BLUE HILL
Bernadette Cecelia Keenan-McCormick
April 28, 1949 – April 28, 2020
“He’ll regret it till his dying day, if ever he lives that long.” – ‘The Quiet Man’
“They’ll be cursing in Heaven tonight.” — ‘Waking Ned Devine’
“We grew old together, but sometimes, when we laughed, we grew younger.” – ‘Waking Ned Devine’
Violet: “Don’t be defeatist, dear. It’s very middle class.”
Lord Grantham: “Let’s not argue.”
Violet: “I never argue. I explain.”— ‘Downton Abbey’
Irish Proverbs:
As you slide down the banisters of life, may the splinters never point the wrong way.
May the Lord keep you in His hand and never close His fist too tight.
May you be a half-hour in heaven before the Devil knows you’re dead.
“Life’s short; eat dessert first.” — Bernadette Keenan-McCormick
The marvelous dark humor of these lines fit the essence of Bernadette, who was the mother of Erin McCormick and the wife of Robert McCormick of Blue Hill. She was also their best friend. Her family was blessed to have her with them. She was a person of incredible honesty, integrity, endless curiosity, strength and intelligence. She valued deep conversations, genuine human connections, history, nature, color, music and the power of stories. She did not believe in “absolutes” and considered herself a “watcher” and “a seeker” in life, never content to take anything or anyone for granted. She had a pure and giving heart and always put others, family or strangers, before herself, in spite of the constant afflictions that plagued her whole life.
She endured numerous life-threatening illnesses and chronic conditions for decades without complaint, always showing resilience and persistence, defying the odds the doctors gave her. Yet, even in her most painful moments, her thoughts were not of herself. Following one major surgery, when she was not even supposed to be out of her own hospital bed yet, her husband recalls finding her taking care of the patient who had been put in the room with her, adjusting her blankets and pillows and making the other lady comfortable, despite the pain it caused her to move.
From 1971-1978, Bernadette worked at the Matheny School for children with cerebral palsy. The directors of the school, and her future husband, loved the way she saw the beauty in each child and the children loved her back immensely. She never treated her work there as a job, but devoted herself to giving the kids in her care as normal a childhood as possible, staying long past the hours of her shifts to tell them stories, build forts with them, make them laugh and always let them know she loved and believed in them.
She later served as the curator for Woodlawn Museum in Ellsworth for eight years, restoring the property and sharing her passion for bringing history to life with those lucky enough to have her as a guide. She then worked at Union Trust Bank (Camden National) in Blue Hill. Many years after she retired, her former customers still shared with her husband how much she meant to them, for she was never too busy to acknowledge them on a personal level. Some customers even made a point to come to her for advice and emotional support, which she freely gave, along with delicious home cookies from her French grandmother’s recipes.
Although she often felt she had never really found her place in the world, she had a talent for making everywhere she was feel like home for other people. She filled rooms with the scent of pumpkin cookies, sour cream coffee cake and apple pie. She made beautiful lamps, clothes and vibrant-colored curtains for neighbors, decorated offices throughout the town, and she had a laugh like a child’s, deep, real and infectious, that shook her whole frame.
No one was ever invisible to her. Her private writing reflected this view. Here is a passage from her own journal, recounting the time a Native American stranger entered her childhood church, and refused to be put in the back row:
No starched white cotton dress shirt, meant to be worn, tucked discreetly, beneath the confining, unadorned lapels of a typically conservative, Sunday-suitable sport coat, with solid colored, three dollar, polyester workday tie for the Silent Stranger. That gentleman’s cherished attire, came straight from an “End of the Chisholm Trail,” celebratory… cowboy dance hall: With slim fitting, immaculately pressed, long-legged, coal-black jeans, tucked precisely into tall black, expertly tanned and polished cowboy boots; op-banded with ivory, turquoise and buff-leather pieces; hand-tooled into exotic, almost 3-dimensional, images of prairie birds; topping a three-inch healed, square-toed, fashion statement. Inherent within that none-to-subtle statement, was his intent, though unspoken: to walk, neither “quietly,” nor “apologetically,” through what would be: his time spent on this Earth. The “cut” and style of the cowboy shirt across his shoulders, as well as the collar and the 3-inch sleeved cuffs; was defined, front and back, by the black satin, but the main body of that unusual shirt was of a pale, blush-pink, soft, subtle, silk-satin. The shirtfront and the cuffs, were decoratively fastened by square, silver and pearl metal snaps, aligned neatly down the middle of his chest, all the way to the slightly stiff, black satin collar, silver-tipped at its points.
Beneath his collar, hung the woven black, round silken cord of his western style lanyard neckwear; its decorative, hammered-silver, 2-inch circular disc; partially covered by a Navajo, artisan-worked and polished, semi-precious turquoise stone; mined from the arid western deserts of Indian country; and attached to the disc’s “sliding” mechanism; allowing the lanyard to open up, so as to fit over his head, then be tightened snuggly, beneath the collar, like a regular tie. Just below the silver slide, reaching almost to the top of his firm, flat abdomen, on the two silken black cord ends, were elaborately polished, cone-shaped, hammered silver tips, dangling loosely…like precious silver tears, catching the sun’s rays, as he walked past the church windows, sparking a momentary “glitter,” in the middle of that otherwise, seemingly normal, sunny autumn day.
Sitting atop the thick, glossy, shoulder-length, raven-hued hair on that darkly handsome, Patrician head, was a classic black, wool felt, western style Stetson hat. Its characteristic “dip,” along the front brim, was centered rakishly, just above his dark, left eyebrow. The Stetson was permanently shaped, by years of conscientious “hand-molding,” into an “attitude,” reflecting his somewhat “cocky” pride.
