HAPPY HOLIDAYS TO ALL!!

May the holiday

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the coming

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A Death Row Gift: The Brown Paper Bag

(The following post is courtesy of David Seth Michael's blog, called The Dream Antilles. Originally posted a year ago, in December, 2009, this story is by Luis Ramirez, who was executed in Texas on October 20, 2005. David Seth Michaels, an attorney in Columbia County, New York who has long worked to end the death penalty, got the story from a fellow death penalty opponent named Abe Bonowitz. As David wrote, "The story doesn't require any commentary, and I'm not going to give any. It's a gift to all of you for the holidays: Christmas, Chanukah, Kwanzaa, New Year's, Solstice, whatever holiday, if any, you may celebrate.")

By Luis Ramirez #999309

I'm about the share with you a story whose telling is long past due. It's a familiar story to most of you reading this from death row. And now it's one that all of you in "free world " may benefit from. This is the story of my first day on the row.

I came here in May of 1999. The exact date is something that I can't recall. I do remember arriving in the afternoon. I was placed in a cell on H-20 wing over at the Ellis Unit in Huntsville, TX. A tsunami of emotions and thoughts were going through my mind at the time. I remember the only things in the cell were a mattress, pillow, a couple of sheets, a pillow case, a roll of toilet paper, and a blanket. I remember sitting there, utterly lost.

The first person I met there was Napolean Beasley. Back then, death row prisoners still worked. His job at the time was to clean up the wing and help serve during meal times. He was walking around sweeping the pod in these ridiculous looking rubber boots. He came up to the bars on my cell and asked me if I was new. I told him that I had just arrived on death row. He asked what my name is. I told him, not seeing any harm in it. He then stepped back where he could see all three tiers. He hollered at everyone, "There's a new man here. He just drove up. His name is Luis Ramirez." When he did that, I didn't know what to make of it at first. I thought I had made some kind of mistake. You see, like most of you, I was of the impression that everyone on death row was evil. I thought I would find hundreds of "Hannibal Lecters" in here. And now, they all knew my name. I thought "Oh well," that's strike one. I was sure that they would soon begin harassing me. This is what happens in the movies after all.

Well, that's not what happened. After supper was served, Napolean was once again sweeping the floors. As he passed my cell, he swept a brown paper bag into it. I asked him "What's this?" He said for me to look inside and continued on his way. Man, I didn't know what to expect. I was certain it was something bad. Curiosity did get the best of me though. I carefully opened the bag. What I found was the last thing I ever expected to find on death row, and everything I needed. The bag contained some stamps, envelopes, notepad, pen, soap, shampoo, toothpaste, tooth brush, a pastry, a soda, and a couple of Ramen noodles. I remember asking Napolean where this came from.

He told me that everyone had pitched in. That they knew that I didn't have anything and that it may be a while before I could get them. I asked him to find out who had contributed. I wanted to pay them back. He said, "It's not like that. Just remember the next time you see someone come here like you. You pitch in something."

I sat there on my bunk with my brown paper bag of goodies, and thought about what had just happened to me. The last things I expected to find on death row was kindness and generosity. They knew what I needed and they took it upon themselves to meet those needs. They did this without any expectation of reimbursement or compensation. They did this for a stranger, not a known friend. I don't know what they felt when they committed this act of incredible kindness. I only know that like them, twelve "good people" had deemed me beyond redemption. The only remedy that these "good people" could offer us is death. Somehow what these "good people" saw and what I was seeing didn't add up. How could these men, who just showed me so much humanity, be considered the "worst of the worst?"

Ever since Napolean was executed, for a crime he committed as a teen, I've wanted to share this story with his family. I would like for them to know that their son was a good man. One who I will never forget. I want for them to know how sorry I am that we as a society failed them and him. I still find it ridiculous that we as a people feel that we cannot teach or love our young properly. I'm appalled at the idea that a teen is beyond redemption, that the only solution that we can offer is death. It's tragic that this is being pointed out to the "good people" by one of the "worst of the worst". God help us all.

What's in the brown paper bag? I found caring, kindness, love, humanity, and compassion of a scale that I've never seen the "good people" in the free world show towards one another.

"Silence in the Storm"

By P.M. Woods

There was laughter and the creaking of chairs, and there were silences too, but there were always silences. She was used to the silences.

She was comfortable with the silences. But the laughter? Had she imagined the laughter?

The living room was in almost complete darkness. She had lit two candles earlier in the evening. The wind was blowing, but it didn’t seem it was blowing strong enough to make the rockers on the porch move back and forth. When was the last time she heard laughter? Real laughter? When was the last time she found something funny enough to laugh?

It began to rain and soon it began to rain hard, so hard it began to beat against the windows. It was a storm, a summer storm.

Since she had never experienced a summer storm like this before she was a bit unsure what to do. Should she fill up the bathtub with water? Should she get more candles out just in case the power went out? Should she bring the lawn chairs in?

In the end she did nothing. She decided to wait because, if she was to be honest with herself and what time better to be honest with herself than now in a summer storm, that is what she had been doing all summer—waiting, waiting to see what would happen next, waiting to see what she would decide to do, waiting to see if anything else would happen, if anything would change.

She had become passive, like those women she didn’t want to be.

“No, “ she said out loud to break the silence. “This isn’t the way I thought I would be,” she said. And it wasn’t. This wasn’t the way she thought she would be at all.

When the phone rang breaking the silence she jumped. “Hello?” she said quietly.

“Hey,” he said. “I was just calling to see how you were holding up over there.” It was him, the man from the canoe.

Her heart began to beat. “I’m doing okay,” she paused. “What about you?”

“I’m doing okay,” he said. “This is supposed to be quite a storm and I was checking that you were okay.”

“I’m fine,” she said.

“Good,” he said.

She waited for him to say something else and when he didn’t she said, “How is everything going?”

“Okay,” he said. “Actually fine, everything is going fine. I haven’t been around for a while because I had to take care of a few things.” He paused. “That is why I haven’t been by.”

“Oh,” she said. What should she say? Should she acknowledge that she noticed he hadn’t been around? Should she ask what he had to take care of?

“I haven’t been out on the lake lately,” he said, “because I’ve been away.”

“Away?” she asked.

“Yes,” he said. “Away to take care of a few things.”

“Oh,” she said. She waited for him to continue and when he didn’t she said, “I haven’t really been out much myself. I really haven’t been out rowing.”

“Oh no,” he said. “How come?”

“I don’t know,” she said. “I’ve just stopped.”

“Stopped?”

“Stopped, I guess. I don’t know why,” she fell silent. The silence felt good and she wished he would hang up so she wouldn’t any longer have to break the silence of her house with her voice.

“You shouldn’t stop,” he said. “You should keep rowing. It’s good for you.”

If he hadn’t said, “it’s good for you” she may have wanted to keep talking. Although she didn’t want to talk to him, talking to him in some way felt good. His voice made her heart beat faster, his voice made her sit up straighter in her chair, his voice made her get outside of her own head. But telling her what is good for her. . . . She wanted to hang up.

“I should go,” she said.

“Why?”

“Why?”

“Do you have a date?”

“A date?’

“A hot date?” he laughed. When she didn’t respond he said, “I’m just kidding you know.”

