For decades, at the end of each December, I’ve gone through a year’s worth of columns to find quotes that were particularly memorable, moving or emblematic.
Here’s a sampling from the last 12 months, with gratitude toward everyone who trusted me with their words and thoughts, whether they appear here or not – and with appreciation for so many loyal, insightful readers:
Jan. 1: “I look at this storm, and how so many people lost their lives, and I know this: That could have been me or that could have been you.” – Tina Mulkey of Jefferson Avenue, who spent days providing critical help to Shanell Davis and Krystle Babbs, friends and neighbors with disabilities who typically have home support, during the Christmas weekend blizzard that claimed 47 lives.
Jan. 7: “Are you Fidele?” – The words shouted by Pedro Liriano and his son Mychal into a blinding wind when they spotted and saved Fidele Dhan, a Buffalo man they had never met, stranded outside in the blizzard.
Jan. 14: “The best part of Buffalo is the best part of St. Luke’s.” – Joanah Perkins, who last year became the first graduate of the St. Luke’s Mission of Mercy home school to earn a law degree.
Jan. 24: “’Did we win?’ Absolutely, all of Buffalo did!” – A text message from Katie O’Brien, Kenmore native and president of the Houston Bills Backers, recalling the written message from an intubated Buffalo Bill Damar Hamlin to his doctors in the hospital, after his heart stopped on the field in Cincinnati – which O’Brien linked to sheer joy she vows not to forget.
Jan. 28: “It was like our ancestors came out to listen.” – Heath Hill, an Oneida Nation singer who was there for a powerful reading of the Haudenosaunee thanksgiving address at “the place of the basswoods” at Red Jacket Natural Riverfront Park, once the great Six Nations hub known as Buffalo Creek.
Feb. 11: “God’s got better things to do.” – Monsignor Francis…
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