Month: November 2021

We each encounter tough times as we advance through the ups and downs of our lives. For the past couple of years we have had the collective burden of uncertainty caused by a tiny virus that has invaded the world like a silent army. Everything feels upside down, out of whack, as we attempt to adjust to a new normal that has restricted our human contacts, threatened our sense of security, and sadly divided us into sometimes raging camps. During this seemingly never ending sojourn we have all lost loved ones either to the virus itself or to other diseases or accidents. Somehow the impact of each death has been magnified in our minds, often because we did not have the opportunity to say goodbye to people who had meant so much to us. Even as we attempt to bridge the gaps made by two years of uncommon ways of living we are wary that somehow nothing will ever again be the same. 

These many months have included a litany of deaths. The recitation of the names is painful more so because we have worked so hard to keep ourselves, our families and our unraveling society together. Some of us have turned to science for a solution. We’ve taken jabs of the vaccine. We’ve religiously donned our masks and proceeded with caution. Some have attempted to simply carry on as though the braver thing to do is to keep living as usual, counting on strong constitutions or God to carry us through the pandemic and back to our lives as we had known them before 2020. Sometimes it’s difficult to tell who is right and who is wrong or if there is even a definitive way of determining the best way of surviving all of the chaos. 

We prefer to control our lives. We want order and design in our world. We have our routines and when they are interrupted we don’t function as well as we should. Our brains send us messages that something is not quite right and so we react, each in our own ways. Some among us have an illness that is as real as the virus. They suffer from depression, a deep and dark despair that hurts as painfully and surely as a broken bone or a cancer. The source of their disease is often hidden and almost always misunderstood. We nudge such souls to get a grip, to just do this or that to chase the darkness away. We do not understand why they cannot adapt and take command of their feelings. It frightens us to see them in such a state and so we often look away from them at the very moment when they need us most. 

I have been deeply saddened by the deaths of friends and family members and acquaintances. Some have died from COVID 19, but not all. Every single loss has affected me and those who loved them a bit more deeply during this strange and trying time. Recently I learned of the passing of a very good man who had devoted his life to helping young people to achieve their athletic goals. He had touched my heart by showing up to encourage my grandson in all of his races. He was a constant in our family’s life, a bright light in a sometimes difficult world. He took the time to let my grandson know that he was important. He had trained my grandson in the art and skills of running for over eight years. He was as proud as a parent when my grandson was recruited to run for Trinity University. I liked him so very much because he was someone who genuinely cared. 

This wonderful beautiful man took his own life. It was soul crushing to realize that he had been so depressed that he lost all hope. It made me wonder if he realized how much we had admired and loved him. Should we have been more explicit in our feelings for him? Do we as humans miss the cues that someone is struggling? Have we been so wrapped up in maintaining a semblance of normalcy in our own lives that we did not see his suffering or even think to inquire about how he was doing? 

There are people around us who are deeply depressed. All too often they hide their feelings behind fake bravado or humor. We tend to prefer them that way. It is awkward and difficult to hear someone who is in a dark place express the true feelings that they have. It frightens us to know how intense their pain actually is. We want to push them into a state of happiness before their minds are ready to be there. We provide them with platitudes and advice rather than understanding that they need intensive care to overcome their very real illnesses that make them feel weak and unworthy. Without the right kind of help their pain can overwhelm them. They have to make it stop and we lose them just as we have lost this very good man and so many others like him.

There is so much noise and chaos all around us. We are raging about the cost of living instead of asking who needs a hand to survive. We are upset because we can’t get what we want when we want it instead of being patient and accepting that we may have to make some sacrifices for a time. We want to rush back to the way things were instead of easing our way back into our old routines and maybe even making changes that will make our lives better than before. We are rushing around pretending that if we just wish things to feel normal again they will be. In the meantime we might better use our time quietly contacting or connecting with the people who mean much to us. We should be checking on one another regularly, sharing our good fortune with those who have less. This should be a time of listening, understanding, loving. We don’t want to one day wake up to find that a very good man’s life became so dark that he saw no way out but ending it.