“Oh,” she said.

“I was really just calling to see if you were alright. If you needed anything.”

“I think I’m fine,” she said.

“Okay,” he said. “Call me if you need me.”

What would she need him for? Wasn’t this the whole point, to get away from people she believed she needed? Wasn’t the point to not need anyone ever again?

A loud crack lit up the room and made her jump.

Then the power went out.

Writer P.M. "Peg" Woods, Ph.D., is Assistant Director of the Writing Program at the University of Massachusetts at Amherst. Her first novel, "Spinning Will," was published by Swank Books. "Silence in the Storm" is part of her second novel, which is in progress and has the working title, "Backstory." Woods lives with her husband, Ray Cusson, and their two dogs, in Shutesbury, Massachusetts.

"A Secret Star," the story of a Jewish child hiding from the Nazis

By Sharon Flitterman-King

Chapter Five: "A Starry Night"

“Oi, Itzak, such bad news,” Rachel’s mother said as she hurried into the shop. “Have you heard? Everybody is talking about it.” Her face was flushed. Damp curls clung to her head and neck.

“Reisl, calm yourself,” Mr. Rosenblum said. He had just fitted his last customer for a suit, and the shop was empty. “Here, come into the little room. Sit down, sit down.”

He could ssee his wife’s agitation. He knew in a moment that their worst fears had been realized. Polczevka was to be made ‘Judenrein, free of Jews.’

“This is too horrible,” Rachel’s mother said as she tried to keep from sobbing. The anxiety made her tremble.

“We will just have to explain to the children the plan we have come up with,” her husband said to her, trying to disguise the tremor in his voice. He cleared his throat.

“Thank goodness we talked of this weeks ago,” Rachel’s mother replied. She was breathing more evenly now. “I will have to speak to Marfa. Tomorrow is Tuesday, and she will be coming to the marketplace.”

As each new outrage had been absorbed by the Jewish people living in Polczevka, they had gradually come to learn who their friends were. Whom they could trust, whom they should avoid. Of course, it wasn’t always clear, and a mistake could cost lives. But they did the best they could, going by their instincts, and by common sense.

Marfa was a peasant woman whom the Rosenblums had come to trust. She lived in the town of Bielska, a small farming village ten kilometers away. Farmers from the neighboring towns came to the marketplace once a week to sell their vegetables and trade with others. Marfa would be there tomorrow.

“Do you think she can help us?” Mr. Rosenblum said. “You know, we will have to leave everything behind, when we are . . . taken. The store—and everything.” His mind could hardly make sense of it all.

“We will have no money, Reisl, to pay a Polish family, even if they do agree to risk their lives and hide our children.” His voice grew soft. “Such goodness I cannot picture.”

That night at supper, Mummy and Papa told Rachel and Ben about their plan.

“We are going to find a home for you,” Rachel’s father began.

“But this is our home, Papa,” Rachel burst out, “the only home we’ve ever known. We can’t just pack up and leave it, Papa. We can’t.”

And Ben added quietly, almost as if he were holding his breath, “Have Rachel and I been bad children? Is that why you are sending us to live with someone else?”

“Oh, no mein kinder,” Rachel’s mother answered sadly. “You are the best children any parents could want. We would never give you up.”

“Then why are you finding another home for us?” Rachel asked again, still not understanding.

“Because, my child,” Papa answered, “we want you to be safe. Mummy and I want our little family to survive these terrible times. Everywhere is fear—in the streets, in the houses. Even in our own beds. If we know our children are protected, we will be able to be strong.”

Papa’s explanation made a kind of sense to Rachel, but still she persisted. “Where will you and Mummy go while we are living in a stranger’s house?” And then she added, as an afterthought, “Can’t they make room for you, too?”

“No, my child,” her father said wearily. “If we are lucky enough, please God, to find a family for you, they will be very courageous people. They will be risking their own poor lives in order to help out.”

“But what will you and Mummy do while Rachel and I are in hiding?” Ben said to his Papa, trying hard to be grown up, but fighting back his tears.

“We will keep ourselves strong by thinking of you, and knowing you are safe,” Mummy and Papa said together, in a single voice.

Ben slept in Rachel’s bed that night, the two of them, for warmth. And Papa sang them the special song he had made up when Rachel was young. It was about the ocean, and even though Rachel had never seen the sea, when her father sang his lullaby, she could always drift to sleep on the waves of his beautiful voice.

Mummy kissed the children on their foreheads, Papa gave them each a hug, and together they recited the Shema:

“Shema Yisroel Adonai Eloheinu, Adonai Echod. Hear, O Israel, the Lord our God, the Lord is One.”

And then their father sang.

Ride the waves, so clear and free

Softly bring you back to me.

Listen to the ocean roar,

Let your little spirits soar.

Ride the waves, storm-tossed and free,

Bring you safely back to me.

Rachel closed her eyes, and drifted off to sleep.

The next day Mrs. Rosenblum went to the market square. Business was brisk as usual, even with the scarcity caused by the war. Carts sold scanty baskets of produce. Some had milk and cheese to sell. Others, vegetables and early summer crops. She found Marfa by a baker’s stall.

“Ai, Mrs. Rosenblum, I have heard,” was all that Marfa said. She shook her kerchiefed head and clucked softly with her tongue. “You poor, poor people.”

Mrs. Rosenblum bent close to her friend and whispered a few words. They had to be careful in this public place. Some Poles would turn in their neighbors if they suspected they were helping Jews. And the penalty for helping Jews was death. By hanging in the market square. It was an ugly time, and ugly people became uglier.

Marfa answered softly. “I have found shelter for your two children, Mrs. Rosenblum, but they will be in different homes. It is easier that way. It will attract less attention. Benjamin will be a ‘nephew.’ Rachel will be a ‘niece.’”

Rachel’s mother drew in her breath. “Separate families?” was all she said. This last bit of comfort was being denied her little ones. Each child would be alone.

“And we think it best that each child not know where the other one is. That way, if one is in danger, the other will not be found out.”

Rachel’s mother suddenly realized the enormous courage her children would have to show. But she knew that they were strong. “God requires no synagogues, except in the heart,” she thought aloud. “My Papa, may he rest in peace, used to say that to me when I was afraid.”

“And my dear aunt, Cioci Wanda, who took care of me when my mother died, used to say when I was sad, ‘When God closes a door, He opens a window.’ Things will work out for your children, Mrs. Rosenblum. The Lord will see to that.” Marfa crossed herself. “I will pray for you.”

Rachel’s mother squeezed Marfa’s hand, and went quickly home. It was decided that Papa would take Rachel to her ‘family,’ and that Mummy would take Ben. They would leave that night, each walking across the fields in a different direction.

“And when the war is over,” Papa said, “we will all find each other, and be united once again. Be it God’s will.”

Rachel spent the rest of the day gathering her things, and saying goodbye to their little house. She said farewell to every window, every wall. Then she took a little sack and filled it with special things: a seashell that Aunt Hannah had given her, from a vacation at the shore. Some pebbles from their yard. A needle, some buttons, and embroidery thread. Some pretty scraps of fabric—one from Mummy’s flowered dress, a few small pieces of silk, and a little square of soft gray flannel. And her Grandma Esther’s Mogen David, a small round circle of soft, worn metal, with the six-pointed star in the center, inscribed with the Hebrew letter, Chai, for life.

