In late February I was committed to McLean psychiatric hospital for two weeks.

Twenty years ago I ran into my friend Amelia on the ferry.

I am the cemetery walker. This is not a grim or macabre title. Rather, it’s one of the most spiritually connected aspects of my life.

Thirty four years ago, MVRHS principal Gregory Scotten addressed my incoming freshman class. During the convocation he cited the Shaker hymn Simple Gifts and its familiar lyric: “It’s a gift to be simple, It’s a gift to be free.”

Kenny Ponte is a good-natured, soft-spoken man who developed diabetes when he was two years old.

“It was a hard process,” he said of growing up with the illness. “It makes you different from the other kids in terms of what you can eat, the ways you can have reactions. As I got older, the diabetes started getting worse. When I found out about how my kidneys were being damaged, it was another thing to deal with.”

Matt Cancellare stands in front of you holding up a pair of padded boxing mitts. “Come on, give me more. I know you got it,” he says.

You throw combinations of punches until your shoulders ache and you can barely raise your gloves. You feel like giving up, yet something in his voice compels you to dig a little deeper and keep punching until the round is over. An alarm chimes.

“Time,” he calls. “Relax.”