All It Takes Is A Little Love

We tend to recall traumatic moments in our lives. For me there are three that stand out and replay in my head each time we reach the anniversary date on which they happened. On those days I feel the anxiety and sorrow anew, as though the tragedy happened only moments before. 

The first trauma for me was the sudden death of my father in a car accident. It happened on May 31, 1957 when I was only eight years old. To this very day I vividly recall every single minute of the horrific time with a clarity that runs in my mind like a video. I replay that moment as though it will somehow change. I imagine waking up on that day to find my parents getting ready for the Memorial Day celebration that they had planned. Of course, it did not happen that way and I find myself wondering what it might have been like to have my father around for a longer time. I even have horrible thoughts that it is unfair that my father-in-law is still here at the age of ninety seven while my father left this earth at the age of thirty three. That’s when I know how impactful my childhood loss had been.

The second day that stands out to me every single year is November 22, 1963, when President John Kennedy was killed. I had turned fifteen years old only four days before this happened. On November 21, he had arrived in Houston, Texas by why of Hobby Airport which was only a few miles from my home. We had learned that he would travel from there to the Rice Hotel in downtown Houston. The route would take him down Broadway Street to Interstate 45 and my mother realized that his limousine would travel under the freeway to make the turn to head to the hotel so we sat on the curb waiting for his entourage to arrive. 

When the police escort neared the area we stood so close to the street that we could have touched the vehicles passing by. Suddenly there was the president in a open car waving at us with a big smile. I still feel breathless when I think of how clearly we saw him so when I learned that he had died the next day I fell into the same kind of grief that I had felt at the moment of my own father’s death. I remember exactly which classroom I was in when the announcement was made. I know who was sitting near me and I recall the sorrow that filled the area as we sat in stunned silence sometimes putting our heads down to sob.

The other moment which was both traumatic and almost unbelievable is the attack on the twin towers of the World Trade Center in New York City on September 11, 2001. I was the Magnet Coordinator of a school in Houston ISD and a meeting was planned at the administration building. On such days I went straight from home rather than driving to the school where I worked and then backtracking an hour or so later. Thus I was dallying a bit longer at home and watching the morning news as I readied myself for the day which happened to be gloriously beautiful. 

As I was finishing my preparations I saw the first plane fly into one of the towers. I remember feeling quite confused and wondered how such a thing could have happened. Only minutes before everything was so calm and mundane. Suddenly I witnessed something happening that made no sense but I had to leave lest I be late for my meeting. 

As I drove along in Houston’s early morning traffic I turned to an all news radio station to learn what became of that plane that had hit the tower. As I listened the announcer literally freaked out as he almost screamed that another plane had arrived and had hit the second tower. At that point I understood that this was not a random accident. I realized that we were under attack and I had to calm myself to be able to drive safely to my destination.

Upon arriving at the meeting place I found myself in a solemn situation. My fellow colleagues were silently watching a television that had been hurriedly brought into the room. The usual camaraderie and chit chat of such meetings was missing so I simply took the first available seat that I saw and sat as stunned as the rest of the people in the room. Not long after that most of the coordinators had arrived and together we watched the towers collapse. 

Some people screamed while others cried. I sat quietly feeling as though I might faint as my chest became heavy with anxiety. I literally was unable to comprehend what I had just seen so when the director of the magnet program nervously began the meeting as though nothing strange had just happened I almost felt an out of body experience that made the whole moment feel absurd. 

The poor woman trying to keep our attention babbled for a time and then stopped in the middle of a sentence, scanned the room and then declared, “What am I doing? All of you need to very carefully drive back to your schools and provide comfort to your coworkers and students.”

We filed out of the room like zombies who had been sent on a mission and somehow found our way back to each campus. In truth I don’t know how I got there because there is a gap of blankness between the time I entered my car until the moment when I arrived at the school. There I found a state of utter chaos as frightened parents came to take their children home. 

My principal asked me to sit with one of our teachers who was a Texas transplant from New York City. He was in a terrible state of mind because his parent both worked in one of the World Trade Center buildings. He had been desperately attempting to reach them by phone with no luck and so he sat somberly in the school conference room staring into space. 

