what was what—with which to leave her something? I took the liberty of asking a young hunk sitting across from me. 5 or so scheckels, he said. So I left seven.

55 scheckels divided by 3.3 equaled $16.67 on that particular Sunday, that was growing steamier and—if humanly possible—sunnier by the minute.

Worth it, for that sunny-side-up concoction of eggs and spicy stewed tomatoes that is otherwise known as…Shakshuka!

Copyright, 2008 by Georgina Marrero All Rights Reserved

Nebraska Avenue--or, Always First

Ever since the late 90's--since Monicagate, to be precise--I have kept a close eye on politics. I remember watching the impassioned hearings leading up to President Clinton's impeachment: wide-eyed and wondering with whom to side all the way. Living in D.C. at the time (and attempting to find a niche on The Hill), I got in the habit of perusing both the Washington Post and the New York Times on Sundays, after having spent my mornings with Bob Schieffer; Sam Donaldson, Cokie Roberts (and, needless to say, George Will); and--first; always first--Tim Russert.

After surviving Monica and the impeachment, I found myself back in Florida. Just in time for the 2000 Presidential Election. Tim called it: "Florida. Florida. Florida." Once again, I was glued to the tube on Sunday mornings. (And almost every day at almost every conceivable hour during the "Recount" scenario--always glued to one of NBC's cable competitors, though.)

First--always first--I turned to Tim Russert.

For several years after 9/11, I confess to having gotten off the track. Until the 2004 election: once again, I tuned in. Come Sundays, first--always first--I turned to Tim Russert.

Four years later, I'm back in D.C. There's something about being here that, well, just keeps me on the ball. By the end of 2007, in heavy anticipation of the primary season, I was back to the Post and Times (online, this time); to the cable channels; and to the Sunday talk shows.

First--always first--I turned to Tim Russert. How wonderful: he appeared on MSNBC, too! (And on the nightly news, although by now it was Charlie Gibson with whom I kept company.)

Was it just less than two weeks ago that he for all intents and purposes anointed Barack Obama?

I could not believe what news awaited me when I returned home Friday night.

58 years old. I wonder, indeed, how Walter Cronkite and Mike Wallace must feel...

Eleven years ago, I spent my first few months in D.C. at The Greenbriar, a grande dame of an apartment building down Mass Ave. Northwest, I 'd told the realtor. A good neighborhood. Fine. I very quickly discovered I'd have to take a bus to get me to Dupont Circle; and that this bus had a quirky schedule. Were there any alternatives, I asked. Yes: go up a short ways beyond The Greenbriar, and turn right on Nebraska Avenue, I was informed.

So I learned to trudge up Nebraska toward Tenley Circle, often in blazing heat. On the right-hand side, I used to pass the WRC-TV's sign; and then the National Presbyterian Church. This lasted about two and a half months: by September I'd moved to the Village at McLean Gardens (now known as Vaughn Place). I knew I couldn't sustain that walk in the wintertime (and I didn't want to always have to depend on that fickle bus!).

Eleven years later I'm a little ways down Wisconsin Avenue (and am finally eating my words regarding that bus--well, sort of). I'd just returned from Georgetown when I turned on the computer.

Tim Russert has passed away, at age 58. At WRC-TV headquarters on Nebraska.

I hadn't been on Nebraska on this side of Wisconsin once since I'd moved back. But today--following an eleven-year-old instinct, I got in the right-hand lane at Ward Circle and found it. Admirers had already begun to lay flowers, posters, and mementos around WRC-TV's sign. Turning right on Van Ness, I turned left, and found a spot on Veazey Terrace. Then I walked back to Nebraska in--yes--blazing enough heat--turned left, approached the makeshift growing--yet loving--tribute to a very special human being, and paid my respects.

It's weird what you never think about until you realize you should have been thinking about it.
I never thought about that turn from Mass onto Nebraska Avenue. I just did it then, and didn't give it--or who might possibly work there--much thought. Admittedly, I hadn't politically "turned on," yet. Within months, though, I knew who came first--always first--on Sunday mornings. Tim Russert.

My thoughts and prayers are with his family and his colleagues, not only at WRC-TV, but beyond.

Georgina Marrero
June 14, 2008

Very Special

Tuesday, April 15, 2008: Tax Day. Also awaiting the imminent arrival of His Holiness, Pope Benedict XVI. Even for this very lapsed Catholic, this is Very Special. Below is what I wrote when his predecessor, Pope John Paul II, passed away. He was Very Special, too...in many ways.

Sunday, October 16, 2005 (from La Loquita del Zig-Zag blog)

October 16, 1978

The weekend that His Holiness passed away, memories of long-ago thoughts, of people long-removed, yet omnipresent, flooded over me.
Dolores, this is for you.

IN MEMORY OF POPE JOHN PAUL II (1920 – 2005)

VIGOR
BY GEORGINA MARRERO

It’s raining outside.
Soft, at first:
Then torrents.
Then soft, again:
Then torrents.

The air is sweet.
Softly filled with the smell
Of the green grass
As it fills my nostrils
On this special day—

Vigor incarnate is leaving us.
Vigor as soft, sweet,
And torrential
As the rain as it descends
Upon the green grass—

As the vigor that helped
Lead us to the green grass…

Of Freedom.

