All It Takes Is A Little Love

I had a rather scary fall a few weeks ago. I got tangled in a pajama leg whose static cling unbalanced me and sent me careening across the bathroom floor. I landed with my head banging loudly on the marble of my bathtub. It was a scary moment as I lay on the ground wondering if I had broken anything. As good luck would have it I ended up being just fine other than having a great number of aches and pains on the areas of my body that took the blows. A CT scan confirmed that everything was miraculously intact and the only damage was to my psyche which felt terribly stupid in the moment. 

I joked about my mother’s oft spoken belief that I was a very hard headed child. I know that she was right in her appraisal of my personality but I prefer a more positive sounding description such as being someone with an independent mind. Where I got that trait would probably have shocked my mother because I have always believed that in many ways I am an amalgam of both of my parents. 

My father impressed me when I was an eight year old transferring from a school in Texas to one in California. The principal there insisted that I was younger than the average third grader and that my education in Texas was in all probability inferior to what was being offered in her school. She wanted to put me back into the second grade where I might have an easier time both academically and emotionally. 

I can still hear my father insisting that I did not need to conform to the so called norms of the new school. He boasted that I was a strong girl who would be able to make up any deficits that I might have with sheer will. He would not agree to holding me back but instead noted that I should be encouraged to push forward if I was willing to do the work needed to adapt. I loved him in that moment and became determined to always do whatever I needed to do to keep moving forward. As it happened I was not behind at all and my transition to the new school was as smooth as silk. 

Years later after my father died and I was entering high school my mother and I met with another principal who believed that my abilities had been overestimated by my former teachers who insisted that I be placed in advanced classes that were then known as honor classes. He reluctantly deferred to their advice but explained that he would rescue me and provide me with the proper placement once I had failed.

This time it was my mother who insisted that I would be fine. She boasted that I was a tough young woman who knew how to work hard when needed. She noted that she had taught me to be brave and to achieve beyond what people believed I might do. As I listened to her I knew exactly what my assignment was. I determined that there would never be a failure on my part no matter how hard I had to work. 

My life has been such that I have had to prove myself again and again. I don’t look like a gritty person , but I am. I know that my IQ and my testing abilities might not be as outstanding as others but I have found that in this life there is no substitute for effort and I have always been someone who gave my all to whatever I was doing. Sometimes that meant that I had to overcome challenges that pushed me beyond what even I thought I might be able to tackle. Every single time that hard headed streak in me overcame my hesitation. 

Both of my parents taught me to have a mind of my own. While they respected rules and laws they also admired people to stood up for truth and fairness. I suppose that the lessons that they quietly gave me with their own example stayed with me to this very day. Along the way to where I am now others inspired me with their courage to do the right thing when others were reticent. 

Shortly after we moved into the home where I would grow up after my father died a man murdered his wife one evening. When the shots rang out virtually everyone in the neighborhood rushed outside to see what had happened. While we were still unsure of the exact situation everyone knew that the man had been abusing his wife. During our wait for the police to arrive the man’s children were screaming and crying in a window facing the street. I was only eight but the scene horrified me and would be etched forever in my mind. 

Seemingly from out of nowhere came Mrs. Bush, a tiny but feisty woman who walked straight to the house and banged on the door demanding that the man send his children outside away from the horror of what they had witnessed. Everyone held their breaths in amazement of her courage as she kept up her demands even as the man shouted threats at her. Then the front door of the home inched open and the children came out sobbing and shaking. Without a word Mrs. Bush took them to the safety of her home. In that moment she became my hero.

Years later when I was a married adult a similar incident occurred. A man was beating his wife and his children were begging for help. One of my friends in the apartment complex bound up the stairs and threatened to break the window if she had to in order to save those youngsters. She too became a person whose bravery inspired me to learn how to speak my mind whenever situations demanded. 

I suppose that to some people I sound a bit crazed when I harp on issues and situations that I believe to be hurting others. It’s not that I am a bleeding heart or that my empathy is a weakness that pushes me to question rules. It is because my family taught me about the power of thinking for myself. Those beliefs were further reinforced by individuals who impressed me in dangerous moments when their help was crucial. Those people have been my guiding lights and the reasons why I am no longer willing to stand mutely watching wrongs. My hard head demands that I follow my heart.  

“Who was your favorite teacher?’ is an often asked question. In my case it would be several different people. First there was my father who read poems and stories to me from the time that I was very young. He took me to bookstores and libraries and transferred his own love of reading to my psyche. Next came my first grade teacher, Sister Camilla, who noticed my tiny bit of dyslexia and showed me how to overcome its challenges so that I might learn to read fluently. Finally came Father Shane who introduced me to a world of literature and artistic expression that my father had only just begun to show me before he died. 

