The Irish Teachers Fstival in Windsor Park 2006
An Evening For Angels
Melissa Becker-Sgroi
Some storms pass quickly, but others linger, booming and pouring and then slowly revealing syrupy skies that deliver gentle showers, as one did on the evening of the Irish Teachers Festival on July 27.
The festival also marked the Dedication of the Memorial Water Garden to the heroes of Flight 93 and the 10th anniversary of Windsor Park, the abandoned dump Tony and Kitch Mussari transformed into an elaborate garden.
But the rain serendipitously stopped in time for the scheduled start, which Kitch Mussari credited to the divine dedication of her neighbor who every year prays for favorable weather.
More than 200 guests, including the 24 honored Irish teachers, family members of the Flight 93 heroes, residents of Shanksville, PA, neighbors and friends from six states sunk their lawn chairs into the soft grass opposite Windsor Park and enjoyed the entertainment.
Tony Mussari says the annual Festival is an evening of genuine community, conversation, enjoyment, peace, serenity, cooperation, gratitude, and friendship. "If we lived in a perfect world, every day would be a festival," he said. "The festival reminds me of what we can be on our best days. It is central to everything I value in life."
Doug MacMillan, former CEO of the Beamer foundation, which he founded in memory of his best friend and Flight 93 hero, Todd Beamer, said it is about values. "Any time you have something that promotes values, it's important," he said. "We really need this on a daily basis and in a humble way, a respectful way like this."
Kathleen Kennedy, an Irish teacher from Dublin, says the Festival helps her to better understand America. "We are meeting real people in small town America and not a hotel," she said.
If there were a theme, it would be "angels" because the evening began with a performance by the tiny cotton-candy-colored faeries from the Scoil Rince na Connemara Dancers. After they spun in ring-around-the-rosy fashion all the while looking at each another for assurance--they were followed by older dancers who performed elaborate Celtic routines very similar to those made famous by "Riverdance."
GregO'Brien, a professional singer and the International voice of ESPN, sang heartening songs including "Angels Among Us." O'Brien, who met the Mussaris at the relighting of the Olympic Flame at Lake Placid in 2005, has performed at past Festivals as well as a Shanksville screening of Windsor Park Stories. O'Brien joined in harmony with Carole Lynne Campbell, a vocalist and concert pianist, for "The Gift." Campbell, who provides original compositions for Windsor Park Stories, also performed "Over the Rainbow." (You can hear her work in A Wake for an Indian Warrior in the Coming Attractions section of the Windsor Park Theater www.windsorparktheater.com)
Emma Strenkert read three of her original poems, one of which is titled "Hope." Artists Diane Grant-Czajkowski and Charles Woodworth, came to capture the event in pastels and watercolors.
The evening was highlighted by the solemn dedication of the Memorial Water Garden, during which the Ceol Mor Pipe and Drum Band played "Amazing Grace." Family members of Flight 93 heroes, including Esther Heymann, Ben Wainio, along with Marie and Mike Ragonese, and Doug and Chivon MacMillan, placed Angels of Freedom near the waterfall. In June, members of the family board representing the 40 people who gave their lives aboard Flight 93 voted to authorize the replication and placement of the Angels of Freedom. The ceremony also honored those who lost their lives in New York and Washington, DC.
The Memorial Water Garden consists of a creek bed, which is exactly 40 feet long, and it is adorned with 40 yellow day lilies. Two other lilies celebrate the heroes in the World Trade Center and the Pentagon.
"It's exactly what the people aboard that plane were about," said Esther Heymann, who lost her 27-year-old daughter, Elizabeth on Flight 93. "It's an honor to have people want to remember your daughter."
Elizabeth's father, Ben Wainio, says he was touched by the ceremony and Campbell's rendition of "Over the Rainbow" because he used to ask Elizabeth to wake him during the monkey scene in "The Wizard of OZ" every time they watched the movie together.
Mussari designed the pond at the base of the waterfall in the shape of a heart, which has become a universal symbol of September 11, 2001. "It is not the happy, perfect shaped heart of Valentine's Day, " he explains.
"It is the listing, weeping heart of someone who has lost something that cannot be replaced." It is the last major project at the Park, and he says it was a fulfillment of a dream. "It is an ecosphere. It is harmony. It is beauty. It is community. It is peace, calm and fulfillment," he explains.
O'Brien believes the water is musical. "It has brought the people who were taken from us back to life," he said. "If you listen to the water you'd hear, 'Thank you."
The Garden has many moods, Mussari says: it is soft and soothing in the morning, and it's a place where butterflies take refuge from the afternoon heat. As dusk turns to darkness, the sound of the rushing water grows in intensity, and it engulfs and transports people to a place of peace and quiet.
He believes the Garden is as much about triumph as it is about tragedy. "It is a place of healing and recovery. In a very real way the water garden helps one to accept what is without rancor or malice or thoughts of retribution."
People also accepted the weather when, toward the end of the festivities, the showers returned. Ursula Knox, co-leader of the Irish teachers group, noted that not one person moved from his seat. "There's a spirit of volunteerism here. What strikes me is how respectful everyone is,"she said. "Look! They're sitting and it's raining!"
Mussari said one guest called the rain "showers of blessings," and another commented that the skies were "weeping with sensitivity on the garden." He, too, felt an affirmation when a woman volunteered to cover his camera with her umbrella. "I thought to myself, I'm not alone in my passion for this special evening in Windsor Park."
The Mussaris announced their plans to preserve Windsor Park and the Memorial Water Garden by someday bequeathing it to an appropriate caretaker so it will never be "commodified." "We want the park to be preserved as it is, and we want to share our home with young people who have an interest in gardening and horticulture and aquaculture," he said.
He says this quotation is central to his beliefs: "You are only worth what you give away, and you can only give away what you have."
The Mussaris count Windsor Park among their greatest gifts, and they vow that it will always be a source of peace and community, a constant like the Water Garden, the people and the rain.
Please provide feedback to tmussari@aol.com
