All It Takes Is A Little Love

I have often found that the college classes that I thought would be a waste of time often became some of my favorite moments in education. One of those courses was all about team building and the rumors that I had heard about the professor and his syllabus worried me enough that I put off taking it until I had almost completed all of the requirements of my masters degree. 

The first day of class we watched clips of Dances With Wolves involving the customs of Native Americans as portrayed in the film. I had to admit that the presentation prompted me to immediately think differently about the movie itself and the idea that the nuances of teamwork are essential to the success of virtually every culture. I appreciated the way that the professor allured us into listening to his take on the value of knowing how to work with others and so I felt a bit more comfortable with the whole concept in spite of being a dedicated introvert who had mostly worked as a lone wolf throughout my career. 

By the second class we were allowed to self select a group that would undergo the process of becoming a real team throughout the rest of the semester. I had been in classes with two women who had impressed me and I gravitated to them immediately. I was excited when the three of us forged a solid promise to work together by sharing the load of any assignments that we might have to complete. Another woman who had not yet found a group was soon a member of our happy and hopeful union and we had high hopes of succeeding.

It did not occur to us at the time that we were mostly of the same ilk, three middle aged women with type A personalities and work ethic. Our fourth member was young and seemingly naive so we silently felt that we would be mostly carrying her along. We were not concerned at all about the lack of diversity that defined our group but that aspect would soon be changed by the professor.

By the third class a new male student had arrived late from China. His English was all but nonexistent as he attempted to explain who he was and why he had come from so far away to earn an advanced degree. We held our breaths as the professor scanned different groups as though deciding which would be graced with the newcomer. When his eyes locked on our section of the classroom we understood that we would be the guinea pigs who would have to deal with an individual who seemed unable to offer anything of merit to our projects. Suddenly we had become an incredibly diverse group and we were silently unhappy about the prospect. 

We were required to meet regularly beyond the hours of the class. In those meetings we would have certain goals to reach and in the process we would learn about the different stages of team building. We had to provide the professor with a report of how we were progressing. While we initially believed that we would more than likely be in so much agreement with each other that we would be able to carry our young man from China along without any problems, we would soon learn that forming a cohesive partnership between five different people is never that easy.

We got through the norming phase but began to understand that we had three chiefs and two individuals who just sat looking as though they wished that the three of us vying to take over would get our acts together. Once we determined who was best at keeping the team on track we entered the storming phase which quickly boiled over into a series of grievances that included a full blown crying session from the youngest woman who felt that we older ladies were treating her as though she did not have a brain. Her accusations were shocking to hear but because our goal was to work through the stage of disagreement for the sake of the ultimate goal we set our defensive attitudes aside and soon realized that we had indeed been sidelining her without providing her with opportunities to express herself. 

Of course we were still not hearing from the man from China who seemed to just stare at us as though he was miserable. We had to find a way to give him a voice and that became our next challenge. Weeks passed and we heard little from him but along came an assignment from the professor that forced us to take a quiz together. Amazingly the man was able to write down his ideas coherently enough that we were able to see that he was in fact absorbing the gist of the materials that we used in the course. We were able to use his work in the tract that we gave to the professor and he noted how well we all seemed to be using the skills of each person in the group. When we saw our grade we literally felt like a team that had won a trophy and we bonded ever closer. 

Our final assignment was a long paper that would demonstrate how well we had understood the concepts of the class. We began meeting at the home of one of our members that looked out on the waters of the Gulf of Mexico. By then we felt the comfort of friendships that allowed us to be honest with ourselves and each other. We used the movie Hoosiers as the exemplar of incredible team building. We sat together eating popcorn and taking notes about the moments when team building took place in each scene. 

Each and every person had so many wonderful ideas that we had to pick and choose what was most important but we made sure that every point of view was honored. Since I enjoy writing I was charged with putting all of the different entries together and since we had worked as a group our words seemed to fluidly join each other. The young woman that we had intitially misjudged came up with the most important and unique section of the paper. The man from China knew how to make our efforts look professionally polished. We turned in that paper assured that even if it did not impress the professor we would cherish what we had done together forever. 

We were over the moon when we received the only A plus that the professor claimed he had ever before given. He cited the area of the paper that had been conceived by the younger woman as the key to its perfection. He noted the incredibly professional look of the presentation and he understood that only a well defined team working together would have been able to create such a masterpiece. 

I still think of that class and how much it taught me. It was there that I learned the value of diverse voices and talents. I saw that being in an echo chamber produced mediocrity while genuinely tuning in to many different points of view was powerful. I took that lesson with me to the remainder of my career. I had learned the importance of building a diverse team with individuals bringing their best skills to the table. Diversity and real teamwork are the foundations of the kind of creative thinking that solves big problems. Real teams that respect each player’s value are incredibly powerful winners. Those run by a tyrant who only allows one voice destroy any chance of doing great things. We would all do well to accept this powerful truth. 

