The Good People
In a world where greed often overshadows kindness, here is a story to touch any hardened soul.....She was ancient, her eyes shrunken, and barely open. Dr. Thomas Kierney wondered how long since she had last eaten. Her wrist, which he held to feel her pulse, was only slightly thicker than the tubing of safety bed rail he had just lowered to examine his new patient.....Very weak, he thought, letting go of the wrist gently, almost afraid he'd break it, so fragile was it. Over the years he had treated many of the emaciated homeless brought in.....A croaky whisper, like leaves crunching underfoot. The patient. Dr. Kierney bent to listen....."The sun will warm my fingers. Ten cents in the till. Little boy tossed me a dime. I'm cold. At least I'm not hungry anymore...." Her words blurred as she drifted in and out of consciousness.....Dr. Kierney touched her wrinkled cheek, paper thin against the bony contours. Despite the blood transfusions and the intravenous feeding, he doubted she'd last the night. She was beyond the hunger contractions. The valves to her heart were worn out. Her body had accepted defeat. Soon her heart would stop..... The room was stuffy. Outside Spring was in the throes of resurrection. Dr. Kierney opened a window. It was two in the afternoon and most of the visitors' parking spaces were filled.....Little boy tossed me a dime, she had said. Not even enough for a cup of coffee. Hardly enough for a clump of parsley, Dr. Kierney mused. But thirty years ago a dime had changed his life.....
My Three Fathers
The Camellia Lady
Two autobiographical stories of people who loved beyond the norm or what was expected.....
She Wore Gardenias in Her Hair
I loved my mother. In her your youth she was free-spirited and spontaneous; she reminded me of a gypsy moth, and she wore gardenias in her hair. She was beautiful and kind, yet she bore a secret pain that would slowly yet relentlessly drain her mind and her spirit. For she was one of the many victims of OCD - obsessive compulsive disorder.....
Is There More to Life Than What The Realists Claim
My family's history is rich with tales of psychic and supernatural occurrences. As a woman of today, I would dismiss most of these tales as workings of minds rich in folklore, imagination and superstition.....No, I've never had an afterlife experience, nor am I psychic, or have extra sensory perception, beyond that occasional incidence where a friend or two and I have thought about, called or written to each other at the same time. Skeptics will say - Coincidence....Yet some things have occurred to me worth mentioning. I will let the reader be the judge....