Month: October 2024

Be a voice not an echo. — Unknown Author

I have a friend who moved from the big city to the country in anticipation of her retirement. She loves the scenic beauty and the quiet but this election year has been a bit difficult for her as she learned that most of her neighbors are ardent Trump supporters. In fact she reports that huge Trump banners stretch across lawns and Trump flags fly in almost every yard. She is a person who appreciates the freedom of belief that we are supposed to have in our nation so she mostly did her best to just ignore the fact that she is surrounded by people who will no doubt be voting differently than she will. 

Since there was so much election enthusiasm around her she decided that it would not be tasteless or threatening to put up a small sign of her own. She procured a Harris/Walz sign and placed it in front of the fence that encircles her backyard. It is many feet from the street and rather unobtrusive compared to the massive displays of her neighbors. It felt good to live in a country where she was able to quietly demonstrate that she will be voting differently than the crowd. Sadly her sign only lasted a matter of hours. When she went outside for an afternoon stroll she noticed that it was gone. 

She was only mildly annoyed, but determined to make her voice heard. She procured a new sign which was also small and proudly placed it far back from the street so as not to be too conspicuous. The next morning when she went outside to drink her morning coffee she noticed that not only was the sign no longer standing where she had placed it, but it had been torn into pieces. and thrown down on the ground. 

At this point she was beside herself and wondered how anyone could be so petty as to send the message that her choices did not matter when she had so courteously driven past the gaudy Trump displays without judgement. She wondered what has happened to our political environment to prompt such ridiculous behavior. She was also curious about who might be so immature to do such a thing so she and her husband installed a couple of game cameras that they own and pointed them toward the third sign that she placed in front of her fence. Surely she would learn that is was just some pranksters looking for a good laugh. 

What the camera revealed was shocking. A woman driving a mini van had the audacity to drive up to the fence and take the sign. Inside her vehicle was a young child in a car seat. As the woman pulled away the camera caught sight of her rear window which sported a decal that was religious in nature. Somehow The incongruence of it all baffled my friend. For those of us hearing about her saga there was a sense of sorrow and perhaps a bit of anger that we have come to such a stage in our political discourse. 

I too have a Harris/Walz sign but it is tucked safely in my backyard where only I can see it from my kitchen window. I fear that if I place it in my front yard someone will drive by and decide to deface my father-in-law’s car that stays parked on the driveway. Maybe they would think to spray paint my house. Taking the sign would be the least horrific thing that they might do, so I avoid trouble by keeping my political allegiance hidden even though I am certain that most of my neighbors agree with me. They won’t be the ones aiming their ire at me. It will be strangers whose anger is so out of line that they would deny me the right to voice of my free speech. 

Four years ago I endeavored to hear the different ideas of friends and family. I asked questions and admittedly attempted to tell them about the research on the issues that I had done. I lost friends and was often insulted. I was determined not to turn on anyone simply because they disagreed with me but I was not always given the same respect. I truly wondered how people who had known me for a lifetime were so quick to turn their backs on me in favor of a man who I am certain does not even know or care that they exist. 

I have a healthier relationship with others who are much more mature. We laugh and joke with each other knowing that our judgements of the issues will never converge. We don’t really understand each other but we continue to love each other even as we each hope that our candidate will win. 

My mother taught me to live and let live. She was a very Catholic woman who nonetheless respected the differing religious beliefs of others. She defended people’s right to their own opinions. While she never once cursed she would have laughed at Tim Walz’ urging that everyone “mind their own damn business.” 

I suppose that I am my mother’s daughter and can’t imagine making rules or laws that invade the most personal aspects of people’s lives. I also will never ever understand how politics can lead to the kind of divisions that are so prevalent these days. I sure would like to feel free to be me and to put my Harris/Walz sign proudly in my front yard but since 2020 I have become quite wary. Nobody has to read my blog. It is tucked quietly on my website that I don’t force anyone to visit. My Facebook wall remains pristine with birthday greetings, happy thoughts and hopefully posts that won’t enrage anyone. I love my friends and family and even when I don’t understand them I refuse to ever turn on them, but I still think that my friend and I should be able to have one small sign without worrying that someone will destroy it or our property. Too bad that it has become a dangerous option to boast a Harris/Walz sign in some parts of a mostly red state. I long to be a voice, not an echo. Somehow I’ve had to learn how to whisper instead.