Last summer I accompanied my husband to radiation therapy for his prostate cancer. For five days each week we drove to a facility were his treatment took place. We got to know many of the other people who were engaged in the same process and when he finally finished the cycle and rang the bell we were ecstatic. Of course we could only hope that his cancer was gone and would not return. His journey will continue as his doctor watches for signs of the cancer has growing again. 

When I heard that former President Joe Biden also had prostate cancer I felt a sadness in knowing the tough times that lay ahead for him and his family. Sadly his cancer was more advanced than my husband’s so I worried about what he would have to endure and whether or not the treatments would work. I knew the emotional and physical journey that lay ahead and I prayed that all would go as well for him as it seemed to be for my husband. 

One year later I hear that Joe Biden’s cancer has traveled to his bones and that he is enduring great pain. As someone who only recently had a total knee replacement I know how brutal the levels of pain can be when our bones are involved in the healing process. I also realize just how frightening the experience must be for Joe and his family. Nobody wants to see a loved one suffering and nobody wants to feel such uncertainty with regard to attempts to defeat a growing cancer. 

By his own admission Joe Biden was an imperfect president just as each of our American leaders have been. We would be hard pressed to find any of them who never made a mistake but the vast majority of them have seemed to try to be their best. President Biden was especially determined to do right by the American people even as he was tasked with pulling the nation together in a very difficult time. All the while he demonstrated great sympathy for every one of us who experienced hardships. He somehow understood how challenging life can be for all humans and often expressed his hopes that he would be able to fulfill the needs of our nation. 

I always felt that President Biden was a good man who also often had to make incredibly tough decisions. He seemed to have an inner strength that took into account the needs of everyone, not just those who openly supported him. I believe that he did his best in a time when the whole world was grappling with illness, war and death. All the while he had a cancer smoldering inside of him which he likely ignored because he had a job to do for all of us. 

There are some who see President Biden as a weak man because he showed his emotions from time to time and expressed his loving concern for a son who was fighting addictions. He showed us how to love unconditionally and tirelessly. He pushed himself to fight for us even as his body was turning on him. Then he humbly left the race when it became apparent that he was less and less able to bear the unrelenting pressures of the job. It took so much unselfish courage to drop out of the race even as he was being ridiculed and judged as being old and unfit. 

Ironically we ended up with a president who seems only to care about himself. His health is quite obviously failing and he pretends and boasts that he is somehow aging backwards. We see the signs every single day that he is not well in either body or mind while his protectors pretend that he is a vibrant genius. In the meantime he is so vile that he makes fun of Joe Biden’s present situation without even a shred of human decency. 

I read an essay recently from a young woman who writes political editorials on many social media sites. She told the story of growing up with an incredible father who raised her and her siblings after her mother ran away from her maternal responsibilities. She showered her father with praise and then revealed that she had lost him all too soon. In President Biden she saw the same kind of honor and kindness that had been the hallmarks of her father. She greatly admired the work that President Biden attempted to do and her writing led to a meeting with him in the Oval Office. She recounted how awed she was being in his presence and imagined how proud her father would have been. Somehow she was so overwhelmed by that meeting that she spoke to President Biden about her father and how he had inspired her. Then she told the president that she saw him as the kind of father figure that our nation needed in difficult times. As tears filled her eyes and her sobs became audible President Biden comforted her seeming to understand the enormity of her feelings. This moment showed her the compassion that President Biden earnestly gave to the people that he encountered. 

I hope and pray that President Biden’s pain will leave him and that by some miracle he will get well. He has been a light of genuine goodness among us and he deserves to hear praise for his lifetime of efforts. We can now see all too clearly the difference between a good man and one who is only intent on enriching himself with power and money and trophies. Sometimes we humans don’t seem to notice how the wonder of what we have it until the person creating it is gone. May God be with President Joe Biden and may he know how much we will always appreciate what he did for us. He was the good man we needed in a very tough time.

My mother used to call me on her phone at least once a day. I have to admit that there were times when I was quite busy and so tired that I felt irritated about having to pause to hear whatever was on her mind. It’s funny how we humans often don’t value what is the best of our lives until it is gone. So it was with my mom’s daily attempts to check in with me. 

I seem to miss her more and more as time goes by. My brothers tell me that I am now the matriarch of the family and somehow that title does not seem to fit. I have tried to fill the very big shoes that were my mother’s and find myself coming up short again and again. I don’t know how she juggled so much in a single day but somehow she managed to keep in touch with me and my brothers and all of her siblings while still tending to her necessary routines. 