I’ve been to a blues guitar concert. I’ve eaten out. I’ve stayed in a hotel. I’ve received a booster for my Moderna vaccine. I recently celebrated by seventy third revolution around the sun. None of these things would be extraordinary in most times, but we all know how strange the last couple of years have been. Somehow in spite of all of new beginnings I have safely enjoyed, I find myself feeling a bit unwilling to declare that the threat of COVID-19 is over. A little voice in my head keeps reminding me that I am doing well because I have been very cautious. I still wear a mask whenever I go shopping or to a public gathering. I keep my distance from others and I still teach and take classes via Zoom. Somehow I have been unable to ditch the precautions that have directed my behavior for so many months lest I celebrate a victory over COVID prematurely. 

My age puts me in the demographic of the elderly, but I feel incredibly young. My joints ache from arthritis, but I still have almost boundless energy. My recent birthday would have been just another number to me save for the fact that strangers treat me with the kind of delicacy reserved for older persons. They do not see a woman who still behaves like the energizer bunny most of the time. My wrinkles and my slower gait give away the truth of my how old I am. 

I was shocked by my recent visit with an ophthalmologist. I finally need to wear glasses all of the time, something I have avoided all of the many years of my life. I always had managed to see well enough with drugstore readers that I did not think that I would ever need a real prescription. The hints were there, but I was choosing to ignore them. There were times when print appeared to be so small to me that I had to ask other people to verify what I was actually seeing. Nonetheless, I went into a state of shock at the announcement that I now need to perch spectacles on my nose all the day through. I was even more stunned to hear that I had the beginnings of cataracts. I don’t need surgery yet, but the day will come for sure. 

I suppose it would be easier for me to behave like an older woman if I actually felt that way. Sure I get a hitch in my get-along now and again, but most of the time I feel fabulous. I suppose that I should have taken the hint that I am no longer a spring chicken when I ended up among the first to receive the vaccines for COVID. My recent sojourn with physical therapy for an injured arm was yet another indicator that I am not actually as spry as I want to believe.

Nonetheless, I do think that outlook has a great deal to do with how one ages. I’m not yet ready to put a shawl around my shoulders and give up the little bits of youthfulness that I still possess. So far my mind is holding up quite well, save for a tiny bit of forgetfulness now and again. With my electronic reminders thanks to modern technology, I don’t have to worry a bit about missing something because it slipped my mind. I keep my brain working hard with my reading and writing and teaching of mathematics. If I need glasses to continue to do those things it is a very small price to pay to keep my thinking young. 

I suppose that I am a fuddy-duddy in some ways, but my beliefs are more in line with young people than my peers. I don’t long for a simpler time from the past. I revel in progress and embracing innovation. I look forward to one day driving an electric vehicle and getting my power from the sun or wind or both. I am always looking ahead to the future. I enjoy my memories but would never go back in time.

And yet, I am a cautious person. I’ve never been one to dive blindly from a cliff. I believe in science and when the experts explain to me how best to behave I listen, not because I am a sheep. In fact, I am more of a rebel than a follower. If I ran with the tide of my peers I would be worrying about the young millennials and wondering how our world will survive in their hands. Instead, I am incredibly optimistic about a future time run by those who are now in their twenties and thirties. I know that generation well. I have taught them and talked with them and admired them. Sometimes I think I have more in common with them than most of the folks who are my age. 

So I will keep enjoying small milestones and celebrating the progress we have made in the battle with COVID. I like to think that we are where we are because of the millions of wonderful men, women and children worldwide who have followed science and made sacrifices for the sake of all the world. I sometimes dream of how wonderful it would now be if everyone had been inclined to work for the common good. I might be planning a trip to Scotland or feeling free to do all of the things I once did without a thought. For now I will hold steady with my cautious optimism. I see the sunshine up ahead and better days to come, but there is no reason to rush. All good things come in time.

My first childhood memory of my cousin, Delbert Dale Stewart, affectionately known as DD, occurred about the time that I was five years old and he was sixteen. I remember being in awe of this blonde curly headed teenager whose smile made me feel welcome in his home, but not the sanctity of his room. He was sweet but not particularly interested in spending time with a little kid. Nonetheless, he would always ever so politely greet me before gravitating to my father for a long and serious conversation about things that I did not yet understand. 

