Month: April 2019

A Remarkable Man

Published on by Sharron BurnettLeave a comment
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My father-in-law, Julio Gonzalez, was born in April of 1929, in Lares, Puerto Rico, a little mountain town where the hillsides were filled with coffee plants and orange groves. He was a joy to his huge extended family of aunts and uncles and cousins, people who would pitch in to help raise him after his very young parents’ marriage fell apart and his brilliant father left him in their care while he continued his studies of medicine in Spain. He grew into a happy boy in the town where everyone seemed to be a relative watching over him, unaware of the worldwide economic depression and the political cataclysms that would lead to World War II. His was a place of fun with his cousins and baseball with his chums. When the winds of war hit the United States he was still a bit too young to join the young men enlisting to fight. His introduction to mortal conflict would be the Korean War when he proudly represented Puerto Rico in the regiment that had once been under the command of General Patton during the earlier war.

He spoke little of being a soldier in Korea. The memories were tainted by the death of comrades, visions that were painful to revisit. Nonetheless he was proud of his service as a citizen of the United States and after his stint in the army he and a buddy agreed to meet up for college. A bit of miscommunication about just where that would be landed his friend in Hawaii and brought him to Houston, Texas where he sat one day in the Cougar Den at the University of Houston when my mother-in-law was introduced to him.

Theirs was an almost instant attraction. They were still talking with each other long after their mutual friends had left. He was quite handsome and she was beautiful. Both of them were incredibly intelligent and managed to converse through his knowledge of English and her fluency in Spanish. She had been married before and had a little boy, my future husband, Mike. She was back in college attempting to forge a future on her own. She had not expected to meet someone who would attract her attention the way Julio had, but life is serendipitous and somehow changed direction for both of them as they fell hopelessly in love in a very short time.

They married and Julio took on the job of being both a husband and father. He was devoted to doing that role well. His whole world would center on being a good and responsible man. Neither he nor my mother-in-law would ever finish their college degrees, but they would use their innate intelligence to build a very good and secure life together. Julio eventually found work at a Hormel plant near downtown only minutes away from where they lived on the near north side of Houston. He began in the meat processing area, doing back breaking work in a cold environment. Eventually he worked his way into the business office where he did accounting and won the hearts of his fellow workers with his jovial ways.

He raised my husband as his own, being as loving a father as ever their was. He was a cautious man who lived frugally, enjoying the simple but most important aspects of life. He toured America with his wife and son, played poker on Friday nights with friends from church, and became a beloved and respected member of his wife’s family. He enjoyed golfing and partying with friends from work, and became more and more fiercely proud of being an American. He’d save for trips back home to see his family in Puerto Rico. His father had become a highly respected doctor who eventually remarried and had a second family of half siblings whom Julio loved with all of his heart.

My father-in-law taught his son to be as quintessential a gentleman as he himself has always been. He instilled a sense of honor and integrity in Mike and modeled all the best qualities of a good husband and father. He became the beloved center of the family as he proved time and again to be concerned and compassionate and willing to sacrifice for the needs of those around him. Year after year passed and so too did so many of the people he had loved including my mother-in-law, his loving partner for so many years.

He was heartbroken after her death, so bereft that his health seemed to falter. We worried that he might succumb to his sorrow, but he is at heart a survivor. He knows how to embrace challenges and keep moving forward. Before long he had not only recovered, but had met a sweet woman who stole a piece of his heart. The two married and now provide each other with fun and companionship.

My father-in-law loves children. He is the kind of man who likes to get down on the floor to join in their games. He runs with them and makes them smile with his gentleness and his playfulness. He spreads love wherever he goes.

It’s hard to believe that he is celebrating his ninetieth year on this earth. He looks far younger than that. He is hale and hearty save for a few minor issues. He still drives his car and takes care of both himself and his wife. He’s a good man who worries a bit too much about his son and granddaughters and great grandchildren. He has worked hard his entire life to insure that they will feel safe and secure. He has loved without bounds and in turn he is loved by everyone lucky enough to know him.

Julio Gonzalez is a quietly remarkable man who has asked for little and given so very much. We hope and pray that we will have the honor of having him with us for many more years to come.

