Father Anthony J. Chiaramonte - "Our Tony"

 I mean no disrespect when I call you Tony, but then again, I know you know that.  You shared yourself with us in such a personal way and we knew each other on a heart to heart level.  Your presence in our lives and at our table was an immense blessing; one for which we are forever grateful. 

I need to talk about you. I need to share this little story.  You, yourself, were the best story teller of all; anyone who ever heard one of your homilies can attest to that!  Before the advent of life-streaming the Mass at Christ Our Light, I sat in church, pen and paper in hand, to capture your salient points and your words of wisdom.  I was always excited when you were the one to speak!  I anticipated your down-to-earth stories and the generous way you shared your true self with the congregation.  When we first asked you to join us for dinner at our home and you said, yes" I felt honored and privileged. And then you became a 'regular' guest at our house; you said "yes" to our invitations again and again. You celebrated our "BIG" birthdays with us and we celebrated a few of yours; you even treated us to dinner at Grappa 72 for our 50th Wedding Anniversary.   I'm notorious at extending very last minute invitations, but you never took offense and if you were free you would say "yes". You got to meet many family members and friends and you always fit in perfectly.  You became family to us, you let us be our real selves - messiness and all -  and we fell in love.     I often thought "How blessed can we be" to have a friend like Tony?  In the last year or so, when we'd say, "How are you doing, Fr. Tony?" you'd answer, something along these lines, "Barely hanging in there" or " I'm just about making it".   I began to hold my breath as I watched you step down from the altar as I noticed a little unsteadiness. I even expressed my concern that he was doing too much.  After all, he was in his 80's, and was our Eucharistic Minister for almost all our Masses and Funerals.  Everyone called on Fr. Tony for just about everything and it seemed he always said, "yes".  He answered my concern for him, and his answer gave me comfort.  Basically he said he wanted to say, Yes" and that he liked what he was doing.  

The words below were written the day I got the terrible news that our friend Fr. Tony never made it to the 10am Mass because he had died as a result of a fall the night before.

At about 3:50 pm yesterday afternoon, Saturday October 15th, 2022, Father Tony came out of the Reconciliation Room and walked over to Bob and me as we sat at our little desk behind the last pew in church. Bob was setting up a laptop to livestream the 4 pm Mass and I had the other laptop ready to go with the PowerPoint containing the prayers and hymns for the 29th Sunday in Ordinary Time.

Out of the blue, Bob turns to Fr. Tony and says, “ I noticed your halo as you were walking out of the back room. “ I look at Bob in a baffled sort of way as I’m thinking “what the heck is he talking about ?” I think Father Tony might have been a bit baffled too but he started to joke around in his usual congenial way. And then I pick up on the train of the conversation and say something like “well we all know what an angelic guy you are”. Then Fr. Tony reminisces about an incident that happened many years ago when he was a Chaplain in Oneonta. He said that one of the coeds at the school told him she noticed a special aura around him as she saw him up at the altar. I sensed he was a bit embarrassed and humbled by her statement.

I really didn’t know what caused Bob to share this halo story until after Mass. I asked him what he was talking about when he said he saw this halo around Fr. Tony’s head ( Bob isn’t the type of guy who typically talks about things like a halo or auras) and he explains to me that when he saw Fr. Tony walking towards him a ray of sunshine came through the window and surrounded his head. Interesting that this happened within hours of his death. As far as I’m concerned and I’m guessing as far as most of the parishioners of Christ Our Light are concerned Father Tony did have an aura about him.

One time during a reconciliation service I sat watching Father Tony as one by one parishioners came forward to express their sinfulness and ask for forgiveness. He laid hands on them, he embraced them, he looked lovingly and gently at them and I had the feeling that Christ was alive and radiating through this holy, beautiful man as I had never, ever experienced Christ before in my life. 

 On my way out of church the day Fr. Tony died I was in a bit of a rush, so when I saw a woman holding onto her walker standing in front of Tony in what appeared to be a rather lengthy conversation, I decided not to wait.  As I whizzed by in my haste, he touched my shoulder in greeting and I said, "Hi!" What I would give to have had that final hug, those final words. Nothing describes Fr. Tony better to me than these words from 1 Corinthians:

Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It does not dishonor others, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres. Love never fails.