The next moment that I remember about DD came when my mother and my Aunt Valeria took me and his sister, Ingrid, to the Frontier Fiesta at the University of Houston. It was a fun affair run by the fraternities and sororities and other student organizations at the school. We feasted on barbecue and enjoyed music and all sorts of games when suddenly DD appeared with a group of friends all decked out in long duster coats, cowboy hats, and boots. Though he was a member of my family, he took my little girl breath away. He looked like a movie star and I felt so proud to be his cousin. Even as a child I saw that he was a leader, someone that everyone admired as much as I did. 

Eventually DD met the most beautiful woman that I have ever known, his beloved Fran. She was as sweet and kind as she was gorgeous and I thought that I was taking part in a real life fairytale when I attended their wedding. I was still a bit afraid of my remarkable cousin because he had become a man and I was still a gawky little girl, but he was always kind to me in spite of our ten year age difference. 

DD became a banker and was a huge success in that role. He was known as an honest man who went above and beyond the call of duty both for his bosses and his customers. He rose quickly through the ranks while he and Fran created a beautiful life together. Theirs was a love story for the ages resulting in two daughters and a son. Each Christmas Eve they would arrive at my Grandmother’s celebration and be the hit of the crowd. In spite of his success, DD always remained a down to earth and loving member of the family. We in turn celebrated his promotions and sterling reputation, seeing him as a role model of a life well lived. Secretly all of the cousins wanted to grow up to be just like him.

Eventually the age difference between DD and me began to narrow as I too became an adult. We shared more and more in common and I felt less and less intimidated by his greatness. I was able to enjoy quiet conversations with him that told me how much more wonderful he was than I had even imagined. He told me stories about our grandfather who had died before I was born. I learned from DD that he and our grandpa had sat together on Friday afternoons discussing the books that the patriarch of the family brought home at the end of each work week. They’d munch on fresh rye bread and talk about my grandfather’s love of farming and his dream of one day retiring and owning a place in the country. 

DD often mentioned my father as well. He spoke of how much he enjoyed visiting with my Daddy. They would talk about an endless variety of topics including literature and sports. DD said that he often sought my father’s advice and that the two of them were very much in tune with each other. These were things that I never knew and I really appreciated that DD shared such memories with me. Somehow he understood that it was important for me to know more about what my father had been like.

DD was a remarkable man who actually reminded me of my father. Both men were brilliant and gifted with a wide range of talent. They appreciated and collected books, art, music. Both were able to quote entire passages from favorite novels and poems. They were true were Renaissance men. DD was perhaps the most interesting man that I ever knew as an adult. He had an ability to converse about any topic with vast swaths of knowledge. More importantly he possessed a kind of wisdom that is rare. I never talked much around him because I just wanted to listen to whatever he had to say. I always walked away with the feeling that I really mattered to him.

DD was known far and wide as an honorable man. He had a quick wit and sense of humor and a charisma that drew people to him. I suppose that all of my life I was in awe of him and I also loved him so. Somehow it felt very special to be related to someone as extraordinary as he was. He was awesome!

DD eventually developed Parkinson’s disease. For decades his body slowly deteriorated but his mind remained as sharp as ever. His beloved wife Fran remained dedicated to him through the difficult years of watching him grow frail. Eventually he became wheelchair bound and their lives became more and more isolated. Both of them kept up the love for each other and the fight for his health. They carried on with courage and resilience, always finding ways to celebrate even as DD became less and less able to fend for himself. 

The last time I saw DD he sat in his wheelchair barely able to talk. I’m sure he was in pain but he still sat at the table with us like the consummate host. It was difficult for me to witness his state when I new that his genius was trapped inside a body that no longer worked properly. Nonetheless his generosity and kindness and courage was as apparent as ever. The love that he had created in his family was now shared with him as his daughter and son-in-law doted over his every need. Fran was as beautiful and giving as ever.

Dale Delbert (DD) Stewart died this week. I was greatly saddened by his passing but also somewhat relieved that he is no longer suffering. Amongst my great big group of cousins I think he may well have represented the very best of us. He lived life to the fullest and embraced learning and loving every single day. He was a joyful person who brought happiness wherever he went. He was a brilliant man, a devoted husband and father, a true servant of God. I will miss him, but I am comforted by the thought that he is whole again in his heavenly home. I can see him standing tall and handsome and grinning from ear to ear. I am now and forever in awe of my extraordinary cousin DD.