There Is No Better Way

Published on by Sharron BurnettLeave a comment
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When I was still rather new in my profession of teaching I took a Myers Briggs test during one of the faculty meetings at my school. It turned out that I was an INFP which translates to someone who is introverted, intuitive, feeling and perceptive. I remember being a bit stunned by the tag of introversion because I assumed that it meant that I would not make a particularly strong educator. After all, a teacher is on view all day every day and to me being an introvert meant being someone unable to deal with other people. I soon learned that my homespun definition was totally inaccurate. Instead the idea describes how I unwind, come up with ideas, find peace. It seems that I am one of those individuals who finds inspiration and comfort on long solitary walks or inside the walls of my home. When I am feeling down I don’t want to go out on the town. Instead I need to recharge my soul quietly.

I have taken different versions of the same test many different times and get the same results again and again. I recently played a Facebook game for fun and ended up being described as a unicorn with my INFP characteristics. It seems that only four to five percent of the population earns that tag. I laughed as I realized why I have sometimes felt like a oddball in life, but it also helped me to realize why I seem to have a gift for understanding people, a talent that worked well with my teaching profession. In many ways I’m just one big gooey mix of emotions that from time to time drive my husband and other highly rational people insane. I greet the world with feelings and intuitions rather than a well thought out rational plan. I’m one of those people who quickly grows weary at planning meetings, which is ironic because a during my working years I frequently found myself guiding such events.

I had a dear friend who was impish and willing to go wherever the winds blew in a social setting, but when it came to more serious matters she planned with a vengeance. I soon learned that our relationship was glorious as long as it was all about fun. Whenever we worked together it went south. She was a person of outlines and scripts, while I preferred to quietly think for a bit and than go with the ideas brewing inside my head. I  corrected on the fly as needed and grew anxious with her need to plot and plan and fill notebooks with written descriptions. I suppose that we drove each other insane in our few collaborations, and so we ultimately abandoned all efforts and simply enjoyed each other informally.

We each have certain preferred ways of meeting the world. I’m not a psychologist so I don’t know if these are innate traits or learned or a combination of both. What I do realize as someone who has worked with thousands of people is that there is no one best way of doing things. We each learn and work and find joy in ways that feel the most comfortable. The person who is the life of a party may not necessarily be the most likely leader, but our styles may determine how those with whom we interact perceive us and how we see them. As a society we often place great value on particular traits thinking that they are the best way to do things. We often judge people by our own characteristics rather than understanding that each style of interaction has its merits.

When I begin ranting and my emotions are in high gear it makes those who are more attuned to rationality and structure feel uncomfortable. I learned over time that I had to curb some of my tendencies and provide more written documentation for my ideas than I might have been inclined to do. What few people knew is that I did not begin with outlines, but rather with ideas from which I worked backwards to create outlines and such. As I worked with my colleagues I found kindred spirits and those who needed more structure from me. I realized that some of my bosses needed little more than evidence that I was doing my job well and others wanted hard copy documentation. I had to learn how to comply with the needs and demands of everyone that I encountered even when it became irritating.

I used to assume that everyone hated meetings, and plans, and goal setting because those things were so abhorrent to me. I soon realized that for many people they are as necessary as breathing. My vague descriptions of the thoughts in my head were not enough for them, and so I found ways to comply in processes that I knew that I would never personally use. I taught my students in similar ways. I knew that some of my pupils were eager to simply jump from a cliff to test their wings and others wanted detailed instruction and practice before attempting trial runs. So too I worked with teachers whose lessons were crafted with the briefest of descriptions and others who wrote out their plans almost word for word. I allowed both versions of planning from members of my faculty as long as I saw good results.

We humans are far more complex and diverse than most of us imagine. It’s why we have liberals, conservatives, and libertarians. It’s the chief cause of our misunderstandings. We tend to see the world through our own lenses and feel confused when we observe someone who is so different from ourselves. Some of us are tidy and others are messy. In truth neither one or the other is necessarily best. The world is as exciting and productive as it is because of our differences, not our sameness. We learn from each person that we meet.

Being flexible and understanding of the people around us is a necessary aspect of our existence. Extroverts are not better than introverts, just different. Democrats are not better than Republicans, just different. Rational thinking is not better than being emotional, just different. When we put all of the various personalities together and truly value them we create a society capable of doing great things. We truly do need everyone because there is on one better way.