She wrote a short note to her Mummy and Papa, and she was ready to go.

All the stars were out. It was beautiful and still. Rachel’s father took her hand in his, and they began to walk across the fields. A few strands of cloud passed overhead. Stars twinkled in the darkness.

Rachel was quiet for a while, then she said to her father,”Papa, if the sky is made of air, how can God live there?”

“My Ruchella,” her father answered, “God lives in the sky, and in your heart as well. He lives everywhere, in everything.”

“But if God is in the sky, how come we don’t see Him?”

“Because, my little Ruchella, He sometimes hides from us. We must look so carefully. With our hearts, and with our minds.

“With every fiber of our being,” he added to himself.

Rachel pulled her sweater tighter. Her father squeezed her hand.

“It is like the evening sky,” Papa continued. “When clouds are there, you cannot see the stars. But your heart knows they are there, even when you cannot see.”

They walked on through the darkness. Stars blinked and twinkled in the cold night sky. Rachel held on tighter to her father’s hand.

Something made him pause. He looked down at his daughter and stroked her hair.

“God is like a star inside you,” he said softly. “A still, small flame. When you are afraid, or cold, or lonely, remember that you have a secret star inside, and you will know that God is there.

“You must remember, Rachel. It is a place that no one else can touch.” And then he added, with a smile, “You are the only little Ruchella that God made. The only one.

“Will you remember that?” he said, as he gave his daughter a long, tight hug.

Rachel could feel his scratchy face, which always smelled so good. His voice was soft and soothing. As long as she lived she would remember that sound.

Rachel looked up at her father and said, “I will remember it always, Papa. A still, small flame. A secret star.”

Chapter Eight: “WHERE IS YOUR’NIECE’?”

“What was that? Were those shots?” Rachel said to Lise, forgetting she was just a child.

From somewhere in the nearby woods they suddenly heard shouts.

“Halt!” a rough voice said. Dogs barked savagely. They heard horses’ hooves crashing through the brush. Before they could gather their blanket, two German soldiers appeared. They rode swiftly over to the spot where the two girls stood trembling, and dismounted.

“What are you doing here?” one soldier said. His eyes were dark and cold. “Why are you not working in the fields?” he said to Rachel.

“We were looking for firewood,” Rachel replied. “And we thought to have a picnic.”

“I see no firewood here,” the other soldier said. “And as for picnics . . .”

Lise started to whimper, and the first soldier looked at her.

“Tears are for the weak,” he muttered in disgust.

His harsh words and angry voice made Lise cry harder.

“Ach, you Poles,” the other soldier said. And then, as if he thought of something else, he turned to Rachel and said, “What have the frauleins seen while they’ve been ‘picnicking’?”

“It’s been very quiet,” Rachel whispered.

“You are lying!” the soldier said. “We know that Polish Partisans are hiding in these woods. Perhaps you gave a note to them, some food . . .”

“Oh, no,” Rachel interrupted. “We have seen nobody.” She was trembling, and her voice shook.

“Shut up!” the soldier barked. “Did your Momma and Poppa teach you no manners? Go home now, both of you. And I never want to see you here again. Do you understand?”

“Yes, sir,” the two children said, and they both made the sign of the cross.

Rachel thought she saw something moving in the shadows. Had somebody been watching them? They quickly gathered up the blanket, their picnic things, and Lise’s dolls, and ran across the fields to their cottage.

That night at supper Mr. Pytowski said, “These are dangerous times, my children. There are people hiding in the woods, and Partisans protecting them. And us,” he added.

“That’s right, father,” Jozek said. “We Poles will be strong in defending our country. If the Germans should win the war, all of Poland would be under their boot. We will not let that happen.”

Mrs. Pytowski looked over at her son. She saw the fierceness in his eyes. And she was proud.

“But you children must be careful,” she added, as she crossed herself. “We cannot trust our neighbors—anyone. Even at church we must be careful not to show our feelings. There are some who covet the reward for ‘finding’ enemies.”

“A reward!” Lise said, her eyes lighting up. Much of what the grownups said made no sense to her.

“No, little Lisele,” Rachel said. “Not the kind of reward in our fairy tales. This is money that bad people get for doing evil things.”

Mr. Pytowski nodded his head. “So we will do, instead, what is right, and get the final reward that Our Father in Heaven provides.”

The days that followed were filled with anxiety. Rachel and Jozek went into the village to listen for news whenever they could. There were German soldiers everywhere. Some on horseback, some in shiny vehicles. Some marching stiffly in their tall, polished boots.

One morning when Rachel and Jozek had gone into town to see if there was any mail, they saw Pietro on the street. He was shouting at his horse.

“Move, you lazy animal,” he screamed, and he brought his fist down on the horse’s flank. Then he kicked it in the shin. Jozek rushed over and grabbed the horse’s harness, and started talking to it gently.

“There, there, my pretty one,” he said, and then to Pietro, “What’s the matter with you? You don’t strike an animal like that!”

“Don’t tell me what to do,” Pietro snarled. “It’s my horse, and I’ll do what I want to it.”

Rachel looked on in silence. Pietro glanced at her, and then at Jozek. He shoved Jozek out of the way, and grabbed the harness in his hand.

“You’ll be sorry for this,” he shouted, as he pulled his horse down the street. “You’ll be sorry.”

When Rachel and Jozek got back to the farm they told Mrs. Pytowski what had happened.

“You’d better run and get your father,” Jozek’s mother said to him. “I am afraid there is going to be trouble.”

Lise was sitting on the floor playing with her dolls. Mrs. Pytowski looked down at her and said, “Now little Lise, if anything happens, we must all be very brave. Your ‘cousin’ Ann Marie is going away to look for food. She will not be here when the strangers come.”

Then Mrs. Pytowski turned to Rachel and quickly said, “You must hide yourself. It will be best for all of us if we don’t know where you are.”

Rachel nodded her head, hugged Mrs. Pytowski and gave Lise a kiss. Then she disappeared.

Moments later, the barnyard was in an uproar. Chickens scattered, the geese waddled quickly. Two German soldiers appeared, holding on to a snarling dog. Stasha barked, and the German Shepherd bared its teeth.

“Where is your Jew!” they shouted. “Where is she hiding?” They shoved Mrs. Pytowski aside and entered the house. They knocked over the table, kicked over the benches, and pulled the cupboard away from the wall. Dishes crashed to the floor. They pulled the covers off the featherbeds and pounded on the floors.

Satisfied that nobody was hiding in the house, they came outside. Mr. Pytowski had just arrived.

“What are you doing here?” one soldier barked.

“I have just come home for my lunch,” Mr. Pytowski replied.

“We know you are hiding a Jewish girl!”

“There are no Jews here,” Mr. Pytowski replied, his voice calm, but firm.

“And the young fraulein?” the soldier barked back.

“That is our niece,” Mrs. Pytowski said. “But she is not here today. She has gone to look for food.”

“Ah, so,” the soldier shouted. “We will look and see.”

And, their dog straining at its leash, they headed for the barn.