I suspect that every human has at least a tiny bit of tunnel vision. Some have blinders coupled with living in a bubble that make it almost impossible to understand the thinking of people unlike themselves. I suppose that this has always been the case in this great big world of ours. We each grow up in a particular place with certain beliefs that color our thinking about those who are different from ourselves. Bringing us all together is a daunting task that has never been easy. Sometimes fighting for a common cause makes us strange bedfellows and brings about new understandings, but most of the time we tend to stay in our safety zones of thought, hoping and believing that we are doing our very best to be wonderful and kind. In a worst case scenario we are actually guilty of self-righteous behaviors even though our intent all along was to be inclusive and loving. Finding a way of being truly open and loving to one another is not nearly as easy as we would hope it to be. 

There is a great deal of talk about what constitutes love of country, most of which centers on the beliefs of one group or another. I would propose that each faction in its own way truly sees itself as the bastion of democracy. The people who came out for the Black Lives Matter protests sincerely think that our freedoms depend on our ability to recognize the injustices that still exist in our society. Those who wave Trump and American flags insist that we must adhere to laws and traditions if we are to truly honor our Constitution and the American way. Both have devolved into riotous behaviors from time to time because of frustrations that nobody is hearing them. Some among them believe that only force will provide their causes enough attention to foment change. Most of the members of each group only want peaceful demonstrations, but realize that just being silent is too often not enough to bring about change. Each in its own way honestly thinks that they are accomplishing something critically important for the good of our country. Each is guided by a zealous desire to make our nation a better place while the rest of us leave the battles to them because we truthfully just want to be left alone. 

A few nights ago I watched an old movie, Nicholas and Alexandra, based on an historical text written by Robert Massie. In a three hour epic, the film outlined the fall of the three hundred year old Romanov dynasty and the rise of a socialist/communist society in Russia. It focused on the blunders of Tsar Nicholas in underestimating the needs of the people he ruled. It demonstrated the schisms that arise when one group is clinging to a past that is no longer relevant for a huge swatch of the society. Through one miscalculation after another Nicholas abdicated what should have been his role in reforming the ways of governing just as had been done in his cousin’s country of England. 

Nicholas believed that he was chosen by God to rule his people. That idea had been superseded by a powerful Parliament in Great Britain long before. The King of England, Nicholas’ cousin Bertie, was only a figurehead, not the person who determined every aspect of society. When it became more and more apparent that the same thing should happen in Russia if the country was to survive in the modern world, Nicholas stubbornly held on to his power with an iron fist., answering protests from the starving peasants with authoritarian force. He assumed that he knew more about what Russia needed than its people and in the process he lost everything while the country itself fell apart. 

As I see it, there is a great deal of stubbornness and very little willingness to understand one another at play in our country today. Very few people are listening to each other right now. Instead there is more judging and insulting than making attempts to truly hear the concerns of each of the many factions. Perhaps the ways that we are reacting are driven by 24/7 outrage in multiple forms of media. There is so much noise, much of which we ourselves are making, that we tend to move where we can only hear what we want to hear. Like Nicholas we are caught in our own self deceiving bubbles that shelter us from difficult but critical truths.  

From where I stand right now I see a world and a nation in which change is not only inevitable but necessary. History demonstrates that we do indeed progress in positive ways whenever we are willing to take note of our problems and attempt to solve them not just for our own protection and betterment, but for all of the many stakeholders who essentially just want enough justice to feel that they are valued. A wise leader brings as many viewpoints to the table as possible and then actually manages to bring disparate ideas together for the good of everyone. 

Right now we are fighting with one another all too often without being willing to genuinely ask what has made so many of our citizens so angry. What has driven our Black citizens to protest in the streets with an anger that sometimes bursts forth in acts of violence? Why are many of our white citizens so mad and fearful of moving into the future that they would attempt to overthrow the legitimate votes of the people? Why are we in a state of inertia in the halls of Congress? Why does a bipartisan way of legislating seem to be dead? Why are we encouraging a kind of vigilante society in which we turn on one another when we don’t agree? What can we learn from each other that might prevent the potential of a total breakdown of our society? 