Thoughts and Prayers

Published on by Sharron BurnettLeave a comment
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Losing someone suddenly and unexpectedly shocks the entire system. One moment the world seems to be filled with promise and the next everything feels as though it has changed. That late night call announcing the accident that took the life of a friend or family member in many ways feels like death itself. The visit from the police to announce that a dear one has been killed by a stranger is a gut punch. Many of us have experienced such life changing events, so we know only too well how the specter of that horrific moment changes us, hovers over us, burrows into our souls.

For most of my life I have relived the moment when I first learned of my young father’s death. I went to sleep dreaming of the family gathering at the beach that lay ahead and awoke to learn that the gathering would take place behind a curtain of sadness and tears inside our living room. I was only eight, but even a child understands the horror of such things. My emotions ruled me for a very long time. I was afraid, angry, hopelessly confused and unhappy. The shock of my father’s death left a gaping wound inside me and the members of my family. I felt as though I was suddenly an entirely different person than the one I had been only hours before I received the horrific news.

I have always understood the deep seated emotions that bury the survivors of such tragedies. The process of healing is a long and difficult road, made even worse in instances when the cause of death is violent. Each time I hear of a mass shooting my heart becomes heavy for the survivors who must pick up the wounded pieces of their lives. I know how long their journeys will be and how different they will feel. I want to tell them that it will take much time for their emotions to feel normal again. I want to hug them, help them, do something for them, but what am I to do from so far away? My only recourse is to keep them in my thoughts, pray that they will find the comfort that came to me in my own time of need.

I have been reading about the tortured souls who lost friends or family members in school shootings. They once seemed happy, content, set for good things in life, but the horror of their situation ultimately overcame them. They were unable to cope with the feelings of depression, guilt, frustration that strangled the very life out of them. They may have covered the depth of their despair with smiles or perhaps they simply surrendered to the hopelessness that they felt. Each of us who hear of them wonder what we might have done to help them, even knowing that there was little that strangers such as ourselves have the power to accomplish. We fall back on the only positive thing that we have. We think of them and pray for them and for their families. We feel their pain and maybe donate to an organization dedicated to helping those stricken with grief. We may even write a letter to a Congress person suggesting changes that will make tragedies less likely. In the end, however, our thoughts and prayers seem to be the best that we have to offer, even as we sense that they may not suffice.

It was the thoughtfulness of the people in my community that ultimately saved me from the brooding and the desperation that I was feeling after my father’s death. My recovery was slow and the compassion of those around me was relentless. I was fully aware of the love that came my way and it ultimately healed me. Knowing that people cared enough to mention me and my family in their prayers meant everything to me, and over the years I have been calmed by the heavenly petitions of devoted individuals who sincerely asked that God watch over me. I have found great serenity in the kindness of prayers.

There are those who would spurn the very idea of thoughts and prayers, insisting that they are little more than worthless utterances that accomplish nothing. I would insist nonetheless that I know their power from personal experience. I truly believe that I might have been lost were it not for the loving support that came from thoughts and prayers directed at me. They told me that I was not alone, that people truly cared about my well-being. Thoughts and prayers are not to be mocked.

I am greatly saddened by the deaths of those left to survive the ashes of mass shootings. I pray for those who have endured the unimaginable horror of such events. I pray that we will find ways to make such occasions more and more unlikely in our country and throughout the world. I pray that we will have the wisdom to find solutions. I pray that we will all understand the complexities of the human spirit and that we will be open and honest in our communications with each other, especially our children. I think and I pray because it is important to do so.

I have a dear friend who keeps a prayer journal. She places the names of those whom she is remembering on Post It notes. Beside the name she writes a brief description of the needs of that person. When she prays she refers to those little slips of paper and personally thinks of them during her very busy days. She is a beautifully selfless and faith filled woman whose sincerity has helped many survive unspeakable ordeals. I believe that the real power of what she does is found in the love that she provides those who are wounded. There is something quite comforting in knowing that another person is taking the time to pray for us. It provides us with hope.

Do not underestimate the power of thoughts and prayers. They have moved mountains and seemingly prompted miracles. We need them.

