Month: March 2022

Bonita means “beautiful” in Spanish and Portuguese. It is also a name often given out of love and delight for a baby girl. I don’t know exactly why Bonita Brocco Maglitto Doss’ parents called her by that name, but I do know that it was the perfect appellation for a youngster who would grow up to be lovely both inside and out. 

Bonita attended Mt. Carmel High School when I was there. She was in the class behind me, so I did not know her very well. We did little more than exchange smiles in the hallway. She was always so pleasant with lovely blue eyes that twinkled with a welcoming kindness each time she saw me. She was a very pretty girl who seemed unaware of how lovely she actually was. I knew that she was a member of the Carmel Cadettes drill team, but little more than that. I simply instinctively understood the way we humans do that she was a sweet and caring person. 

It would be almost fifty years before I saw Bonita again. I attended a memorial celebration of the life of one of my classmates and when i arrived Bonita motioned for me to share a spot at her table. You would have thought that we had been the best for friends by observing the warmth of her welcome. I knew who she as immediately because I recognized that smile of hers. We settled into a long and comfortable conversation about how much we loved, Cindy, the woman who had died. We shared stories about our children and the general tenor of our lives. We spent almost two hours chatting in the most comfortable way.

I could not help but notice how incredibly beautiful Bonita still was. In fact, she seemed to have grown even more striking as she had aged. Her beautiful eyes were like windows to her soul and through them I saw her compassion and knew that I liked her so very much. When she turned her head just right it felt as though I was conversing with Elizabeth Taylor and I would almost gulp at the realization that Bonita was still so humble about her appearance. What seemed to matter most to her was making people fell comfortable and important. She certainly did that for me.

I did not get to see Bonita in person again after that meeting, but we became friends on Facebook. I enjoyed the optimism of her uplifting posts. I saw that she was always positive and supportive of everyone, even when their views differed from hers. It also became apparent that many many people loved her very dearly, no doubt because of her innate goodness and loving nature. I was happy to be among those who had earned a place among her friends. 

Bonita struggled with health issues in her final days, but she never seemed to lose her positivity even when she had to have one of her legs amputated. She had a fighting spirit that showed in the determination etched on her face. She was not willing to give in to sadness or self pity. Instead she dressed up in her finery and went to parties with her dearest friends and family sitting tall and bravely in her wheelchair. She was determined to be a shining light for the world to the very end and she accomplished that with aplomb. 

Bonita was quite special. She must have been so even when she was born. Her parents saw her beauty and throughout her lifetime the rest of us would see it as well. Her face was lit up by her extraordinary soul. She gave of herself with all of her heart and that openness will be missed by everyone who knew her. The world has suffered a great loss with her passing.  

Bonita’s closest friends from high school are no doubt devastated by her death. It’s not too often that any of us are lucky enough to have an encounter with someone as exceptional as she was. I will always remember our silent passings in the hallways of our school. Every single time our paths crossed felt her genuineness. I knew that I was quite fortunate when fate put us together once again when we were grown and had experienced life in the fullness of trials and tribulations.

Bonita is with God and the angels now. Those of us left behind smile at the thought that she is reunited with her loved ones and that all of her pain and suffering is gone. We hope that one day we will see her again in her heavenly home. Until then we will have memories of a woman who seemed to always know exactly how to make the people around her feel happy and safe and loved, a woman who lived up to her name in every way.

May God comfort Bonita Brocco Maglitto Doss’ family and her many many friends. Hers was a beautiful heart in our lives. 

My childhood was quiet and predictable. Weekdays were devoted to school. Weekends meant that I visited with my grandparents and went to church. In between I would help my mom clean the house, fold laundry and accompany her on errands. When summertime game the big deal was sleeping late, swimming in one of the city pools and engaging in games with neighborhood friends. By the age of fifteen I varied the routine by working on weekends and in the summer. Once in a while the family would go out to eat or to visit one of my aunts or uncles. Mostly I lived in a comfortable little bubble filled with loving and caring people, so I never really felt that I needed more excitement in my life. Moving five times during third grade and then losing my father in a car accident at the end of the school year provided me with enough adventure to last a lifetime. 

My years as a newly wed and then a mother and working woman followed a similar pattern. I carved out my life to a routine that allowed me to take care of all of the people in my life and find contentment for myself. Excitement consisted mostly of spending wonderful evenings with good friends or going to movies, with a summer camping trip thrown into the yearly mix. Life centered around family, close friends, work. Those really were the best of times.

