Catching up with former News 12 anchor Carol Silva: 'I look for the possibility of good in people'

On a recent December day, Carol Silva is talking about optimism, or, because this is still the famously upbeat former News 12 morning anchor who's doing the talking, OPTIMISM! She's at her Oyster Bay home, which, much like Silva, is warm, gracious and modest. But there seems to be something missing — a TV set. It's here, she says. Just out of sight, and mostly out of mind.

Since leaving News 12 almost exactly four years ago, she's “definitely limited my intake of TV news,” she explains. “I'm a big proponent of 24-hour news, but it's not the healthiest thing we can do.”

Silva spent 32 years in other peoples' living rooms, but hers is mostly reserved for reading, thinking and prayer. A devout Catholic who attends daily Mass, she recently visited the so-called “St. Jude's Relic” that was touring churches on Long Island. The reliquary, in the shape of an arm with the index finger pointing skyward, celebrates the Saint of Desperate Cases, and hopeless or impossible causes. Those baleful words feel remote — indeed, nearly meaningless — around someone like Silva. There are reasons for this.

“I'm optimistic,” she says. “I look for the possibility of good in people. The best thing I can do is be kind to everybody and ask them about their stories because everyone has a story and they all have a right to be heard.”

Her chief job these days is “to grow my own soul and help others grow theirs.”

A mother to three adult children, Silva's story invariably begins with her own mother, also named Carol (who died in 1995). She conferred the gift of faith and “a loving soul,” says her only daughter. Silva's father, Alfonso Ramon Silva, born in El Paso, Texas, to Mexican immigrants, conferred the rest. A Marine medic during World War II battles at Guadalcanal, Bougainville, Tarawa, Iwo Jima and Okinawa, Tony Silva lost a leg to gangrene caused by pneumococcal meningitis not long before his death in 2000. To those who knew him, he was the most optimistic person they had ever met — until, they met his daughter.

Silva's husband of 32 years, Bob Reilly, once told Newsday his wife has “an inner light” that comes from “spirituality and from the happiness she brings to life.” That, he said, came “from her upbringing.”

Nevertheless, every person's life and outlook are forged by their own unique circumstances. In the fall of 2019, Silva was diagnosed with stage 4 lung cancer (she had never smoked), and underwent treatment before her Dec. 20 departure from News 12. The treatment was a resounding success and Silva took to calling herself “cancer-free” afterward. Then, in the summer of 2022, there was a recurrence of her illness. After that was successfully treated, she began using the phrase her oncologist had suggested — “no evidence of disease.”

Silva says there is still “no evidence of disease,” and feels “great” but admits she was chastened, if not quite humbled, by the relapse. “It reminded me I'm vulnerable and human, and also reminded me I had more work to do.”

Nevertheless, “the 'vulnerable' and human part was a little hard for me to digest.”

After recovery, Silva says she began a journal labeled her “next chapter.” Mostly, it's evolved into a sort of to-do list.

There is a lot, she says, to do. She intends to launch a long-planned podcast titled “The Silva Lining” by the end of January. She's already taped a handful of episodes, including with longtime Billy Joel bandmate and friend Mike DelGuidice. She reached out to other prominent Long Islanders, including author Nelson DeMille, and former U.S. Reps. Peter King and Steve Israel, who also have agreed to interviews. Otherwise, most subjects will be people who have overcome adversity.

Meanwhile, she continues to write for Long Island Woman, a bimonthly magazine, and — as she has done for decades — works for organizations, including Long Island Charities and the Interfaith Nutrition Network in Hempstead. She's also a communicant at her church, St. Dominic in Oyster Bay. 

While Silva has no apparent plans to return to broadcasting, her career of some 50 years (if stops at radio stations WBAB, WGBB and WLIR are included), it seems reasonable to ask how she would approach TV news if still immersed in it.

“I would have been the same but [also] said, 'Hey, we're in this together. Be nice to each other; be kind to each other. Have hope and try to listen to other people's stories.'

“I know life is tough but we're so blessed on Long Island — we really are when you look at what's happening elsewhere. That doesn't mean there aren't  challenges. Everyone has challenges. When one of my own challenges woke me up recently in the middle of the night, I said, 'OK, you've done this two times. How can I move forward tomorrow?' ”

Silva no longer says she has “beaten” cancer, but instead approaches it with a measure of gratitude because it's given her “an opportunity to grow my soul even more, and that's put me in an even better position to help others.

“And do you know what my hope is? Decades from now I go to sleep and God turns off the light. As simple as that."