Hubris

Published on by Sharron BurnettLeave a comment
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Elizabeth Holmes has been featured in an episode of 20/20 and in an HBO documentary. A movie starring Jennifer Lawrence is in the works as well. Her story is rather amazing. She founded a company at the age of 19 that at one time had an estimated worth of billions of dollars. She was a young woman with a vivid imagination who graced the covers of magazines. Her ideas began to unfold when she was still a child drawing detailed diagrams of a time machine, and other flights of fancy. As a freshman at Stanford University she came up with an idea for a patch that would be able to detect an infection and then administer a dose of antibiotics. She applied for a patent for her idea but sadly such a mechanism was entirely infeasible and came to naught. She moved on the the big invention that would make her one of the youngest CEOs and billionaires in the country.

Elizabeth wanted to create a simple way of testing blood for disease. She hated the way blood is drawn with needles and multiple tubes. She wanted to create a machine that would be able to perform all of the necessary tests from only a pen prick of blood. She imagined a way of getting the blood and then testing it in a machine so small that it might be carried into a battlefield. She was so proud of her idea that she called it” the Edison” in honor of the famous inventor who had inspired her from the time she was a child. She called her company “Theranos”, an amalgam of the words therapy and diagnosis. She saw her invention as a revolutionary way of delivering diagnoses that would change medicine all over the world. Her backers were so excited by the possibilities that they gave her hundreds of millions of dollars without securing any evidence that she was indeed capable of creating the needed technology.

Elizabeth hired a team of experts and filled her board of directors with some of the biggest names in the world. She built a magnificent headquarters in the heart of Silicon Valley and staffed it with brilliant and  innovative young minds. She fashioned herself as a new Steve Jobs dressing all in black and creating advertisements for her company that were sleek and exciting. Unfortunately even after years her idea did not work. In spite of all of the assertions that she was on the cusp of a whole new world, she was chasing after a dream that was probably never going to happen. After an journalistic expose revealed that “the Edison” did not work her company began to collapse. In the end it was worth less than zero.

When I heard about Elizabeth Holmes I wondered how she was able to muster the confidence to scam people with little more than an idea and nothing to prove that the technology would be effective and reliable. A bit of research into her background gave me some insights into the workings of her mind, or at least provided me with some theories about what made her tick.

Elizabeth was the granddaughter of a physician who founded a hospital and enjoyed a notable and productive career, so there is little doubt in my mind that she is a highly intelligent woman who came from intelligent stock. Her genetic background as well as her education seem to prove that Elizabeth had great potential. She lived for a time in my city, Houston, while her father was a vice president at Enron, a company that was built on smoke and mirrors that ultimately collapsed. She attended St. John’s School, an elite institution with a long waiting list that only the best, brightest and wealthiest children are able to attend. The school exists in  a rarified atmosphere of influence and power. It would be easy to see Elizabeth developing an exalted opinion of herself from being one of the chosen few able to go to such a prestigious place. Being accepted to the Engineering program at Stanford University would have reinforced her feelings about her self worth.

Elizabeth must have seen herself as someone who was going to change the world, and she was in a big hurry to do so. Her professors realized that she was brilliant and even one of the top students that they had ever met, but for some of them she was annoying in her insistence that she knew more than they did. She sought them out as mentors and then ignored them whenever they honestly critiqued her ideas. She often spoke of how Thomas Edison had to make ten thousand mistakes before some of his inventions worked. She truly believed that she was able to see the world more clearly than even her more experienced teachers.

She parlayed her connections and her confidence into a business that fooled even brilliant people like Bill Clinton who was one of her admirers. It’s possible that she believed her own press for a time, but at some point she had to realize that her company was little more than a scam much like Enron where her father had once worked. If she did continue to believe that she was on to something big, then she was quite deluded because it was clear to many of the employees that nothing was working as it should even as she advertised untruths. Evidence seems to indicate that she knew exactly what was happening and did her best to cover for the lack of progress by instituting an atmosphere of secrecy.

Most children have fantastical ideas. Some even make those ideas become reality. My brother dreamed of sending humans to the moon. The work of thousands of talented scientists and engineers made it happen. We need people who think out of the box and take us into uncharted territory, but they have to be honest about what they are actually achieving. Elizabeth Holmes was not. She lied again and again perhaps to keep the funds rolling in because she really did think that one day a eureka moment would occur, or maybe she was just hiding her failures. Sadly her actions hurt every person who attempts to find support for a reasonable idea.

