I wrote about a meaningless juxtaposition here and I used these combined photographs to prove the point.
Sandrine Cassini wrote of the blog when she saw the photograph:
“Gosh, that’s 11 years ago!!!” (and somehow subtracted a year by her count.)
One of the most influential men of my life was my lifelong friend Brother Edwin Reggio,C.S.C. I first met him at St.Edward’s High School, a Roman Catholic boarding school in Austin, Texas. In 1957 he made an offer I could not refuse that I was going to play the alto saxophone for the school band. The short but extremely tough man was not the kind of man you said no to.
Brother Edwin Reggio, C.S.C.
He died April 24, 2013. I had gone to visit him in Austin a few months before. He had a rare disease, a by-product of leukemia that caused an infection that went up his spine and very quickly began to erase his memory.
For a week I sat with him at breakfast, lunch and dinner. He had moments of lucidity. At one point I said to him, “Brother Edwin, can you say ‘gosh’ for me?”
Brother Edwin did have a temper but I never heard him utter any bad word, the closest was “gosh”. I found his use of the word endearing and charming.
Sandrine Cassini His answer to my request (showing that in spite of his slipping memory he had not lost his quick intelligence) was, “Alex, I can say ‘gosh” for you but it will have no meaning for me as I don’t remember what it means to you or to me.”
Three years later (and a bit more) that charming (and beautiful) woman, Sandrine Cassini, who now lives (alas!) in San Francisco, has used the Brother Edwin word. She has made me smile. Perhaps there is innocence in all of us and had Brother Edwin ever set eyes on Sandrine Cassini, he would have been inclined to say, “Gosh!”
Originally published at blog.alexwaterhousehayward.com.
