Author: Sharron Burnett

Just for fun I recently watched an old Vincent Price movie, House on Haunted Hill. I told my husband that I remember seeing it at a local movie theater back when I was a kid. Every Saturday the theater hosted a “Fun Club” that featured games, cartoons and movies. One Saturday the film they showed was House on Haunted Hill and I remember feeling terrified as I watched it. I wanted to see how it held up as a thriller over sixty years later. 

Aside from the horrific acting and slow moving story there was very little to recommend to anyone who might want to watch something scary. I had a difficult time imagining why I had been so frightened when I watched this as a child. It was so hokey that I find it difficult to think that anybody would find the story to be spine-chilling, but it was definitely horrifying in the sense that not much about it was entertaining. Even the ending was flat. 

I grew up on a dose of Twilight Zone and Alfred Hitchcock Presents. My cousins and I got together whenever our parents were playing cards. While they were occupied we quietly watched whatever we wanted to see. Of course we chose the scary shows over those that were more child friendly. We’d sit in the dark staring at the flickering of the black and white images on the screen. The stories on those shows were amazing and unforgettable. Great writing and a modicum of good acting made such a difference. That’s why those shows are classics.

Modern day horror films are so creative that they put me into a state of extreme anxiety. I literally worry about the safety of the characters and jump at every sound and shadow. Sometimes I can hardly breathe as the action unfolds. Twists and turns of plot are shocking and even the endings are often a total surprise. Is it possible that human imaginations are actually better than they once were or is it the visuals that are better? 

I never cease to be amazed by the stories that screen writers and novelists create. Not only am I hooked on certain plots from beginning to end, but I find myself feeling a kind of awe that someone is capable of writing such tales. I suspect that I have indeed come to expect more and more from entertainment, but over and over again there are geniuses who surpass what I had hoped to see. I wonder where these ideas originate.

Long ago I decided to write a murder mystery. Mine was about a serial killer who was traveling up and down an interstate highway abducting and killing young girls. He had a certain physical type that he hunted and even though the deaths piled up, he was cunning enough not to be caught or leave clues that might implicate him. Without revealing who this person was I wrote general descriptions of the thoughts going through the his mind. I had to become that monster as I described the evil that coursed through his brain. It was mentally exhausting and I literally had to cease my writing after a time because I began to feel untethered. My story telling sessions became too painful to continue. I threw my manuscript away. 

I’ve read that really talented writers sometimes become so involved in their stories that they begin to lose their hold on reality. They literally get carried away by their imaginations. I found that to be debilitating when I was penning my mystery. I wonder if I would have done better if I had created a happy inspiring character and story rather than a tale of evil. If such a story is the creation of someone else I am able to distance myself, but to write about violence and killing I have to imagine the tiny details of both the victims and the evil doers. Such exercises make me feel as vile as the make believe that I am attempting to describe.

As a teen I really enjoyed reading Agatha Christie mysteries. They were more cerebral and investigative. Solving the puzzle of the crime was the goal. I liked those very much, but I learned that even Ms. Christie had some quirky behaviors that made her a bit of a mystery herself. I wonder if writing so many of those tales had the same kind of effect on her as my one foray into murder did with me. Maybe it is such a taboo topic that it is best left alone. Not even the imagination should go to certain places. 

I’d no doubt do well to write a few scripts for Hallmark movies, but where is the challenge in that? A friend and I once created an entire outline for such a story in about fifteen minutes as we sat around his pool sipping on wine. I am convinced that our tale would be embraced by those who enjoy such things, but somehow it felt as trite and silly as that old Vincent Price movie that was only scary to a child. 

I’d like to create an idyllic world but something would have to happen there for anyone to be interested in reading about it or watching it on a screen. I’m searching for a remarkable idea like the plot of Field of Dreams. Now that was imagination at its best! I haven’t thought of anything to equal it yet, but I am working on it.