I know some young men who worked very hard to find backers for what might have been an amazing tech company. I have rooted for a man who wants to make wind power a reality for anyone who wants to install his equipment in the backyard. Most people provide evidence that their inventions will actually work before they ask for funding. To make untrue claims in the hopes that they will one day come true is a fraud.

Elizabeth Holmes is a fascinating young woman, but also someone who seems to have little concern for all of the people that she scammed. That is the definition of a sociopath. While her idea was grounded in good intentions she was unwilling to do all of the hard work that is usually required of anyone who wants to change the world for the better. Perhaps her grandiose opinion of herself along with a great deal of immaturity lead her to her ultimate failure. Somewhere along the way she might have done the right thing by admitting that she was stumped. Instead she lied and even sent faulty test results to patients who were grievously harmed. She has yet to admit her responsibility for a fiasco. Her hubris is a tragedy not just for her but for everyone who believed in her. She has cast a shadow of doubt on anyone who is attempting to launch the next truly great idea. Who will now believe?

The Pause

Published on by Sharron BurnettLeave a comment
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I’ve had to develop patience over the years. My instinct is to react to situations without thinking, allowing my emotions  to guide what I say and do. I had to learn to curb such tendencies when I became a wife, a mother, an educator. Letting my emotions range free without any filters was dangerous to the well being of those with whom I lived. Brutal honesty can hurt as much as a blow to gut. I had to practice using the art of the the pause which is why I recently kept a quote that found it’s way to my Facebook wall. It went something like this, “Pause before judging. Pause before assuming. Pause before accusing. Pause whenever you are about to react harshly and you’ll avoiding saying things and doing things you’ll later regret.”

The advice is not particularly unique but it is certainly profound. If only we took the time to think before reacting we would avoid a world of pain and hurt and guilt. Who among us hasn’t made that comment that stung someone we loved or respected to the point of creating a wedge between us? How often have mental or physical harm been inflicted in the heat of a moment? Undoing such damage is almost always more difficult that taking that little breath, counting to ten, waiting until our anger subsides to deal more rationally with a  situation.

The biggest regrets that I have are all centered on hurtful utterances that I made in the heat of a moment, or accusations that I hurled without evidence. I have judged and assumed like everyone and even though I was sometimes perfectly justified, in most cases I would have been saved great misunderstandings if only I had stopped to get information before jumping to conclusions.

The worlds of social media tempt us to strike out against people and ideas that offend us without pausing to consider whether voicing our opinions is of any positive use. There is more than enough ugliness and bullying without contributing more. What does it really matter if someone has an opinion different from our own? Why do we feel compelled to insert our own feelings? Do we really believe that we are going to change minds?

I have to admit that I often lose control and type in responses that I know are meaningless to the people who will read them. They will stick to their ideas and mine will have no impact other than to anger them. I do damage to our relationship which in most cases is far more important than the differences that we have. I have had to remind myself again and again to stop before pressing the keys to my computer in a fit of anger. I’ve learned to use more discretion with my instinctual tendencies.

As a teacher I learned the importance of presuming innocence until guilt was proven. It was easy to think that a difficult child was the perpetrator of a classroom crime based simply on past infractions, but all too often quick judgement lead to conviction of an innocent. I was always happy when I gathered all of the facts before coming to a final judgement. It saved both me and my students many times over. I was sometimes accused of being too soft, too lenient, but in the end I was always fair.

My mother once described her bipolar disorder as a disease which caused her to say ugly things that she did not mean, but felt compelled to utter. I find it interesting that she saw her mental illness as the lack of an ability to pause before reacting. Perhaps her definition says something about our human tendency to let lose with our feelings without stopping to reign them in. Maybe when we forget to pause we are exhibiting a kind of irrationality that we should be able to curb unless we are afflicted with a disease of the brain.

Children naturally have outbursts until they eventually learn how to control themselves. We need to be as aware of our own thoughtless behaviors as my mother was. We have learned the niceties of human interaction and we need to practice using them more. If we were all to follow the simple advice of the quote that so resonated with me we might have far fewer misunderstandings. Curbing our anger is a worthy cause.

There are surely times when truth must be told and no feelings spared. There are causes worthy of our indignation, but we must learn to differentiate between occasions when our input may bring about positive change and when we are simply wasting our breaths on trivial matters. Learning when to react quickly and strongly and when to slow things down is a powerful lesson that we might all want to review.