The Giftless Christmas
Our budget was a disaster. Christmas for the first time in our family life, would be "giftless." Four years ago I had stopped sending Christmas cards, when our budget could no longer cover the rising and costly price of paper and stamps. Now it seemed we would have to include "gifts" under that category as well. I sat mulling over the bleak outlook of "Christmas Present...."
A Cup of Humanity
Many years ago I worked in downtown Manhattan. It was a pleasant custom for many employees during their lunch hour to walk to Battery Park and enjoy the bay. A story one of these employees, a co-worker, a young man, once told me comes to mind and I would like to share with you...."I was feeling particularly low that Spring," the young man began. "And I looked it, dressed in a mended windbreaker and patched, faded jeans. The high-pitched voice that interrupted my sulking, grated. "Hi, beautiful day, isn't it?" said the girl who had just sat down beside me on the park bench. I turned my head and glared at her frostily. In the distance the Staten Island Ferry announced its arrival with a hollow blast....Irritably I replied, "Not when someone intrudes on another's solitude."...."Educated," she remarked, "though you'd never tell by your clothes and grooming."...."There's a wise old saying--" I started...."You can't tell a book by its cover," she finished, tilting her head to the side to study me briefly. "College graduate?" she inquired...."A-student, cum laude!" I exclaimed....."Trade schools are better," she said....I took a closer look at her. She was plain, hair a mousy brown, skin sallow. She wore a light blue pantsuit buttoned to a simple round collar. I asked, "Do you always talk to strange men?"....
Blonde Angel
I lay on the gurney in the post-operating room of the maternity ward and wondered if my child had been born. I tried to touch the swollen part of my belly to see if my baby still lingered inside, but my hand and arm felt too weak to do my bidding....The nurse returned and bent over me to feel my pulse. My throat and mouth were dry and my voice a struggling whisper, but I managed two words, "My baby?"....."
Amidst the Thorns, the Roses
I'm tired of hearing how many school nuns in the past were cruel and spiteful in dealing with students, or hearing them referred to as fanatics devoid of common sense and psychological etiquette. I'm sorry to disappoint those who have nothing but ill to say about the religious in their past. I never encountered a priest or a sister who harmed me in any way....I'm not blind to the world. Yes, there are the exceptions who ruin the reputation of the religious as a whole. But they are the exception.throughout Catholic Grammar and High School, the priests and nuns that passed through my life were the finest in their Religious Orders. They changed my life for the better....As a child I was no angel....
Younger Times
While cleaning out a drawer in my desk I chanced upon a first grade assignment that my son had completed with our help some eighteen years ago. It was a questionnaire addressed to parents concerning lifestyles when they were young.....I was born and raised in America, while my husband hailed from Italy.....Eleven questions were put to us under the headings, "Father" and "Mother," regarding our lifestyles. Rereading the contents, I experienced again amazement at our different backgrounds, and how each differed from my son's.....
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