I moved a chair near to him, hugged him and sat next to him without uttering a work. Somehow I knew that he needed to just remain silent so that is what we did for hours only breaking the quiet when he made new attempts to reach his parents. Finally late in the afternoon his call was successful. He did not give away what he was hearing. He simply listened, nodded his head and remained stoically blank. Then he quietly said good by, set down the phone and collapsed onto the floor sobbing so hard that I feared that he had learned that both of his parents were missing in the rubble of those buildings. 

I knelt down on the floor next to him and attempted to comfort him simply by touching his back now and then. After what seemed a lifetime he recovered, sat down oi his chair once again and apologized for his emotional outbreak. Then he told me that his parents were safe, In fact for the first time in their lives they had both decided to call in sick and take a mental day day just to go to a park and enjoy the beautiful weather. 

I was so relieved that I let my own emotions rise to the surface and cried for the first time that day while he and I held hands in a kind of understanding of the enormity of what had just happened. I later drove home still feeling a great weight as I began to understand how horrific this terrorist attack had been and how many precious lives had been lost.

I would go visit ground zero many times. I would pause on September 11 to remember that for day twenty five years. It became a kind of spiritual reckoning in which my bottled up grief would return. 

Today we remember once again and vow to never forget those who died and those who worked so hard to help others survive. Both the horror and the courage of that day are burned into my soul. I honor the entire city of New York for the courage and compassion that they brought together for their fellow citizens and I promise to keep the torch of kindness burning as long as I live. 

I suppose that it might be argued that as I age I become a bit grouchier than I once was. I have a number of pet peeves that I try to keep to myself but the one that bothers me the most is the staging of presidential speeches. Starting toward the end of the twentieth century someone who plans such things decided that the messages of presidents would carry more weight if there were ordinary American citizens standing behind them as evidence of support. Such events became as choreographed as a Broadway musical. The common folk were chosen to represent the face of the population and the ideals of the speaker. 

I don’t know about anyone else but I find such “shows” to be annoying. I much prefer the old ways of presidential announcements when whoever was in office simply stood at a podium stating the facts without all the fanfare. I really do not need to see the reactions of supporters in order to get the gist of presidential announcements. In fact, I find all of the staging to be a distraction designed to keep the American people entertained rather than informed. I don’t need music and flags and smoke and mirrors to appreciate the content of a president’s speech. I don’t want off topic jokes and slanders. As Sgt. Friday once said, “Just give me the facts!”

I realize that we live in a world filled with imagery that often tells us more about what is being said than the actual words. Nonetheless I find all of the add ons to presidential speeches to be distracting rather than useful. Maybe it’s my personal way of learning or part of my introverted personality but I just don’t like all the the distractions. 

I once took a graduate class in educational psychology. On one of the class days we gathered in the classroom and had to wait a bit longer than usual for the professor to arrive and begin his lecture. Prominently placed in the middle of the whiteboard at the front of the room was a single hot pink post-it note with no writing on it. I was unable to take my eyes off of it even when the professor finally began his lecture for the day. For some reason I began to imagine how that pink blob got there. My mind drifted away from what the professor was saying for a moment and I had to force my attention back on him lest I miss important information. 

After about fifteen minutes the professor suddenly stopped and turned to look at the pink paper as though he was just then discovering it. He seemed puzzled as he quietly stared at it and then he stood right next to it and asked if any of us had wondered why it was there. Almost everyone in the room acknowledged that they had been as mesmerized by the lone piece of paper as I had been. Then the teacher pulled it from the whiteboard and turned back around to address the issue. 

He asked how many of us had lots of decorations in our classrooms. He wanted us to describe how the environment was set up and why we chose certain things. Before long he had convinced us that more often than not too much on the walls and hanging from the ceiling might look appealing but it was also causing some of our students to lose focus and day dream while we were attempting to dispense knowledge. 