I suspect that many of the world’s people feel adrift in uncertain waters since the pandemic overtook the globe. We humans tend to like our own personal routines, and things like mysterious viruses don’t jibe with the normal flow of life. Our recent brush with a deadly infectious disease revealed our differences in very dramatic ways. Some people needed to look away from the dying, the cries for justice from minority citizens in different countries, the problems that arose in virtually every sector of our society. Others saw an opportunity to shine a light on issues that have always been present, but were less noticeable when we were all bustling about as usual. A kind of worldwide unrest has punctuated the painfulness of the last few years. 

We tend to crave instant solutions for our problems and answers for who is to blame, when in reality nothing is ever as simple as it seems to be. It will take years of hindsight and research to fully understand what we humans did right and what we did wrong. To blame one particular person or group for our recent trials would be foolish and unfair. Sadly our misery is being used as a political cudgel by people who are less interested in coming to common agreements than gaining the power to push their own agendas. In the end our current angry climate will do little to calm the march of challenges that the entire world faces. 

I love people. I think it’s fine for each of us to have different ideas about how we wish to live but I also believe in learning from past mistakes and listening to experts. I also believe that in general we have become more accustomed to having what we want, when we want it for the price we want to pay, especially here is the United States. To believe that things will remain that way after the cataclysm created by the pandemic is not just naive, but dangerous. It creates anger rather than sacrifice for the short term and ignores the steps we should take for the long term. It really is not idealistic or whatever someone wants to call it to be willing to step back for a time from the ways things were three years ago. It’s instead time to examine how we can adjust our behavior as needed to get through the effects of a worldwide pandemic coupled with wars.  

Are there fascists on the far right? Of course there are. I knew one of them back when I was in college. He was a friend of my mother’s and belonged to the John Birch society. His political ideas were disgusting and frightening and I was relieved when my mother pushed him out of her life. Sadly many such people are coming out of the woodwork these days and attempting to peddle their racist and authoritarian tropes to a public that is looking for comfort. On the other hand there are most assuredly Communists on the far left. They too have been around for decades. Both groups are too radical to run a democracy, but they have the right to their opinions in a democracy. We just have to be able to identify them properly when they seek power. We would do well to spurn them and look to moderates from both parties to guide us through our current problems. We too often fall victim to the rants of people who do not have the interests of everyone in their hearts. They prey on our fears rather than our better spirits.

I think that much of the problem lies in judging people and their motives for believing the way that they do. Often if we walked in their shoes we might understand why they think the way they. I’ve said before that we all need to stop, take a breath and allow people to have a voice without rebuttal. Sometimes just listening helps to explain behaviors that we do not understand. 

I recently listened to a lovely broadcast on NPR that featured two women who were seemingly from opposite ends of a spectrum. One of the ladies was from a family that had once owned slaves. The other was a descendant from one the slaves that the family had owned. Both had heard stories from about that unfortunate time that made them cringe. At some point one of the women contacted the other and asked if they might get together to talk and hopefully heal wounds. 

In fact they began a years long conversation that ended with the white woman apologizing for the hurt that her ancestors had inflicted on the black women’s family. Both women learned about each other in the most intimate of ways and ultimately became close friends. They decided to write a book about their experience in the hopes that others might be willing to find some level of understanding with those whose histories and views seem to be at opposite extremes. 

I found myself sobbing as I heard the stories of these two women and heard the emotional journey that they were willing to take with each other. Somehow such honest conversations have seemingly gone out of style. We don’t allow people to speak openly about who they are and how they became that way. We seem to default to anger and insults when someone differs from ourselves. 

I still dream of making peace with one another, but evidence is making me weary of waiting for that time to come. We can’t look away from our problems nor can we rant so loudly that nobody gets a word in edgewise. What the world needs now is a mega therapy session and a whole lot of love. 

