This I Believe - New England

All of us need help at some point in our lives—sometimes at many points in our lives. On good days, our wish for help is relatively trivial, say asking a neighbor to help us move a piece of furniture or a passerby for driving directions. At other times, our need for aid may be deeper and wider, say, in the midst of an overwhelming health or parenting crisis. Some of us are quick to summon help when we need it, with no sense of shame or embarrassment. But for others of us, asking for help...

The roughly one million residents of the Ocean State traveled such diverse paths to get here. Many started their journey in the Women and Infants Hospital delivery room. Others of us got here by way of college admissions letters, the immigration field office in Providence, or marriage proposals. And some of us discovered, perhaps by happenstance, that the reason to set down roots in Rhode Island is that this remarkably unique state, even with its challenges, offers something irresistible,...

Every one of us has a story - make that lots of stories - that define who we are. There are those life-altering events during childhood, perhaps our first love or our first heartbreak, or the stories that come out of our adult lives that are so very complex. You may recall Maya Angelou’s powerful words in her autobiography, I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings: “There is no greater agony than bearing an untold story inside you.” Some of us are eager to share our stories with anyone who will...

Life’s most important lessons come our way from so many sources and directions, often when we least expect them. Some of the lessons we learn are predictable, say when we park ourselves in lecture hall seats. Others are much more spontaneous and unanticipated, often in delightful ways. The chance encounter with a sage seatmate on an airplane flight who shares what she’s learned about aging gracefully. The person standing behind us in the supermarket checkout lane who waxes philosophically...

All of us experience loss during our lives. That’s inevitable. Cherished pets die. Longstanding friendships rupture. Beloved jobs end. People relocate and say goodbye to communities they adore. Every loss matters, of course, no matter the depth. But it seems fair to say that some losses are much harder to bear than others. For many of us, the loss of a parent – whether through death, abandonment, an adoption plan, or alienation – is among the hardest to accept. There is something so...

If we’re fortunate, we have genuine heroes in our lives. Some of our heroes may be extraordinary, people whose spectacular feats defy comprehension, perhaps a citizen who risked her life to save total strangers from a burning house, or navy seals who rescued children trapped in a remote cave. Sometimes heroism is much more quiet and understated – ordinary people who go about their daily lives with earnest dedication, answering the call of duty without fanfare. As Patty Higgins notes,...

Perhaps most of us have spent some time anticipating our own deaths, our own mortality. Maybe these are but fleeting moments, or maybe not. Have you ever pictured the gravestone meant for you, and what it might mean to those who visit your grave site? For many of us this may be a macabre subject, one that’s hard to embrace. But as we hear from Nicholas Benson, gravestones can host profound messages that convey so much about the stories of our lives – who we were, what we aimed to be, the...

"There but for the grace of God go I." Now there's an expression we've all heard, commonly attributed to the 16th century English reformer John Bradford, among others. The message, of course, pertains to situations where we find ourselves better off than those we encounter. Indeed, life produces so many circumstances where we witness the profound suffering of others: the victim of a horrific accident, the neighbor whose house was consumed by fire, the person at the stoplight who's...

Many of us have had the opportunity and privilege to travel internationally. Crossing borders – where we come face to face with unfamiliar languages, foods, and time-honored customs – can be both wonderfully exciting and intensely unnerving. The joy of discovery can be tempered by some fear of the unknown. What are the right words to use to communicate basic messages? What if I say the wrong thing? How will I handle it if I become lost? What does it mean in this country when I shake my...

Former Rhode Islander and noted author Jhumpa Lahiri wrote this wonderful line in a column she penned for the New York Times: "The first sentence of a book is a handshake, perhaps an embrace." What Lahiri seems to be saying is that introductions matter, especially when we embark on an intense relationship, whether it be with a book or a person. All of us march through life filled with opportunities to make first impressions. They may not entail literal handshakes, but whatever form they...

In Plato's Apology, Socrates asserts that the unexamined life is not worth living. While that may be a bit of an overstatement, many of us have learned during the course of our lives that self-examination that has real depth is a virtue that pays impressive dividends.

Have you ever owned a talisman, a lucky object that seems to have magical powers? Perhaps talismans are mere figments of our imagination, or maybe, just maybe, there's really something to them. For some of us, a talisman ties us to the most important people in our lives, especially in difficult moments. The famed suffragist Elizabeth Cady Stanton wrote, "Love is the talisman of human weal and woe—the open sesame to every soul." And sometimes a talisman can help us appreciate the deepest...

Life is both fragile and unpredictable. That we know. No doubt all of us have dear friends and relatives whose lives changed in a flash as a result of a serious accident or health trauma. Or maybe it's our own lives that pivoted without even a moment's notice.

What is it that draws so many of us to the Ocean State and keeps us here, even when opportunities elsewhere beckon? In a word, community. Somehow Rhode Island’s intimate and quirky scale, its mix of neighborhood and neighborhood characters – even with their sometimes rough edges – manage to pull us in and get ahold of us, a bit like flypaper. For so many of us, Rhode Island’s complex richness seeps into our bones and, even with all its challenges, becomes part of who we are. And that’s...

How often do we stop and notice – really notice – the symbols and structures that surround us and shape our understanding of the world?

How often do we stop and notice the symbols and structures that surround us and shape our understanding of the world?

Hope, true hope, can be so elusive. The most fortunate among us are able to find it and hold tight, especially during life's inevitable moments of despair. For some of us, hope is fleeting, slipping through our fingers much too fast. For others, hope lingers and sustains us as we muddle through life's challenges. In her book Animal Dreams, Barbara Kingsolver wrote “The very least you can do in your life is figure out what you hope for. And the most you can do is live inside that hope. Not...

How many of us have been tempted to rush to judgment when we come upon displays of ugly behavior, whether on the smartphone or television screen, during radio broadcasts, or up close and personal in our daily encounters? We may wince when a spokesperson for the opposing political party opines in ways that seem completely irrational and designed to obfuscate. Maybe we shriek when we're cut off by an aggressive driver, or curse when a neighbor blasts heavy metal music late into the night....

Those of us who have been blessed with long-term marriages or partners often wonder what life will be like if we outlive our mate. Will I ever know happiness again? Can I survive on my own, without those all-too-familiar glances, comforting words, and embraces? Might life lose its meaning? Somehow, some way, most people manage to cope. The gifted writer Anne Lamott put it so beautifully: "You will lose someone you can’t live without, and your heart will be badly broken, and the bad news is...

Perhaps it sounds trite to say that health crises produce much needed wake-up calls for those of us who need to make significant lifestyle adjustments. But for many, this is a truism; there's nothing like awakening in an intensive care unit – surrounded by loved ones and scurrying professionals – to send that compelling and poignant message. Dodging the proverbial health care bullet means that some of us get a second chance, often with a renewed sense of purpose. The poet Maya Angelou once...