I totally understood what he was saying because I had been one of those students who was often lost in thought in classrooms that were too busy. I also thought of the many young people that I taught who were so easily taken off task by the environment. I recalled a time when I had posted a “Where’s Waldo” photo on one of my side bulletin boards. It had nothing to do with the mathematics that I was teaching but I thought it was fun and might delight my students. What did not occur to me was that it might become a massive distraction. Then one day during a test I noticed the student closest to that poster seemingly staring off into space. 

When I walked past his desk I saw that he had not completed a single problem on the test. I asked him if he was having difficulty with the work and he quite innocently announced that he wanted to find Waldo before beginning the quiz. I knew in that moment that Waldo was going to have to go lest other students become mesmerized like this one. Luckily this young man was quite adept in math and was able to complete the test as soon as I gave him some hints to instantly find Waldo.

I suppose that the whole presentation of presidential announcements has become a major production over time but I wonder how many others besides myself have grown weary of the silliness of always having a crew behind him to visually show us his support. Sometimes it might be best to stand alone and just get to the point in as few words as possible. We do not want or need to have an hours long production. I don’t require jokes or dancing to understand the gravity of a situation. I long for the days of simple announcements devoid of so much showmanship. If something is important enough to demand our attention it should not be hidden in distractors. 

I suppose that it is all a matter of taste. We all learn differently and react differently to the same situations but surely it is apparent that our leaders are constantly getting off task with all the extra frills. I don’t think we need to see the entire astronaut corp to know that the president is at NASA. We don’t need an entire backdrop of American flags to understand that the president is a patriot. The silly music adds nothing to the moment. The best addresses to the nation are delivered quietly and quickly without the extra scenery. I would so enjoy a return to that way of doing things. The silliness that we see so much today is irritating and insulting. My advice is to just keep it simple!  

Some might argue that I am not quite whole because I did not normally experience the Electra Complex that would have naturally lead me into adulthood. My father died while I still adored him the way a little girl of eight tends to do. He could do no wrong in my eyes and in many ways I still grieve the loss of him. That being said I managed to adjust to the reality that I would never see him again. I’ve done well and lived a good life but a little voice inside my heart always feels the hurt welled up inside me on the fatal day when I learned that he was no longer coming home. 

Still, because I was a bit older than my brothers I have vivid memories of our father. He was a very present dad who generally followed a routine much like other fathers that I knew. He left early each morning to go to work and returned in the evening when he would almost always shed his suits and settle down on the living room couch in comfy clothes while music played on his Victrola. This was the time when he read the newspaper or leafed through one of his books. 

If I came into the room he more often than not shared what he was reading with me, explaining how the adult world works Sometimes he read poetry or passages from books. He made reading seem like the most wondrous joy in the world and he whet my appetite for indulging in the art of reading. All the while the music played in the background and he would explain why he enjoyed certain symphonies or concertos. 

On weekends my father often took me to bookstores with him. He spoke of the great authors and most times allowed me to choose a book suited for my young age. I visited libraries with him and fell in love with the very sight of hundreds of books tempting me to open them to discover what was inside. 

My father’s influence has shaped me in almost spiritual ways but it never really occurred to me that my brothers were so young that they did not have a clear understanding of who he was or what kinds of things he liked. Now and again they ask me questions about him that bring tears to my eyes. I realize in those moments that our father is more of a concept to them rather than an actual person who once lived and breathed on this earth. 

A few weeks ago my brother who was five when our father died asked me if our daddy liked music. He spoke of how much our mother enjoyed listening to her many records which he assumed that she had purchased over the years. It shocked me to understand that he had no recollection of our father’s influence that brought all of that music into our home. My brother’s reaction when I told him about our weekend excursions to record stores and how our father listened to that music every single day was to smile in finally knowing that his dad liked the same kind of music that he does. 

Once my youngest brother stayed behind after I had hosted an Easter celebration. He sheepishly asked me to tell him what our father was like. I felt like Wendy caring for her brothers and all the lost boys in Peter Pan. I choked on my words as I explained that he only needed to look into a mirror to know how our father looked. I explained that he sounds like our dad as well. Then I spoke of our father’s sense of humor and how much he enjoyed fishing and grilling burgers and watching football games. All of these things are the same kind of interests that my brothers have. It is as though the spirit of our father lives inside of both of his sons. 