Another annoying habit that Mama had was just showing up on my driveway where she would honk her horn to announce her arrival. I have to admit that it embarrassed me again and again but each time she came seemed to soothe my worries and get me back to normal. Somehow she sensed when I needed her and just came rather than bothering to ask if it would be okay. 

I remember thinking that my neighbors must have wondered why she made her arrival so public but I later learned that they delighted in hearing the sound of her horn. They told me that sometimes they went outside just to be able to chat with her a bit before she entered my home. They ended up missing her impromptu visits as much as I ultimately did.

My mother had a way of reading the tea leaves that told her how my brothers and I were doing. She seemed to understand us better than we understood ourselves. She had a gift when it came to people and I often thought that she would have been an excellent nurse. She was always so calm and understanding when visiting folks in the hospital or a nursing home. Everyone loved her and brightened up in her presence. 

My mother never went to someone’s home without a small gift of some kind. Many of the things that she brought seemed a bit strange at first but every item became magically useful after she left. I still keep rolls of stamps in a small container that she presented one day. We sleep with the sound of the fan that was another of her gifts. Many times she bought extra sale items at the grocery store to share with me and my brothers even after we were all working and doing well financially. 

My mother thrived on having visitors in her home. She always had something in the freezer that she might prepare even when we came by without announcing our arrival. She’d make hamburgers or whip together an omelet. Her coffee pot was ready when anyone knocked on her door. They might be there for the purpose of checking on her once she became elderly but once they were inside her home she became the ultimate hostess ready to listen to all of their cares and woes. 

My mother died in 2011 and I was relieved at the time to know that she did not suffer long with the lung cancer that took her away. At first I felt that the burden of caring for her had been lifted from me and my brothers but over time I saw what we were really missing in her absence. I realized that even when she was sick she managed to care for us in ways so subtle that we hardly noticed them at the time. 

I suppose I would not want her to have to grieve over the losses of so many people who have followed her into the afterlife. I would not want her to have to worry about my brothers who have Parkinson’s disease. I have little doubt that she would have found the times of Covid quite difficult and her big heart would have cried out for all the souls suffering around the world. It really is a good thing that she is resting in peace but I sometimes selfishly wish that I might sit with her once again. 

I take my role as matriarch seriously even as I know that I have yet to be as wonderful as my mother always was in that role. I often feel overwhelmed and in need of the guidance and wisdom that she always gave me, I hope that she knows how much we all cherished her generosity and never ending love. Because she was so intuitive I suspect that she always understood that we cared quite deeply even as we busied ourselves in the world a bit too much. 

Growing older is not for sissies. We encounter more sorrow and pain but know that we still have emotional work to do with our family and friends and even people that we do not know. It’s good to have an idea of how to act even if we see ourselves as lacking in the incredible skills of someone like my mother. I try to be my best just like I believe she would want me to be  even as I am not as gifted as she was. My mother’s love ran so deeply and we are all the better for being the recipients of her joy. 

Another new school year is here and I find myself continuing to teach. I retired from working in a school in 2011 but have not yet given up working with young people. I do my best to demystify mathematics for them whether homeschooling them or tutoring them in the evenings. I have limited the number of students that I am willing to work with this year because it seems that so many other issues are demanding my attention right now. Nonetheless I can’t seem to feel right if I am not using my skills even if only for a tiny bit of time each week. 

The start of the school year seems to come earlier and earlier each year but it is offset by more holidays and break times so I suppose that makes it okay. I still remember my own school days as though they happened only a day ago. I recall the first days of returning to the classroom hoping that some of my friends would be in the same class with me. I remember how nervous I was to find out who would be my teacher or teachers. I loved getting new shoes and a new lunchbox and of course new socks and underwear. Since I attended a Catholic school I did not have to worry about clothing because we all wore uniforms that were dull but did their duty. 

I liked learning and getting together with friends who did not live nearby me but I still felt a tug on the freedom and joy that I felt in the summertime. I was a free range kind along with my other friends and we tended to play together from early in the morning until bedtime at night. Back then there were lighting bugs that came out after dark. I haven’t seen such creatures in many years now. I wonder what happened to them and suspect that  they may have gone somewhere that is less inhabited than the big metropolitan area in which I live. 

I remember running around in my bare feet that picked up all the dirt and grime that I passed through in our games. My mother insisted that I wear shoes whenever I rode my bike because I might catch my feet in the spokes or on the chain and suffer a terrible wound. I believed her even though it did not make much sense to me. Otherwise I went shoeless for three months out of every year. 

