This morning, I went to my mail slot and found an oddly-shaped envelope waiting for me. The interesting package was mailed the same day my column was published. A note was written on the back.

“Your Mother’s Day story is a winner. Thx for the reminder,” the sender wrote in black ink.

Inside the envelope I found a bunch of Styrofoam peanuts, and a plastic box that I recognized immediately as one that earrings my father used to bring back from Italy came in.

Sure enough, inside the small, plastic box was a set of purple glass earrings stuck in a bright red, velvet background. I have no doubt they are Italian, however, I have no idea who sent them.

It doesn’t happen often but every once in awhile readers will mail a note or a gift without signing their names to it. I can appreciate an anonymous expression of thanks or appreciation. I’m known to do it myself once in awhile, but I’ll admit it’s driving me a little crazy that I can’t send along thanks to the mystery sender.

An unknown person used to send me cards in the mail after reading stories I wrote about people in need. Usually, the person enclosed a little cash — $2, $5 and once as much as $20 — for the subject of my article who was going through difficult times. Once, after a series of tough stories, the person sent me $10 with the note, “Buy yourself lunch on me.”

I always assumed the person was a woman because the style of the handwriting was flowery, but I never knew for sure. I suspect my current sender is a male — once again, an assessment based solely on the handwriting.

Either way, thank you for the kind gesture.

Post from: Missing Chapters

I offered words of encouragement and support, knowing it will take awhile for her heart to heal. Aurora’s mother, my Aunt Teresa, died recently.

My cousin and I are the same age, but we grew up a world apart. She spent her entire childhood in a rural Italian town without all the luxuries afforded a girl living in America. But last week while I was attending my aunt’s funeral, I realized that Aurora and I now walk the same path - one that will lead us to places our mothers will never see, accomplishments they won’t get the opportunity to celebrate and heartbreak they can no longer comfort.

We are two daughters who will live the rest of our lives without our mothers. I already know from more than 14 years experience, it isn’t easy.

I felt my mother leave this earth. A deep sadness washed over me long before I was officially told that she collapsed at the dinner table and a paramedic pronounced her dead. I didn’t know why I felt so empty inside until my oldest brother called to tell me my mother died as a result of an aneurysm. She was 63.

She never met my husband, saw any house I called my own or sat for dinner at my table.

Despite my loss, I can’t help but cherish the time that I was given with her. I am rich with memories. A relative that I encountered at my aunt’s funeral reminded me of the many lives my mother touched.

“She was my teacher,” a woman who first met my mother when she visited Italy with my father in the late 1950s told me. “She taught us the words to ‘Que Sera Sera.’ I will never forget your mother.”

An American born to Italian immigrants, my mother, Theresa Rafaela Occhiogrosso, grew up in Brooklyn. She was strong, independent and spoke her mind with ease - traits that didn’t always go over so well in a traditional Italian household. It didn’t stop her from being true to herself.

She was blessed with a voice that brought grown men to tears. She might have pursued a singing career, but her father died when she was 18 and the responsibilities bestowed upon the oldest daughter crushed her chances. I’m not sure she ever quite recovered from the disappointment.

When I was a little girl, I tagged along while she volunteered at a day center for the blind. It was there that I learned that people’s disabilities disappear once you get to know them. She later worked at a halfway house at a state mental institution where she did much more than her job description detailed. She showed compassion when others walked away. She reached into her own pocket when the state’s budget just wouldn’t stretch.

When I was applying for college, she caught the application to Syracuse University as I was pushing it off the table and into the trash. Imagine me, the daughter of an Italian immigrant just like mother, aspiring to get my journalism degree at the prestigious and expensive S.I. Newhouse School of Public Communications.

“You get in, and we’ll figure the rest out,” she told me and stood proud when her youngest child graduated from Syracuse on Mother’s Day in 1989.

My mother never said do as I do, think as I think or give like I give. She just lived life on her terms, all the while preparing fertile ground for seeds that dropped.

While I can no longer hug my mother or share my joys and sorrows with her, I know it is only because of the lessons she taught me that I can continue to grow and nurture this life that she planted.

Post from: Missing Chapters

When Robert Smith called me a couple of weeks ago, I wasn’t sure I could do anything with his idea, but I let him explain. He was moved by an experience that compelled him to call and since I didn’t experience it with him, it was taking me a little while to catch on. He understood this, I think.