Several years ago my daughter and grandchildren were visiting my home during their summer vacation. We saw the sights around town during the day and usually settled in to watch a movie in the evening. I noticed a film that I knew nothing about called Hachi: A Dog’s Tale. It is a movie based on the true story of a famous dog in Japan named Hachika who was so loyal to his master that even after the man had suddenly died, the pup waited for him each afternoon at the train station just as he always had. Hachika continued his loyal watch for nine years and in the process became a celebrity of sorts in Japan. The movie transfers the story to the United States but the theme of the pup’s undying commitment to his human companion is the same. 

I’ve always been fascinated by tales of determination to reach a destination or accomplish a skill or a certain task. I have the highest regard for people who refuse to give up even when failure seems inevitable. Literature is replete with heroes like Ulysses who kept their eyes on goals of one kind or another. Whether fictional or factual the individual who creates a goal and sticks with it regardless of obstacles is a source of great inspiration to me. 

I suppose that I might be considered to be a bit of a romantic when it comes to life, not so much in the sense of finding a true love, but it the belief that each of us is capable of accomplishing great things if we are steadfast in our willingness to keep trying even in the face of failure and disappointment. Sometimes the most remarkable people are the ones who initially appeared to be fools for believing that they might achieve something that seemed beyond their grasp.

In the world of education we call this kind of determination “grit.” I’ve seen that grit is one of the best indicators of future success. The young man who struggles with mathematics but works tirelessly to finally understand may not have the most natural talent, but he has something even better. He is a person who will hit a wall and then find a way around it. This is someone who will ultimately succeed while others are simply accepting what they see as their fate. 

I was often the last person to turn in my tests. It made me question my intelligence because my brain seemed to work so much more slowly than others. Sometimes my fellow students would even groan a bit as they had to silently wait for me to finish my work. I had to learn to ignore not just the implied pressure being place on me, but also my internal doubts about myself. I took my time and allowed my mind to work at its own unique pace. I always did well, but the lingering thought was that somehow I just was not as bright as the people around me. It took me years of growing in confidence and studying how humans learn to realize that I was not less than, just different. 

As a society we have a tendency to rank almost every aspect of life. We like to quantify everything from intelligence to happiness. In doing so we forget that numbers really cannot define an individual. While swiftness is critical for a race, it should not be a metric for determining the value or rank of a person. What does it rally matter if someone is able to learn how to simplify radicals in ten minutes or ten days as long as each person ultimately understands the concept? Some of my very best students, who are now also the most successful adults among their peers, were the ones who chose to come to every one of my tutoring sessions because they had been unable to master concepts during the confines of a single lesson. 

One such student became the valedictorian of her class. Graduated with high honors from college and slowly but surely worked to earn a PhD. I still remember other teachers commenting that she wasn’t the brightest person in the class but was simply someone who worked hard. Somehow they made her deliberate determination sound like something bad. Instead it was an early indicator that she is a person who is willing to push herself no matter how difficult the going may become. Isn’t that how we should actually be urging everyone to be? Having a willingness to work hard to accomplish something is the most noble of goals. Our loyalty to excellence should demand that each of us pushes ourselves just a bit more and then a bit more with everything that we attempt to do. 

I see the faces of students who overcame bonafide learning difficulties, poverty and even abuse by never becoming complacent. Some of them may have taken years to earn college degrees but they never gave up. Then when they found jobs their willingness to work harder than anyone else just as they had always done became a valued trait. They spent so much time learning that they never stopped and eventually even in a world of ranking, they emerged at the top. 

When we see the child who struggles in the beginning, but refuses to simply cease the effort, we need to commend him/her. In fact, that person is demonstrating exactly the kind of grit that makes leaders, inventors, creators. Watch for them in your midst and treasure them, for they are the ones on whom our future depends.  