I was already a full blown reader when I walked into Father Shane’s classroom but without much guidance I chose a rather limited number of authors and genres to devour. He challenged me to widen my horizons on a journey to becoming what he called “a citizen of the world.”

Father Shane had us follow scripts while listening to noted actors reading poems with so much feeling that I hung on every word with an understanding that would only deepen as I matured. He took us to performances of Greek plays and concerts featuring the music of great composers. He required us to read one book every single week of the school year and then write a critique of what we had learned from the wide ranging topics and styles. 

It was in Father Shane’s class that I first encountered the works of William Shakespeare. He began with the tragedies and comedies that were easiest for us to understand. He chose different students to read the parts aloud and then coached us on how to draw out the meanings of the words. I became quite adept at understanding what the great bard was attempting to convey in his poetry and plays. I could not get enough of his body of work. 

Eventually we moved on to the greatest hits of Shakespeare like Macbeth and King Lear. By the time we read Hamlet I had been totally enchanted by the works of William Shakespeare. I had also developed a love of my English classes that was almost primordial. Through the words of great authors both ancient and modern I came to understand how alike we humans have always been. I also saw that reading would become a lifetime experience for me that would never end as books became my most cherished possessions. 

When I traveled to London my quest was to visit the Globe Theater and experience a Shakespearean play the way the people did in the days of such productions. I sat on the hard thin seats in the area that would have once been reserved for the wealthy while watching the throng standing below me. I saw the interaction between the actors and the audience and felt as though I had somehow travelled back in time.

It took me awhile to finally watch the movie Hamnet that is garnering rave reviews and prizes. When I finally rented it, I settled in for an evening that I suspected would speak to my very soul and so it did. The story is historical fiction at its best, weaving the little known aspects of Shakespeare’s family life with how tragedy influenced his writing of Hamlet. 

We meet Agnes, who is better known as Anne Hathaway, early on and see that she is an enchanting character who would no doubt have attracted a man like Shakespeare who seemed to understand the human heart better than most people. The marriage and family life of Agnes and William is portrayed as being one filled with love but some tension due to Shakespeare’s need to express himself in his work. The story centers around the untimely death of the couple’s only son, Hamnet, and weaves a connection between the real life event and the writing of the tragedy of Hamlet. 

Every aspect of this movie is superb from its screenplay to the acting. The costuming and visual productions take the viewer back to a time when life was rather brutal for many folks. The reality depicted gives us a picture of the Elizabethan worldview of the era. There is a haunting feel to every scene and the ending is beyond all description. I do believe that William Shakespeare himself would be delighted that his work still rings true even in the complex world in which we now live. Somehow those human emotions that he was able to describe with his beautiful words have transcended the decades and centuries. Hamnet is a bridge back to another time when a genius lived an ordinary life while achieving extraordinary things. It is a must see movie for sure.  

The last words that Alex Pretti uttered were, “Are you okay?” His concern was directed to a woman who had been manhandled by ice. In typical behavior for a nurse who had cared for very sick people in an ICU Alex demonstrated his concern for the well being of another. I can imagine him asking the same question over and over as he helped some of the sickest people in the hospital to become well again. Now I am thinking that we need to ask this question not just to Americans but to people from all over the world. I wonder how everyone is feeling in this moment in time and I think that is it important that we listen to the answers. 

I know that I am not okay and neither are my children and grandchildren. We are all worried about the chaotic turn that our nation has taken in the last year. I do understand why so many good people believed that electing Donald Trump once again to the presidency would provide a sense of stability after a time when so much tragedy had upended the world. They appear to have wanted someone who seemed to understand what our nation needed and although I do not believe that he was a wise choice, I believe that they truly thought they were doing the right thing for our nation. Sadly what they did was not okay.

The first year of Trump’s new administration has been chaotic almost on a daily basis. He has upended many of the structures and departments that kept the inner workings of our government working smoothly. He has single handedly changed our role on the world stage, indicating that he no longer cares about what happens to our allies. He has used the tactics of brutality against immigrants and long time citizens as well. He wants us to believe that his tariffs will make life better when we are bearing the brunt of rising prices on almost everything that we purchase. He is tossing aside scientific research projects and programs at universities that made our nation leaders in the world. He has made significant members of our communities feel unwelcome and unsafe. College graduates are scrambling for jobs that are becoming more and more difficult to find. Mothers of children with skin that is brown and black and shades other than white are worried about their safety. Instead of stability Trump has given us a government that has rocked the foundations of our daily lives. So of course someone needs to ask us all, “Are you okay?’