“I hope you don’t think I just fell out of a tree,” he said and launched into the reason for the call.

Smith, along with others from the Home Builders Association of Alamance-Caswell County, was working on an upcoming fundraiser to help out the American Red Cross as well as someone in need in Alamance County. Smith needed donations for Fabulous Frenzy Fun Night, which is a night of games and giveaways at DiGiorgio’s from 7 p.m. to 10 p.m. this Friday, so he was hitting on friends, stopping in businesses and making phone calls soliciting help.

He wandered into City Barber Shop in Graham one day and ran into a man named Pretty Booger who shines shoes at the shop.

“He’s all the time picking at me and asked what I had going on,” Smith said.

Smith explained his current project.

“Booger, we are trying to raise some money so we can do some good for somebody in Alamance County.”

“How can I help?” Pretty Booger asked.

He immediately offered some free shoe shines for the cause. Someone else in the shop offered free haircuts. When Smith walked out of there, he was overwhelmed.

“I got out into the car, and I almost started crying,” he told me, choking up again. “Here’s a guy who doesn’t make a lot of money, and he is trying to do some good for somebody else, and he can probably use some good for himself. Here is a guy who doesn’t have much, and he is trying to help.”

Smith quickly realized that every person he called on agreed to help in some way. The outpouring of generosity prompted the call to me.

“There is so much garbage going on in our world today,” he said. “Sometimes there is goodness, but we tend to publicize all the bad stuff and not the good stuff.”

Contrary to popular belief, the Times-News doesn’t seek out the bad stories and ignore the good ones. News is what it is. We don’t create it. We just write it. And when times are tough, the news tends to reflect it. From business closings to layoffs, fires, break-ins and wrecks, readers of the Times-News have definitely been getting a good dose of reality lately.

Robert Smith was tired of it. That much was clear. Perhaps that’s why he was overwhelmed by the simple acts of kindness he described. His reaction prompted me to find a way to give his story a little space. I thought it might give other Times-News readers a lift, too.

Smith explained it best.

“This isn’t an earth shattering story, but it’s people caring about people and that’s what makes our country so special.”

Post from: Missing Chapters

While the routine sounds created by the Long Island Railroad definitely blended with everyday noises, I remained keenly aware of the train - its power and lure. This week, the sound of the train whistle conjures up a new memory I’m not soon to forget.

I was working late shift last Friday, writing the last of my stories due for the weekend and listening to the police scanner. Shortly before 8 p.m., I heard a call for the Graham Fire Department.

“10-50 P.I. Washington and River at the railroad crossing. Vehicle struck by a train. PD on the scene requests non-emergency response.”

I headed out the door and during the short drive, I thought a lot about what I might see. When a train and a vehicle collide, the odds are undoubtedly in favor of the train. If paramedics weren’t needed, my first thought was there weren’t any survivors.

I immediately saw the wreckage in the distance at the railroad crossing once I parked. Flashing lights from the fire trucks and police cars cast an ominous glow on the mangled metal.

All my senses immediately kicked into gear just like they do at any scene - wreck, fire or crime. I rely mostly on sight and sound when I finally sit down to write but when I’m in the thick of it, I lean heavily on how it all feels.

 The seriousness of an event is obvious simply by tuning into the mood of the police and firefighters hurrying around. If there is a fatality, often I know before I ask. A homicide feels different than a suicide. A child seriously hurt or dead, creates a different vibe.

But as I slowly inched my way closer to the wreckage Friday, I worried. The front-end of an old pickup truck was completely sliced from the cab and truck bed. From where I stood, the contents of the twisted heap near the railroad crossing arm were indistinguishable.

Honestly, I was afraid to look too hard. I studied faces instead. Everyone was quiet, almost too quiet, yet the mood seemed light.

 Graham police Sgt. D. Flood confirmed there were no injuries. The truck and driver were stuck under the railroad crossing arms and the truck was struck by an Amtrak train.

 I stared in amazement when Sgt. Flood pointed to 72-year-old Isaiah Downey, who stood across the tracks looking at his 1973 Chevrolet pickup, unscathed. I thought for sure he must have jumped out of his truck before the train sped by.

I walked over to Mr. Downey. I was anxious to hear his account of what happened: how he got in the predicament, his thoughts as the train came barreling toward him and his assessment knowing he actually survived.

