Author: Sharron Burnett

When my youngest daughter, Catherine, was a little girl she received a Le Mutt stuffed dog. She had many stuffed animals and dolls but somehow it was Le Mutt who stole her heart and literally went everywhere with her. She had clothes for Le Mutt and even encouraged her best friend, Traci, to allow her Fifi stuffed animal to marry Le Mutt. It was a marriage made in heaven. The two girls and two little pups were inseparable. 

Catherine brought Le Mutt on vacations, ceremoniously dressing him for camping and hiking. Of course she was not going to leave him behind in our tent when we went trudging up mountain trails. He was family after all and would not have missed the outing for anything. Le Mutt ate dinner with us and watched over Catherine when we all went to bed at night. He was as faithful as any little dog might be.

On one occasion we were driving in the middle of nowhere on our way to new adventures at a new campsite. We had stopped at one point to take some photos of a lovely scene and did not notice that Le Mutt had fallen out of the car. After we had driven for many miles Catherine became inconsolable when she discovered that he was no longer with us. She was not able to recall the last time that she had seen him so he might have been anywhere along the hundreds of miles that we had already driven but her Pop instantly knew that he had to retrace our steps. 

He turned our truck around and we all craned our necks hoping to see Le Mutt somewhere along the way. he drove as slowly as he could on a highway with speeds in excess of sixty miles per hour. It seemed like we had driven forever without any sign of the pup when suddenly we all remembered the spot where we had taken pictures and we were now very close to being back there. 

As soon as it felt as though we had reached the place where Le Mutt might be we slowed down to a snails pace. We had to look across the road because we had been traveling in the opposite direction before we realized that Le Mutt was missing. I said a silent prayer that we would soon find him because I knew how heartbroken Catherine would be if he was never discovered again. Not even purchasing a new Le Mutt would do. She loved the worn one that my mother had sewn back together many times when his seams came undone. 

As if the heavens had opened to perform a special miracle we all suddenly saw Le Mutt lying on the side of the road. Pop carefully made a U turn and parked on the shoulder. Le Mutt was a bit dusty but none the worse for wear and of course Catherine was ecstatic. 

There is no end to the story. Catherine is now in her fifties and she still has Le Mutt. Because she lives in an area where wildfires often break out she has a “go bag” ready to grab in the event that flames threaten her home. Always near the bag sits Le Mutt, who is still a member of her family. Her children have all heard the stories of their mother’s adventures with the sweet pup and they treasure him as much as she does. Even her husband seems to understand how special Le Mutt is. 

We each have memories from our childhood that are so wonderful that we never forget them. We draw on them for bit of happiness whenever times get tough. We recall those family picnics at the beach, the Friday nights at Grandma’s house, the neighborhood antics and the bicycle rides with Linda and Susan singing Jesus Love The Little Children with voices so loud that everyone in the neighborhood must have heard us. Sometimes there is that one special object that earned our fancy that we cherish forever or maybe it is the memory of something wonderful that one of our parents did for us like my husband patiently driving many miles in the wrong direction to retrieve a missing stuffed animal. We know that what really happened in those times was the definition of love. 

My own story is a bit more simple. I was supposed to have a Big Chief writing tablet for school the following day. I did not remember until just before I was supposed to go to bed. Back then no stores were open past five in the afternoon. The odds that my parents would find one were slim to none. My mother tried to soothe me but insisted that I would have to go to school without my required tablet. 

When I awoke the next morning not one but two Big Chief tablets were sitting on my dresser. My mother told me that my father had driven all over town until late in the night hoping to find what i needed. It took him hours but he finally got lucky and came home triumphant. 

I can’t even begin to describe how much I loved my father in that moment or how much Catherine love her Pop for helping her find Le Mutt. My father died just a little over a year from the day that he saved me from the certain wrath of my teacher. When I think of him I always remember how much he loved me. Parents need to know that when they do something wonderful we never forget. 

I have written about empathy before. It is something that I have experienced for all of my life. I suspect that I inherited the trait from my mother. I have learned over time that not everyone has the kind of deep feelings that arise from empathy and so it is quite understandable to me that some people might see the concept as some kind of new age woke idea that is silly at best. I would like to describe what it is for me but first I need to tell my readers once again how I finally knew what was causing the intense emotions that sometimes overtook me when I witnessed someone who was suffering. 

I was a great fan of the original Star Trek series. I don’t think that I have missed seeing any of the episodes and I have viewed most of them many times over. The one that struck me the most was about an individual from another planet who was an empath. In the episode this character almost died from feeling the pain of another person so intensely. At that moment I finally had a name for my own experience of becoming physically and mentally debilitated in the presence of suffering. 