Our father would have been one hundred three this month if he had lived a long life like his father who made it to one hundred eight years. Instead we lost him when he was in his early thirties, a young man with a young family who thought he had decades of living ahead. His death impacted so many, not just me and my brothers and our mother. Over the years people spoke of him with a kind of reverence and each of them had wonderful stories of the deep relationships that they shared with him. All of those remembrances always reminded me that he was indeed quite special so I grieve for my brothers who cannot recall much about him at all. 

With the love and special care of our mother my brothers and I turned out to be rather happy and normal. Still I wish that there were some kind of time machine that would allow my siblings to know what I know. Theirs was a loss that nobody really imagined until their questions brought their feelings to light.

We would all do well to pay attention to the children. They are watching and learning and wondering and yearning. It’s good to help them know what is real even when the knowing might be sad. 

I keep thinking about Dolly Parton and her coat of many colors. The whole word knows that her mother once made her a coat from many different scraps of cloth. Dolly turned it into a lovely song that gave insight into her life and the love that she had for her mother. She told people that her mother made dresses for her out of flour sacks and I was always able to relate to that in a different kind of way. 

I was three years younger that Dolly was when she died but that puts me into the same age group to which she belonged. If we had gone to high school together I suppose that I would have met her and looked up to her. I think of my own grandmother when I think of Dolly because my Grandma Minnie Bell was a country girl who never learned to read or write but she was one of the smartest wisest women that I have ever known. 

Grandma Little was a talented seamstress. She made dresses for me to wear to first grade without using a pattern. She used flour sacks for cloth but they were not dull. Instead they had pretty colors and patterns of flowers that turned out quite nicely when she had finished sewing the pieces together. The amazing thing is that she did not have a sewing machine. Every single stitch was done by hand and the seams were as solid as can be. 

I loved those dresses which I think sometimes hurt my mother’s feelings because I chose to wear them over and over again while the pretty frocks that Mama had made with soft cloth and a Singer sewing machine often sat in the closet. It was not that I did not appreciate my mother’s amazing handiwork but I was taken by the fact that my grandmother had created something so beautiful out of what had been a bag to hold the flour that she used to make her biscuits and pies. Those dresses connected me with my grandmother in the most unexplainable ways. They helped me to imagine her as a little girl learning the skills of cooking and sewing that she mastered so well. 

Grandma Minnie also made beautiful quilts for me and my brothers. I had one that she called Sunbonnet Sue. Of course it too was made only with her hands and I loved it so. Back when I was a child it actually became much colder from November until March than it does now. I’d snuggle under that quilt and feel so warm. I remember using it when I had the measles in the fourth grade. Of course my mother washed it often so as the years went by it began to fade and fray until eventually I guess my mother must have given it away. I never thought to ask why it disappeared because I was feeling more sophisticated as a teenager and enjoyed the new woolen blanket that replaced it.

Now I think of those dresses and quilts from Grandma and I wish I still had them. I managed to save some embroidery that she did on cloth designed to sit on a dresser. They are very old now just like I am so I keep them tucked away in a safe place rather than using them. They are a testimony to my grandmother’s skill that I wish I might adequately convey to my daughters and grandchildren. 

I’m certain that Grandma Minnie Bell grew up in a house without electricity or indoor plumbing because she often told me what it was like in those days and how they found ways to cope without all of the modern conveniences that I have enjoyed for all of my life. Knowing that Dolly Parton was living under such circumstances at the same time that I was in a house with all the bells and whistles has made me realize that being poor has many levels and mine was actually closer to being in the middle class than hers was. Still I knew all about those dresses made from flour bags because I had some too. 

The only complaint that I ever had about the dresses from Grandma that I so loved is that they itched like crazy because the cloth was designed to be tough enough to hold many pounds of flour without leaking or falling apart. I once got into trouble when I was in the first grade because I unbuttoned the frock to scratch my belly that was turning red from the material. I had try to do it discreetly but the irritation became too much so I attempted to sneak a few rubs hoping that nobody saw. 