Anne and Me and Our Unique Experience

I’m not sure why Anne and I decided to "go out on the town" together. I liked Anne but she wasn’t in my original Specialty group at St. Vincent’s Hospital School of Nursing and I don’t remember hanging around with her on a regular basis.  It was March of 1965 and we were in our senior year. Perhaps we decided to connect up socially because so many of original groups of friends had already met their "Mister Rights" and we were both still looking.   I do remember that we were dressed up rather fancy so I believe it was some sort of upscale place in midtown Manhattan.

I also remember being impressed when two tall, handsome, well dressed young men approached us and engaged us in conversation. We visited with them for quite some time and as the social activity was winding down, they mentioned they lived nearby and they cordially invited us back to their apartment for coffee. They seemed educated and sophisticated, and since there were two of us, we felt a certain safety, and we assumed it was an honest invitation to continue our pleasant conversations.  After all, they seemed so sincerely interested in us, and we  believed that possibly they might turn out to be  our "Mr. Rights".

I guess we were young (both of us recently turned 20) and a bit naive and trusting, because we agreed to their invitation and went with them back to their apartment.  If my memory serves me correctly, the guys skillfully maneuvered us towards two separate areas in the apartment and "put the moves on us" rather aggressively. We might have been naive, but we weren't stupid and we immediately realized that their intentions were less than honorable. Cordial   conversation was not what they had in mind!

I yelled out, "Anne" at about the same time that she yelled out, "Mary Beth". We both rose from our seats and met in the middle of the room and announced this wasn't what we had in our minds and we were leaving.  They didn't apologize or ask to see us again to prove they were interested in getting to know us as the wonderful women we were.   They were interested in only one thing and they could care less about us as human beings.   I'm not sure why but they went outside with us as we hailed a cab and one of the guys handed me money to pay for the cab.  I remember feeling so angry about the entire situation, that before the cab pulled away, I opened the window, ripped the bill into smithereens and threw it out of the cab at them.  I believe it was a $20 dollar bill (which was a lot of money back in 1965).  I think Anne might have felt I acted a bit impulsively, throwing away the cab fare, but she understood my indignation.  I'm including a copy of the letter Anne wrote to me the next day.

                          March 27, 1965

Dear Mary Beth,

        I just wanted to tell you that I really had a terrific time with you last night. You are one of the few people whom I know and go out with who can be so very truly herself and still have a good time. You made me laugh enough to last a year!

     Please forget about the regrettable part of the evening. I'm sure we both learned a few things. I'm still in a state of shock at myself and I hope you realize as I do that it was a unique experience. I'm looking forward to going out with you again (to the same place, I hope - we've got to prove ourselves, remember). Hope you got up on time. Be good and avoid throwing away green paper unnecessarily.  I admire your spunk -you're just simply, incredibly great!! See you when I get back.

                                  Sincerely,

                                                                                                  Anne (over)

I'm even going to remember you in my Mass and Communion tomorrow - for our future strength in strange apartments.  A.

Sadly, Anne died suddenly on December 6, 2022, one day after her 78th birthday.  Rest in Peace, my friend.  Remember me as you come into your glory.

Remembrance is a part of being in the Zone

 

I often think about Aunt Anne Fries O’Donnell when the pool water 💦 is clear, blue and refreshing. I remember the little girl 👧🏻 (i.e., me) who would climb out the 2nd floor kitchen window of the O’Donnell apartment at 2653 Atlantic Avenue in Brooklyn (I could have the exact address wrong?) onto the roof top of the attached building where a little, one foot deep rectangular pool stood waiting. On a hot 🥵 and humid summer day before the advent of air conditioning, the water in that tiny rubber pool was the closest thing to heaven, a child could ever imagine. Thanks, Aunt Anne.