I already knew that my mother reacted in a similar manner. I had seen her end up in bed for a day or two when tragedies struck her loved ones. She would eventually be revived and ready to perform her duties but she was still feeling a deep sense of oneness with whichever person was in a state of grief. People would come to her with their problems and she would listen attentively and then dwell on them until she literally felt sick. 

Some might describe what happened to her as a form of mental illness but it was so much more than just feeling down. It was as though she had taken on the woes of another person and carried them until she knew what she needed to do to nurture them and help them through their own devastation. She never claimed to feel exactly like they did. She understood that we can never totally know how someone else is feeling. She just saw their sorrow and instead of only offering tokens of sympathy, she felt some of the force of what was dragging them down. 

I am not as gifted with empathy as mother or the character on Star Trek were but I have had my share of moments when I became overwhelmed with painful understanding of how certain people around me were feeling. It was both a special ability and a kind of curse at one and the same time. As a teacher I encountered students with so much tragedy forced on them at very young ages that I would have to take a mental health day to heal myself of the physical and mental reactions that I was having for them. It did me no good to be so in tune with their feelings that I was unable to do my job. I had to learn how to moderate the intensity of what I was experiencing so that I might use my gift productively. 

I suppose that someone might read my thoughts and come to the conclusion that I am nutty as a fruitcake and need some help. Luckily I got the guidance that I needed from my dear friend, Pat, who was like a big sister to me. She saw and understood my empathetic nature and she is the one who helped me to learn how to use my gift without hurting so much for the person whose pain I was sharing that I would become ineffective. She was a savior for me who encouraged me to use my empathy as a wonderful way to understand people’s difficulties, something that she assured me not everyone understands. 

To this very day I fall in sync with individuals who are dealing with unbelievable life situations. I will never say that I feel exactly the same as they do. That would be impossible but my own emotions are very strong whenever I pick up on the difficulties that they are experiencing. It is simply just who I am just as my mother was. 

I sometimes feel confused when other people are not noticing that someone is silently crying out for help. I tended to be the go to teacher who first noticed a child in distress. Somehow I pick up on the body language, the eyes, the anxious stares, the changes in behavior and begin to deeply feel how the person is troubled. 

On a personal level I have friends who seem to read me with their own empathetic abilities. They will call me at the very moments when I am experiencing the most sorrow. Sometimes they live thousands of miles away but still have the sense that I need their comfort. Not even the people nearest me may be as observant and understanding. 

It is alright when people say that they do not have empathy. I suspect that not everyone truly understands what that word means to those of us who do. It is not to imply that we someone realize exactly how another person is feeling but we have a deep sense of the turmoil in their minds. Perhaps empathy is the reason that sometimes loving someone hurts. We carry their sorrows along with them and do our best to let them know how much we really care. Everyone needs an empathetic person in their lives. I have been lucky to have more than my fair share and they know who they are. I hope that I have shared my empathy generously as well.

Anyone who follows my blogs knows that my paternal grandmother, Minnie Bell Little was illiterate. It bothered her that she was unable to read or write but she nonetheless possessed a world of folk knowledge and good sense in her head. She cooked without recipes, knowing exactly how much of this and that to measure to create the most wonderful dishes. She was able to identify birds, animals and plants and speak of their habitats and habits with authority. She understood the natural world around her through observation and practice. 

One of the things that she had noticed is the connection between family members and their health problems. For that reason she warned me when I was only a child of the importance of knowing that “all of our kin die from gut troubles.” She had seen relatives writhing in pain on their deathbeds no doubt from gastrointestinal problems. She noted that members of her family seemed to have chronic heartburn and an affinity for drinking vinegar.

While such meanderings sometimes stunned me when I heard my grandmother mentioning them, I never forgot how earnestly she wanted me to know about them. It was not too surprising when she was diagnosed with colon cancer that required a colostomy and ultimately was the very thing that killed her. Years later when eating became difficult for me and heartburn blighted my days, I found myself telling my doctor what my grandmother had revealed to me. He applauded her intelligence in understanding the connections that we have with our ancestors in medical issues. 

I was diagnosed with GERD and given a prescription that mostly keeps my acid reflux under control. Now again I have an horrific flareup that awakens me in the middle of the night with excruciating pain. I have learned the value of ingesting apple cider vinegar as a quick fix that eliminates the horrific sensation that someone has poured battery acid down my throat. I think of my Grandma Minnie Bell each time this kind of thing happens. 

The origins of our individual health issues can so often be traced to some kind of familial trait. The members of my mother’s family had a preponderance of heart disease and so too did she. That trendecy has not affected me but the prevalence of osteoporosis in all three of my aunts has followed me and my bones. I have kept the worst aspects of that disorder under semi-control with medications, exercise and biannual injections. My hope is that I will be able to avoid becoming wheelchair bound as they eventually were. Ironically my mother never developed the problem but those genes most assuredly jumped over to me. 

