Author: Sharron Burnett

We have erasers because we make mistakes. I doubt that there is a human anywhere on earth who has not made a variety of missteps during a lifetime. Such moments often haunt us and if we are lucky they teach us. No matter how cautious we try to be there are times when we seem to be bumbling and stumbling through life. We choose the wrong answers in the multiple choice tests that we face. 

I suppose that if I had to pick one incident that I most regret it would be not following my instincts and my heart in the care of my mother when she first presented symptoms of mental illness. I knew that she was not going to get well without medical help from a professional but I had no idea where to turn for such things. I was after all just shy of my twenty first birthday and had never before seen someone in a deep state of psychotic paranoia. As my mother’s condition devolved day by day I was frightened by the state of her mind so I turned to our family doctor for help. He gave me the names of two psychiatrists that he trusted noting that they were equally talented. In the end I just randomly chose one and made a phone call that would forever change my life. 

After the doctor had heard my description of my mother’s behavior he insisted that I get her to the emergency room of the hospital where he worked as quickly as possible. She had deteriorated to the point of taking to her bed and living in a state of darkness caused by both her depression and the fact that she had shut out the light of the sun with blinds and drapes pulled tightly shut. It was late July in Houston when the heat was unbearable and her home was not air conditioned, so keeping all of the windows tightly closed made the rooms feel like furnaces. No amount of cajoling convinced her that she needed some fresh air because she was so afraid of what she thought lurked just outside. In her mind forces were conspiring to falsely accuse her and her family of vile acts and every passing car was loaded with spies. She even believed that her sisters were attempting to poison her. I knew that we were losing her to some vile disease that was more frightening than anything I had ever before witnessed. 

Thanks to the love and kindness of my mother’s best friend, Edith, we tricked her into going to the hospital and she even agreed to sign the admission paperwork. I felt relieved thinking that my work and responsibilities were done, but I was so wrong. Within a few days the doctor called me in for a consultation. Some of my mother’s siblings agreed to attend the meeting with me. There we learned that the doctor wanted to use electroshock therapy to treat her. My instantaneous reaction was to refuse but he appealed to my love for my mother and the guilt I had for letting her condition deteriorate so much before seeking help. Somehow I felt pressured into doing something that felt was so wrong and instead of having the courage to insist that he try other measures I folded. It was a decision that would taint the loving relationship that I had always had with my mother and would furthermore cause her to distrust me from that day until the end of her life. 

By the time I found the courage to attempt to call off the therapy it was too late. The doctor did not return my calls until after he had administered the first shocks to her brain. He insisted that turning back at that point would be dangerous to her and so we saw it through and I vowed to never again ignore the whisperings of my heart. In the next four decades my mother would express her feelings of betrayal and her fear that I would force her into treatments that she saw as barbaric and hurtful. No matter how I attempted to apologize and protect her the damage had been done. 

Eventually I had to learn to forgive myself because I was never going to get to a point of reconciliation with my mother. I tried to put myself inside her shoes and understand how I had played into her greatest fears. It would be up to my brothers to convince her of the need for any future treatments of her bipolar disorder and I would have to accept that she no longer trusted me as she once had. I knew that I had been very young and inexperienced with mental illness and had questioned myself when confronted by the doctor. That would never happen again. I would have the confidence to ask questions and insist on therapies that were more in keeping with my mother’s needs. I became her advocate by becoming unafraid. I knew that I had grown. I was able to accept that I had done my best in the moment and I understood that stewing over how I might have done things differently was of no merit. The time came to move forward and I did.

Our mistakes do not define us. We have opportunity after opportunity to learn from them and change. We really can erase a wrong answer and try again. Our paper may appear to be a bit messy with signs of working and reworking of a problem but the idea is to overcome the errors we have made and then move forward. Life is rarely perfect and each of us will make both small and life changing missteps in our journey. We become better versions of ourselves when we face our mistakes, admit to our errors, determine how to do better in the future, apologize to anyone we have hurt and finally forgive ourselves for being human. No one should become stuck in a pit of guilt. Instead we must attempt to grow and change. Our mistakes will never be completely erased but they might become the best lessons of our lives.