Being in the Zone

 “You’re in the zone”, he said. I was on a telemedicine visit with my Pancreatic Specialist a few days after my most recent annual MRI to monitor the mucoid cysts in my pancreas (Intraductal papillary mucinous neoplasm (IPMN). The good news was that my cysts hadn’t increased in size and I felt relieved to hear this report directly from “the horse’s mouth” although the news was a bit anticlimactic since I saw my report as soon as it was posted on my patient portal.  You can get your test results at about the same time as your physician, that is, if only you can remember your password and how to navigate the site. 

We’ve come a long way since my student nursing days when “mum was the word”.  We didn’t dare share the truth with our patients, especially if the news was in the least bit “negative”.  “Oh no, you’re temperature is normal”, we were told to say as the man lay there in the hospital bed burning up.  (I kid you not! - The medical ethics book of days gone by actually said it was perfectly okay to tell this sort of lie, legitimizing it by thinking to yourself “ well your 103 degree temperature is normal given the fact that your developing sepsis.”

Let me get back to my original point. If you don’t know me well you might not realize I have a terrible way of going off into tangents when attempting to tell a story. I frustrate my closest family members and friends all the time with this lifelong trait of going off into all different directions instead of sticking to one path until I reach the end.  Sorry, but my mind always sees different avenues; it’s just the way it works.

So, getting back to “ being in the zone”, I must confess it took me a minute or two to realize why this highly intelligent Medical Specialist was trying to get at.  The next thing he said aided my understanding. “ You’re 77 years old now, correct?” “Yes”, I said, “I just had turned 77 in March”. 

I don’t remember his exact words after that but his meaning came through loud and clear.  What this dear man was trying to tell me in so many words was that given my advanced age and the reality that the end was not too far off, it would be perfectly reasonable to make the decision not to have any more annual MRIs.  He added something like this, “ You can call me if you develop symptoms”.  So me, being the inquisitive type asked, “what symptoms should I be on the look out for? I have Irritable Bowel Syndrome and have a ton of abdominal symptoms more often than not, so I really wouldn’t know what would warrant an investigation. He really didn’t have much of an answer to my question, so before we closed our 5 minute telemedicine conversation, I mentioned I’d think about his thoughts about me “ Being in the Zone “ but probably I’d continue to have a yearly MRI to make sure my pancreatic cysts don’t develop into cancer. 

Since the original purpose of this Blog entry was to begin an examination and discussion of what it means “ to be in the zone”,  and NOT so much to give you a detailed description of my medical condition, I’ll end by saying I hope to delve deeper into this life stage and its implications and all the feelings surrounding it.  I hope you’ll follow along and share your own thoughts with me even if you’re lucky enough not to be “in the zone” quite yet.  Come to think of it, I guess I’m one of the lucky 🍀 ones to have made it into the zone at all, when so many others never got that chance. 

Before I stop today’s writing ✍️ process, I’d like to thank my dear friend, Tony, for giving me a push to start writing once again. 

The Church of My Childhood

 The Church of my childhood, St. Michael the Archangel, Jerome St., Brooklyn, NY. I look at this picture and I envision myself processing up and down the marble-floored isles in my white, first communion dress and veil, hands clasped in prayer 🙏 as the organ played somber, spiritual songs.  Honestly, I can even smell the incense. One more interesting fact about St. Michael’s: my father, Charles A. Fries , Sr., born in 1915, attended elementary school here also. It was considered the German Parish in our area, and as you can see from this photo, it was extremely elaborate- almost Cathedral-like. The Irish ☘️ Parish, nearby was very modest, almost like a country church-St. Malachy’s

Too Much Green!

 Quite a Coincidence 

Now that I’m approaching the end of my life, I notice I enjoy reminiscing about days gone by.  I also wonder why I remember certain things that others may find completely inconsequential and I especially enjoy remembering things that bring a smile to my face.   One such experience occurred somewhere in Queens, NY in approximately 1965 or 1966.   I felt it was an unbelievable coincidence and I think to myself, “what were the odds of something like that happening?”