Grandma Minnie had a noticeable hump in her back and not so surprisingly so do I. Perhaps if people had paid closer attention to family medical histories someone would have been watching to see if I would develop scoliosis which I now know that I have. When I was younger my mother was unaware of such things so she was always telling me to stand up straight. I kept insisting that I was standing as best I was able. She had me loop my arms around a broomstick hoping that walking around in that manner would realign the curvature in my back. Nowadays school nurses check for such things and children’s back are corrected which will save them from a lifetime of back pain.

My father died in a car accident but I suspect that if he had lived his ultimate demise might have been like that of his mother. At the age of thirty three he was already having pronounced trouble with his gut. In fact he had joined the army during World War Ii but he did not last long. He developed ulcers so severe spent most of his time in the hospital. As a child I remember him being admitted the the VA hospital multiple times with digestive difficulties and pain that had continued into his twenties and thirties. 

My primary care physician has always been keenly aware of the connections between one person’s health and the family history of various ailments and diseases. I had to fill out a lengthy document outlining everything that every medical condition that my parents had and that my brothers have endured. So far the things his diagnoses of me seem to branch from Grandma Minnie Bell’s side of the family tree. I find that somehow appropriate given that she seemed so sure that I was much like her when I was still not quite ten.

Our family’s medical mystery lies with my brothers who have both been recently diagnosed with Parkinson’s disease. None of my four grandparents or their children had this but a cousin on my mother’s side of the family was diagnosed with this fairly early in his life and ultimately died from it in his eighties. If there is indeed a genetic connection it has to be from somewhere in my mother’s family but I suppose that we will never know for sure. 

Being a medical detective is so interesting to me. At one time I considered becoming a nurse or a doctor but ultimately felt called to be a teacher. Now I spend a great deal of time studying human anatomy and the diseases that attack us. I keep my ultimate care with my doctors and follow their learned advice because I want the advice of learned professionals, not pseudoscience determining my fate. Still, I sometimes think back to my grandmother and feel a sense of awe that she was so smart to warn me of what might come in my future. So far she has kept me feeling better than I might otherwise have been because my doctors have heard what she predicted and used it to chart a medical plan built just for me. I think that would make Grandma quite happy.

Have you ever thought about all of the millions of things that had to happen over time in order for you to be wherever you are right now? it’s pretty amazing when you get right down to analyzing it. One tiny change might have altered everything and the world would be without you. 

I think of my parents meeting each other at a small company called Reed Roller Bit when they were both quite young. My mother was doing secretarial work and my father was there for the summer as a draftsman earning money for his college tuition. My mother first noticed him when they were both waiting for the same bus to arrive each afternoon at the end of the work day. Initially they said nothing to each other but my mother was intrigued by the young man who would was so much younger that the other guys who worked there. She did some digging and learned that he was an engineering student at Texas A&M which caught her fancy even more. With her sparkling personality she decided to get to know him. 

One afternoon as they were both walking to the bus stop she flirtatiously called out to him, saying that if he waited up they might sit together on the ride home. He turned in amazement as he saw the beautiful girl who was inviting herself into his life and instantly stopped in his tracks. Of course the rest is history because they began dating and fell in love and got married and by 1948 I was born. In truth however so much more had to happen for their destinies to collide in the summer of 1946. 

My paternal grandparents were from Virginia and Texas. The odds of their meeting were slim and it did not happen until they were both in their forties when my grandfather was staying in a boarding house in Oklahoma where he was working. As fate would have it my grandmother was the cook for the borders and one evening Grandpa asked to meet whoever was concocting such delicious meals. When Grandma came out of the kitchen she stole his heart and before long his single days were over. 

Of course they had to get to Houston for my father to be working there. They travelled to many places each time that my grandfather heard about a new construction job. Eventually their journey took them to Texas and finally to Houston were they lived in a lovely home on Arlington St., my father’s destination from work each evening. 

I have no idea how my maternal grandparents met. I only knew that they were both from Czechoslovakia and that my grandfather immigrated to Galveston, Texas in 1912. From there he found his way to Houston where he lived in a boarding house until he had enough funds to send for my grandmother in 1913. Once she joined him they also moved about but soon settled in Houston on North Adams Street where my mother was going each evening when her shift as a secretary was done. 

What had to happen before my grandparents were born is so interesting to me. While my the ancestors from my paternal grandmother were in what is now the United States long before the American Revolution, I have little idea about those who came before my paternal grandfather. I know that he was born in North Carolina but the genealogical trail ends for him with his parents.