 He said the car behind him wouldn’t back up, and he was in the truck when it and the train collided.

 The witness, who waited at Mr. Downey’s side, confirmed it. He, too, was amazed by what happened. He said that people kept saying that Mr. Downey was lucky, but he wasn’t buying it. He called it a miracle, “a miracle on the train tracks.”

 I studied the heap and started recognizing the front tires, the engine, the hood and the rearview mirror that sat atop it all, knowing that Mr. Downey’s story easily might have had a different end.

Mr. Downey was too shook up to really provide the details I craved last Friday night, but it didn’t matter. I was talking with a man who endured a collision with an Amtrak train and lived. 

 What else did I really need to say?

Post from: Missing Chapters

Madison Taylor, Roselee Papandrea, Rev. James Brown, Eileen Brady and Pearl Spurlock at the back of the Capitol on the day before the Inauguration.

We turned left onto Constitution Avenue off of 21st Street, and my stomach dropped. There were more people, more than I had ever seen gathered in one place, covering the National Mall. We needed to make our way to 1st Street in order to get into the ticketed area and time was running out.

I knew that the only reasonable thing to do was to go find a spot amid the crowd near the Washington Monument. But those tickets - two standing ones and one seated ticket - were burning a hole in all our pockets, especially mine.

 I decided the night that President Barack Obama was elected that I was going to try my hardest to get my friend, the Rev. James Brown, a preacher at First Baptist Church in Jacksonville, a ticket to the Inauguration. I wanted him to be able to watch the first African-American president take his oath. I wanted him to be able to say, “I was there.”

While we are unlikely friends, a black Baptist preacher from rural North Carolina and a white Catholic woman from suburbia New York, we have bonded over common ideals and a simple desire to help people. Our friendship gives me a unique view into Rev. Brown’s world. I see his tireless efforts to be there for both the folks in his congregation and complete strangers.

I also have seen that while we have come far in regard to how we treat minorities in this country, racism - albeit subtle at times - lurks in the shadows, and it’s tough to watch. I thought the Inauguration would give Rev. Brown a chance to experience our country in one of its finest hours so I started writing letters.

I sent out several. Sue Bell, from the office of U.S. Sen. Richard Burr, called me in December to let me know that even though Burr had less than 400 tickets and more than 12,000 requests, he wanted to provide a seated ticket to Rev. Brown and two standing tickets to my husband Madison and myself. We were thrilled and grateful, especially because my friend, Eileen Brady, who lives in Alexandria, Va., was willing to give us all a place to stay.

Eileen and I worked together to plan out the details of our trip so Inauguration Day would run smooth. We even did a dry run Jan. 19 when we went into D.C. to pick up our tickets at Burr’s office. His staff was incredibly accommodating. They welcomed us and made us feel like we were an important part of the coming day’s events.

But when I saw that crowd at the National Mall Jan. 20 and knew that we had already spent more than four hours traversing many miles, the cold and intersections bottlenecked with daunting numbers of people, I knew I couldn’t ask Rev. Brown to go any farther. I also didn’t think I’d be able to find him again if we went to our separate sections. I made the decision quickly, but it wasn’t easy and didn’t come without a few tears.

Rev. James Brown at the National Mall on Inauguration Day.

Rev. Brown told me he didn’t care where we stood as long as we were together. We instead were shoulder to shoulder with people of every race, religion and ethnic background, who gathered too far to see Obama, but in a place where we could all hear him. We formed immediate bonds. We laughed, joked, prayed, cried and rejoiced together.

When Obama spoke, that group estimated at 1.8 million people hushed to a complete silence. We knew what it took to get there and while we all had different reasons for attending, I think most of us wanted to be present to see for ourselves the dawning of a new day in America.

“On this day, we gather because we have chosen hope over fear, unity of purpose over conflict and discord,” Obama said and tears welled in my eyes.

I know through stories shared the roads that Rev. Brown has walked, the obstacles he’s faced and the discrimination he’s endured because his skin was supposedly the wrong color. I have personally watched him reach out to others numerous times only to have his hands chopped off at the wrist. Yet this man, this gentle preacher, continues to reach out anyway.

Rev. Brown has chosen “hope over fear” more times than this white woman from the suburbs could ever understand, and he never stopped believing that one day he would stand amid people of all colors to celebrate the accomplishments of a black man.