I suppose that we all believed at the end of February, 2020, that we would work to contain the coronavirus for a couple of months and then life would become normal and we would tuck all thoughts of illness and strange happenings into our memory books along with photos of our travels and fun times with friends and families. One year later we are not just exhausted. We are shellshocked. The word “unprecedented” has become common to our lexicon as we attempt to describe each new event that flies in the face of any attempts at complacency. As we look at five hundred thousand deaths from COVID 19 in the United States we mourn the loss of so many beautiful souls and of our own innocence. When we add all of the other unbelievable events that have occurred during the space of only a year we wonder if we will ever again be able to take anything for granted. We have fallen down into Alice’s rabbit hole and no matter how hard we try it feels as though we will never again escape to the way of life we once enjoyed. 

My husband Mike and I spent our last typical day on February 28, 2020. We had lunch with my brothers and sisters-in-law and then played games with them for the remainder of the afternoon. From there we went to the Houston Rodeo Barbecue Cook off and met up with friends. We left that event feeling so happy and filled with plans for the coming months that included a trip to Scotland, an Aggie ring ceremony for two of my grandsons and an Easter Sunday celebration with the extended family. Of course none of that came to pass and we spent the next many months mostly hunkered down in our home and finding ways to stay entertained and in touch with those we love from afar. We became Zoom fanatics and even took a continuing education course from Rice University from the comfort of our living room. 

Weeks and then months passed as we watched the horrific death of George Floyd, a native of Houston, Texas, our own home town, who was eventually buried only a few miles from our house. We witnessed the protests and then a surge in COVID cases all across the world. We saw so many parts of the western United States go up in flames and hurricanes seemed to be breeding like flies. At one point we prepared for a possible storm in our own backyard and felt grateful when it developed further east from us. All the while the deaths kept coming, some from COVID and others from just the natural rhythm of life. We worried over friends and relatives who came down with the virus and had some close calls that kept us praying morning, afternoon, and night. We became accustomed to staying home or making “no human contact” trips in our trailer. 

Every special occasion was different but we celebrated in our own way Zooming from on household to another and texting enough to create entire novels. We watched with an admitted bit of envy as others carried on with their lives with less caution than we did but kept to our routine in the hopes that we might sooner rather than later see an end to all of the suffering that was happening all around us. Then there was our national election which, just as with everything else, was “unprecedented” both in the numbers of people who turned out to vote and in the strange aftermath in which the incumbent president was unwilling to concede defeat. 

We dined with two of our grandsons on Thanksgiving day instead of the extended family affair that we usually enjoyed. Christmas Eve became yet another Zoom gathering as did Christmas Day. We were proud of our resilience and relieved that we had been spared from being part of the horrific number of deaths that grew and grew. Then came news of the vaccine release. Somehow it felt as though we had seen the worst of what we had to endure but as with everything else there were still “unprecedented” events and struggles ahead. 

What should have been a quiet rendering of the electoral votes for president and vice president turned into one of the most dangerous moments of our democracy as supporters of Donald Trump stormed the halls of the capitol determined to prevent what they saw as a steal of their votes. It was for me the most terrifying moment of the entire year and quite possibly my lifetime. I had seen a presidential assassination and the terrorist destruction of the Twin Towers but this threat had come from within the country and it felt like an attempt to overthrow all that was sacred in our Constitution. But for the courage of the men and women of the House and Senate we might have seen the crumbling of our democratic processes. Instead they persisted in certifying the vote even after their own lives had been threatened. 

Like so many across the country I found that getting access to the vaccine was not nearly as easy as I had hoped it would be. With the help of family members and friends I finally secured appointments for myself and my husband but I noted how adept I had to be at finding websites and entering information quickly before the slots filled. My anxieties reached a fever pitch when the scheduling for my second dose seemed uncertain but when I finally felt the prick of the needle sending the final vaccine into my body I felt a flood of emotions and gratitude. Surely, I believed, life would become calm and then maybe even a bit more normal. 

Then came the Senate impeachment hearings which were fascinating but also frightening as we learned even more about events on January 6, when the Capitol became a battleground. The chronological recitation of what had occurred both during the campaigns for the presidency and in its aftermath was chilling and I found it difficult to believe that anyone hearing the testimony would be able to vote any other way than to indict Donald Trump and then make it certain that he would never again be able to run for office. Not so surprisingly only six Republicans were willing to repudiate the former leader of their party and some actually admitted that Trump was guilty of inciting the riot but hid behind an argument that impeaching him was not allowed by the Constitution. They reinforced the lies that somehow the election had been illegitimate and sent a message to the people of the United States and all of the world that worries me beyond words. 

I became very quiet about all that was happening. I focused on puppy dogs, kittens, flowers, happy thoughts. My discouragement and cynicism was unprecedented but I kept it to myself. My Pollyanna ways seemed to have died and I was determined to be the happiness that I wished to see in the world. I was doing a great job of that until Texas froze over last week and with the wintery weather came “unprecedented” suffering all across my state. 

