I found my eleven year old son James crumbled on the floor in the dining room, half hidden between the breakfront and the wrought iron railing that separated it from the living room. When only minutes before he had heard that Randy had been killed, he went where he could curl up, partially in full view and partially hidden. He sat rolled into a ball with his back against the wall, knees rigid and bent reaching his chin where his head rested. His arms were wrapped tightly around his ankles. He looked as though he was trying to reach inside himself to only an hour before when his brother, his mentor, his very best friend hugged him and kissed him goodbye.

In my despair I tried to reach inside of him, to help him, to tell him how I love him and how together we can get through this. I wanted to get down to his level by sitting on my knees and reaching my outstretched arms around him.

His eyes were glazed over with salt water tears that ran down his cheeks his chin and his nose. But his dark eyes glared at my face and screamed “don’t touch me!”

by
Reiss

I could always take or leave organ music. Oh, I know lots of people love it. Friends have organs in their homes. Others travel far and wide to hear old theater organs that have become symbols of a time gone by. I guess my indifference stems from years of singing in choirs. As a very young child, the good sisters decided I should sing in the Boys Choir in our school and church. I did, forever......until my voice “changed” and I could no longer do so. The organ was our accompaniment. It played occasional solos, processionals, recessionals and music to fill the time between our songs, hymns and responses to the prayers sung in Latin by the priest. It was nice, but, for me, it was for accompaniment, it was not the piano. Now, that’s an instrument! And so, over the years, I’d sit and play a tune or two on Mr. Knight’s console organ, the one he had to have but never really learned to play. This, for him, was the greatest gift and his wife was happy to hear a recognizable tune from that thing that dominated her living room. As soon as I had pleased them enough, I’d get up, walk away and not look back at it. I’ve even, over the years, gone, with friends, to organ concerts. “That was nice. Now, let’s go to dinner,” was my usual reaction.

When I saw the Organ whose pipes look like a box of Mc Donald’s French Fries in the Walt Disney Concert Hall, I was duly impressed with the drama, design and beauty of its placement in the hall. The organ is a perfect centerpiece for the interior of that beautiful building. Very good, I thought and, I suppose, it would be nice to, one day, hear it.

The final selection in last Sunday’s concert at The Disney, was Saint-Saens’ Symphony number 3, The Organ Symphony. The pre-concert speaker warned, those sitting close to the organ were in for a shake-up. Our seats, this season, are in the Terrace View section. My seat is level with and three seats away from the nearest pipes. We can, easily reach out and touch them. We braced for the “shake-up.”

The musically delicious first half of the concert over, we returned, after intermission, ready for the organ! Bring it on lady! Saint-Saens’ familiar music began. The orchestra, conducted by Charles Dutoit, took us on a beautiful, melodious ride. The organ, used like any other instrument in the orchestra played and fit in just as the cellos or the violas did. Nice!! We were aware that we were hearing the organ a bit more clearly than patrons out there in the “normal” seats of the hall. Indeed, when they heard the pretty notes, we heard some of the wheezing organs are apt to do. Not bad! In fact, fun.

The lady at the keyboard had other plans for us, though. Suddenly her moment was here. She let out the stops! That organ began to sing! It began to roar. It began to say... “you want more, here it is!” I, the guy who took organ music lightly, was lifted from my seat. I felt as well as heard the sounds that soared from that instrument. I was grinning then smiling and, eventually, brushing away the tear that wanted to fall from my eye! Wow! Now, this is organ music as it should be! Wondering if I were alone in my reaction, I glanced around at my friends and others sitting in the section. The reaction was universal.

When, thirty five minutes after the first notes of the symphony were offered, the organist reached deep into the soul of the organ and, with all the might and muster at its command, gave out a final chord that shook us to the core and left us wide-eyed and swept to never before experienced planes of enjoyment and amazement. Never underestimate the power of a big box of French Fries. Bravo!!!

Basking in my Refulgence by Marlene Hickey

We were sitting at the table, my love and I, when out of nowhere Denis asked, “Now, why is it we’re not getting married?” The implication was that we had discussed the question many times before, always ending with this conclusion: “Nah, let’s not.” In truth, during nine years of seeing each other almost daily, neither of us had ever so much as breathed the “M” word.