And I am incredibly honored and proud to say, “I was there.”

Post from: Missing Chapters

Last week, I answered a phone call from a Caswell County woman wondering who to contact to get a story in the Greenville Daily Reflector.

She recently attended her granddaughter’s graduation at East Carolina University. While in Greenville she left her purse in a restaurant. She didn’t realize it until long after she left. But when her granddaughter went to the restaurant, the purse with all its contents was returned.

The Caswell County woman was elated, and she wanted others to know there still are honest people in the world. I gave her the name and number of the Daily Reflector’s editor. Then I forgot about it until I found myself in a similar situation on Christmas Eve.

My husband and I were heading to Danbury to spend the holiday with his family - our first without his father, who died this past summer. We made a quick stop at a fast-food place in Reidsville. I carried my purse in, put it down next to me in the booth and promptly forgot it when we got up to leave.

I realized I left it behind when we were minutes away from his mother’s house and an hour away from Reidsville. I called the restaurant and was told that they had my purse.

I dropped my husband off at my mother-in-law’s house and headed back to Reidsville. On the drive, I imagined different scenarios. I hoped my story would end just like that of the woman from Caswell County. The realist in me also envisioned my purse stripped of all its valuables - the checkbooks, the digital camera, the flash drive, the wallet filled with credit and debit cards, my license as well as the cash and checks collected for Allied Churches of Alamance County that I had in an envelope.

When I arrived back at the restaurant, the manager handed me my purse. It was heavy. I was relieved. I brought it out to the car and checked inside. My hand immediately went to the camera then the checkbooks, the flash drive and the wallet.

I opened the wallet. The license, debit and credit cards were all there. I peeked inside the billfold. I saw the many receipts I’ve let stack up in there but the cash was gone. I don’t carry much so I knew I was out only about 10 or 15 dollars.

My hand quickly went to the white envelope - the one holding the cash and checks collected for Allied Churches since Dec. 9. It was still there, but it was empty. My stomach dropped.

As a reporter, I’ve written many stories about robberies, break-ins and larcenies. I’m well versed on crimes of opportunity, and I, without a doubt, created an opportunity for a thief. Believe me, guilt runneth over.

But just because someone can doesn’t mean a person should. It’s illegal, not to mention dishonest, to steal, and it hurt me deep inside that it happened, especially because the money was to help less fortunate people. I knew I was going to reimburse the money and Allied Churches wouldn’t go without, but I still felt a nagging sadness.

When I got back to Danbury, my husband Madison was waiting for me. His mother recently sold a chair that belonged to his father, and she split the money between her two sons. Madison handed me the envelope, which was only $25 less than what was taken from purse, and said we could use it to give to Allied Churches.

I have a friend who would call that a Christmas miracle.

Anyone who purchased an Allied Churches of Alamance County Honor Card at the Times-News office between Dec. 9 and Dec. 19 and wrote a check should cancel it and if possible, contact Roselee Papandrea at 506-3045. All donations received prior to Dec. 9 have already been received by Allied Churches.

Post from: Missing Chapters

Before, I aspired to be a journalist who changed lives reporting for the New York Times or the Daily News. My friend Nicole, a musical theater student at the time, and I talked about sharing an apartment. My name would be known in a byline and hers on a Broadway marquee.

We would both be immersed in what we loved. For her, it was acting, singing and dancing. For me, it was writing.       

The night before we left for the summer after our freshman year at Syracuse University, Nicole walked into my dorm room with a tape recorder. Instead of telling me she was sad the year was ending and she would miss me, Nicole played a song from the TV show “Fame.”

“You, you’re different. You go your own way come what may. You seem to do what you should do and nothing ever gets to you. … Some may call you foolish but only those who don’t believe. They can’t conceive that dreams can come true but I do ’cause I’m a dreamer, too.”

We cried. We hugged. We said goodbye.

There were letters, especially that first summer, and even after that. Our paths diverged at Syracuse. We lived in separate dorms. Our majors took us in different directions as did our friends. But I never forgot the song or the dream.

On the afternoon of Dec. 21, 1988, I saw Nicole walking on campus. I ran to catch up but when I got close, I realized it wasn’t Nicole. I didn’t know she had spent the first semester of our senior year studying abroad in England.