He almost “marched,” but with a casually executed, long-legged gait, up the sidewalk, then straight into the front of St. Joseph’s Catholic Church entrance, followed by a quick “genuflection,” and finger-dipped… Sign-of-the-Cross: Forehead-to-Heart; then Left–to-Right shoulder at the holy-water fonts, on either side of the interior church doors. Gracefully returning to a standing position, he made a sharp left turn at the back of the church, adroitly avoiding the outstretched arm of Mr. M- the short Irish usher, who tried to “halt” him, at the back of the church, intent on directing him, to be seated in the “back” pew, where he could be “stashed,” out of sight, out of mind.
The Stranger’s goal was to walk down the entire length of the church. He was headed for the altar; where the altar boys were, momentarily kneeling, in speculative prayer, behind their banister, which separated the altar, from the body of the church, as they awaited the imminent entrance, of Father A who would be “saying” the Mass that Sunday. As he walked, each elegantly-booted step forward, The Stranger made, tapped out its uncharacteristic echoing rhythm, subtly reverberating beneath the vaulted ceilings, their hard staccato tread, making a “contact” clip, with each determined long-legged stride; his gaze,… intent on some distant, entirely “private,” undisclosed goal. To his fellow Christians, currently seated throughout the church, that goal remained “unfathomable.”
He walked straight to the front of the church, and chose a seat in the third pew from the altar — one row in front of Mrs. S, and her hen-pecked husband. Sitting straight-backed, against those hard oak pews, Mrs. S seldom appeared to be “at rest.” On the contrary, she seemed to almost, “twitch” with anticipation; slightly shaking her shoulders; then shifting her position on the seat; moving her head slightly; to the left and then the right, trying to “take in” all who were either, already seated in the pews around her, or who were still entering the church, attempting to find a seat. Her purse, which remained clutched, in her plump white-gloved hands, was so large, it covered the width of both plump thighs. It was obvious that she was afraid to leave the purse, lying on the pew beside her, as it might be “stolen” by fellow parishioners, seated to her left or right, regardless of whom those parishioners might be. She was a whole head taller than her businessman husband. Mr. S always sat on her right, his balding head, with its few last strands of thin, grey hair, combed across its shining bare top; his frameless eyeglasses, reflecting the morning sun, as it shone through the eastern church windows; and his face, flushed, with what could have been, interpreted as either: a heart condition or outright anxiety; since Mrs. S would frequently, though none-too-discretely, elbow him in the side, with her plump, lace-cuffed bent arm, in her attempt to gain …his “immediate” attention. When The Stranger took his seat in front of her pew, her posture stiffened, her hat shook, her torso quivered with indignation, and her face became the color of over-cooked beets, making her appear to have “apoplexy,” and in serious danger of an immediate heart attack. She spontaneously, and repeatedly, elbowed her otherwise, subservient spouse in his rotund ribs, as if she were telepathically ordering him to: Do Something! Uncharacteristically, Mr. S simply slid, several inches to his right, and kept his face directed at the alter with the entrance of Father A at just that moment, prompting the entire church body to stand up, and begin the opening prayer. Unable to “address” the cause of her ire, Mrs. S was forced to move with the human tide of activity, and any hope of “removing,” what she obviously viewed as an abomination,…. had passed.
The Stranger, standing taller than anyone else in the church, his hat lain carefully, beside him on the pew, his back straight, head up, profile proud, seemed completely “oblivious” to the sociological “electric current” that swept through the building. At the end of the Mass, he casually stood up, then leaned down to pick up his hat; gracefully exited the pew; turned towards the now empty altar; knelt on one knee to make the sign of the cross; stood back up; turned toward the rear of the church; and marched out of the building; looking neither to the left nor the right, but over the heads of all the parishioners he passed. As he reached the last row, at the back of the church, he actually….passed me, as I had been unable to take my seat, beside Teresa and Mom, having lost it to another late-arriving parishioner. He nodded to me as he reached my side, and his left eyebrow…rose in a humorous “wink” of recognition and acknowledgement.
Bernadette was never blind to the ugliness in the world, but also never failed to catch its beauty and humor. After the death of her own mother, she sent her daughter these lines, “Losing someone is difficult even with preparation….when abruptly unexpected…it takes months if not years to shift into automatic pilot again…but I knew she could handle whatever came her way on her journey out of this world.” And her family certainly believes this holds true of Bernadette. She often mentioned the work of Thomas Wolfe as one she associated with, and in his writing, we hear a reflection of her voice:
“The glitter of sunlight on roughened water, the glory of the stars, the innocence of morning, the smell of the sea in harbors, the feathery blur and smoky buddings of young boughs, and something there that comes and goes and never can be captured, the thorn of spring, the sharp and tongueless cry — these things will always be the same…Pain and death will always be the same. But under the pavements trembling like a pulse, under the buildings trembling like a cry, under the waste of time, under the hoof of the beast above the broken bones of cities, there will be something growing like a flower, something bursting from the earth again, forever deathless, faithful, coming into life again like April.”
– Thomas Wolfe, ‘You Can’t Go Home Again’
At Bernadette’s request, there will be no funeral, but if any wish to honor her life, she often supported charities, especially St. Joseph’s Indian School. If you wish to contribute to that group, the George Stevens Academy Food Fund, or to St. Jude’s Children’s Hospital, her family would be grateful.