R.I.P.

It’s never easy to lose a friend, and when I heard on April 29 that Alma Roberts Giordan had died, I felt a deep loss, tempered only by the fact that we had brought affirmation and joy into each other’s lives. She certainly had done the same for readers of America, as your respected and wise octogenarian writer (Am., 4/21)

I first came upon the name Alma Giordan some 40 years ago, when I would be reading a Catholic magazine carrying one of the articles I had written. There, in that same issue, would often be an enjoyable article by Alma. Then, 21 years ago, when I accepted a position as executive editor of The Litchfield County Times in Connecticut, then a brand new paper, waiting for me that first week was a stack of articles submitted by freelance writers. I was surprised to see a familiar name, Alma Giordan. It didn’t take long for me to call her.

Wonderful friendships often begin in coincidental ways. It turned out that Alma had been happily married to Bob Giordan, an artist, since 1939 and had never stopped writing for magazines, secular ones like Good Housekeeping, the Saturday Evening Post and McCall’s, and religious ones like America, Liguorian and Catholic Digest.

I happily accepted much of her work, often illustrated by her husband until his death, finding that Alma had a special gift. She could take the ordinary, small things we encounter every day and make these vibrate with life with her observations and words. She painted the mundane elements of this world that we all encounter in a way that highlighted how truly profound these arebe they a chipmunk, a crocus, a shoe, a mourning dove, a dogwood tree stump. She had the gift of seeing, as a poet expressed it, the God of things, and she could express this wonder beautifully, yet asking, Are words really necessary at the instant of a scarlet poppy’s miraculous unfolding? Is not my involuntary gasp of delight perhaps a more genuine prayer?

Last year she collected some of her good published work (several items were columns I had placed in The Litchfield County Times) and produced a book. I read it all in one sitting, enjoying her gift of seeing wonder and beauty that most of us need to be prodded to see. She called the book What This Old Hand Knows, the title of a truly notable piece she had written for America, an ode to the remarkable gift that is the human hand, our telltale lifeline (10/3/98). The book was humorously illustrated with her husband’s legacy of sketches, many of which I remember well.

Alma and I remained devoted friends. We were supposed to have lunch together this week. While I think she is having a more sumptuous banquet in a new and glorious place, we’ll nevertheless all be missing her.

Antoinette Bosco

At twenty-one, a new Hunter College graduate,