Later that night, my friend Karen walked into my room, her eyes filled with tears.

“Roselee,” she said, “do you know who was on that plane?”

The plane she was referring to was flight Pan Am 103 traveling from London to New York. A plastic explosive, hidden by Libyan terrorists in a suitcase in the cargo hold, blew up 31,000 feet above Lockerbie, Scotland. The 259 people, including 35 Syracuse University students studying abroad, on board plus 11 Lockerbie residents on the ground were all killed.

“Nicole,” she said.

From that second on, the after - the second part of my life - began.

It was about an hour later while I was sitting in a chapel on campus seeking understanding at a vigil that I came face to face with my future profession. Students sobbed as the sounds of camera shutters clicked. A TV reporter started a live broadcast from the balcony within earshot of the grief-stricken students used as a backdrop.

A newspaper reporter, distinguishable by the pen and notebook, moved in closer as I stood to leave at the end. “What is your name? Can you spell your name?” was all I heard. The next day, reporters swarmed the quad, stopping students. “Did you know anyone?” they asked, shoving a list of passenger names in their hands.

In the moments after Nicole’s mother learned her daughter’s plane exploded, she melted into a heap at John F. Kennedy International Airport. “My baby, my baby,” she cried. Her husband tried to shield her from view, but we all saw her raw grief displayed on the evening news.

More than a month later, a headline told me Nicole’s body was never found. It was in the same newspaper as my first published article in a Syracuse daily where I interned. Ten years later, I learned she was assigned a seat in the last row just above the blast section. Her death was instant.

For the past 20 years, I have struggled with the dream I shared with my friend, whose life was robbed by terrorists. I even quit the newspaper business for awhile. Obviously I returned to the work, although I have never felt at ease with my role as a journalist.

I watched the story of Nicole’s death unfold on an international stage, though one far different from what we once imagined, and I experienced how it felt to have private pain prodded in a public way.

Now when I’m sent to capture another’s grief for a story in our newspaper, it is impossible not to feel as if I’m intruding and should just go away. I try to remember it’s their story and not mine, regardless of what the byline says, but I’ve made lots of mistakes along the way - each one cuts deep.

It would be easier, I think, to leave the work behind, to pick another route that wouldn’t lead me to people on the worst days of their lives. This way, I wouldn’t have to meddle in their pain or justify my presence. It would certainly hurt less.

But if I did that, I wouldn’t be walking the path where Nicole always believed I’d be, and I just can’t help thinking that some dreams should never die.

“Beautiful dreamer share a dream with me. You, beautiful dreamer, dream on and on through eternity.”

Post from: Missing Chapters

“It’s been a bad year for many - a year I didn’t see coming when we flipped the calendar to January 2008. And because of that, because of the economic climate we’re in, I wanted to let you know that (and here’s the presumptuous part) you can mark my name off any holiday list you may have.”

At the time, Diana was wrestling with her own financial worries. Her publisher had just announced layoffs were coming. She didn’t know if that was to be her fate. But on this particular day, her focus was elsewhere.

“I am blessed,” she wrote. “I have a roof over my head and my health and, for at least the next two weeks, a job. But there are so many people out there who have nothing. And because it’s been such a bad year for so many, not only are there more people in need, but there are fewer people to give to those in need. Charities are suffering. People are suffering.”

Diana asked her friends, who normally exchange Christmas gifts with her to instead drop a dollar in the Salvation Army kettle or give to a food bank or just say a prayer for those without any support systems.

I immediately knew I could easily comply with her request. There are so many nonprofit agencies in Alamance County in need of a little extra this year. Donating in Diana’s name would be simple. But the e-mail got me thinking.

Every year as December begins, I find myself searching for Christmas spirit - a feeling that truly lives up to the birth of a king and savior. For me, it’s an elusive quest that seems to worsen as pressure to buy, decorate and bake increases with each passing day.

Thanks to Diana and the tugging within my own heart, I decided that this year I was going to work extra hard to find the true meaning of the season. So I forwarded Diana’s e-mail to a few friends, who along with their children are always on our gift list, and added a note of my own.

“It is our plan to make donations to our local homeless shelter this year in all of your names because I know that your kids are well taken care of and there are so many who are not. … There are a lot of families that just couldn’t handle increasing food and gas costs this year and have now found themselves without a home. … These are not people who have ever depended on the help of others in the past but that is their story this Christmas. It is very sad and humbling.”