“Well,” said I, caught off guard, “. . . I guess because . . . uh . . . the reason was . . . I mean, well . . . I don’t know.” I broke off then, realizing there were no good reasons. We put our arms around each other, and I said, “Does this mean we’re engaged?” And that was the romantic proposal I received in October of 1997.

Before we ended our conversation, we agreed that my son, David, would officiate at the ceremony in the church where he was pastor, and we picked December 27th, my mother’s birthday, for our wedding day. We decided to have a “no gift” wedding, but to add a note to the invitations asking anyone who wished to take part in the reception to bring a song, a poem, an anecdote, a blessing, or a prayer.

In November we began to write out the words we would say to each other during the ceremony. When I asked Denis about the style of his vows, he said, “I’m keeping them simple.”

“Good,” I said. “I’ll do the same.” You’d think that when you marry a man you’ve known for so many years, the workings of his mind would be fairly open to you, right? Wrong! In that moment, I forgot that some of our most exciting dinnertime conversations centered on the differences between Stoics and Gnostics, as well as discussions of such unforgettable characters as Ignatius of Antioch and Eusebius of Caesarea. In short, I should have known there was a good chance that his idea of the word “simple” would be notably different from what the rest of the world thinks of as simple. But unable to see beyond the stars in my eyes, I fell for it.

December came early that year, or so it seemed. Our wedding day was awash in California sunshine, and as I waited to enter the church, I remembered my mother saying “happy the bride the sun shines on.” My mind drifted back to the first time I married as a girl of 19. A Nebraska sun shone on that wedding party. I tried to recall the emotions I had experienced that day so long ago. Even in my naiveté, I sensed that I was entering the mysterious realm of womanhood and knew that from the moment I became a wife, nothing in my life would ever be the same. Now I was marrying again as a mature woman and a widow of twelve years, with a serenity lacking in my younger days.

The service began with David singing the song he wrote for his own wedding 20 years earlier. Then he removed the guitar from around his neck and assumed his pastoral role. It is a strange sensation, being joined in matrimony by your first-born son. After all those years of praying for his health and happiness, and offering him guidance with loving concern, he was now doing the same for me and for the man I had chosen to spend the rest of my life with.

Halfway through the service, David and my daughter, Suzanne, sang “Panis Angelicus,” accompanied by my daughter-in-law, Carla, on the autoharp. Then at last Denis and I stood at the altar facing each other and prepared to recite our vows. Pastor David had cleverly inserted them into the open pages of his bible, which he held forward for us to glance at as we took our respective turns, probably figuring beforehand that people of our advanced age needed all the help they could get. I led off with mine, a model of simplicity, just as we had agreed:

“Denis, there is so much I want to say so you will know how dear you are to me, but words come haltingly when the heart is so full. In the presence of God, I ask you to be my husband, for you have opened my heart to love and quietness, to togetherness and solitude, and to the farthest reaches of wonder. With you, I have come to realize how small this world is, for two souls, born in the same year in lands as far apart as the American West and the South of Ireland, have found each other, at the right age and at the right time of their lives.

I have a dream of our journey through life together: in this dream we are ever young, always healthy, overflowing with compassion for the world and all its beings, and filled with the joy of being together. I thank you for teaching me that the small ordinary moments of every day are extraordinary moments to be treasured. I thank you for the gifts of fun and laughter we have shared. Most of all, I thank you for the gift of you. I will love, honor, and care for you all the days of my life, for you have made my life complete.”

Then Denis spoke his “simple” vows to me. Here are a few excerpts from his remarks:

“Marlene, there’s a radiance about you which warms the hearts of everyone whose life you touch, a radiance which transcends your demureness, a tranquility which brings to others, and to me, a sense of harmonious concord. The years I have known and loved you have been for me the peace-filled years, the mellifluous years. Now, in the presence of those we most cherish:
I pledge myself to an unconditional love for you, without reservation or equivocation.
I pledge to use any talent or gift I possess, that you may attain the life-joy you deserve.

Finally, I dare ask everything of you. I dare to ask that your equanimity may compensate for my impatience; that your gentleness may elevate and transform my impetuosity; that the refulgent splendor of you may counteract and expiate for the lacunae of my deficiencies. Again, before God, I dare ask if, for the rest of my life, I may bask in the splendor of your radiance.”

