Peggy Bosmyer By The Arkansas Democrat-Gazette LITTLE ROCK — MAKE THAT the Reverend Peggy Bosmyer, which once would have sounded like an impossibility for an Episcopalian. For she was one of the first women to be ordained as a priest in that denomination. Indeed, she was the first in Arkansas, and, for that matter, south of the Mason-Dixon line. But that was just an incidental aspect of the person, priest, wife, mother and guide to the perplexed Peggy Bosmyer was. Yes, an incidental distinction. For being the first to break such barriers grows increasingly common in American life, which is another blessing Peggy Bosmyer experienced in her 60 years of a full-to-overflowing life. There are more important things, and she knew many of them. Maybe because she knew the most important thing, which is beyond words yet, miraculously, can be invoked by words. Watching her celebrate the Eucharist, all earthly distinctions vanished. There was a glow not so much about her but about all and everything she touched, all and everything present, in those moments. No wonder she loved it, as she loved her calling to pastor her flock, whether in deliberate sermon or intimate counsel. We have no idea where the Reverend Ms. Bosmyer got her quiet sense of authority, of deep restraint combined with utter confidence, but we know she had it, and we have an idea the glow of the Eucharist had something to do with it. We could not watch her before the altar without something that Flannery O’Connor said about the mass coming to us later: “ . . . it is the center of existence for me; all the rest of life is expendable.’’ That was the kind of celebrant Peggy Bosmyer was, in addition to being scholar, mother and shepherdess. Her death at a young 60, fighting for life at every step of the way, is a grievous loss. There is no denying that mortal truth. They speak of time healing grief, but they are wrong. There is never an end to grief, but there is a slow, growing acceptance of it as those who still live learn to move through strange new waters that, however dark or deep, eventually become familiar as memory, the handmaiden of grief, illuminates the way. Now is a time to grieve for this woman who was a priest in every way, but also, like her, to celebrate the unfathomable, ever astonishing gift of life. Which she did not waste. This article was published Tuesday, December 16, 2008. Editorial, Pages 14 on 12/16/2008