Carol Towarnicky

After decades of writing journalism and opinion, I became aware of the potential of fiction to tell a deeper truth. During the past seven years, I have struggled to learn that new craft, and to keep my faith in my ability to tell the stories that contain that truth. I have continued to work in journalism full time and serve my community in volunteer commitments, including donations of writing to causes I believe in.

As a fiction writer, my primary interest is in the search for a meaning in the everyday, and my subject has turned out to be the not-quite-assimilated European Americans and what ethnicity means, if anything, among multicultural Caucasians. In addition, I am drawn to exploring the effects of a Roman Catholic upbringing on those who reject it and those who choose to stay.

Now, after years of early morning and weekend work, a novel I began in 1995 is one final push from completion.

Except for brief intervals on maternity leave and on strike, Carol Towarnicky, 55, has spent the last 29 years working for the Philadelphia Daily News-the last 11 as its chief editorial writer. She began writing fiction in 1995. A native of Cleveland, Ohio, Towarnicky has a bachelor of arts degree in English from Ohio University in Athens. Towarnicky was a co-finalist for the 2001 Pulitzer Prize in Editorial Writing and won the 1993 Eugene C. Pulliam Fellowship for Editorial Writers as well as several national and local journalism awards. She also has been honored for her community volunteer work, and marched for nine years in the comic division of the Mummers Parade. She has been married for 32 years to Ron Goldwyn, also a writer at the Philadelphia Daily News. They have two grown children, Mara and Nick Goldwyn.

Aunt Helen reached into her purse, and I expected her to pull out another statue or medal, but instead, she held up a small plastic bottle, its sky blue twist cap sealed with a smear of blue wax. Both my arms were fastened to boards for blood transfusions, so Aunt Helen held the bottle close to my eyes.

"It's water from Lourdes," she said. "Our priest brought it from his trip, and when I told him about you..." Her voice trailed off.

My mother put my glasses on my face, so I could see it better. On one side of the bottle was a raised picture of Saint Bernadette kneeling in the grotto in front of Our Lady of Lourdes, near the stream where all the miracles occurred.

"What do we do?" my mother said.

"I'm not sure," Aunt Helen said.

"Wait." My mother left the room and returned with Sister Reparata, to whom Aunt Helen gave the bottle. Sister turned it over in her hands.

"You know, I've never seen Lourdes water." She pronounced it "Loord," more French-sounding. "Our motherhouse is in France, so many of our sisters have been to the shrine."

"Did they see any miracles?" Aunt Helen was talking to Sister Reparata, but she was watching me.

"I don't think so," Sister Reparata said. "But the sisters said that, even if the sick aren't cured, they are healed in other ways."Aunt Helen looked disappointed.

"Like what?"

Sister continued to stare at the bottle. "They find the strength to face death," she said. She straightened then and turned the cap, breaking the seal. She dabbed droplets on my forehead and hands as if it were expensive perfume, then held the bottle to my lips. "Take a little sip."

To my surprise, it tasted like water from the faucet.

- From While Far From Heaven Meridian Bound 2000