Nicholas did not understand what he might have done differently until it was too late. Those who lead a revolution did not see how wrong their total rejection of the government would ultimately be. Our lessons from history should demonstrate that an entrenched unwillingness to face the flaws in our society and work on them together can be fatal. The message we must send to our lawmakers and to one another is that we want to be inclusive and that what really matters is growing the freedoms and quality of life for all people, not just those who appear to be like us.

Every time we have a time change, controversy ensues. Some like having more light in the afternoon and others prefer having light in the morning even if it means getting dark sooner in the evening. Then there are those who just want to choose one of the above and stick with it all year long like the folks in Arizona do. The fact is that there is going to be the same amount of light during the various seasons of the year regardless of whether we have standard or daylight saving time.

For morning people standard time is the bomb. It’s tough to get up when it feels like the middle of the night even for souls who seem to automatically wake up at five in the morning. It’s even worse for children and nothing bothers me more than seeing little ones standing at the bus stop when it is still so dark that the cars have to use their lights. It really seems unnatural and maybe even a bit cruel to watch little folk trudging half asleep into school. Sometimes the smallest ones have to be carried inside wailing that they want to go back home. In cases like that  I cast my vote for standard time so that our smallest folk can sleep until the sun peeks out over the horizon. It seems far more humane than what now takes place for too much of the school year. 

When I was kid the school day did not even begin until almost nine o’clock. I walked to the campus everyday and I don’t ever recall doing that in the dark. By eight thirty when I left home for my journey the sun lit my way and I felt quite rested. I did not know at the time that our bodies react to sunrise by stopping the flow of melatonin in our brains. If it is dark outside when we must awake it is far more difficult than when the sun is shining because our bodies are often still producing a sleep inducing chemical. We have to fight to get the energy to drag ourselves from our beds. Little wonder that there is so much crankiness on those dark mornings of daylight saving time.

The other side of the argument is that people who work end up coming home in the dark when during standard time. By the time they reach their homes they can’t putter in their gardens or just enjoy the sights and sounds of their neighborhoods. They miss the joy of daylight hours and sometimes don’t even see the sun at all in their windowless offices and work areas. Without even a hint of sun all day long they get the winter blues or find trouble sleeping because their internal clocks don’t know what time it is. At least the children have a bit of sun in the afternoon to get doses of vitamin D and their share of happy signals to their brains. Working adults sometimes go months without even a hint of natural light until it is spring and daylight saving time returns. 

It’s been proven that we humans need a certain amount of sunshine each and every day if we are to feel our best. People who live close to the Arctic circle sometimes spend entire days, weeks and months in the dark. It has a disastrous effect on their emotions, their sleep habits and their general well being. We crave sunshine, even if only for a few minutes every day. If we can’t get it naturally we have to seek out artificial light sources or risk becoming depressed or even physically ill. It’s something that our bodies and brains demand. 

I suppose that it’s not particularly good to keep changing back and forth between one time frame and another. Aside from the aggravation of adjusting all of the clocks two times a year, we all know that our bodies rebel each time we add or steal an hour from our day. I suspect that most of us would be far happier if we simply stopped this annoying routine once and for all. As it is, in typical fashion we started this for reasons unbeknownst to most of us. In truth it was not until World War I that the practice first came into being first in Germany and then in the United States.  It was instituted as a way of conserving fuel by minimizing the use of artificial lighting. It became uniform in all states of the USA in 1966. 

An analysis in 200,7 demonstrated that there is no significant preservation of fuel because of daylight saving time. Our modern lifestyles allow us to run appliances and keep our homes lit well into the night. People no longer retire for bed early simply because it is dark. The original rationale for the biannual switch is now essentially moot.

Medical studies have also shown that there is a negative health effect associated with changing the time twice a year. Regardless of which system we are switching to use, there is a correlation of increased visits to hospital emergency rooms for serious health issues like heart attack each time the switch takes place. Our bodies seem to do best when we establish a routine and stay with it.

I suppose that we are victims of the age old rule that once something starts nobody knows how to get rid of it whether it seems to have any purpose or not. We can’t seem to bring ourselves purge meaningless traditions even when most of us don’t like them anymore. It’s too bad that we don’t give the time changes a Marie Kondo kick in the pants. We should seriously consider getting rid of things we do not need. Pick one or pick the other, but don’t keep doing something that has virtually no benefit to any of us.