I was a new graduate nurse working on the Pediatric floor at St. Vincent’s Hospital in Greenwich Village when some of my nursing friends invited me to attend a Sunday afternoon party somewhere in Queens, NY.   I wasn’t very familiar with this neighborhood and I don’t remember very much about the party except for the fact that when  it was time to leave, I went to grab my coat off the bed where all the coats were thrown, when a handsome young man who who was getting his coat and leaving the same time as me struck up a conversation. We stood there talking for quite a long time - there seemed to be an instant connection - and before I left with my nursing buddies,  this well-dressed gentleman, Mr. Hugh

Daniel “ Danny “ Greene had  already made plans for us to get together again soon and had my phone number securely in hand.  I remember being excited over this unexpected, last minute meeting and I looked forward to a future date with this attractive guy. 

Given the fact that the originally planned get-together was an afternoon event, my friends decided to continue partying. They knew the neighborhood well and brought me to a local hangout in a nearby area of Queens.  It was the first time I’d ever been to this particular location but it was typical of many of the places where young people met up for drinks, conversation and dancing.   I remember that I had to show proof of age at the door.  The place was relatively crowded but eventually I found myself sitting at one end of the bar next to a guy who struck up a conversation with me.  He was quite good looking, personable and friendly, and he seemed genuinely interested in me.  I remember thinking to myself, “Wow, I certainly am lucky!  What are the chances of meeting two great guys in one day.” 

When he asked me for my phone number, telling me he’d like to see me again, I was happy.   But, when he told me his last name, my mouth dropped.  His name was Peter Greene! 

I hadn’t met just any other good-looking nice guy.  Oh no, I had actually met Danny Greene’s younger brother.  What were the chances of that!  

An Overwhelming Experience (Details are omitted to protect the privacy and safety of our new neighbors )

I recently joined something called a Good Neighbor Team with some of my fellow Maryknoll Affiliates. Although I admire and support the people who do such things, I was never brave enough to go “far afield” as a missionary. So when the opportunity recently presented itself to work with a newly arrived immigrant family I was excited to be a part of a team that welcomed them to our country. How difficult could it be to get one little family settled into their new home, and their new city? I went for the first home visit only to feel completely overwhelmed! What was I thinking? How ignorant could one person be? The thought that surfaced rather quickly was the realization that this was certainly not going to be “ a simple walk in the park”. I left feeling completely overwhelmed, a bit depressed, and frankly quite defeated. But at about the same time another powerful feeling overtook me. After just one meeting with this family, l was hopelessly in love. Although they have next to nothing themselves, the family was very hospitable to us, preparing hot tea and food. When I arrived for my first home visit, the youngest little girl ( preschool age ) emerged from a bedroom and stood smiling shyly at the doorway to her bedroom. We made eye contact and I was immediately drawn to her adorable dark eyes. I instinctively gestured for her to come over and we hugged and she stood by me for awhile as I sat in one of the kitchen chairs. It’s difficult to describe why or how this happened. We didn’t speak one word of their language and they didn’t speak one word of ours. This was frustrating to say the least but sometimes hearts speak when words fail. Love is a pretty powerful thing so even though the challenges seemed insurmountable, there was no turning back. I also realized I wasn’t the only one lovestruck. As I was falling asleep that night, images flooded my mind. I found myself wondering what it must feel like to flee my country on a moment’s notice with little more than the clothes on my back. I tried to imagine being young and pregnant, grabbing a few simple belongings for my children and fleeing my country, my culture, many beloved family members and friends to begin a long, and tiring journey to places unknown. I wondered what it feels like to be ushered here and there until you finally arrive to a foreign destination that was chosen for you! How scary must it be to be completely at the mercy of people with a totally different culture who can’t understand a single word you’re saying? I started to pray for strength and guidance, and together with some of the most amazing comrades on God’s good earth, I began to have a bit of faith that we could and would rise to the occasion. We’d learn and grow and work together and however imperfectly, yet creatively, we’d do what we could to help. So, we put one foot in front of the other and we committed to our new neighbors. Information about the USCRI The U.S. Committee for Refugees and Immigrants (USCRI) administers domestic programs related to refugee resettlement and placement, foreign-born victims of human trafficking, and unaccompanied immigrant children. Its international programs focus on defending the rights of refugees and asylum seekers. Here is the Facebook Page https://m.facebook.com/USCRI.Albany/