“Only to be home again,” Rachel whispered to herself. She was cold and wet. The mud from the pigsty stuck to her body. The smell filled her nose. A big lump in her throat made it hard for her to breathe. She could hear the pig grunting. She felt the mud shift as he nosed around for food.

“On a wa-agon bound for ma-arket

There’s a calf with a mournful eye,”

she hummed, rather than sang. No sound coming out, only her quiet breathing.

“High abo-ove him, there’s a swa-allow

Winging swiftly-y through the sky.”

“Swine, Jude,” one soldier shouted. “The fraulein must be somewhere!”

“Ya, Jew-drek!” They came closer to the sty.

“Dona, dona, dona, do-a-na,

Dona, dona, don-a-a don,

Ai didde dai dai, Ai didde dai . . .”

Like a little prayer, only Rachel didn’t know it. Whispering, “Please, dear God, oh, please, dear God, please keep me safe—dai, ai didde dai dai . . .”

“Ach! Such drek,” a soldier said in disgust, holding his nose.

“Let’s leave it to the swine,” the other soldier said. And they marched out of the barnyard, their shiny boots caked with mud.

Rachel felt the warmth of relief. She had wet herself, but she wasn’t ashamed. She had saved her life by being still. Like the flutter of a swallow’s wing, her quiet little prayer—that sure.

Papa was right, she thought to herself. It’s just like Papa said. She thought of the secret place inside, the place that can’t be touched, and she felt safe.

When she was sure that the soldiers had gone, she crept out of the pigsty. She went down to the brook and washed herself. She went up to the hayloft and put on fresh clothes. Then she went into the house.

Sharon Flitterman-King, who lives with her husband, author David King, in Hillsdale, New York, earned her Ph.D. in English Literature from U.C. Berkeley. She has written, taught and lectured for many years. "A Secret Star" is her first novel.

THE BOOKS CONVERGE: Chapter 11 of "CASTENATA" & CHAPTER 17 of "SISTER MYSTERIES": VILLAINOUS DOCTORS, and VILE MEDICAL TREATMENTS

NOTE TO READERS: It was only when I went to post the following chapter this morning on the "Castenata" blog (where I am telling the story of a nun, Sister Renata, falsely accused of murdering her cousin) that I realized that THE TWO BOOKS I AM WRITING -- the fictional "Castenata" and the non-fictional work, "Sister Mysteries" -- have now converged here in a number of rather remarkable ways.

In this chapter of "Castenata," Sister Renata (writing in her diary on July 30, 1883) is enraged at the physician, Astorga, for the cruel mercury treatments he inflicts on Antonie in an attempt to cure Antonie's syphilis.

Readers of "Sister Mysteries" will surely be reminded of Chapter 16, and my own outrage at the doctor at Sloan Kettering, who in July, 2003, INSISTED THAT I NEEDED A STEM CELL TRANSPLANT when I didn't. A specialist at Dana Farber in Boston confirmed a few weeks later that the doctor at Sloan had screwed up, and that this outrageous physician was motivated to put me through the hellish and life-threatening stem cell perhaps because he was DOING A RESEARCH PROJECT AND I FIT THE BILL. The rage that Sister Renata feels toward Astorga is precisely the rage I felt, and still feel, toward the oncologist at Sloan, who was at best, inept, and at worst, unethical.

It is remarkable to me that I wrote the following fictional material -- all in Sister Renata's voice -- seven or eight years BEFORE my cancer, and before my deeply disturning encounter with the oncologist at Sloan and all of the issues attendant on brutal medical treatments.

There are a few other remarkable coincidences that have emerged here, too:

1) I saw the doctor at Dana Farber on July 30, 2003. Meanwhile, I had dated this Sister Renata chapter (which I wrote in 1995) JULY 30, 1883. It is only this morning, again, as I went to post Renata's diary chapter here, in its logical order, that I realized this astonishing convergence of dates.

2) The conversation that Sister Renata has with Dr. Astorga addresses the issue of the cruelty of mercury treatment for syphilis. By at least one historical account, mercury treatment is part of a long tradition of "unethical" medical treatment/research. According to the medical journal Dermanities, "mercury is the earliest known chemotherapy for syphilis."

3) Readers of "Sister Mysteries" will recall, in Chapter 16, that my cousin Carol is now suffering desperately from the after-effects of TWO stem cell treatments that she got for non-Hodgkin's lymphoma. I REALIZED JUST THIS MORNING AS I WAS POSTING RENATA'S DIARY, that Renata's cousin, Antonie, and my cousin Carol, are BOTH in San Francisco suffering from the by-products of the horrific medical treatments that were supposed to help them.

I wish I understood these "coincidences," but at some point, it doesn't really matter. It is just remarkable that they keep happening!

Renata’s Diary

July 30, 1883

It is well past two in the morning as I sit down here to write in the diary, but I am still trembling and quaking after my encounter with Astorga. It shames me to think that he could make me so enraged, that at one point I thought I would kill him with my bare hands. And so now, before I sleep I must write my thoughts. I must tell what hell I have been through and how it all came to spill over.

I am so terribly weary of San Francisco. It may serve Antonie’s purpose, although that too now looks doubtful. But clearly this is no city for a lady, let alone a nun. I have never spent so much time away from the convent, and the simple routines of country life.

I miss the hazy blue views toward the coast, the golden hills to the east, the smell of fresh air everywhere around me. San Francisoo is crowded, dirty, and life is rowdy, to say the least, and our hotel, while the most comfortable the city has to offer, still attracts a rough and uncultivated lot, particularly to its first floor bar. Most of the time, I walk the city streets with my head bowed, staring into the wooden slats of the sidewalk.

We have been here now past one week, but still there is no predicting how much longer we will stay. There is no saying either how the quicksilver treatments will go. We are living one grueling day, one hour, to the next. We are unsure whether anything in Doctor Astorga’s bag of tricks – bichloride of mercury injections, the mercury rubs and plasters, the ungodly concoctions by mouth that mix potassium iodide into syrup of sarsaparilla or zingiberis—will work. Indeed, all these bizarre treatments and odd brews may fix nothing, and only make my cousin worse. Dr. Astorga won’t admit it, being the proud man he is, but I believe that the mercury and iodide treatments may in fact kill Antonie faster than the syphilis itself will.

So far, the doctor claims, it seems that the injections – or perhaps it is the ointment – have helped. The lesions do seem better. But in exchange, Antonie is coated in gleaming circles of silver ointment, making him into a quilted patchwork of thin mirrored coins. Worse, he has now begun to salivate, and even occasionally, to vomit blood. When that happens, I only wish I could run away. But I continue to do my duty and stay, and mop my cousin’s face and remove his soiled gown and take away all evidence of his wicked illness.

Lately, he has begun complaining of constant burning pain. A dark and putrid diarrhea rains from his bowels, and he describes a taste of slippery metal taking over his tongue. His gums have the characteristic blue line that Dr. Astorga described, and the tissues of his mouth are far more red and sore than before we came. Antonie moans constantly in his sleep, and when he’s awake he says it is his whole body, aching.