I asked if they would consider making a donation instead of purchasing my husband and me a gift. I also hoped we could get together this holiday season as usual to celebrate our friendship and good fortune.

I knew my friends would be more than willing to reach into their pockets to give to those in need, but I worried a little about asking their children to give up a present in order to help someone less fortunate. The response of my friend’s daughters reminded me that the spirit of Christmas is always within reach.

“That’s great,” Hannah, 8, told her mom. “Say yes, say yes.”

Sabrina, who is 12 and had already given up a present from us in the past in exchange for a donation to save a stray cat, took the words right out of my mouth.

“That is the best gift I could get.”

Post from: Missing Chapters

Samanth Harvell at her sundress party in July.

(This is column that ran Nov. 20)

The wind blew steady and hard on Saturday, tearing vibrant leaves from tree limbs until my grass was blanketed in crimson, orange and gold. It was no doubt a beautiful day but also a sad one, knowing the bareness of winter would soon be upon us.

For Angela Harvell of Elon, Saturday marked the end of a life-altering journey with her 15-year-old daughter Samantha who was diagnosed with osteosarcoma, a common form of bone cancer that had metastasized to her lungs, in the spring of 2007.

The diagnosis meant rounds of chemotherapy and hair loss. Ten inches of the femur in Samantha’s left leg along with her knee cap was surgically removed and replaced with titanium. This past February, she was strong and healthy enough to start her freshman year at Western High School.

It was then that she sat for an interview with me, sharing her story to promote an American Red Cross blood drive hosted by Kids Path, a program under Hospice and Palliative Care Center of Alamance-Caswell that also served Samantha.

Surrounded at a table of Kids Path professionals and her mom, Samantha, still 14 at the time, commanded my attention. She had a story - she knew it - and she intended to be the one to tell it. She rattled off medical terms and delved into details with ease. An amazing ball of energy, she slowed down only to let my pen catch up and then lunged full force ahead, time clearly at a premium.

Samanth Harvell at Kids Path in February.

Doctors offered no long-term prognosis. She needed five more years before the word remission could be used. It didn’t matter. Samantha walked her own path. She fought the cancer hard. She had hope. She never stopped believing. There was no doubt. She would recover.

Even so, the disease changed her. She couldn’t take a single moment for granted. It was her time to live.

“You can’t think about what’s wrong,” she told me at the time, doling out sage advice that many adults in her life started to count on. “You can’t say, ‘Oh my gosh, I’m losing my hair.’ Instead, you think, I can’t wait until it comes back.

“You can’t give up. You can’t think, I can’t do this.”

A month after that interview, new lesions developed on Samantha’s lungs. She had surgery near winter’s end to remove them and then was put in Duke Medical Center’s intensive care unit because of multiple organ failure.

Samantha was in a drug-induced coma for four weeks. Her mother lived in the hospital’s waiting room, holding tight to her daughter’s will to live despite the doctors’ claims that she’d never recover. Her heart functioned at 5 percent. Her right lung was riddled with tumors. They said she wouldn’t leave the hospital.

Angela Harvell knew the disease was relentless. A realistic woman who keeps her emotions in check, Harvell believed in her daughter.

“I kept telling them, ‘You don’t know who you are talking about. This is Samantha,’” Harvell said. “Sure enough, she fought her way through it.”

Six weeks later, Samantha was home again, but she had slept through the coming of spring, the arrival of flowers and the sprouting of new leaves.

“She thought she was waking up from the surgery,” her mother said. “It took her awhile to wrap her mind around it.”

Samantha’s heart function remained low, too low. She couldn’t endure any more surgeries or much chemotherapy. Doctors gave her two more rounds. It would give her a little more time, they said. They predicted two weeks to two months.

Denise Walker, a social worker and counselor with Kids Path, was assigned Samantha shortly after she was diagnosed. They met weekly.

“I remember her saying, ‘People are looking at me like I’m dying and my life is ending short. I’m living. Continue to treat me like I’m living until I die,’” Walker told me Wednesday. “She didn’t want to be remembered as the girl with cancer. She wanted to be remembered for how she lived.”

Samantha spoke about the wind. She wanted to feel it on her face. It’s where she found peace.