We played so hard that we would sweat but somehow it never bothered me back then. I’d end every playtime with an accumulation of perspiration and dirt that made little beads on my neck that we called “Grandma’s beads.” We had lots of funny sayings like that and I always wondered who had first invented them and how they overtook the culture. 

I read now that it can be dangerous to drink water out of a garden hose but we kids did that regularly back in the day. My mother attempted to mitigate that propensity by filling a large thermos with cold water each morning that she set on a little table in front of the garage along with some cups for anyone to use. I was proud of her for being so nice to everyone. it seemed like a very grand gesture indeed but when we were down the street we generally went back to using the closest hose to parch our thirst. 

I can totally relate to the concept of being a baby boomer because there were kids everywhere in my neighborhood. I had two brothers but many of my friends came from families of six or more children. They had bunk beds lined up like barracks to give everyone a place to sleep in the evening. I was lucky to have my own room because I was the only girl. My brothers had to share a space which they did not seem to mind. Sometimes I was a bit jealous that I did not have a sister with whom to share my deepest dreams but there were plenty of girls who filled that need for me. 

When it came time for my brother’s birthday on August 17, I always became a bit glum because it meant that we were inching ever closer to the start of school. We never went back before Labor Day so we still had more time but those couple of weeks seemed to pass all too quickly before we were back to the grind of rising early, learning all day and doing homework at night. Ironically I had an easier time waking up in the summer than once the school bells began to ring. 

I often think of the teachers that I had and the many friends who went to school with me and feel as young as I ever was until I get a passing glance of myself in the mirror and see an old lady looking at me. It is incredible how quickly all those years went by. Now all but one of my grandchildren has graduated from college and is working and I’m still prepping for beginning a new school year next week. The circle of life just keeps whirring around and around. 

There is so little in life that is more difficult that losing a special person who is still very young. We tend to believe that there is a normal way for living a life that takes each of us into the days of gray hair and retirement. Once in a while we are sadly stunned when a young person among us dies. It always feels as if the whole universe is out of whack.   

I experienced this as a child of eight when my thirty three year old father died in a car accident. I don’t suppose that I ever fully got over the shock and the loss that I felt even as I learned how to move forward. Each time I have experienced the death of a young man or woman it has torn me apart because I know all too well how it will impact that person’s family and friends. Somehow it always feels like a grave misalignment of how things should work. 

I learned only this weekend that one of my former students, Monserrat Botello Menjivar, died last week from cancer. I remember her as a lovely young teenaged girl with a quick smile and a kindness for others that made her quite special to everyone who knew her. She was a good student who took learning seriously so it did not surprise me that she ultimately went to college and earned a degree in education. Not only did she embark on a career teaching but she was eventually named the teacher of the year at her school. 

I was thrilled for Montserrat but not so much surprised that she had thrown her heart into being and educator. She was always someone who strove to be her very best. I knew that her intellect and giving personality had no doubt shown her to be exceptionally dedicated to her work with young people. It made me smile to learn of her success and I believed that she would leave a wonderful legacy to the world through her teaching. 

Monserrat was also a loving wife and mother who brought smiles to all of us who followed her on Facebook. She was so in love with her husband and the two of them always seemed to find the time to enjoy life with special occasions and trips. I was happy to see that her life was so meaningful and filled with so much love. 

Monserrat had a little girl who was walking in her footsteps as a good student and sweet person. Later she had a little boy who was as precious as his sister. Seeing her living life to its fullest was like chicken soup for my soul. I always feel so much better when I see my former students being not just successful but also very happy. It was easy to see what a great mother, wife and educator she was.

I watched Monserrat and her husband build a special bond together. They were a team that worked hard and soon they seemed to be living the American dream with a new home and jobs that they both enjoyed. Most of all they were proud parents doing an awesome job of raising children to be a gift to the world. 

Somehow I missed the original notice that Monserrat had died. The Facebook algorithm does not always keep me in touch with all of the people who are important to me. Another student sent me a message giving me the horrific news that Monserrat had died. I have been in a state of disbelief and sorrow ever since. Somehow it feels as if the world was cheated in losing such a wonderful soul and yet I know that these kind of things happen more often that we would like. 

I hope and pray that Montserrat’s husband and children will find peace and comfort from knowing how wonderful she was. Surely her spirit will continue to live among them for all of their lives. I know that all of us who knew her have beautiful memories of her stunning smile and the kindness that seemed to be her trademark. I know that I will never forget seeing her become an incredible woman but not being surprised at all by that. She stood out as a student as someone who was quite special and she certainly fulfilled the hopes and dreams that I had for her. 

Our grief is heavy as we say goodbye to a lovely young woman who accomplished so much in a very short life. May her memory always be a blessing to us all, most especially to her husband and children. I wish for them to know the love and joy that their mother spread through all of her time on this earth.