A Good Age: For Weymouth writers, their best muse is often one another

WEYMOUTH − Jim Cardello barely knew he had the story within him, powerful as it was.

He had carried the emotions for years but never truly expressed them until he took the advice of his wife.

"You should join that writers group," Julie Cardello said. For 16 years, she had been telling him that she loved the way he wrote letters, birthday cards and condolence notes.

A year and a half ago, after retiring from medical sales, Cardello, 76, joined the longstanding writers workshop at the Weymouth Senior Center. He expected to learn writing techniques and skills on how to structure travel stories or novels.

Instead, he found that the facilitator, Janet Levasseur, encourages members to delve into whatever life experiences or topics they want, to explore and express themselves as they choose.

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Some members, like retired social worker Bruce Kantor, enjoy poetry. Others favor short stories or essays. Many of the 22 members use the weekly writing "prompts" that Levasseur provides. These are words, short quotes, statements or questions that suggest a topic to explore, such as:

"The eyes are the windows of the soul. What does this mean to you?"

"It's been a great experience and I am meeting some wonderful people," Cardello said. "People are very open about their experiences in life. The more I realized it was a close-knit group and you could bare yourself, I was writing about things I hadn't written about.

"I trusted the group and it was liberating. I'd had no other outlet until now."

He found himself writing about his late father, Tony, who had served in World War II, was shot in the head and came home to North Reading a changed man with a metal plate in his head. His father suffered from mood swings, and as good a father as he still was, Cardello found it was hard to get close to him.

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Then, in Cardello's mid-20s, they began playing golf together and their closeness slowly grew. Finally, one day, when his father was 80, Cardello told him "I love you" for the first time in his life.

"I know you do," his father replied matter-of-factly. "I love you too."

After that, Cardello said, they ended every conversation and get-together with those words until his father died Dec. 16, 2003, at age 83.

"It meant the world to me to have that happen because I never thought it would. If he had passed away and we had never said, 'I love you,' that would have come back as one of the regrets in life."

Generous in spirit, from varied backgrounds, the writers have found new purpose and a sense of community by sharing life experiences that formed them.

Carole Walker, 78, joined nine years ago when she began driving Levasseur, a member who had just had knee surgery, to the senior center.

"I would wait to take her home, and instead of just sitting there, I decided to join the group," Walker said. "I had no idea how much I loved writing until then."

Last week, Walker held everyone's attention as she read aloud an essay she had composed about empathy − "different from pity, it means being in the other person's shoes."

Muriel Savoy Moloney, 92, had already written her memoir in another group when she joined this fall "to get back to writing again." She thought she had completed her memoir until her daughter, Linda Kunhardt, said, "Mom, you're not finished. There's nothing in there about your life with Mo."

After the loss of her first husband, James Savoy, Muriel had married Frank "Mo" Moloney, a neighbor. They shared 12 years together until he passed away in 2010.

In the workshop, Moloney read excerpts from the diary her first husband had kept while serving in World War II. She had rediscovered it after he passed away. For Veterans Day, she read portions of the diary to the workshop, along with her thoughts of what he had gone through:

"As I am reading this, I keep thinking these young men should have been home. Instead, they were fighting to keep people like me safe and I realized how young they were."

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Levasseur, the facilitator for 10 months, has the ability to let individuals have the floor and set the tone. A retired nurse who worked for 30 years in hospitals, she enjoys seeing people come from all walks of life and discover together that they can write, even forming new friendships. She is also an artist and sings in St. Jerome's choir.

Bruce Kantor, 74, has found the group stimulating and "the people are very appreciative of what the others do, so no one gets on your case."

Marilyn Empey, 80, said, "Janet reaches out to people and makes you feel so comfortable, and the others don't critique but ask questions. I really look forward to thinking about what I am going to write and my kids always want to hear about what I wrote."

Levasseur said she received valuable tips from a former workshop member, the late Ken Bradeen, a retired police chief in Norwell.

"He's the one who taught me how to write better," she said. "He showed me how to grab my audience right away by spinning the story."

The Weymouth Elder Services writers workshop meets Wednesdays at 10:30 a.m. at the Whipple Senior Center at 182 Green St. Call 781-682-6140 for more information.

Letters to loved ones: The Stanford Letter Project helps people write letters to their loved ones about their values and goals and express what matters most to them. It's an opportunity to not only show the people you care about how much they mean to you but also a way to have your final wishes documented. The Duxbury Senior Center presents Cheryl Botieri at 2 p.m. Dec. 13 on how to think about writing the letters in an encouraging and supportive environment. Botieri is an end-of-life educator and family support specialist. You can register online at the Duxbury Senior Center.

Reach Sue Scheible at sscheible@patriotledger.com.

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This article originally appeared on The Patriot Ledger: Weymouth seniors surprise themselves with new truths in writers group