This morning, though, he had one of his clear periods. A miracle happens, and for a time, he seems almost himself. His appetite returns in force, and he begs me for something hearty to eat, “a thick steak, a breast of chicken.” Ah, but just as soon as I go to the hotel kitchen, and return with such a meal, he is feeling ill again. His appetite slackens, and he claims that he can feel a rapid loosening of his teeth, and indeed, one of his molars freed itself up in the grits I mashed into his soft-boiled egg this morning.

I shiver to think what will become of him. I keep praying, asking the Lord to show mercy toward my cousin. Despite all that he has done to me, all that has gone wrong between us, Antonie is still family, and he is, right now, so desperately sick and in need of some relief. “Thy will be done,” I say, over and over again. “Oh please, dear Lord, come to the aid of my cousin, relieve him of all pain and suffering, free him from this earthly burden. He has paid for all the sins committed against me. I release him from all past responsibility.”

Sometimes I pray that way. But sometimes I ask the Lord simply to take Antonie. Put him out of his constant misery. One thing is a certainty, I have prayed more in the last week than I ever have before. But are my prayers helping? Will they work? I dare to wonder. I know that having doubts in my Almighty God’s power is in itself sinful. But there are times, lately, when I have begun to ask, where is my Lord?

This brings me to what happened earlier today. It was about four o’clock when the distinguished physician knocked at the door, announcing one of his two daily visits. Senora and I were kneeling, as we so often are, on either side of Antonie’s bed. Before we could respond, the doctor opened the door and strode inside, indifferent to the fact that we were deep in the rosary. We hurried to complete our final Hail Mary even as the arrogant doctor leaned between us and laid his stethoscope to Antonie’s slick chest.

“Can you tell me please, Dr. Astorga, when my cousin’s fever might break?” I whispered. Astorga remained silent as he continued with the stethoscope. When the doctor finished, he answered abruptly, and in a callous and discourteous tone. “I have no way of knowing that,” he announced. “We are waiting to see if the mercury treatments will help.”

Folding the stethoscope, he dropped the instrument into his leather bag. Lifting Antonie’s thin white wrist, he began counting my cousin’s pulse against the gold timepiece he had removed from his vest pocket.

“Does he sleep much?” Astorga inquired, letting go of Antonie’s wrist as if it was a fish he was casting back to the sea.

“Well, yes, I believe so, but he seems more tired each day,” I said, trying to find words to characterize my cousin’s almost constant stupor.

“What do you mean, you believe so?” Astorga asked, accusing me with his eyes. He lifted the bed sheet and rolled it back, exposing the full length of Antonie’s pathetic emaciated body. The simple white gown my cousin wears cannot hide his arms, which are as thin as wooden canes. His legs resemble slightly thicker poles. His sickly white feet lay one on top of another, the same way Christ’s feet did when He was nailed to the cross.

“Antonie does sleep much of the time, but he keeps waking now and then, too,” I replied, angry that Astorga would question how carefully I was observing my cousin. “And when he does wake, he keeps saying strange, almost nonsensical things. This morning, for example, he pointed to the window and called out, ‘The blue wolf, the blue wolf, I will follow the blue wolf as it races through the forest into the pale moonlit sky.’”

Astorga snorted. “Ah, so the hallucinations are worse,” he mused, pulling the bedclothes back up to Antonie’s chin so rapidly that the sheet snapped as if was a sail in the wind. “I am not at all surprised by that. But pay no heed to what he says.”

“Doctor, in those moments when he speaks, and particularly when he speaks of me, it is quite difficult not to pay attention,” I murmured.

Astorga glanced at me, annoyed, I suppose, that I would once again challenge his medical wisdom. “May I suggest that when he yells out, that you simply pretend that he is a dog barking, or a bird chirping. Or perhaps even a baby crying. Yes, think of him as an infant who has been fed, bathed, burped and freshly diapered. At some point, my dear, you must ignore the baby, and his crying, because there is nothing more to be done.”

My teeth set together and my face reddened. My head swirled. What was he saying? How could he possibly suggest that we simply ignore Antonie? And what business did he have comparing my cousin to a dog, a bird, a baby? I studed Astorga’s crisp white ruffled shirt beneath his jet black waistcoat. I noticed, too, the doctor’s string tie, how it ran vertically, and how his dark pencil mustache ran just as thin but in the horizontal direction above his upper lip.

“I would also suggest that it is probably fruitless to try to fight this fever,” Astorga said. He spoke in a short, peremptory tone. He was snapping shut the clasp on his black bag, his fingers long, brown and tapered. “I would in fact suggest that in cases like this one, that the heat, the intense fever, may actually be of some help, in conjunction of course with the mercury injections. Assuming of course that the mercury works at all.”

“I see,” I said, nodding, as if agreeing with Astorga’s point of view. But in fact, I wasn't seeing at all. OR, I was seeing in still one more way how terribly blasé this physician was toward his patient’s suffering. How could he be so absolutely indifferent to Antonie’s desperately-intense fevers? And how could he visit the horrors of mercury on this poor man without any qualms whatsoever?

Once again it struck me: my cousin should not be here. He should not have to continue to endure this villainous doctor, and the horrors of the mercury. The liquid white metal is hardly a cure. Antonie has deteriorated considerably since we arrived. The cousin I have known all my life has, in the last few days, all but disappeared. He is transformed into a haunting shadow, one that once had a body attached, but has none anymore. His flesh has burned away, his arms are but living stems of pain and agony, and he complains of headaches that make him cry out, bellowing over and over again, ‘please tell the doctor to kill me please, so it will be over, please.”

Just after the doctor departed, Antonie woke with a jolt. His skin was clammy and hot and he was trembling with such force that I was not sure I could keep him on the bed. Señora brought a fresh bowl of crushed ice, and filled a washcloth and set it to his head. He fought her, though, and didn’t know where he was. He clung to me, but didn’t remember my name. He called me Adelaide, which made me cringe, for Adelaide was the prostitute that my cousin consorted with for years, the woman who made him ill.

Apparently, Antonie had been dreaming a particularly nasty nightmare, something about Adelaide coming to him at night, all he would say was, ‘she was smoking one of her thin cigars, and I asked her, ‘why are you here?’ and she smiled in that way she does and said, ‘I am here, to end your misery,’ and then she threw the cigar to the bed and began to choke me and the cigar lit the sheets on fire and I was burning up, and she was choking me and there was smoke, dark dark smoke everywhere.”

There was nothing I could do to ease his delirium. He was sweating so profusely that Señora and I rolled him, as we so often do, in the sheets and stood each of us at an end and heaved him up and lowered him to the floor. As she kneeled and sponged his rubbery limbs, I laid a new towel on the feather mattress and tucked a new sheet into the corners. All the while he kept yelling, “No Adelaide, no, please, let me go, let me go…”

When we finally had him back in bed and we had his head propped on an extra pillow, I fed him sips of weak tea, heavily sugared. After a while, he seemed to calm down, and spoke of the dream. “I was desperate to get out of her bed, but she laughed, so this is how you repay me for the way I have given you pleasure? And afterward, was when she smoked and the fire, the fire, the smoke it was choking me, and I couldn’t get out…” And now he was sobbing, and I held a cup of cold water to his lips.

“It was only a dream,” I said.