As he finished speaking these words, there was a kind of hush in the church, almost a stunned pause. As the ceremony resumed, a woman in the congregation sobbed loudly, and the wild thought crossed my mind that perhaps she was crying not from the emotion of the moment, but because up to this time, she had rather prided herself on her fine vocabulary.

When my son, Brian, made his toast at the reception afterward, he said, “Mom, I just hope you can live up to all those things Denis said to you. And Denis, those words,” he added, slapping his forehead in mock dismay. “What do they mean?”

When I later wrote to relatives and friends who were not able to come to the wedding due to the distance, I told them “The reception was lovely, but fairly short. The guests all wanted to hurry home to their dictionaries so they could find out what Denis had said to me.”

After the solemnity of the service, the reception was joyous and entertaining. My six teenaged grandsons, who had ushered at the wedding in tuxedoed grandeur and provided some of the musical entertainment for the reception, now reverted to type. They used the camera at their table not to record the festivities, but to snap pictures of one another in various Austin Powers poses, a movie they had recently seen and admired.

Our friends and family put on a great show for us, showering us with songs, poems, and proclamations. One Irish friend, Mary Ferguson, read a poem by Seamus Heaney. She mistakenly said in her introduction that the famous Irish poet had been one of Denis’s students back in Ireland. All eyes sought his face at that moment, and you could almost hear them think, “He must be much older than he looks.” But the poet was Denis’s fellow teacher and dear friend, not a pupil.

It was a day filled with joy, a good start indeed for the golden years to come. We have celebrated our tenth anniversary now, and life is good. Denis is still basking in my refulgence, and I love and honor him like crazy. Does it get any better than this?

The Thimble Glass
By Stephen Robertson

“The wee yin,” I heard my great uncle John say to my father, “the wee yin is plastered.”
“What do you mean, he’s plastered?” my father asked.
“He’s been walking roon aw nicht with that wee thimble glass beggin fae drinks,” great uncle John said, with his usual rough emphasis, “I’m tellin you, he’s a two-year-old drunk…no mistakin’ that, he takes after his faither, I think.”
My father ignored the dig. “It’s only beer he’s drinking. It won’t do him any harm.”
“I‘m telling yea, its nae jis beer. These louts are given him whiskey, tae. He’s drinkin the hard stuff and, watch him, he’s staggerin roon the room.”
I knew it was time to move away, walk across the smoke-filled room and hide in the crowd and hold my glass out and beg for more drinks, that‘s what I‘ll do. It‘s best to stay away from my father, because he‘ll make one of his famous pronouncements and my drinking days will be over. He’s a man who tells you all the time he’s never wrong. It was his way to get you to obey his orders. It was a command that would be imprinted in my mind all of my life.
It was one of those Scottish parties that had become fashionable during the war, open up your flat to all of your friends and relatives and watch the alcohol flow. The crowd was attempting to drink a virtual river, trying to ignore the Germans who were bombing Glasgow every night. The attacks were quite severe and many thought the object was to obliterate the city. This dreadful thought drove everyone to drink -- after all, it was Scotland’s national past time, so every Saturday night someone would throw a party. I always had my thimble glass at the ready.
Standing in the middle of the crowd, men in flannel pants and women in short skirts, I thought I was lost in a forest, like the children in one of the fairy tales of which I’m fond. In my mind, these people are all giants -- there is no way the Germans are going to defeat us with people this size. Scots make the best soldiers in the world, this is true, Wellington said so. The Germans in World War I called the kilted Scottish regiments “the women from Hell.”
A stranger with a rough face knelt down beside me, holding a tumbler full of whiskey. He wore a black eye patch and resembled a pirate. He had scars above the patch on his forehead and scars on his cheek below. In a way, he resembled a monster, something that might disturb a child in his worst nightmares..
He was at eye level with me, an unusual feeling for a child when in the company of adults. He said:
“Diz the wee yin wan somethin tae drink?” I nodded in the affirmative and he took my thimble glass, tipped his tumbler over and gave me a full measure of “the water of life.”
I took it and drank it right away; it had a strong medicinal taste, but I liked it. “Dae ye wan another?” the stranger asked. I nodded yes again and he poured me another drink. I didn’t take it right away and the man stood up and walked away. I didn’t have time to thank him, but I moved into the corner of the room where I kept my toys. The boxes and blocks were in a neat pile. A gray battleship that great uncle John built for me out of scraps of wood sat on top of the heap. It was something I really wanted to play with but near the toys was the hated Mickey Mouse gasmask that the Americans gave to every child in Britain when the war started. I never went near it. It frightened me. I had to wear it once, testing it to see if it worked. It was snapped around my face and the first thing that happened was the eye pieces began to fog up. I couldn’t see anything and I had this feeling that I was going to suffocate. I was gasping for breath when I screamed and my father grabbed it and pulled it off my head. Never again would I put it on -- I had a deep feeling that I knew what it represented, and I didn’t want to deal with the thing.
“Here you are,” I heard my father say, “where have you been hiding?”
He smiled at me, but he put his hand out indicating that I should give him my glass. I had no choice, so I handed it to him. He looked at the contents and drank it immediately. I thought he was really being cruel. After all, it was my drink. In good will, the pirate man gave it to me.
“Come with me,” my father said, and we walked through the smoke-filled room and went into the scullery. My father ran my thimble glass under the tap and then cleaned it out with a dish cloth.
“That’s it boy,” my father said. “No more for you. Your drinking days are over.”
The pirate man stood in the doorway, smiling at both of us. He winked at me with his good eye.
“Gee, the bonnie boy another,” he said to my father. “It ain’t goin to do him nae harm. We dinnie know whether we’re goin to be here tomorrow -- what harm can a little dram do? A drink in a thimble glass ain‘t enough to worry aboot.”
“I’ll give him a drink,” my father said, “but on my terms.”
I had no idea what this meant, but I watched my father go over to the sink. I thought he was cleaning out my glass one more time. He handed it to me and it had liquid in it. Great, I thought, another drink and my thimble glass was liberated for the rest of the night. I could still travel through the party and drink to my heart’s content.
I tossed it down and I started to choke. I was gasping for breath. The pirate man pounded me on the back, trying to give me some relief. It was the worst thing that could happen -- I drank a thimble full of tap water.

