All my life I have believed in good. Bad sometimes prevails, but I have always figured if I hold on long enough bad will fail in the end. Lately, it has gotten more and more difficult to hold on to the good. Sister Paula Merrill was murdered on Thursday. She was a nurse practitioner who dedicated her life to providing health care to people in the poorest county in Mississippi. I knew Paula Merrill. We went to St. Pat’s in Stoneham together for eight years. We went to Fenway Park to watch the Sox. She went to one high school while I went to another, but when my family was moving to the Cape, Paula offered a room in her house so I could finish high school where I started, but we lost track of each other sometime after high school. I didn’t even know she had become a nun. When I visit my sister, I go by Paula’s family house, and I think Paula Merrill lived there. I go by another house and think Dennis McCarthy lived there. Paula Tague lived in another house I pass. Marilyn Rich lived on that street and David Coleman on another. Patty Hurley still lives up the street from my sister. They were my classmates for eight years and are part of my history. When I drive by their houses, I remember each of them, but they are frozen in time. Paula Merrill isn’t any longer. I mourn her death despite the years since we’ve seen each other. I firmly believe, though, that despite all, Paula would remind me to hold fast to the good for all I’m worth.
Posted tagged ‘St. Pat’s’
“Home is a name, a word, it is a strong one; stronger than magician ever spoke, or spirit ever answered to, in the strongest conjuration.”
August 2, 2015I know it is late for me, so late that I almost thought of taking a mini-vacation, but here I am. Earlier I was out on the deck sitting in the shade of the umbrella. The day is another hot one. Gracie, despite lying in the shade, was panting. She wanted in so we both came inside to the AC. She is now comfy and asleep in her crate.
We’re going to the dump later. That’s the only entry on my dance card.
There is something so strongly compelling about going home. When I go back to my old home town, as I still call it after all these years, I take familiar routes, the ones I used to walk. From St. Pat’s to the project there are many changes. Some of the older houses are gone. The railroad tracks too are gone but there is a wide path where they once were. I am sometimes tempted to park my car and follow the path to see if it looks the same. There was a stream where we stopped for water. I wonder if it is still there. The playground where I spent so many summer days disappeared. Where it was is all overgrown now. My house and street look exactly the same except the bushes on the side of my old house are really tall. I don’t know if there is a limit as to how tall they will get. The tops look a bit spindly to me. I always have the urge to get out of the car and walk into the backyard just to peek to see if the in-ground garbage pail is still there, but I figure it would look a bit odd to the current occupants. I wonder what color the walls are now. In my day the living room was green. I suspect the house will look quite small inside to me now. I know the kitchen seemed small even then. Kid’s voices still fill the air on a nice day.
In Bolga, on my trip back after forty years, the first place I went was to my old school grounds to find my house. It was quite easy to find. It needed paint and the back courtyard could not be seen because the current occupants had added to the fence tops to block the view. I wondered about the four doors around the courtyard. I wondered what color they are. Coincidentally they were green when I lived there.
Home is a fluid place. It is both where you live now and all the places you’ve lived before.
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