My paternal ancestors from my grandmother came to America from Great Britain. They came from Irish and Scottish stock and I have tracked their story all the way back to Normans and Vikings. My maternal grandparents both had parents and grandparents who were from Czechoslovakia but it would be unlikely that the family was always in that part of the world. After my great great maternal grandparents the trial ends.

I remember watching a television special called Roots when I was a young adult. It was a fascinating story about a man who was able to retrace his family all the way back to Africa. I suppose that each of ushave a yearning to know how we got to where we are now. It is in our natures to want to understand more of who we are and where our people have been. It provides us with a better idea of how we came to be. It also shows us how so many little things had to fall exactly into place to become a very specific member of the human race. 

I enjoy hearing the stories of people. I find that while they might differ enormously there are also so many commonalities that we all share. We all too often believe that our differences make us unable to truly understand each other but revealing the stories of our lives almost always demonstrates how alike we humans ultimately are. What is always the many things that had to take place to create the unique and wonderful person each of us is. It’s pretty wonderful and amazing when you think about it. Every human is the compilation of a million little miracles.

I recently spent some time in the Texas Hill Country watching my granddogs. I had an incredibly peaceful time just sitting with the pups who are both very well behaved collies. They were little or no trouble and so I had many hours of quiet and relaxation. Taking care of sweet puppies is so much easier that keeping things going for humans. There was no laundry to do, no meals to cook, no housework or errands to keep me rushing around. It was just me and my two companions who asked for little or nothing and seemed more engaged in taking care of me than I had to do to make sure they were okay. 

It was incredibly hot so I did most of my meditating and gazing at the lovely world around me from the window of the house. I watched deer walking leisurely along the front lawn. I saw hawks soaring overhead. I had fun “talking” back and forth with an owl who seemed to enjoy my attempts at sounding like him when I was sitting on the back porch while the dogs exercised in the yard. I reveled in the silence that felt like being in heaven. My body and my mind were uplifted by feeling as one with the nature that was all around me. I found a kind of peace that had been eluding me for some time. 

I might have read the book that I had brought to occupy my hours but somehow I found myself preferring to just be part of the scenery while silently watching the butterflies and the bees and marveling at how wonderful our earth can be without the distractions that are so much a part of daily life. I wondered if my grandparents had enjoyed the same kind of contentment when they were children living far away from the hustle and bustle of city life. Of course I did have air conditioning to keep me from sweltering in the summer heat. I found food and drink in the refrigerator and I used the lights at night to make my way around the house. I had to admit that there are some things that most of us modern day folk would be loathe to give up.

One of my favorite past times was sitting outside staring at the stars. There were so many of them that they took my breath away. They were brighter and seemed closer thanat my home. I was reminded of camping trips that I took with my family to places like Montana where it felt as though we were the only people on earth along with the animals that walked through our campsite without fear. We saw moose and deer and eagles and hoped that we would not encounter bears. We cooked on a campfire and slept on the floor of a tent big enough for the four of us. Those were some of the happiest times of our lives when we did not imagine growing older and encountering problems that had never crossed our minds. 

These days my joints remind me constantly that I am aging. I feel the pangs of arthritis that my grandmother used to call her “rhumatis.” If I were to lie down on the floor of a tent I’m not sure that I would be able to get upright again without some assistance. I dislike how my body is slowly losing its resilience but at least my mind appears to still be be going strong. My foray into nature with the dogs provided me with much needed contentment that chased away my worries even if only for a time. It was good to take a breath and just enjoy the simple aspects of living. 

I remember thinking that my grandmother was ancient when she was my age. She was a tiny thing with wrinkles defining her face. She had a set of false teeth that she kept in a jar at night. I recall being frightened the first time that I saw them. She was a feisty woman who even as she grew older appeared to be unafraid of anyone or anything. I once thought her life had always been simple but when I became an adult i realized how many challenges she had endured. 

Grandma lost her first husband in 1918. I always wondered if he may have had the Spanish flu, He was young and so was Grandma. Now I feel certain that it was difficult to watch him die at an age when he should have had more time. Ironically she never spoke of him and I never thought to ask about him. When she was eighty years old my father died and I remember her insisting that losing parents and a spouse were difficult but losing a son was horrific. I never truly understood what she meant until I gew older and thought about how unimaginable it would be to lose one of my children. Now I am looking like and feeling more and more like my grandmother and better understanding what an amazing woman she was. In the quiet of my dog sitting stay I have felt incredibly close to her. 

I think I should come this way again the next time that I feel a bit frazzled from the daily grind. It is rather healing just blending into the scenery and watching nature spin its magic. I recommend such a time for anyone who needs a respite from the world.