February 24, 2008

A daughter's lesson shines a light

February 24, 2008/ Beverly Beckham

My daughter, Lauren, is always teaching me something.

When she was an infant and colicky and inconsolable, she taught me that sunshine really does follow rain. Because once the colic passed, there she was, all sweetness and smiles, a happy baby, a happy toddler, a happy child. When she was in first grade, she taught me to pay more attention to time, because there she was, suddenly, climbing onto the school bus, a little girl with two long ponytails, the baby she'd been so soon gone.

February 17, 2008

Memories meet endless connections on the Internet

February 17, 2008/ Beverly Beckham

This started out being about Stephen King and his new book, "Duma Key," which I bought at Costco the other day, despite the fact that there's enough horror in the real world so why go looking for more? But I love Stephen King and I was thinking about this, authors you love, books you read that you never forget. "The Stand." "Pet Sematary."

And somehow, who knows why, totally out of the blue, I remembered "Parrish," a 1958 novel about life and love, mostly love, on a Connecticut tobacco farm, which I read when I was 11, under cover of darkness because …

February 10, 2008

Making Memories to Last a Lifetime

February 10, 2008/ Beverly Beckham

Four nights. Three days. Not long. But long enough for a vacation to remember.

We followed the children. We were children. We woke up at dawn. We leaped up. We smiled. We put on clothes, but hardly looked at them. We put on shoes made for walking, not posing. We ate pancakes and strawberries and joked and laughed at the table…

February 03, 2008

She was no saint, but she looked like one

February 03, 2008/ Beverly Beckham

A woman lives and dies out of the spotlight, 88 years on earth; and who, besides her family and friends, knows the mountains she's climbed, the fears she's faced, the impossible things she's accomplished? Without headlines or a song or a book or paparazzi to record the story, what happens to the story?

In words, Louise Nolan's story would describe a saint - selfless, loving, faithful, kind. But she wasn't a saint. Saints are stoic. Saints endure, carry on, play the hand life deals. Saints sacrifice.

Louise didn't sacrifice. She loved.

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