In so many instances the answer would be, “No!” While we are wondering why our lives are in such an upheaval the wealthiest among us seem to be the only ones receiving perks in the form of tax relief and support for financing their dreams of making ever more money. The rest of us are finding it more and more difficult to believe that we are going to be fine because right now very little seems fine. We never asked for a new ballroom that we will never see. We didn’t want to destroy our relationships with Canada or France or Great Britain. We liked knowing that other nations would  be around to help us when we needed them and in turn we wanted them to know they could count on us. So no, we are not okay!

We watch the chaos in Minnesota that has been created by Trump and we hear his boasts about how he is socking it to the people there and we wonder how things got this way. Aren’t our presidents supposed to be working for all of the people? Is it right to use our tax money as resources for Trump’s vengeance? Why would he trample so freely on the rights of Americans and use such ugly and illegal tactics to find and deport immigrants just to satisfy his ego? Why do we see his late night tweets that would be unbecoming to a belligerent teenager but allow him to keep threatening our fellow citizens? Does he think this is why he was elected? If so, do the people who elected him actually approve of what he is doing. Do they feel okay?

I could go on and on and on but in truth I have grown weary of waking up each morning and wondering what outlandish insults to our democracy Trump will pull out of his hat just to soothe his own desires. He is as dangerous as a runaway train speeding towards a crowd of people and yet the very people who might stop him have remained mute. They are either terrified of him or they agree with his determination to break everything that we has ever been built to make America great. He is like a bratty child whose parents think he is so adorable that they dare not curb his bad behavior. This is truly not okay!

Sometimes I believe that people are slowly but surely coming to their senses and that it is just a short matter of time before we join together to reel in the horror of what Trump and his people have wrought in just one year. If we have to keep dealing with this for three more years without any relief then eventually none of us will be okay. Watch the series called “After Hitler” and you will see what I mean. When people go silent when anyone among us is not okay the result is never good.  

I write this on the afternoon before Valentine’s Day. I have no big plans this year because I am only a week beyond surgery for a total knee replacement. I am still using a walker, taking a number of medications, concentrating on exercising my muscles and trying to eat well. Sleep has mostly eluded me even though I feel very tired. In the dark of night when the house is very quiet I feel the pain in my bones and the regrowth of nerves that were disturbed by the surgery. Moving forward now seems to dominate my thoughts from one day to the next. 

I’m mostly doing well. I have lots of support and I’ve been told that I am more advanced in my recovery that most people my age are at this stage of the recuperation game. I have much gratitude for the doctors and nurses who continue to check on me. I learn how to speed my recovery from a talented and dedicated physical therapist. My husband has faithfully cared for me and my daughter spent many sleepless night ministering to my needs. People have brought food and flowers to demonstrate their love and concern. I have little about which to complain but somehow given the date I am reminded of a long ago time when I was only nine years old and I contracted the measles. 

It was in February of 1958. I was in the fourth grade when an outbreak of measles found its way inside me. Before long I was coughing and raging with high fevers while a little red rash grew on my chest. It was the sickest I had ever felt in my life but I had little idea of how dangerous my illness actually was. I only noticed the concern in my mother’s eyes as she confined me to my room and kept my brothers from coming near me. 

There were no vaccinations for the measles back then. I was part of the generation that still had classmates with polio. I was one of the millions of pioneers who took the first vaccines for that dread disease and I remember hearing my mother and her lady friends discussing their concerns about the miracle shot that would save me and children all over the world from ending up like a neighbor who lived in an iron lung. The creation of an immunization for the measles was still in the future. 

It was a cold time in 1958 when I lay zoning in and out with a fever that made my head pound. I felt so weak that I was certain at one point that I would surely die. I was generally a healthy child so being confined to bed for days that led to more than a week was something that I had never before experienced. Worst of all was the isolation and the brain fog that seemed to envelop me. 

I could hear my family talking in other parts of the house and I longed to be with them but my mother patiently explained that my illness was very contagious and she did not want my brothers to become ill if it were possible to keep my germs from infecting them. So I sat in the darkness of my bedroom with the blinds closed so that the light from outside would not strain my eyes. I consumed doses of cough medicine and aspirin and my mother placed damp cloths on my forehead to ease the discomfort that seemed to be my constant companion. 

I was missing school and as each new day came and my symptoms had not begun to subside I worried that I would never catch up on the work that awaited my return to the classroom. Mostly I slept as though I was a modern day Rip Van Winkle. I sipped on soup lovingly made by my mother that was difficult to swallow with my sore throat. In my weakened state I imagined that death was only around the corner. 

There is an irony that in this moment of remembering how horrific my time with measles was, there are fewer and fewer children taking advantage of the miraculous vaccine that virtually eliminated the disease from the lives of young people. Through the miracle of research and medicine my own daughters have no idea how horrible the measles can be because they routinely received immunizations that have spared them from so many illnesses that still plagued the earth when I was a child. The world seems to have forgotten what it was like for little boys and girls to end up dangerously ill from a case of the measles. Such memories have grown old just as I have and with that amnesia is a dangerous movement to avoid inoculations for many diseases that were becoming more and more rare. Now there is a full blown crisis brewing among children contracting and spreading the measles. 

