Month: June 2025

I know a bit about what depression looks like. My mother suffered from bipolar disorder and whenever the depressive aspect of that illness hit her she seemed to fade away as a person. Her usual optimism turned into a morose fear of everything and everyone around her. She would close her blinds and pull her drapes shut, creating an oppressive darkness even on a sunny day. She and her home became disheveled and she would cry for reasons that even she was not able to explain. Her depression was clinical, the result of a disease that overtook her capacity to cheer up. Without medication she sank deeper and deeper into a morass of unexplained darkness. 

Mama’s doctors had to be careful because her bipolar disorder had two sides. Left untreated the depression would eventually advance into a manic euphoria that was even more dangerous than her sadness. When she reached part two of her illness she felt invincible but her ideation was reckless and fueled by an inability to stop the racing of her brain. She was unable to sleep or to concentrate on even the simplest of tasks. Her speech was rushed and the words she strung together made little sense. When she was out and about she sometimes frightened people who did not know her. How were they to understand that she was a gentle soul even in her moments of great sickness of the mind? 

Hers was an extreme malfunction of her brain that most times could be remedied with psychotropic medications. Sadly finding the ones that worked was tricky and often her body would adjust to what seemed to be the perfect fix only to leave her and her doctors searching for yet another remedy. Her treatments all too often left her with side effects that worried her like gaining weight even though she ate like a bird. Sometimes her legs would swell or her tongue would begin to twitch. Then is was time to once again try something new. Little wonder that she often grew weary of the chronic battles and tossed her medications aside only to repeat the worst renderings of her disease over and over again in the forty plus years when bipolar disorder stalked her. 

When my mother was doing well she became her old self again, her true self. She was kind and delightful to be around. There have been few people on this planet as generous and thoughtful as she was. She spent her days and what little money she had making people happy even as many of her old friends and acquaintances drifted away, wary of encountering her in the midst of a bipolar meltdown. 

I have not known many people as truly religious as my mother was. She read her Bible daily and lived the truest Christian life possible. She never judged anyone, even those who had wronged her. She was filled with the kind of love and generosity that Jesus Himself would have appreciated. She believed that all people had value and so too did their beliefs. She was quite respectful of differences and urged me and my brothers to follow her example in so unconditionally loving the people around us. 

Those who knew my mother well and who stayed with her even in the toughest times understood that her bipolar disorder did not define her. They realized her intelligence, her wisdom and her clear understanding of people. I remember my father-in-law’s second wife gushing that she and my mother “got each other.” She commented that few people were as perceptive as my mom. 

My husband’s mother also had high praise for Mama. She told me at one time to always remember that my mom was one of the most extraordinary people to ever walk on the earth. I suppose that I always knew that but I would become so frightened when my mother was really sick and my frustrations would focus on the mask of her illness rather than the essence of her soul. I needed those reminders from people to keep from only seeing the horror of her disease. 

I was admittedly weary by the time my mother died at the age of eighty four. I had been attempting to keep her in a state of good mental health for over forty years by then. It had been sometimes overwhelming and exhausting even with the help of my two brothers who also championed her cause. It was most amazing and miraculous that her mind was as clear as it had ever been in the last hours of her life. There was no sign whatsoever of the horrific disease that that stalked her for so long. The mother who was saying goodbye to us was the beautiful gracious tower of strength who had guided and protected us through our childhood. Having her fully with us was a gift from God Himself. 

I am still an advocate for those with mental illness. As a society we are quite far from fully supporting  and understanding the individuals who are afflicted with such diseases of the mind. They all too often become isolated and spurned rather than loved and appreciated. We lose our patience with them and turn our back on their suffering. I would like to believe that one day miracles would take place for them much as they have for those with heart disease or cancer. For the sake of incredible people like my mother we have to keep urging society to invest in keeping good people well. We will all benefit from having them healthy among us. 

Mama was oft misunderstood but somehow she never allowed the ugliness of others to change the beauty that was so much a part of her heart. Look for the others among you who will do so much better if you stick with them rather than turning away. They need our love and our support.

My mother possessed a most interesting appearance. Her hair was a raven colored black that she never needed to dye even as she lived into her eighties. Her eyeswere a deep brown like a just brewed cup of coffee. He skin was an olive hue that grew darker whenever she spent time in the sun. She was an exotic beauty who often confused people when they attempted to determine her race or nationality. 

A Jewish friend insisted that Mama was descended from one of the tribes of Israel. A Black neighbor wondered aloud why so many white people came to visit my mom. Italians compared her to Sophia Loren. People from the Middle East commented that she must surely have had ancestors from their neck of the woods. She was a chameleon who some people thought resembled Queen Elizabeth. She joked that she should have been a character actress because she could have been made to look like hundreds of different people. 