We all too often forget that there are still people in the world who have so little. We don’t always appreciate the circumstances that make life more difficult for them. I have encountered many students who would also feel a kinship with Dolly Parton’s childhood. Knowing how wonderfully she navigated those hardships makes me smile for the power of optimism. I suppose that the whole world has been touched by Dolly’s love for people and in many ways it reminds me of Grandma Minnie who was a refined lady who admired and embraced every person she ever met and taught me how to behave that way as well.  

I wasn’t always vocal about women’s rights but in my heart I knew that women all too often were being subjugated to menial roles that left them under the thumb of the males around them. My own mother happily enjoyed her role as a homemaker while my father went to work and was the official breadwinner. All of that came to an abrupt halt when my dad died leaving my thirty year old mother with a family to raise without an income earning job of her own. Her journey as a single parent would be difficult mostly because she had been unprepared for balancing her role as both parent and breadwinner. 

Both of my grandmothers were illiterate so when they worked outside of the house their jobs were low on the economic totem pole. They served as janitors and cooks when they had to work but eventually settled into the life of housewives. While they were happy in those roles just as my mother had been, one of them once confessed to me that she wished that she had become better educated and able to do professional work. She felt a bit sad that it was not to be.

My mother eventually earned a college degree and taught school for a time until her mental health made that kind of work unrealistic. She spent her last years working on a long term study of blood pressure at the University of Texas Health Sciences Center. She never came close to the kind of salaries that my father had earned. Like many single women of her era she constantly struggled to pay for the most rudimentary things. 

I had higher ambitions when I started college but rather than chasing money I was able to fulfill my dreams of being a teacher mostly because my husband had a higher paying profession in banking. Even with a masters degree and a position as a school administrator I never caught up to him but I did not feel any anger because I had accepted that teaching was not going to make me wealthy in the state of Texas.

When I graduated from high school Texas A&M University was only beginning to transition from being an all male school. I had female friends at the University of Houston who were daring to major in traditionally male occupations like Engineering or Architecture. Theirs was not an easy route. In fact they sometimes encountered resistance from the male students and even the professors. Women still had a long way to go. 

Around the time that Gloria Steinem came on the scene I was not as rebellious as I am now. While I cheered the women’s movement I was reluctant to get too involved. A good friend was not so inclined. She was an Irish Chicago born liberal Democrat and she schooled me in what women were attempting to achieve. She spoke of Gloria Steinem with the same kind of reverence that I had for Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. 

I hung on to every word that my friend relayed to me and became more and more dedicated to the cause as she challenged my fears of becoming too involved. Eventually she tried to encourage me to attend a nationwide meeting of the stars of the women’s movement that was going to take place in Houston, Texas. Sadly because I was low on funds at that juncture in my life I was unable to go. Instead I lived vicariously in the shadow of the enthusiasm of my friend. In a sense she introduced me to Gloria Steinem,  

Gloria became like a big sister for me, a courageous woman who showed me that I did not have to just accept the way things were. She actively worked for women’s rights in the workplaces at a time when people like me were being scrutinized in interviews based solely on appearance. I vividly remember one interviewer commenting that he liked my clothing choice and the perfume that I wore. Gloria would work with other women to make certain that females would not be subjected to such judgements in the future. 

Eventually she help to found Ms. Magazine and became famous for her quotes emphasizing the equality of men and women. With her example I learned to be proud of my intellect rather than trying to hide it lest males see me as a trouble maker. I began to voice my own beliefs more and more often and compete with males at work for different assignments. I taught my own daughters to be bold and to stand up for their convictions. Happily not only have they done that but they raised both males and females to understand that nothing about women is inferior and that roles in life should never be defined by sex. 

As of today I have a courageous granddaughter working at a prestigious law firm with all of the confidence she needs to be successful. My grandsons appreciate that women can be fair and worthy competitors and that they must be allowed to follow whatever dreams come to mind. 

As I hear of the death of Gloria Steinem I grieve the loss of a great and forward thinking woman. I know that without people like her neither I nor my children and grandchildren would be where we are today. She was a pioneer who pushed on the glass ceiling that kept women down and poked a great big hole in it. She will be missed but always remembered.