I truly wish that I might convey the horror of having the measles. My childhood memory of having the illness is still so real because the experience was so frightening. I made it but many people have died with the measles even as people worry more about the possible side effects of the vaccine than about the dangerous nature of actually experiencing the disease.

I would not wish a case of the measles on anyone. It was a terrible experience that is burned into my psyche. Right now I’m feeling twenty four seven pain from my surgery that does not compare to how badly I felt in that long ago time. I urge parents to give their children the gift of well being by getting them vaccinated before they learn the hard way what having the measles is like.

I have lived a quiet ordinary life. Like most mine was not without its tragedies which I had to learn to overcome. I muddled through my childhood without my beloved father who died when I was eight. Thanks to the courage and love from my mother I adapted to our situation even as I missed the wisdom that my father had always provided me. 

I almost came unglued when my courageous mother broke down twelve years after my father’s death and fell victim to the bipolar disorder that would haunt her for the rest of her life. I had no idea what to do or how to react because I knew nothing about mental illness and my mother had sheltered me from the realities of hardship. Using her example I somehow rose to the occasion and began a journey with her that would last more than forty years. 

Eventually my brothers would become mature enough to help me take care of our mom. We worked together as a strong team motivated by the enduring love and respect that we had for our mother. We had watched her overcoming one obstacle after another to allow us to grow in wisdom and age and grace. Somehow dedicating so much of our adult lives to her never seemed to be a task too difficult to endure even as we sometimes grew weary and sorrowful that such a thing was happening to her. 

I suppose my mother’s influence has run deeply into the direction of my entire life. I became a professional caretaker when I became a teacher. Yes, I was paid for instructing thousands of students in the ways of mathematics but my job became so much more. I learned from the young people who sat in front of me everyday bringing their own worries, tragedies and dreams with them. For most of my career my charges were black and brown skinned children who taught me how to see people without focusing on the color of their skin but on the content of their hearts. I celebrated their cultures and the love that I witnessed from their parents who were just as eager to provide good lives for them as my mother had been for me and my brothers. Mine was a career that gave me so much more than I had to give in return. 

The very day after I formally retired so that I might care for my mother who had been diagnosed with lung cancer she died peacefully like the angel that I knew her to be. Hers was a spiritual death filled with her love at the center of it all. In her final wishes she asked me to keep watch over my brothers and she expressed her hopes and dreams for her grandchildren and great-grandchildren. She made each of us feel so important even as she was drawing her last breaths. 

From my mother and my beloved students I have learned the importance of what life is all about. While we certainly need money to pay for our needs of food and housing and clothing and such, more than anything we need meaningful relationships with the people around us. iI is important that we value all people regardless of how different they may be from ourselves. It is critical that we share our talents and even our treasure with those who are in need. Most of all we must show our love by protecting the less fortunate no matter how difficult that may be. 

My mother managed to get by on a stunningly low monthly income of one thousand one hundred dollars in her retirement years. She was able to do so because she had paid for her home and she was a genius at staying within a strict budget. She had successfully used her techniques as a young widow but she also managed to give to others who had even less. After her death I was shocked to read the many thank you notes from people and organizations that she had quietly supported with small donations here and there. I realized that her frugality at the grocery store was a means for being able to be charitable. 

I suppose that many ultimately saw only my mother’s quirkiness and mental illness but most realized what an amazing woman she was. Her kindness extended to her neighbors, her coworkers, her church and her extended family. Her closet was filled with thoughtful gifts that she had already labeled for upcoming birthdays and Christmas. She rarely complained about her difficult life or even thought about herself. Instead she expressed gratitude for the life that had brought her so much joy. 

Theses days as I express my support for people who are suffering I do so in honor of my mother. When I protest injustice I am following my mom’s example. When I insist that I am a dedicated American patriot I know that it is true because I learned from my mother how to love this nation that has given us so much and then return the favor by doing everything in my power to keep it free and generous. 

Mama use to get emotional about the United States of America. She was the daughter of immigrants from Eastern Europe. She endured the taunts of neighbors who thought that she and the members of her family were dirty and undeserving of the American dream. They did not know how much love for this nation my grandfather had instilled in his children, but I did. I listened to my mother recounting the Depression, the years of Franklin Roosevelt’s presidency, World War II and the pride and gratitude that she felt for being allowed to participate in the grandest promises of our nation. I have no doubt that she would tell me to keep fighting to insure that America remains the land of the free and so I shall do. I am my mother’s daughter.