She spent the summer going to the beach with her family, shopping and having fun. In July, she and her friends put on their best sundresses, got makeovers, went out to dinner and spent the night at a hotel. It was the sweet 16 party for a birthday still a year away, and the prom she might not get to attend.

Samantha still continued planning for the future. She ignored the tremendous pain that wouldn’t let up. She didn’t complain. She was scared. She had good days and bad. She insisted on making the most of both.

“She was hoping some miracle would happen to make the cancer go away,” Angela Harvell said.

During a family reunion as summer came to an end, she gave a speech. The yearly reunion used to take place on Christmas Eve, but as cousins grew up and had kids of their own it became more challenging to get together. Samantha told the crowd she enjoyed the reunion much better when they had it at Christmas.

“Let’s move it back,” her mom said she told the group. “We don’t need to exchange gifts. We should just get together.”

Samantha wanted everybody to make ornaments. A Christmas party was planned.

“She wanted so badly to make it to Christmas,” Angela Harvell said.

This past Saturday, she woke up at noon to take her medication, but she fought sleep all day. On Saturday night, mom and daughter resumed their normal place on the couch to watch some TV. Samantha slept with legs thrown across her mother’s lap to make it easier for mom to rub her legs and feet.

The wind continued to blow outside. Inside, Harvell’s oldest daughter, Jamie, noticed her little sister’s chest stopped rising.

“I looked at her and she was gone,” Angela Harvell said. “There was no struggle. She just stopped breathing.”

Jenny Whitfield, Samantha’s nurse from Kids Path, will always link hopefulness and Samantha together. While the 15-year-old ultimately died, along the way she taught many, many people how to live.

“I think one of the things that has been accomplished is that a lot of people have been touched in some way or another by her story and by her being the person she was giving us hope to continue to be our best,” Whitfield said.

The people at Kids Path have talked a lot about Saturday’s wind - the day Samantha left this earth - and Walker recalled her young patient’s profound thoughts:

“God was there before the storm. He was there in the storm, and he would be there after the storm.”

 (Read a previous blog post about Samantha)

Post from: Missing Chapters

I met the 97-year-old barber Nov. 11. He will be featured in a documentary adapted from the book “Our Vanishing Americana.” It was the look of his old-style barber shop, Graham Barber Shop, that caught the attention of Mike Lassiter, an attorney from Statesville who spent six years traveling the state on weekends capturing small-town main street businesses, such as Wood’s, in photographs. (Read the story here.)

While Lassiter’s eye was drawn to the buildings - the old barber shops, cinemas, soda shops and general stores - he couldn’t ignore the stories of the people inside. Wood intrigued him, too.

It’s one of the reasons the barber, who has been cutting hair for more than 80 years, was asked to be in the documentary that will explore the story behind the photograph. The finished product expected to air in September 2009 will include about 12 segments, although more than 600 photos are featured in the coffee-table style book.

When I walked into Mr. Wood’s barber shop Tuesday, he was surrounded by folks focused on him. There was Scott Galloway, the director of the documentary, Randy Fulp, the director of photography, Jason Rowland, the audio guy, Lassiter and his wife Kate, and Susan Curlee who contacted the Times-News about the story in the first place.

Despite the attention, Mr. Wood didn’t hesitate to chat with me, and he never forgot I was there. Every time someone new walked in - usually an unsuspecting customer - Mr. Wood always pointed me out. “She’s from the Times-News,” he said and then moved his way down the line of people. “And she’s from Chapel Hill and he did the book and that’s his wife” and on and on.

He didn’t let the stardom get to him. His customers remained first priority, even when he was in the middle of an interview. He didn’t want to let anybody wait. He remained true to himself.

While I was talking to him, I noticed how smooth his skin looks. I asked how he keeps it that way.

“I don’t have a secret,” he said. “I just wash it and shave it.”

During a lull, he sat in a barber’s chair and read the newspaper. I noticed, of course, it was the Greensboro News & Record. I wasn’t thrilled to see our competition in his hands, but I let it go. He’s 97. Who am I to judge?

But later, I was talking to his wife Alice. She’s only 80 and seems as active as her husband who works five days a week. As I was getting ready to leave, Mrs. Wood called me back. She asked me to pronounce my name again.

“I want to remember it so I can say it when we talk about you later,” she said. “We love the Times-News. Kenneth reads it every morning before he goes to work.”

They both made my day.

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