He nodded, and I set him into the pillow. And then I sang to him. I held his hand and I hummed one of the soleares we both knew. Every time his eyes opened, I would reach over to gently close his lids again. Finally, he drifted into sleep, and Señora took my place at the bed. She told me to leave, and I decided I would pay a visit to Dr. Astorga, to say the things that I hadn’t said. I decided to tell Astorga that we would discontinue Antonie’s mercury treatments immediately. We all need to return home.

It was close to five when I reached Astorga’s office. I knocked, and he admitted me, but then he kept me waiting for almost an hour. I spent the time in prayer, but there were moments when my anger surfaced nonetheless. Finally, he brought me into his office, only to inform me that he would have no more than a few minutes to spend in conversation.

“So please, my good Sister, get right to the point.”

I blushed, and my anger and humiliation crested together at my lips. I tipped my head forward and would have lost my voice, except then I had a vision of Antonie’s ravaged body. Instantly I found my focus, and my voice.

“When we came here a week or so ago, we had no idea what the mercury would do, or what to expect, or whether it would help,” I began, trembling.

“True, one can never know those things,” he replied.

“Well, so, now that I have seen how…how, well, how absolutely brutal the mercury can be, I want to discontinue Antonie’s treatments. I want to bring him home to die in peace.”

Astorga’s eyes widened to two black coins and he lifted his chin in that arrogant and defiant way that he often does. “Are you saying, my good Sister, that you are prepared to take your cousin’s life?”

“I said nothing of the sort,” I said, struggling to maintain a steady tone. “I said only that he isn’t getting any better with the mercury. And in fact, he is suffering desperately, more than he ever has before. In light of that, I believe that it may be the most humane thing to do, to let him be. And to let God’s will be done.”

“Ah yes, so now I see that you are the one to decide God’s will in this matter, is that it? You are choosing for your cousin? You are willing to discontinue the only treatment that may prolong your cousin’s life? Let me ask you this, what does your cousin say? How does he feel about this matter? Because of course, it is his life that is at stake. Make no mistake.”

“We have discussed it briefly. He has at times begged for someone to put him out of his misery. I believe that I can say with confidence that Antonie has now begun to realize that the mercury is hopeless. He has screamed on numerous occasions that he would prefer to die rather than to continue to suffer. So I would suggest that he has accepted the possibility that death may follow his return home.”

“Oh yes,” Astorga said, clasping his fingertips together beneath his chin. “So in other words, you have convinced him to give up?”

I stood, flooded suddenly with anger that I could not control. “How dare you say that to me. I have spent weeks caring for my cousin. I have remained closeted in a room with him, attending to his every need, mopping his brow, swabbing him when he bleeds, feeding him whenever he can take the food. You have no right to accuse me this way.”

My voice rang through the office, and my hands trembled so much that I could barely hold them in my lap. “I have simply told Antonie that the misery won’t end until he decides to end it. And I have prayed for him, and prayed that the suffering will be over, and now, it is clearly time that we return home so that he can live out his final days in the tranquility of the home where he grew up. And if you knew anything about human dignity, Doctor, you would agree.”

Astorga ignored my insult, and smiled his thin wicked smile. One thing I know, I have come to hate that smile.

“How very kind of you, Sister, to take such a benevolent attitude toward your cousin,” he said. “Are you always so convinced that you know the appropriate time for someone to die? Or did someone at the convent, or in the church, perhaps, endow you with a special privilege in this matter, that you should know when it is right and proper for your cousin to give up on life, to die in what you call tranquility…”

I will be truthful. What occurred next should not have happened. I am not proud of my behavior. I deeply regret letting my temper get the better of me. All I can say by way of explanation is that I have endured more from Astorga –and Antonie-- than anyone should have to endure. And that I have been living under enormous strain especially this past week.

Simply put, I was transformed, in that moment in Astorga’s office, into a raging bobcat or maybe a vicious mountain lion. I grew claws and I flew at his face. I began screeching and scratching, and I raked his cheeks bloody and pounded my fists into his white ruffled shirt. I screamed until my throat felt bloody. I pulled his pomaded black hair.

The rest, well, the rest I don’t remember. I hadn’t eaten, or even had anything to drink, all day. And that may explain it: I fainted, you see, at that very moment. The rage in me, thankfully, closed me down. I say thankfully because if I had remained conscious, and on the attack, there is no telling what black havoc I might have wrought that night. I end this now, pulled heavily toward sleep. But still frightened at the rage that lies within me. I lose all sense of civility, every ounce of devotion to the Lord’s cause. Something inside me snaps and I turn grizzly, and my victim is at my mercy, and I am not responsible for what happens, deep within my skin.

Chapter 16, "Sister Mysteries": WAS MY GRANDMA MISH A GHOST? Waking Up to Some VERY VERY Important Realizations

By Claudia Ricci

This is how I wake up every morning: staring out the window into the dark silvery silence of winter, the sky bejeweled in glowing diamond specks that are the stars.

Is it morning, I ask myself? I am afraid to look at the clock. Lately, I try to force myself to stay in bed until 5. Better yet, 5:30. Well, actually, 5:36. I tell myself that it’s ok to get up at 5:36 a.m. because that is precisely the hour of the day when I was born.

It was late November, the day after Thanksgiving and the moon was so bright that it made the streets of the little Connecticut town where I was born look like they had been whitewashed.

My father drove my mother to the hospital as she lay crumpled up in the passenger seat. Later she told me that she had suffered “every single labor pain in the car.”

As my father steered her toward Bristol Hospital, a 25-minute drive from Canton where my parents were staying with my Grandma Mish and Grandpa Claude, all my father could do was stare out the front window of the car at the moon. The full moon. Which looked like it was sitting there on the road far ahead, laughing at him.

When my mother was pregnant with me, my grandmother, Michelina Rotondo, my mother’s mother, kept telling my father that I would be born under a full moon. My father, kind of a skeptical guy, laughed at Mish’s prediction; he told my grandmother that she was old-fashioned and superstitious.

“No, “ Mish insisted in her broken English, “You see. The full moon makes the babies come.”

That night my mother went into labor, that gigantic moon had the last laugh. It sat on the horizon like an oversized white dinner plate just guffawing at my dad. It hung over the horizon and it just laughed and laughed at my father, while my mother sat with her legs crossed in the passenger seat of my uncle Dell's old green Ford. Her pains felt like freight trains crashing through her abdomen (at least that's how it felt when I had my kids.) She kept yelling at my dad, "hurry up, hurry up, hurry up," because she thought for sure she was going to deliver me right there in the car.

When he finally got her to the hospital, a nurse whisked my mom into a wheelchair and wheeled her into the delivery room, and indeed, my mother was fully dilated and ready to push. I was born in a matter of seconds! And as my husband points out, I've been moving with the speed of light ever since.

My father, meanwhile, questioned the doctor later, asking if it was true that a full moon has what I will call the "MICHELINA" effect, prompting babies to be born. The doctor replied that he knew of no scientific evidence supporting that claim.

"However," he admitted, "there sure is a lot of activity in the delivery room when there's a full moon."

That's what I love (or hate) about doctors. They are so locked in to what they don't know, they can't possibly see what is right in front of their eyes.