Perhaps the strangest thing about my mother’s appearance is that it contrasted so amazingly with her sisters. They all boasted blonde hair and blue eyes. One might have thought she was adopted save for the fact that she looked very much like her brothers. Whatever the case she always reminded me that you can’t really tell where someone originated simply by looking at them. Each person is indeed unique and a combination of many different iterations of DNA. To classify a person simply on outward features is to miss the importance of celebrating the beautiful variety of people on this earth. 

I suspect that if my mother had grown up in Europe and under the control of the Nazis during Hitler’s regime she might have caught the eye of someone wondering if she belonged in one of the camps set aside for Jews and Gypsies and individuals who were deemed unfit to pollute the gene pool. If they had been privy to today’s genetic information they would have realized that she indeed had a tiny bit of Eastern European Jew in her background. Would that have made her a candidate for being sent away from the rest of society? Would her bipolar disorder have been noted resulting in her death at the hands of grotesque individuals?

I have been thinking more and more of such things now that people seem to be randomly scooped from the streets of our cities simply because they appear to share the physical qualities of Hispanics. She certainly had many of those characteristic features so it would not be far fetched to think that someone might turn her in as a prospective illegal. Of course she would have been able to ultimately prove that she was born here in the United States but her mother was an immigrant who never became a citizen. Would the current administration question whether birth gave my mother the right to enjoy all of the perks of being a citizen? 

We talk about laws and rules but rarely get down to the worth of each individual. I know that a truly religious person should value every person who walks on this earth but sadly many who profess to be devout Christians find little or no fault in targeting anyone who has dark features or an accent or the inability to speak English as someone who must be sent away. They are eager to push such people from our country no matter how that is done. They do not seem to view the people being targeted as individuals much like themselves who only want the opportunity to work and be free. Those are after all qualities after which most of us aspire. 

I saddens me that my Puerto Rican father-in-law now carries his passport with him at all times as proof that he has been an American citizen from the time he was born. He constantly points out that he is whiter than some people with Nordic features. It is as though people have somehow taught him that looking white provides advantages that even dark people like my mother may not have received. I wonder why in the twenty-first century we are still placing a value on the shade of a person’s skin or the language that they speak. Surely we are advanced enough to understand that such differences from person to person are trivial and actually make the world so much more interesting than if than if we all looked and behaved exactly the same. 

I long for a time which I will probably never see in which we see the beauty of every single person. I think of how much happier everyone would be if we just stopped comparing and making judgements about each other. Taking the time to get to know someone is so much better than ranking folks on trivial characteristics. My mother was beautiful just as she was and she never had to be this or that for everyone to see that it was so. We are all beautiful and that should not be so hard to see.

My grandfather had a repertoire of stories from his childhood that were always entertaining. He particularly spoke of growing up with his grandmother who took care of him after his own mother died in childbirth. His tales of life in rural Virginia at the end of the nineteenth century provided a view into both his past and his personality which was always a bit mischievous. 

On one occasion his grandmother was hosting a little party for some of her lady friends. She instructed young Bill, my grandfather, to play outside and stay out of trouble while she entertained. Because he was not the least bit interested in small talk with a bunch of older women, he was happy to be outdoors exploring. That’s when he noticed an old rotting log lying in such a way as to tempt him. He would later insist that he only intended to provide his grandmother with firewood, but what he really enjoyed was the idea of breaking the gigantic log apart.

Without thinking about any unintended consequences he began beating on the rotten wood with a large tree branch that he found lying on the ground nearby. It was fun to watch the chips of wood fly into the air as the weak spots on the log gave way to his force. His success in creating a crack compelled him to keep going with his task. Soon enough the massive trunk blew wide open and freed a nest of bees that had been creating a home for themselves inside. 

The insects swarmed around Bill and began stinging him on every part of his body. Not knowing what to do he ran for a nearby pond shedding his clothing as he raced toward the place that he hoped would provide him with relief from the relentless and angry bees. By the time he reached the water he was buck naked but he didn’t care because once he dove into the water the bees flew away. 

The ladies had convened outside after hearing all of the hollering and commotion. They were curious about what had happened to the boy. When he rose from the water in his birthday suit they all gasped and began making excuses to go home. Meanwhile Bill’s grandmother stood with her hands firmly planted on her hips and an expression on her face that told him that he was in big trouble. She wanted to know why he had done such a stupid thing without even thinking about what may happen. She wanted to know why he had destroyed the peace and joy of her party. 