I suppose that each of us has fantasized about winning the lottery or learning that we have a long lost relative that we never knew about who left us a fortune in his will. Like Tevye in Fiddler on the Roof we wonder if it would ruin some vast eternal plan if we were to suddenly become wealthy. We imagine being recognized with monetary gifts for our musical talent or the book that we wrote. We get excited thinking that our hard work and great ideas might launch us into the world of the rich and famous. Who hasn’t thought about what they would do with a grand windfall?

I certainly have dreamed of such things a time or two. I’ve thought about how I might dispense my fortune and how wonderful it would feel not to worry about the bottom line of my finances. Then I realize that even the richest of the rich have to be careful with their spending and sometimes they even become so obsessed with wealth that it becomes the daily driving force of their lives. They carefully watch the stock market and stew over their investments. They have a lifestyle and image to maintain and that in itself is all consuming. Like Ebenezer Scrooge they seem almost greedy in the protection of their fortunes. In truth it sometimes almost seems that there is never really enough money for anyone. 

There is a restaurant in a little town that my husband and I often visit that offers a meal that they call “Just Enough.” It’s an apt description because it is not too little or too much. Instead it is just right. I feel that about my own financial situation. I can’t be profligate with the funds that I have, but they generally prove to be adequate for taking me through the day to day demands of living with just enough to cover emergencies. Most of the world’s population is not nearly as fortunate as I am. In fact, the vast majority of people live on the edge of financial disaster. It does not take much to leave them homeless. They probably dream of living like me. I am the rich person in their minds. I try to remind myself of that often.

I recently went to a gathering of friends and we discussed many things over lunch. One of the members of our party is from another country and he noted without judgement of any of us that we Americans do not fully appreciate the lives that we have. He feels that we take our good fortune for granted and are often unsatisfied. He said that from the outside looking in it is difficult to understand why we are not the happiest people on the planet. 

His comments made me think of the old fairytale of the fisherman who led a subsistence life. His home was tiny and rundown, but he and his wife were actually quite happy. He went fishing each morning and enjoyed the ocean breezes and the freedom of working outdoors. His work gave him just enough money to have a home and food to eat, but luxuries were out of the question. 

One day the fisherman caught a magical fish who promised to fulfill any wish of the man if only he agreed to throw the poor creature back into the water. After asking that he and his wife get a nicer home with a bit more money to enjoy a few extras, the fisherman let the fish go. When he returned home he found a beautiful little house with his wife smiling in a new frock. 

It was a wonderful surprise, but the joy did not last as his wife berated the fisherman for not asking for more. She urged him to keep fishing until he had caught the magic creature once again, and so he did. Time after time the fisherman rejoiced when the fish appeared on his hook and time after time he made a new deal to free the creature if he would increase the man’s power and riches. Somehow it was never enough to satisfy the greed that overtook his household. He and his wife were consumed with thoughts of palaces and treasures that they might have if only they asked. Covetousness stole their joy. When it became apparent that the man and his wife would never be satisfied the magical fish took everything away and returned them to the state in which they had originally lived. 

I always thought of that magical fish as the symbol of a spiritual leader who wanted to help the fisherman. In the end his lesson for the man was that riches do not bring us the satisfaction that we seek unless we first know what is really important. The man and his wife forgot about the joy they felt with each other in their simple life. They mistakenly equated materialism with comfort and contentment. They lost the ability to appreciate the world around them without all the trappings of wealth.  

I suppose that I learned the art of being happy with whatever I have from my mother. I do indeed work to earn extra funds for my frivolous fun, but I long ago quit dreaming of being wealthy or being envious of those who have more than I do. In fact, I understand that there are obligations that come with being rich. Those people living in mansions are scrutinized more than I am. Their lives are often ruled by unspoken rules that do not apply to me. I don’t think I would want to walk in their shoes. 

I find it amazing that my mother who had so little in material riches, was one of the happiest, most content people that I have ever known. She always managed to deal with unexpected emergencies by sacrificing and using her ingenuity. She found joy in people and nature, not things. Relationships were what mattered to her and in that regard she was one of the wealthiest people in the world. Her status was measured in her generosity and compassion. People still remember her as someone who shared her wealth of kindness. Perhaps that is the kind of goal that we should all be desirous of achieving. Money is not magic, but love is.