I’ve had my share of extravagant trips, glorious dining experiences, and live performances from my favorite entertainers, but mostly I have tended to prefer small gatherings with interesting people rather than raucous affairs. I like long conversations and challenging discussions around my dining table or in the comfort of my great room. I’ve been more than blessed to have partaken in such memorable moments during my lifetime while sipping on a cup of coffee or a glass of wine. Sitting around Pat and Bill’s kitchen table or lounging in lawn chairs by Egon and Marita’s pool are some of the happiest memories that I have. Munching on Monica’s homemade goodies while Franz stoked a campfire is a joy in the repository of my mind. Laughing with Linda and Bill while our children ran wild kept me going whenever the going got tough. 

Such gatherings brought me the greatest joy, so I have often imagined what it might be like to share an intimate conversation with a celebrity. I always thought that I would most probably just listen to whatever that person had to say, soaking in the wisdom and knowledge that he or she had to offer. Little did I suspect that my grandson Andrew’s Christmas gift for me and my husband would turn into such a remarkable version of my fondest wish. 

Andrew told us on Christmas day that he wanted to take us to one of the performances of the Houston Symphony at Jones Hall. He instructed us to look at the spring calendar and find the event that most intrigued us. He would then purchase tickets for all of us to attend. 

It was a delightful idea made even better by the fact that we have gone out very little in the past two years, so we were eager to scan the list of concerts remaining in their season. To our great joy we saw that Ihtzak Perlman was one of the guests who would be coming to our town. We immediately contacted Andrew and told him that we had made our choice. He purchased tickets and we waited for the day to come. 

We had fun dressing better than we have in months. We were almost giddy as we readied ourselves for the occasion. Going downtown was an adventure because we had mostly been staying at home. Our planned lunch before the event went a bit south because so many workers at the restaurant had called in sick that the only offering they had was a buffet that looked as though it had been prepared from boxes of frozen leftovers. Nonetheless, we did not care about the food or the fact that the live jazz ended up being “Larry the Lounge Lizard” playing on a small keyboard because we were overjoyed to spend time with Andrew just talking. 

We finally sauntered over to Jones Hall and found our seats only to realize that the sole items on the stage were a grand piano, a small table and a huge screen. It was a remarkable and unexpected sight until the screen lit up with an image of Ed Sullivan who announced, “Ladies and gentlemen welcome Ihtzak Perlman.” Then out came Mr. Perlamn on his scooter to resounding applause and a standing ovation. 

Ihtzak proceeded to tell us the story of his life and his rise to fame as one of the great violinists of our time. He began with the tale of his parents leaving Poland in the early 1930s, and of their life in Israel before he was born. He laughed at how his mother and father had always believed he was a genius, and so they began music lessons for him when he was still a toddler. He peppered his story with performances of music that he had played during his lifetime as he became more and more adept at making his violin sing like the sound of angels. 

Ihtzak Perlman was funny, self deprecating, honest and sincere. He spoke with a soft voice that had the lilt of someone who was happy with the way his life had been. He told us about contracting polio and how life changing that illness had been, but he did so without pitying himself. He showed us how full his journey had been and how love and music had made it wonderful. His face was kind and seemingly more interested in making us all feel comfortable and happy than impressing us. I found myself liking him as a person and admiring him as an artist. The time was so intimate that it felt like he was in my great room and that he was a dear friend. 

By the end of the performance I felt that I deeply knew the man and his music. Of course I wanted more, but as with all such encounters the end had come. He played his solo from the soundtrack for Schindler’s List and tears rolled down my cheeks as my emotions overtook me. The sound of his violin spoke to my heart and I knew that that it was because the strings were being guided by an man who was a gift for us all.

It was a quiet afternoon sitting between my husband and my eldest grandson listening to a great man share his story and his art. I could not think of any place on the earth that I would have rather been. It was a gift that I will forever hold in my heart. 

I think that we too often forget that our place here on earth is communal. There are too many of us to simply ignore our impact on each other and on nature. As the world’s population grows it becomes more and more apparent that each of our individual actions have a multiplying effect on the general condition of the environment in which we live. While there may have been a time in the long ago when the rugged individualist did not have to worry about how his/her actions created change, it is rare for anyone to be so isolated now that actions do not produce a ripple effect. How we act and react brings about inevitably influences the general welfare of our planet and its people and living creatures. The butterfly flapping its wings in our backyard ultimately has far reaching implications. 

Today marks the two year anniversary of the moment when I became fully aware of the worldwide Covid pandemic. The day before I had joyfully spent the afternoon with my brothers and sister-in-laws enjoying a delightful lunch and a competitive game of strategy. During our sojourn we spoke of upcoming adventures to Turkey, Greece and Scotland that we had planned. We laughed unaware of how much our world would soon change while munching on a delightful dessert that my sister-in-law had baked for us. 