I was scrolling through Facebook on a leisurely Saturday morning when I came upon a post from my wise friend, Jenn, about motherhood. It was one of those insightful commentaries that literally nailed the silent anxieties of being a mother, a teacher, a caretaker for older parents. One line in particular spoke to the essence of my life, “It’s not the doing that’s exhausting, it’s the thinking for everyone.”

The fact is that the lives of women are so often quietly filled with tasks that might appear to be small or even menial. We are the ones who are constantly planning, preparing, adjusting, making sure that we are ready for any eventuality. We know when the birthdays are and purchase cards and gifts accordingly. We watch the dogs and feed the sick neighbors. We notice the worrisome changes in family members. We plan for Christmas two months ahead of schedule. We quietly fill the pantry with the foods that everyone needs. We lie awake at night when everyone is asleep thinking ahead, remembering the days gone by, wondering if everyone is okay. It is in our natures to be fearful that someone we love is not doing well or needs something that we don’t seem able to give. We may smile and joke even while our hearts are burdened heavily with a thousand tiny concerns. 

I always laugh during my annual check up when my doctor asks me if I have been feeling anxious. My inclination is to tell him that of course I am feeling anxious. I am a mom, a daughter, a sister, a friend, a woman. We always have worries brewing under the surface. We just don’t let them loose most of the time. We have learned how to control them so that we are still able to function as though everything is just fine. It is a learned behavior of mothers and women in general. 

Little girls are always looking around, noticing things. In study after study girls are more likely to notice the nuances of a situation. Boys are curious but focused on one thing at a time. Girls are keenly aware of even the smallest changes in the environment. Perhaps our brains are built to be that way. Maybe we are destined to be the ones who are thinking for everyone. Maybe we are trained to be that way from the time that we are born. Perhaps there is a bit of both nature and nurture in our development. Whatever it is makes life sometimes feel overwhelming in the quiet times when we struggle to slow down our brains and just let things go. 

I saw the difference in men and women in full view when the hostages from Russia returned to the United States. President Biden and Vice President Harris were on the tarmac ready to greet the freed men and women when the plane touched down. President Biden was gloriously happy to see the Americans back home. He eagerly shook hands with them and talked with them, but it was Kamala Harris who looked over and saw their relatives longing to finally hug the loved ones who had been imprisoned and away from them. She interceded and nudged the former prisoners toward their families, smiling and urging them to be reunited. Hers was a typical response, one that all women would recognize. We see not just the big picture, but all of the tiny details. 

I have grown unafraid to voice my worries publicly. I no longer pretend to be totally put together. I want others to know that we are all so much alike in the concerns that we carry beneath the surface of our stoicism and smiles. I now freely cry when the moment hits me. I have learned that my grumpiness in tense situations is normal and quite okay. I allow myself to be imperfect, to make mistakes and admit to them. I have not become wimpy. I have become honest, authentic, and in much better mental health than I once tried to be by stifling the feelings that seemed wrong. 

 I greatly admire heroes like Simone Biles and Michael Phelps who admit to experiencing depression or anxieties. The truth is that we all get discombobulated now and again. Stuffing our feelings inside only creates ulcers and panic attacks. We all get a case of the ‘twisties’ that frighten and disorient us. When we are willing to admit that things are not quite right and we reach out for help we demonstrate great courage. If we tell others about our trials and how we struggled to overcome them, we pave the way for more and more people to be sympathetic to each other and to themselves.

I used to hide most of the concerns that I carried in my heart. I was not willing to tell anyone how much my father’s death derailed me. I rarely mentioned my mother’s mental illness and how difficult it was to care for her. It took me years before I began to crack from the pressure of pretending to be perfect. I remember the day when I finally let go and confided to one of my coworkers who instantly understood how I was feeling and counseled with me on the spot. We became closer than ever because of our human connection and he urged me to be more open all of the time. 