I have been thinking about my grandfather’s story ever since I heard about Trump’s decision to bomb Iran without conferring with Congress or even considering what may result from his unilateral decision. Somehow I feel that he has created the possibility of horrific consequences resulting from his rashness. Instead of bringing peace to the world as he claims, it feels more like he has endangered all of us in this nation for reasons that need not have happened. Now we are all standing wet and naked wondering what the Iranians will do in response to his ill considered actions. 

It is difficult to imagine that any country in the world would not think that what Trump has done to Iran was a declaration of war. Which nation would not be inclined to fight back after such an incident? It seems that Trump has released a dangerous nest of trouble when he should have thought a bit more before taking it on himself to put us all in danger. Surely he now understands how heightened the possibility of terrorism has become when even his own Department of Homeland Security has declared the danger to be real. 

Right now anyone who is worried has cause. The Department of Homeland Security is on the verge of running out of funding because of the ridiculous immigration raids and quotas that they have funded. Hurricane season is here and there are strong hints that any place being hit may not receive the usual assistance that has helped people to rebuild in the past. A twenty two year old with no experience whatsoever has been put in charge of terrorism while Trump insists that we are on the verge of world peace. He complains that he has never received the Nobel Peace prize in spite of his many efforts to make the world safer, expecting us to believe that we are in much better shape than we were before he bombed a nation that has rarely been known for its live and let live attitude. At the same time he has flaunted the law and demonstrated extreme cruelty to immigrants many of whom were attempting to follow the laws.

I sincerely hope that all will end well but experience tells me that Trump has really messed up this time. I hope that my nightmares will not become real. I’d like to believe that my concerns will all be unfounded but somehow past experience tells me that a small man playing soldier has done something really terrible without thinking, and now he and our nation are standing exposed. 

Two women have left this earth and I find myself grappling with the loss. They were both people who brightened my days with their smiles, their optimism, their intellect, and their courage. Oddly enough I had no personal contact with them in the past five years, but they kept me smiling and feeling good about the world with their uplifting posts on Facebook.

Mary Ann Gorham attended that same high school that I did. She was a year ahead of me and I had little interaction with her until rather recently. I had been good friends with her sister, Frances, who was in my class. Frances and I had both been twirlers during our junior high days and we enjoyed many wonderful times and memories back then. 

We lost track after high school but seemed to pick up right where we had left off at our fiftieth class reunion. Mary Ann had accompanied Frances to the event and we felt an instant kinship with each other. The two of us immediately began to communicate regularly on Facebook and soon realized how much we had in common. We enjoyed many years of trading stories and making plans to get together in person but one thing after another stalled our plans including the Covid epidemic. Nonetheless I felt close to Mary Ann and I really fell apart when I learned of her death. Somehow it felt unfair that someone was taken at such a young age. I had hoped that we had many more years of developing our friendship.

On the day of Mary Ann’s funeral I came down with a rather daunting stomach virus that insured that I would not be able to drive across town to honor her. I wanted to tell her sister, Frances, how much I enjoyed the banter with Mary Ann and how she had often supported me with her comments on my posts. It all made me think of how we all too often talk about getting together but become too busy to make it happen. It is a regret that will haunt me. 

I was barely coping with the death of Mary Ann when I learned that Dr. Kylene Beers had also died. Once again I was stunned. It felt as though someone had punched the air out of me and I tried to explain to my husband through tears why Kylene was so special to me because he had never met her or heard me mention her. 

I first met Kylene Beers at a teachers’ convention. She was presenting a session on working with students who struggle to read. While it might have seemed strange for a mathematics teacher to attend a short seminar on the difficulties that some people have with reading, I knew that many of my students’ trouble with math came from the inability to read and comprehend well. I wanted to know what I might do to assist them in overcoming this kind of roadblock to their progress. 

Kylene was stunning and her suggestions prompted me to view my job as a math teacher differently. She helped me to understand that for some students it is not their knowledge of mathematical algorithms that is the stumbling block but rather their ability to know when and how to apply the rules. Reading often holds learners back so they end up hating math and telling themselves that they can’t do well when numbers are involved. Kylene showed me that there are many ways to teach reluctant learners how to take the building blocks of words apart to reach the understanding that they need to apply the methodologies of math. 

After that initial encounter I followed Kylene as her fame grew. She ultimately earned a PhD at the University of Houston and wrote books that I purchased and read with zeal. She opened her heart to educators everywhere by creating a Facebook page dedicated to enriching our knowledge of how to make reading accessible to everyone. I and hundreds of others followed her almost religiously. She was a gifted teacher and writer who always had a way of approaching even difficult topics with clarity and honesty.