* * * *

Years later, I sat at my desk with a glass of single malt on the rocks. It was an American way to drink. The Scots wouldn’t take whiskey this way, no ice allowed, but as time past I became more and more American and employed American habits. I spoke like an American, I thought like an American, I was an American.
The single malt had a smoky taste and it brought back memories of my thimble glass. It also brought back memories of the people at the party. They were all gone now. My father, my mother, great uncle John, all the relatives, all the friends, they were all dead and probably the pirate man too.

Sharon has been in a coma for two weeks now, following a cardiac arrest. What a nightmare – she’s just 19 years old, on a respirator, and shows no signs of life or brain activity.

On the 15th day she suddenly started moving her legs in a bicycle pattern. When I first saw this, I asked the doctor if this means she is emerging from the coma. “Oh no” he said – “that’s just agitation.” But that very day they started to wean her off of the respirator. By the following morning she was breathing on her own and was moved out of intensive care. The bicycle activity continued.

Today I woke up with a tiny glimmer of hope. Perhaps because this is the 18th day, and the meaning of 18 means “chai” in Hebrew -- or "life". Despite hoping and anticipating that something special might happen, I was surprised when I entered Sharon’s room to find that she was lying on a lounge chair near the window – still unresponsive.

Sue, the private duty nurse said “We have a problem today. They are short of nurses at the station and I need 3 nurses to help me carry her back to the bed.” I looked around the room and said “Sue, what if we slide the chair next to the bed. That way, if you can get one nurse in here, you can each take one underarm, let her feet touch the floor and swivel her on to the bed. After all, she has been exercising her legs and they seem pretty solid.”

Sue smiled, went out to the station and came back with another nurse. They moved the chair next to the bed. With each one holding her underarm, they swiveled her body. The second that Sharon’s feet touched the floor, she started to WALK!!! Both nurses were grinning, then laughing out loud – and then screaming with glee. Still holding her tightly, they walked with her. Out to the hall, then down the hall, then turned back into her room and called the doctor. Within minutes, a doctor of physical medicine was at her bedside. I shrieked "She's walking -- that mean's she's coming out of the coma." His response was "No, she is not walking; she is ambulating. And she is not out of the coma, but tomorrow we will begin physical and occupational therapy.”