I now know so well that each and every person is working out something in their minds. We women tend to dwell on a million things at a time and often feel reluctant to ask for help. Good health demands that we know our limits. We will be much stronger when we honestly admit our imperfections. We may know that we will never be able to turn off the thinking, but by boldly admitting to our frailties we can find the help that we need to carry on. 

In the aftermath of hurricane Katrina George W Bush, Republican, and Bill Clinton, Democrat, joined together to raise funds to help New Orleans rebuild from the devastation of that storm. I was awed by their willingness to set aside political differences in a common cause for the good of people who had lost so much. It was the kind of effort that I believe demonstrates the compassion and greatness of our nation. 

I witnessed the same kind of cooperation during and after hurricane Harvey that flooded my city and suburban towns with over fifty inches of rain over the course of several days. Everyone living here knew numerous people whose homes filled with many feet of water. We all sat inside our houses watching the incessant rain that never stopped and hearing of friends and family members who had to abandon their neighborhoods and homes walking in waist high water to safety.

People came together both before and after the horror without regard for personal beliefs or preferences. We worked as one to make sure that everyone would be okay. Images of people of many races and religions doing everything possible to insure the safety of others are permanently etched in my mind. I was very proud of my city and the fact that nobody became mired in “them and us” kind of thinking. Republicans and Democrats alike worked for the common good, Religious folks and atheists were as one. No labels prevented the people of the city from working together. 

I also know that the recovery took time, many months in fact. For some it would be years before they once again felt normal. FEMA had offices for the duration, doing its best to help the people both short term and long term,. It was a glorious demonstration of what is the very best about the people of our city and the entire nation because help came from all parts of the United States. 

Today we see people suffering from the devastating effects of hurricane Helene while a new storm called Milton seems to be barreling toward an area in Florida that was already hit by Helene. Meanwhile there are people in Houston still waiting for companies to rebuild their fences and roofs that were damaged in early summer by hurricane Beryl. Climate change has made the exceptional the rule this hurricane season and it’s time that we remember how to work together rather than making a natural disaster a political football game. 

Here are some truths that must be addressed immediately…FEMA is responding as quickly as possible in every case, but is running out of funding due to the high volume of destruction this year. This is not because money was diverted from FEMA to housing for illegals, but only because there have been so many destructive storms this year. Added to that is the fact that almost thirty Republicans voted against a bill that would have provided additional funding to FEMA only days before Helene struck. Now the Speaker of the House, Mike Johnson, refuses to call a special session of Congress to address the monetary needs. Instead he insists that it would be wrong to call back the representatives this close to an election. 

I can’t imagine the kind of thinking it takes for people to create an environment of divisiveness in the midst of an emergency. I am up to my eyeballs in disdain for the partisan gaming that is dividing us into tribes, phony groups of “them and us.” What is the purpose of pulling us apart and making us believe that we can’t work together anymore? 

The trouble seemed to begin during the Covid pandemic when we had politicians making fun of those who wore masks and attempting to demonize the medical community. At a time when we should have been together the epidemic became political. From there it morphed into efforts to force us all to live alike. A kind of hatefulness has tainted our relationships with one another and our willingness to understand and treasure all people, not just those exactly like ourselves. We have a man running for President of the United States with a platform of rancor and outright lies. Now he is using the misfortune of those caught in storms to foment even more hate aimed at innocent groups of people who have done nothing to deserve the danger in which he has placed them. 

This is something that we have to stop. We should all be insisting that our lawmakers work together for the common good, not just to pander to one group or another. We are all people caught in a dangerous storm. It’s time for us to once again have each others’ backs. Mother Nature does not discriminate in its wrath. People are suffering and need us to stop the bickering and just get things done. It will take time so we must have patience as well. We can do this one step at a time with the resolve to help not hinder. Milton is on its way. We must insist that Congress comes together to be prepared for whatever may happen.

My parents were very young and very much in love when my father died. Mama was nineteen when she married and Daddy was twenty one. There was nothing unusual about such a young bride and groom back in the nineteen forties just after the end of World War II. They were part of the generation that experienced the Great Depression as children and a world war as teens. They grew up fast back then, performing adult jobs at much younger ages than teens today. 

