Category: Gratitude

  •   Perhaps one of the most extraordinary moments in my life came when I was given the privilege of photographing Mother Teresa on her visit to our diocese. I was so nervous I failed miserably at the shots I took, but I was delighted to snap one image of her laughing with her fellow sisters.  …

  • I have made an amazing discovery. Nothing says "I love you," better than a four gallon container   of cannoli filling. That is, if you are my dear friend John, whose appreciation of food belies family roots that stretch back to Norcia, Italy. And cannolis are at the top of his list, along with chocolate layer…

  • Who would have thought that, in the middle of winter while taking garbage out to the deck, I would run into a very large spider hanging down from a single line of web? In the warmer weather, we seem to have an overabundance of spiders, but I’m not accustomed to seeing them when there's frost…

  • My father was an adventurer at heart. No doubt, if he had lived at a different time, under different circumstances he would have sought wisdom at the feet of a Tibetan monk, and explored the ruins of Machu Pichu. As life would have it, the farthest he ever got was a castle in Ireland, and…

  • Today, as I make plans to attend yet another wake for a friend, I do what most of us do in times like this—remember what was. The meeting of friends and family at the funeral parlor, the familiar routine of the wake service and Mass, the images and symbols of the cemetery are certain to…

  • So, last week I locked my husband in the car. I didn’t mean to do it, mind you. It was an accident; one I didn’t even know had happened. We were meeting friends for dinner. When we arrived at the restaurant my husband told me to go ahead inside while he tried to find the…

  • "Dear angel guide my feet, I come each moment closer to the brink, it may be I am nearer home today, dear angel, than I think"    Carved on an old headstone in an English cemetery The headstone found in an old English cemetery relayed an incomplete story of a family struck by tragedy—the dad, James,…