I remember a time when she was quite disturbed that a book about Ruby Bridges, the young girl who integrated an elementary school in Arkansas in the early civil rights era, had been banned. A mother had complained that the story made her daughter feel sad. Kylene ferociously but ever so politely responded to the the mother in a letter that she hoped might reach the person who seemed to misunderstand the purpose of such books. In it she spoke of the courage of Ruby Bridges not just when she was a child but later as she became an adult. Kyene revealed that she and Ruby Bridges had become friends over the years and she proceeded to explain how remarkable Ms. Bridges became in spite of the prejudices that threatened to stymie her. Then Kylene praised the mother who had complained about the book by pointing out that Ruby’s story had made the child sad because she had obviously been taught to be beautifully compassionate. Kylene finished by declaring that reading has the power of helping to develop our best instincts.

Dr. Kylene Beers inspired me with her willingness to always stand up for those who were struggling. Mary Ann Gorham extended her friendship to me with a generous heart. They were both women who made my world better each day. I can’t imagine not hearing from them anymore. So many times they helped me to understand how truly good humans can be. With their deaths I have lost two people who uplifted my heart. Their memories will certainly be a blessing to me.

On April 19, two hundred fifty years ago, the American Revolution officially began when colonists fired on British soldiers at Lexington and Concord. The stories of who actually started the forays vary depending on what side of the disagreement the eye witnesses fell. Despite the uncertainty there seemed to be no turning back as members of the thirteen colonies felt they had enough of the erratic and often unfair behavior of the King of England. 

Not every colonist agreed with the idea of fighting for freedom. Some of my husband’s ancestors fled to Newfoundland for the duration of of the war that would ensue. My folks who were here took part in the battles. Captain Thomas Smith, my grandfather many times removed, represented the colony of Virginia along with his brother who ended up being a Colonel in George Washington’s army. The Rowsey family line also sent willing soldiers into battle. From those two lines would come my great grandfather and grandmother, John William Seth Smith and Cristina Rowsey, parents of my grandmother Minnie Bell. 

The shot heard round the world would end with a fledging nation defeating one of the greatest armies in the world to the awe of onlookers back in Europe. The creation of a democratic republic was a grand experiment that many people did not believe would last. The betting minds felt certain that the government of the people would be little more than a flash in the pan. 

Of course we know that things did not always go smoothly nor was the democracy open to every citizen of the new nation. It would not be until the late nineteen sixties that forced segregation would be a thing of the past and voting rights laws would protect all members of the United States. It had been a long road in that direction moving from only white men with property to Black men able to pay a poll tax to women finally being accepted as legitimate voters to finally outlawing practices that prevented all citizens eighteen years and older from registering their votes.

Of course there are still nasty tactics designed to suppress the votes of many Americans. We are yet to fulfill the ideal promises of our nation which is still in its infancy compared to many countries around the globe. The cracks and imperfections have become particularly visible of late with a president who seems to think that he can undo laws and create new rules with the stroke of a pen. In many ways he has resurrected the specter of a king complete with claims that he was sent by God to save us. 

I am truly worried about the future of our nation now that many of the expected duties of the three branches of government are being coopted by the current chief executive. There is a blurring of the separation of church and state that is concerning as well. In addition an entire political party seems intent on taxing the common man while exempting the richest people in our nation. Thoughts of taxation without representation are filling my mind and making me clearly understand what my ancestors of long ago believed was a cause worth fighting for. 

I have protested with my writing and sometimes even with organized groups. I still seem to have the freedom to do those things but it sometimes feels as though measures are being taken to silence those of us who are still speaking out. The threats and warnings are out there and many Americans have gone silent in response. I don’t blame them because they have families and jobs that they do not want to jeopardize. I am older like Benjamin Franklin was in 1775. I have far less to lose by taking chances. Still I worry that the time may come when compliance will be mandatory and I wonder if there will still be brave souls like the patriots of 1775 who ignore the threats to save our nation from authoritarians. 

There are good decent Americans bravely attempting to preserve our freedoms and our Constitution. Some of them are politicians, some are journalists, some are lawyers, some are ministers, some are everyday men and women who have decided to keep our right to speak and to protest alive even if it becomes dangerous. They are the modern day heroes whose love of our country is so intense that they refuse to allow one man or one group to tread on the liberty and sacrifice of the defenders of our nation from 1775 to the present.

I suppose that freedom is priceless but still demands that we work hard to keep it. Our nation has weathered a second war with England, a Civil War, World War I, World War II, and other battles and always comes together to keep the dream of our founders improving and becoming closer and closer to the ideal. I don’t want to think that we will only be able to keep it for two hundred fifty years. It is far too precious to give up now or ever.