My father grew up moving from place to place wherever there was construction work for his father. He would enjoy the relocations and never lost the wanderlust that made him antsy if he stayed in one place for too long. He was a good student from the time he was a young boy and made his parents proud with his academic awards and knowledge of every kind of subject from sports to literature, engineering to architecture, history to mathematics. Reading, fishing, and football were his pastimes and he loved nothing more than his mother, his wife, his children, long time friends and his Texas A&M Aggies.  

Mama was the youngest child of eight children born to her immigrant parents who arrived from Austria Hungary just before the outbreak of World War I. She was beautiful, bright and had a smile that lit up rooms. To say she had charisma is an understatement. She grew up in a tiny house not far from downtown Houston and had only once ventured far from home before she met my father. She was the apple of her mother’s eye and my father’s as well. He claimed that he fell for her the first time she flirted with him when they worked together at the same company. She boasted that she set her cap for him because he was intrigued by the quiet young man who was studying to be an engineer. 

They were a set of complementary bookends, perfect in the ways that they brought out the best in each other. While my father was known for his genius and intellect, Mama was every bit his equal and he treasured her wit and her willingness to understand his dreams. They were best buddies who were very much in love. 

My mother began driving when she was nine years old. She was not afraid of the devil himself and worked as a telephone operator on a switchboard and as a secretary for judges and college professors before she was even twenty one years old. Once I came along she settled into the traditional role of a wife and mother, never once seeming to miss having a career. I always thought that my father’s joy of talking about the newest thing he had read or learned kept her mind active even as she devoted herself to the duties of a housewife. 

Together my parents created a kind of fairytale life for me and my brothers. At least that was how it seemed until the last year of my father’s life when even I as child felt tension building in the quiet unspoken moments. We embarked on a journey of promise to California that would end in a kind of hell. It was a tough year for everyone, including my baby brother who reacted with long crying bouts that seemed to be inconsolable. What had seemed like a dream opportunity for my parents turned out to be less than happy for any of us. We were soon heading back to Texas in a kind of personal odyssey that seemed so uncertain. Then came a ray of hope again and my parents seemed to heel quickly from the anxieties that had marked the circular journey. 

We were back in Houston and my father had a job that was providing him with contentment once again. Mama was singing and dancing and the two of them were holding hands wherever they went. The world seemed so right as we looked for a home to purchase and had seemingly settled on one that was lovely. My young parents of thirty and thirty three were going to celebrate their eleventh anniversary and Mama’s birthday with a kind of relief that everything was looking rosier than it had in months. 

My mother spent the day before my father died preparing to launch the summer vacation with a family gathering at the beach. She baked cakes and prepared her famous baked beans. She made her special recipe barbecue sauce for Daddy to use when he grilled the burgers the following day. Of course her delicious potato salad was already chilling in the refrigerator along with the soft drinks that would fill our ice chest the following morning. The joy that had always marked our family was in full bloom as we anticipated a future that seemed so bright. 

Of course, not of that was to be. My father was in a car accident and did not make it home. The unreality of it still haunts me today. The gift that he had purchased for my mother for their anniversary was waiting on the top of a table. The card that he had slipped into the mailbox to demonstrate his undying love for her was on its way. They lamps that he was going to give her as a surprise one her birthday only needed one more payment to come home. Life was so normal and then it was not. 

My mother never fell out of love with my father, nor did I. He was one of a kind, and we never found a replacement for him. He would dwell in our minds when we listened to his music, pored over his books, gazed at the engineering projects he had completed. We kept watching Texas Aggie football and loyally cheering for the team. We recounted his jokes and the things that he had taught us. We gazed at the photo that showed the joy that existed between him and my mother. She kept his spirit alive and well and reminded me and my brothers of how much he loved us all. I was just old enough to know that she spoke the truth.

My parents were both quite incredible. My father will forever be a young man. My mother grew into her old age. Somehow though I think of them together and I remember their laughter and their joy in sharing music and travel and family. I am content in knowing how wonderful they both were and how loved they made me feel.     

