The Healing Journey

July 26, 2025

A Person Who Changed My Life

All of us are blessed to have certain people enter our lives and influence us in such a profound way that it changes us forever. Norman DeTullio was at the top of my list.

I met him at a special time in the early years of St. Joseph High School. Among his colleagues, whom he was blessed to have as teachers, were Joseph Foran and Coach Vito Montelli. They taught us what it meant to be decent human beings and to live by principles.

Over the years, Norman had many responsibilities at St. Joseph’s. He was in charge of the alumni council and moderator of the yearbook and literary journal. He taught literature and creative writing for 32 years and was chairman of the English Department for a decade.

If you’ve ever lost someone you love, you’ve probably stood vigil at the wake, while friends, family and well-wishers walk by and offer condolences. Some may pause for a moment to share a story about how the person you lost changed their life with a kind act, a simple favor, or some encouragement.

Those memories last forever, and I suspect that Norman created millions of them for his students, his friends and his family. You see, everyone who knew him had a story about how he uplifted them.

He had a gift. No matter who you were, no matter what you did for a living, he made you feel good about yourself. He made you believe you had value. He made you laugh. He helped you realize that in a universe of billions of people, you were special.

It was like magic, but it wasn’t magic. It was grace.

They say that when we die, we don’t take anything with us except the good we’ve done, the love we’ve shared, the compassion we’ve shown. If that’s true, Norman’s arms are full and overflowing.

(Today is the anniversary of Norman’s death and my mother’s. Two people whose arms were overflowing when they entered Heaven.)

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