My grandmother Michelina Rotondo, on the other hand, was totally in tune to what she saw and felt. Mish was not an educated woman, but she was extraordinarily bright and intuitive. I believe, in fact, that Mish was gifted, as in, she may have been THAT kind of intuitive. She certainly was wise, endlessly wise to the old world wisdom, to the old world sayings. "When the pear is ripe, it will fall from the tree." Or, "When the moon is full, the babies will come.

Now it is Thursday, December 17, 2010, and I am staring at the moon outside my bedroom window. The moon this morning is more like a small golden bauble I would love to wear on a necklace. “I’ve got to get more sleep,” I tell myself. But I can't stop staring out the window at the winter sky. I start tossing and turning until finally "he with whom I sleep" rolls over and tells me to please, try to stop moving around so much.

I glance at the clock. 4:55.

I lie there and say my first Hail Mary, this one for my cousin Carol, who lives out in San Francisco. Carol had non-Hodgkins lymphoma a few years back and subsequently she endured two stem cell transplants, which bring you to the brink of death before they restore your immune system. These medical treatments have left my poor cousin's body ravaged. As my sister Holly put it, "she has been to hell and back."

Carol's brother Billy, with whom I grew up, wrote a Facebook message the other day explaining that Carol "is still fighting the effects of her stem cell transplants. It seems the major problems are complications due to host vs. graft disease which occurs as new cells are rejected by the immune system. The medicines used to counter this are steroids and cause a brittleness and thinning of the bones. So the whole thing is a balancing of the medicine and rejecting of cells. Carol developed stomach ulcers and dropped a huge amount of weight and is fighting the effects of malnourishment. She is really tired of being Ill and has been through the ringer."

I finish the Hail Mary for Carol and I promise that if she wants one, I will gladly mail her a box of my green barley powder, the powder that, when mixed with water, tastes like the front lawn. Honestly, though, I think that powder keeps me healthy (oh, and my physician, Dr. Ronald Stram, who runs an extraordinary integrated medical practice that combines traditional medical treatment with alternative therapies, agrees with me.) I sought out Ron Stram's expertise about five years ago when I could no longer see my oncologist because every time I visited him, and told him how I was doing yoga and meditation and eating very very carefully, he would look at me and say, "You are disgustingly healthy."

I mean, please, would YOU go to a doctor who said that to you? At the time, his remark reminded me of the other oncologist at Sloan Kettering, the one who, in July, 2003, told me if I didn't have a stem cell transplant, IMMEDIATELY, foregoing even a trip for my 25th wedding anniversary, well, then I would die.

This august physician, whose name naturally I cannot reveal here, even refused to let me get a second opinion (he told me that I didn't need one, as he was the national expert in the area). At which point I think my reporter's skeptical mind kicked in and I said that I wouldn't leave his office until he did give me the name of a second doctor. My husband, an activist who is used to standing up to powerful idiots, supported me.

Finally, the doctor at Sloan gave me the name of a very well-respected doctor, a specialist in Hodgkin's disease at Dana Farber, and a few weeks later I visited Dr. George Canellos and I learned to my very great horror that the first doctor, at Sloan, had most likely not radiated my cancer properly and that's why I had a spot left to treat. Dear God. Dear God.

THIS IS IMPORTANT: what I just wrote, in the last paragraph? I have never ever written this information down before. I realize this write NOW, that until this MOMENT, I have been too frightened to write down what that doctor at Sloan Kettering did: he tried to give me a stem cell transplant when I didn't need one. Why? Because he was running a research project and I fit the bill, and he wanted to "cherry pick" me for that project. Indeed, he hadn't even done the biopsy on that olive-sized spot in my chest and he had his nurse handing me the release form for the stem cell. When I said to him, "But Doctor, you haven't even done a biopsy," he replied in his smug way, "oh we will, we will and we will find the cancer."

Now that I have FINALLY FINALLY written this I want to stand on top of the Empire State Building and SCREAM IT OUT, SHOUT IT OUT SO LOUDLY THAT EVERYONE IN THE WORLD hears, and no one fears their oncologist ever again, and whenever A DOCTOR SAYS SOMETHING THAT YOUR INTUITION, YOUR DEEPEST MICHELINA GUT INSTINCT SAYS IS WRONG, that YOU TELL YOUR DOCTOR TO GO TO HELL, and keep his medical treatment.

As Dr. Canellos put it to me so well, "Claudia, that doctor is a hammer. And so, he looks at the world as being full of nails. And you, I'm afraid, were one of his nails."

It was in part my incredible medical intuitive reading, on August 6, 2003, that gave me the power to refuse the stem cell transplant. (Do you have ANY IDEA how hard it is to say NO to a world-class cancer specialist at Sloan Kettering who tells you that if you don't have a particular procedure, you are sure to DIE? Have you any idea how hard it was to do that? I am writing this and trembling in recollection at what that month of July 2003 was like.)

I said Hail Marys around the clock. Whenever I woke up in the middle of the night, totally frightened, I said Hail Marys until I fell back to sleep. The Virgin Mary kept me safe.

Anyway, I got the news that Carol, the unlucky recipient of not one, but two stem cell transplants, was sick, by reading an email that I received from my sister Holly last week. The news had come from Sister Marian, the nun who is Carol’s older sister. (At one point, our family could boast two nuns, Sister Marian and Sister Barbara. Sister Barbara left the convent a long while back.)

It is now 5:07. The sky has a heavenly glow to it this morning, the color of gun metal. That color calls to me. I love the dark silence of the morning sky. I feel completely at peace staring into a dark, star-studded sky. Or a sky with a sliver of a moon.

I love getting up at this hour and meditating as the darkness slowly gives way to light.

I continue to lie here, I now say a second Hail Mary, for my sister Karen, who lives out in L.A. Karen is scheduled to have a third IV infusion of a heavy-duty drug that treats a rare infectious inflammatory disease. The illness is causing my sister great pain. And the treatment last time only made things worse. I pray that this time, it will have the desired effect.

I finish the Hail Mary. There are reasons to get up now. I can make myself a strong cup of Peet’s Arabian Mocha Java coffee, which I have mailed to me from California, where I used to live. I could take the coffee into the living room and meditate.

But it is only 5:13.

I turn over again. It is so dark and so cold outside that I don’t really want to lift my face out of the covers.

And then I remember. I am supposed to finish writing this book by the end of December. And here it is December 16^th. I have had sixteen years to write this damn book and now I only have 15 or 16 days to finish it. I cannot imagine how I am going to meet this deadline.

I have the start of a new chapter racing around my head, and it picks up speed with every lap.

I am thinking of focusing on my grandmother Michelina in the next chapter. In the last chapter, I mentioned that Mish had said some very strange things to me in the days before she died in 1996. At the time, I chalked up her comments to the intense pain that she was suffering. She kept saying how much she wanted to die. “I wish I start smoking when I was 90,” she said at one point. “Then I be dead now.”

My sister Holly told me yesterday in a phone conversation that after Grandma died, and a young family moved into their tiny white house in Canton, the little girl who occupied Mish’s room told her mother that she used to see an old woman in her room all the time. I called my Aunt Anamae today to confirm this. Anamae and her husband, my Uncle Paul, live a few doors away from where Mish and Pop used to live.