I recently viewed a video of a group of teachers watching the debate between Tim Walz and J. D. Vance. When Walz challenged Vance to answer whether or not Donald Trump had accepted his loss in 2020, Vance attempted to use an elaborate word salad to downplay the series of events leading to the January 6 storming of the Capitol. As the educators listened to Vance’s  meandering and wishy washy response they began to cackle in disbelief. Their reaction demonstrated their important ability to recognize BS when they see or hear it and I too laughed in total unity with them. 

Anyone well versed in history knows that there are often attempts to downplay past wrongdoings by dressing them in misleading descriptions. The American Civil War has been sometimes portrayed as a group of southern states fighting for and losing a glorious cause. The facts demonstrate something far different, however. The secession documents all of the Confederate states point to slavery as the main cause of the rift between the Union and the Confederacy. Letters, speeches and editorials all point to preservation of slavery as the driving force of the split, but post war many myths arose to soften the reality of what had happened. 

So too it is with the events of January 6, 2020 and the involvement of Donald Trump. Eye witnesses can see and hear with their own eyes that it was an attempt to overthrow the election results that was led by Trump from even before the votes had been counted. It is a fact that Donald Trump strong armed multiple people, including then Vice President Mike Pence to change the slate of electors in his favor. When he realized that Pence was unwilling to conspire with him, he then taunted his followers to riot. 

Luckily our democracy survived. Mike Pence and Nancy Pelosi performed their duties as described in the Constitution and Joseph Biden became the President of the United States. In the meantime four years of attempting to hold Donald Trump accountable for his transgressions have been thwarted by political gaming and a total revision of what actually happened in the aftermath of the 2020 election. Now we have Trump followers asking us to believe that he did nothing wrong in spite of the mountains of evidence to the contrary. The gaslighting of the nation has been so successful that Trump now appears to have another shot at regaining the White House and wiping the stain of his actions from history as though they never happened. 

While the video of the teachers laughing at Vance’s bold evasion of the truth made me laugh, the situation in which we find our country makes me angry and anxious. I truly fear that so many people have been misled that a traitor to everything that is sacred about our nation may regain the highest office in the land. Such would be a travesty, a low point and danger in our country and way of life. I am not certain that our nation would be able to endure having a bonafide traitor and liar in the White House, especially one who is so prone to lying to the people for his own power. 

There is no other issue that needs to be discussed in this watershed moment! Nothing is more important than holding Donald Trump accountable for his criminal acts for the purpose of overthrowing votes of the American people. He was willing to disregard the Constitution and the laws of the land to take down the government. He has spent the last four years making absurd claims and growing more and more frightening in the process. His criminality and instability make him unfit for any office, much less being the leader of our nation. 

I have attempted to hold back my language and sense of urgency because Trump himself spouts enough hyperbole to fill the universe. I have tried to quietly and logically inform people of the dangers that lie ahead if Trump wins this election. I had hoped that by now his support would be dwindling as people seriously listened to him and his running mate Vance. Instead he remains unremittingly believed and supported by a large population of voters. In some cases he is even revered as the only hope of our nation. 

There are indeed problems in our nation today. There are always issues that need to be addressed. The economy is persistently in our thoughts. Our strength on the world stage is a topic that never goes away. We have avoided serious discussions of immigration for decades but know that we cannot continue to do nothing. We have been unserious and far too contentious with each other as Donald Trump leads the attempts to tear us apart. We must vote for the very heart and health of our nation. No other issue matters! If we want the United States of America to survive we have to send Donald Trump and those who are following and lying for him a clear message. We must demonstrate that those who would destroy our democracy or ignore our Constitution are not welcome! Donald Trump must be shunned as the traitor and criminal that he truly is. 

My words are strong because I have reached the point of understanding how dangerously close we are of being swindled by a grifter who does not care about us or the United States of America. We cannot allow Donald Trump to get his way once again. We must not pretend that January 6 was just a little misunderstanding that does not matter when it is everything! 

Please think about our country. Please vote for what is right and just. We can worry about those other issues later. For now we are the only ones who can save our nation. That means voting for Kamala Harris and Tim Walz. The time for putting country first is now!