Saturday, April 2, 2005

OCTOBER 16, 1978
BY GEORGINA MARRERO

On October 16, 1978, I climbed into my little Miami blue Volkswagen Rabbit outside my apartment at 1675 Massachusetts Avenue in Cambridge, and drove the nine or so miles to the Ezra C. Fitch School in Waltham. A bilingual teacher with all my credentials in place, I was, nonetheless, considered to be a tutor.
So was Mrs. Dolores O'Brien. In a warm, cozy, wood-paneled basement room congenially divided in the middle by bookcases, Dolores and I carried out our mission as Title VII tutors: she, as the English as a Second Language instructor; and I, as her Spanish Language and Culture equivalent.
No matter: we were two sides of the same coin, mixing, matching, and interchanging children over the course of the school day.
I'd arrived in the Boston area three years earlier. Although I had lived in New York for the three years prior to that, there's something about Boston that screams out, Irish. Perhaps it's the Kennedy legacy? Perhaps it's the Celtics… or now, more proudly than ever, the Red Sox?
Whatever it was, all I knew, back in 1978, was that a sea of Irish surrounded me, a little Cuban-American hybrid. Beginning, of course, with Mrs. O'Brien, her stories of her husband, Bob, and her daughters. I remember one was named Siobhan.
Dolores had been very warm and welcoming from the very beginning. We shared children, resources, funds-even an amused tolerance for our-as it turned out-less than scrupulous boss. She could always get a chuckle, a laugh, or even a hearty guffaw, out of me.
We decorated the room together, yet separately, in a happy style conducive to making our little Kindergartners through sixth graders feel at home. While I cluttered my side of the room with as many bilingual, bicultural visuals as I could get my hands on, I remember Dolores always had a calendar going. One with foliage, one with pumpkins, one with Santa Claus, one with flowers… and, of course, one with shamrocks.
For Mrs. O'Brien, of course, was Mrs. O'Brien. And, of course, there was also her good friend and co-conspirator, Mrs. Anna McMenimen. Mrs. McMenimen happened to be the school secretary, so Dolores was always in the know. Which meant that I was often privy to their flow of sometimes gentle, and sometimes picaresque, gossip.
Much of this gossip often centered on Miss Mary Furdon, our often exasperated, and much beleaguered principal. Exasperated is the operative word, here: if not Miss Furdon, then Anna. At least I knew how to approach Miss Furdon when I had to.
I have a super picture of the four of us and another teacher named Joyce, I think. Judging from the Santa Claus calendar in the background, one of the lovely, extremely artistic fraternal twins from Puerto Rico who graced our classroom as our student teachers during the fall of 1978 took that picture some time in December.
The Suarez twins might or might not have been there October 16, but Dolores and I were. It was a Monday.
News didn't travel as fast then, but I'm sure we heard while we were at school that day: Habemus Papam. We have a Pope: Karol Wojtyla.
A Polish Pope? I remember asking myself. Everyone was shocked-not just the Italians. I'm sure our little group at school discussed it.
Then I returned home to Cambridge and probably listened to the TV coverage. I may have been young - 24 at the time - but not that young that it didn't sink in.
A Polish Pope. What would it mean?
I hadn't really paid much attention to Popes, especially as a young child. After all, I was baptized at age four so that Castro wouldn't send me to Russia, along with other "unwashed" children. My equally hybrid parents didn't think of it, until then.
But they then rushed to include me as a little, yet significant, "aside" in the more "normal" baptism of my godparents' newborn daughter.
And, when we arrived in the States, I duly went to Catechism and celebrated my First Communion when I was eight. I still remember being terrified before my first - and only - Confession.
I also remember that the Pope at the time was a rotund man named John XXIII. Hard to forget, for me: XXIII. 23. My number.
The date was May 12, 1963. The Pope passed away just under four weeks later, on June 3, 1963. I'd been born during Pius The Twelfth's Papacy, but Pope John had been both my Baptism and First Communion Pope. So now, who?
I remember Paul VI as a slender, serious-looking, scholar. As I sporadically attended Mass, especially when I was directed to while I attended summer camp, I also, only sporadically, paid attention to him. But whenever I did, I gave him my full respect.
When he passed away and John Paul I ascended to the Throne of St. Peter, I was about to begin my second year as bilingual tutor at the Fitch School. Thirty-three days later - September 28 - was a Thursday. We must have heard the news of the new Pope's sudden demise while at school that day, too.
What was going on? I probably figured he had been infirm. Was the Vatican aware of his condition? I'm asking myself that, now, on the heels of learning about the conspiracy theories that surround his death.
The school was abuzz. I'm sure I sat in on many a discussion between, especially, Mrs. O'Brien and Mrs. McMenimen.
But here we were. The Conclave of Cardinals had reconvened, and a Pole named Karol Wojtyla had been named the new Pontiff. I remember the coverage about how to pronounce-let alone, spell-his name. John Paul II soon became much easier to handle.
What would it mean? We quickly found out. The new Pope visited his homeland. Solidarity. Lech Walesa. President Reagan: "Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall." I visited my aunt and uncle in a free Romania.
I now paid attention, albeit at a respectful distance.
Pope John Paul II ascended to the Papacy when I had just turned twenty-four. Twenty-six plus years later, he's gone. He will have been the Pope of my youth to early middle age.
Although I have never formally confessed, nor taken Communion, since my First Communion, there is a bond I have never been able to loosen. I remember only The Lord's Prayer, so I have to mumble along whenever I attend Mass, mimicking others. And yet…
… I could not help not taking note of the date - October 16, 1978 - when Karol Wojtyla became Pope.
And I could not help remembering where - and with whom - I was. With some lovely Irish ladies who were probably providing this hybrid with nourishment I wasn't even aware I was imbibing.
Rest In Peace, Your Holiness.
For Dolores O’Brien. Sunday, April 3, 2005