My doctor recently told me that I was the youngest looking and acting senior patient that he has. Of course I smiled at that description, but inside my heart skipped a beat because I still don’t think of myself as being old. The visage I see in the mirror seems out of sync with who I am and how I feel. Nonetheless it has become a regular feature of my life to learn of yet another person in my age group who has died. I’ve been to more funerals and memorials in the past three months than I usually attend in a year. The fact is that I am getting older and I never know when it will be my turn to take my last breath. From the standpoint of probability there is a kind of certainty that it will happen sometime in the next twenty-five years.

Many of the deaths of friends and family members have reminded me that the end of life often comes suddenly and unexpectedly. There is no assurance that I still have many years ahead despite my continued energy and enthusiasm for living. If I were wise I would begin to prepare for what may lie ahead instead of leaving things to chance and the good will of my surviving family members. The death of a loved one is difficult enough without having to plan the final goodbyes, and I have done little to let my family know my wishes. 

I suppose that I put off such things because I don’t do death well  and I don’t like to talk about it. I tend to pretend that all is well when the reality is that I would prefer to avoid grief even as I know that it is unrealistic for me to think that such inaction is healthy for me or the people around me. I would do better to prepare for my eventual demise beyond having a will so that my children need only use my directions to complete the final celebration of the circle of my life. 

I always remember my mother struggling to find a plot in which to bury my father and then planning his funeral. She was in no frame of mind for such things and yet it fell to her. When she died it was much easier for me and my brothers because she had already made her wishes known, even in what kind of flowers she wished to adorn her casket. We knew the songs that she liked for the funeral and she already had a gravesite next to our father. We were able to grieve more than conduct business. We also knew without questions what had been most important to her in her life, so writing an obituary that adequately described her legacy was not difficult. 

I have avoided doing those things or having discussions with my family. I have not told them who I want them to contact if I die. I have many friends that they do not know. I need to provide them with list of people who have been integral to my life. I want my daughters to know that there are aspects of who I am that are incredibly important to me. Obviously my immediate family is at the center of my universe, but my brothers and their wives and children are also at the heart of who I am. I have cousins that I love like sisters and brothers. I have longtime and recent friends. There are students who were like my children. 

I treasure the learning that I received at Mt Carmel High School and the University of Houston. I am incredibly proud of my teaching and all of the schools where I worked. I even served for a time as the Director of Education at one of my churches. I come alive when I write. It is one of my greatest pleasures. I also use it at times as a vehicle for the causes that are important to me. I am an advocate for justice, the environment, education, democracy, refugees and those who struggle to defend themselves. I sometimes get into trouble for voicing my views, but it is something that I feel compelled to do. 

I suppose that one’s legacy in life is not so much what they want it to be, but what others think it should be. It’s possible that when people consider my life they may not see what I have accomplished in the same way that I do. They may think me a fool to espouse some of the beliefs that I have. They may wonder why I did not better use my talents or leave more of a financial nest egg behind. I understand that I have often marched to a drumbeat that is different than many individuals, making it difficult for them to comprehend why I have lived the way I have. 

I mostly hope that everyone understands how much they have meant to me. There is nothing more important to me than people, and not just those that I know. I have tried to project my feelings, but I know that there have been times when my fervor has been totally misunderstood. I also know that I have lost patience or come across as unkind even as I was attempting to be compassionate. I suppose that this is the fate of all humans. No matter how hard we try, we will not please everyone. 

I tend to believe that everyone leaves a remarkable legacy in one way or another. Mine is about average in the grand scheme of things, but all I can really say is that I tried with all of my heart to be kind and to love. If even a few of the people I have encounter understood this, then I have led a successful life and perhaps I have enough years left that more good things are yet to come.