"It's true," Anamae said. "It was the family that bought Grandma's house after she died. The little girl -- her name was Carly -- must have been five or six years old. She didn't know anything about Grandma Mish having lived there. She told her mother that she saw an old lady in her bedroom," the same bedroom that Mish had occupied. "What did she know? For her to tell her mother that, you gotta wonder sometimes."

Wonder I do! I’m pretty convinced that if anyone could bridge the great beyond, my Grandma Mish would be the one to do it. She died on my birthday in 1996. I was 44 years old. I lived with Mish when I was a little girl and I was very close to her. She would get up at the crack of dawn and bake me a fresh batch of warm corn muffins every morning I stayed with her. She also got me addicted to strong coffee in the morning, always with a nice dose of milk. I was only about five years old.

Watching my grandma Mish die a painful death was one of the hardest things I remember. She was a woman with so much dignity. It was so difficult to see Mish wallow in bed, in utter agony, day after day, that month of October, and November, 1996.

It was on one of my visits to her in the nursing home that she made her strange remark. I remember sitting beside her bed, and her turning to me. She said something to this effect, “I saw your grandfather, Claude, at the top of the stairs this morning. I know he was there.” My grandfather, Claude Rotondo, had died seven years before, in December of 1989.

I stared at Mish. I wasn’t sure what to say. I was writing an early version of Sister Mysteries and my head was tuned in to certain paranormal kinds of realities. But still, at the time I thought I was writing fiction.

And here was my REAL grandmother saying that she had seen my DEAD grandfather, that morning, at the top of the stairs.

Mish was 95 years old but her mind was perfectly clear, at least as clear as this glass of water that I have here sitting beside my computer as I write. She had no dementia at all.

I didn’t respond to Mish, or at least I don’t remember saying anything.

But maybe it is time to go back to the blue Sister Mysteries crate in the hall closet, the one that sits under the black garbage of rags beside the vacuum cleaner. Because it has been 14 years since that peculiar conversation.

On the day of Mish’s funeral, December 1, 1996, I remember three things: I remember seeing Mish in her casket, all shriveled up. Her hair looked as though it had been died black. This wasn’t Mish. I was horrified.

And then I remember the odd things that happened in the parking lot as we were going to lunch after the funeral. A gigantic rainbow formed over our heads.

I said out loud, "Wow, maybe Grandma wants us to know she is here with us." And my Aunt Joyce laughed and said I was a "romantic."

At that very moment, my sister Holly walked up to me and handed me a gorgeous star, a piece of jewelry that was embedded with large rhinestones.

I would say that the sunlight and the rainbow all combined in the rhinestone star and dazzled me, but as I have promised to write just the truth here in this book, I am not going to say that. But it's a nice thought anyway.

So, I took the rainbow and the star to be signs that Grandma Mish was there, watching us as we went into La Trattoria in Avon, Connecticut, that restaurant we knew so well, to celebrate my dear Grandma Mish's life, and to mourn her passing.

It's time now to go excavating the blue Sister Mysteries crate again, to see EXACTLY what Mish said to me as she was dying so many years back.

Meanwhile, though, in case anybody is still with me, reading this, and cares to know, I have now, officially decided that I don't care if I finish this book by the end of 2010.

I made that decision yesterday while visiting and writing with my good friend Peg over in the lovely little lakeside village of Shutesbury, Massachusetts (Peg, otherwise known as Dr. P.M. Woods, runs the writing center at UMass!) I confided in Peg while we were writing, after we had lunched on her scrumptious broccoli and cheddar cheese soup and delicious salad, that I couldn't imagine meeting the deadline that I had committed to -- in public on this blog -- back in mid-November, when the Albany Times Union's Writing in Motion project challenged seven writers to finish writing their books by the end of the year.

Clearly, it is going to take me longer than two more weeks to finish writing this book. I said that to Peg and she just laughed.

"Claud," she said, "I never expected you to finish by the end of the year." She chuckled. And then she laughed even harder. When Peg laughs, I have a very hard time not laughing with her. Her face lights up like Santa Claus' and she gets this bright twinkle in her eyes and she just roars and giggles.

“Claud, think about it," she said. "Why would you finish by the end of December? Remember, Claud, you have been working on this book for 16 years, SIXTEEN YEARS, so why would you now finish it in 16 days?"

She just laughed and laughed. "Why would 2011 be the cut off? Not ONE more word of Sister Mysteries in 2011? HA!" She was laughing so hard by that point that tears were starting to roll down her cheeks. I was laughing too, which was good, because all this writing under enormous deadline pressure lately was starting to take its toll on me; I was getting a bit stressed there in the last week or so.

But now, well, now I can relax. I have Sister Peg's permission to sit back and just write this book as it comes.

And this morning, when I told my husband what Peg had said, after I came back to bed, my husband smiled and said, "Honey, I didn't know that your book had an ending."

Ah, my husband! Always at least one step ahead of me. My husband, Richard Kirsch, is in fact writing a book himself (his first.) He is 230 pages into the book; he wrote a whopping 190 pages in the last seven weeks. It's a book about how the progressive organization he ran last year in DC, Health Care for America Now, helped to pass the historic health care legislation last March.

So maybe my husband is write. I mean right. Maybe I won't ever finish Sister Mysteries.

What I am beginning to realize is that part of me never ever wants to stop writing about the mysteries that I have begun to uncover as part of this book. I love writing Sister Mysteries more than I think I've ever loved writing anything in my entire life (and I've been writing professionally now for 35 years!)

Maybe I love writing this book so much because I love writing about the mysteries of life, and I love marveling at all of the mysteries, the ordinary miracles, that we all take for granted.

I can't imagine anyone will keep reading, but hey, since when has that ever stopped me? I told my husband this morning while I was fixing myself French toast that I have been writing fiction now since July of 1990 and I have yet to get a big publisher for my fiction.

So?

It mattered to me for a long time, and now, honestly, I could care less. I have finally realized that all I need do is release them on my own. (My second novel, Seeing Red, will be out shortly; the printer had to redo the covers because they were pinky orange instead of red!) For years, my flamenco guitar teacher, Maria Zemantauski, a virtuoso performer, kept telling me, "Claudia, what's the big deal? I've released all of my CDs on my own label! I can't imagine it any other way."

Maybe because I listened to Maria's amazing flamenco music writing each and every chapter of Seeing Red (the book is named after Maria's CD,) maybe THAT'S why I finally heard what she was saying. Maybe that's why I finally realized that it didn't much matter whether I had a publishing contract or not. I've got to write, and so I will, I will write, and I will put the writing out there, on the blogs, or in print. Some of it I will give away, and some of I will sell and what sells, sells. Amen.

I guess what I have realized, what I have finally finally figured out after all these years -- is this rather simple lesson: all that matters, in the end, is the writing.

As my friend Karl Gabosh is wont to say, "Writers write."

Thank you Karl, for understanding that, and more importantly, for reminding me of that very important fact as often as you have.

Sister Mysteries, an on-line book, is part of the Albany Times Union's Writing In Motion project. The project features seven writers committed to completing writing projects by the end of 2010. Sister Mysteries is connected to a novel called Castenata -- a time-travel murder mystery featuring a nun, Sister Renata, who in 1883 was falsely accused of murdering her cousin Antonie. Renata's version of the story is contained within her diaries on the Castenata site.