Later that evening my husband and I attended the Houston Rodeo Barbecue competition that is a raucous affair of locals vying for recognition as the best roasters of all forms of meat. A dear friend and her family have been staples of the affair for decades and she always invites us to join in the festivities that launch the huge rodeo extravaganza that is the highlight of the Houston entertainment scene. 

As usual there were thousands of people flocking to tents filled with the aroma of brisket, sausage, chicken, potato salad, beans and lots of alcoholic beverages. Music blared from every corner of the vast landscape and everyone was in a jovial mood. We met up with old friends and enjoyed a sojourn filled with delightful food and lots of laughter. The future seemed bright and filled with so many possibilities for all of us. 

The very next day my sister-in-law sent me a text to inform me that some people that she knew had returned from a trip to China feeling sick. They had one by one come down with some disturbing symptoms and were worried about what they might have caught during their travels. She suggested that I be alert to any news about a virus with the potential to invade our city. 

I immediately began researching the topic and learned that indeed there was a strange illness that was slowly moving into different countries by way of people who had recently travelled. I found out that nursing homes and cruise ships in the western United States were reporting outbreaks of a new kind of virus that seemed to be highly contagious and often quite lethal. Heeding advice from the information I had gathered I invested in a few N-95 face masks and stocked up on supplies in case my husband and I got sick. Then there were announcements on the local news about the people that my sister-in-law had described. They were very sick with a novel coronavirus and some had been hospitalized.

As a mathematics teacher I know the dramatic effects of exponential growth. Within days after the first cases were found in Houston the numbers of people getting sick had grown to alarming numbers. Soon the whole country was reporting signs of being affected by the virus that we would come to know as Covid-19. It was brutally attacking older people and those with weak immune systems. In Italy the stories of the sick and dying were grim. Hospitals began to be overwhelmed and the cases and deaths mounted as I checked the Johns Hopkins website that was tracking the spread of the virus. 

My husband and I went into a kind of self imposed lockdown because we are older and he has heart disease. We lived inside the cocoon of our homes for weeks and then months. We took rides in our car and planned trips that allowed us to keep our distance from potential infection by using our trailer. It was a sad time but we made the best of it, adapting with each new turn of the disease. We met outside and from a distance with members of our family and held frequent Zoom meetings to stay in touch with one another. We managed to have an outdoor Thanksgiving with two of our grandsons and celebrated Christmas around a campfire at my youngest daughter’s house. We stayed well but another daughter’s family came down with Covid and my daughter became particularly and frighteningly ill. Her son would appear to have a mild case but the long term lingering effects would haunt him for well over a year. Still we felt proud that we had done our part not just to keep each other well, but also those around us. We agreed that it was wonderful to see all of the people on earth seeming to sacrifice for the welfare of everyone else. 

When the vaccines became available I fought hard to get me and my husband inoculated as soon as possible. I cried tears of joy on the February day when we both had our second dose of the Moderna shot. It had been almost exactly one year since that lovely day when we had been with our family and friends. Somehow we thought that everyone would volunteer to take the jab just as they had done back in the fifties when society waged a war on polio. That’s when the fissures between us began to become more and more dramatic. 

Suddenly doctors and nurses were no longer being celebrated as heroes. Large numbers of the population shunned the vaccine for various and sundry reasons, some of which were political, religious, or out of fear that the shot might be worse than the virus.  A tension built between those of us who were fully vaccinated, still wearing masks, and taking general precautions by avoiding crowds and distancing ourselves indoors. A kind of battle ensued with one side insisting on personal liberties and another arguing that that we have responsibilities for the health of each other that should eclipse our individual desires. The ire between the two ways of thinking grew and grew as the virus mutated and claimed more and more lives. 

The pull and tug and rancor has only grown with governments and even private businesses losing control over the situation. We have learned that the virus is not willing to defer to our personal wishes and that it is determined to survive. Many question our medical community and the efficacy of the vaccines and the treatments for those who become ill with Covid. The divisions have often times become ugly as we each attempt to survive the moment in our various ways. 

The last many months have been very sad for me. I had always believed that we were a generous and flexible country that would happily join together to fight the pandemic together, and we did for a time. Unfortunately we lost our patience and our will to compromise, be flexible, attempt to understand our various needs, and show compassion for those among us who are the most vulnerable. We have surely lost our way when we cheer efforts to waylay the economy or make demands on our medical communities and schools that are dangerous and unfair. Still I remain the eternal optimist. I want to believe that we will overcome our worldwide tantrums and begin to work together again for the good of all. It is what I pray for on the two year anniversary of my life in a world dominated by Covid 19.