We learned more than we ever wanted to know about ERCOT and power grids and what happens when electricity goes out for days. I have never been so cold in my life as my my home cooled down to forty degrees and maybe even lower when I was sleeping. I managed because I am an old tent camper and I have gear that most people do not possess. I wore layers of clothing and at night slept under a pile of blankets and quilts. Because we had purchased a small generator during the summer in case of a hurricane we kept our refrigerator running and were able to charge our phones and laptops. Our gas stove kept us eating well. Our water continued to come from our faucets and thus far we have had no leaks in the pipes inside our home. Only our irrigation system is showing signs of stress. We were fortunate but the suffering and damage to the people of my state was “unprecedented” and watching it unfold nearly broke me. 

It was only as I saw the incredible spirit of kindness and compassion that unfolded as neighbor helped neighbor and people came from other states to provide assistance that I saw that in spite of all of the grief, destruction, uncertainty and death of the past year we keep rising to the “unprecedented” challenges. Somewhere somehow we keep finding ways to keep calm and carry on, but we are indeed very tired. 

I do not know what lies ahead but I believe that we will surely keep pushing until we find solutions for the problems of COVID, climate change, and our political systems. Together we will climb out of our rabbit hole and when we do our joy will be “unprecedented.”

Way back in my University of Houston days I remember sitting around a conference table hanging on to every utterance of a favorite professor. Like the student who highlights every word of a text I wrote feverishly to jot down every comment that he made. He seemed to be an educator who understood human nature and all of the theories designed to unravel the art of transferring knowledge. I modeled my teaching style on much of what he said and found his wisdom to be timeless. 

One of his most stunning revelations was that patience is perhaps the most important factor in determining success. Intellect helps as do connections and education, but the willingness to simply bide one’s time in order to achieve some goal is the best indicator of who will ultimately triumph. I remember how he laughed and told us to watch for the tortoises in our classroom, not the flashy hares. 

Over the years I have learned that my professor’s commentary was profound, especially in terms of the power of patience. Both classmates and students with extraordinary levels of forbearance have often achieved far more than those with better abilities who grew weary of waiting and moved on from dreams in search of more instant gratification. I have seen that life is rarely linear and those who have a willingness to steadily take their time even in the face of setbacks are generally winners in the end. 

I have witnessed miracles happening for those who are patient. I have watched families dealing demonstrating an unflagging willingness to take as much time as needed to help a prodigal soul. When others might have simply given up they quietly used every means at their disposal to rehabilitate their wayward loved one even if it took years. The results have been beyond amazing.

I have watched people facing rejection, failure, discouragement that would defeat most of us and yet they still carry on until one day their dreams are fulfilled. They were not necessarily the people with the best grades in the class or the most promising futures. They did not always attend Ivy League universities or make stunning scores on an SAT tests. They were seemingly ordinary folks who had ideas that they were determined to pursue no matter how long it took. They remained patient while the rest of us were zooming about.

I am sadly not a particularly patient person. I endure setbacks and put offs but not without anxiety and anger. Lacking in restraint is perhaps one of my greatest flaws. I want what I want as soon as possible and steam over roadblocks that impede my way. Most of my frustrations come from what I see as the incompetence of others, at least that is what I tell myself. Nonetheless I have had to learn to feign patience in order to survive in a world that refuses to work according to my clock rather than its own. In other words I have adapted to situations over which my only control is the willingness to wait. 

Like everyone else dealing with Covid 19 and its ever changing variants has tested my patience and brought me to the brink at times. I once said I was weary of drastically changing my lifestyle in the name of stomping out the virus. Now weary is far too weak a word to use to describe my feelings. I am going through stages of grief over the loss of friends and loved ones and a way of life with those who are still here with us that I long to enjoy again. Right now I am at full blown anger level and I really just want to go into my front yard and let out a primal scream. Instead I force myself to remain patient because I truly believe that those of us who are willing to remain cautious will ultimately be the winners in this dangerous quest of beating back the pandemic. I know I can do this even as I groan under the weight of waiting. 

So much is really messed up right now and I watch as people respond by tossing their masks aside and boasting that they will just take their chances with returning to life on their own terms. I am enormously frustrated that they do not seem to understand that our horror continues not because all of the precautions that we are being asked to take are meaningless but because there are still far to many ignoring them. The virus is looking for places to land and as long as we remain divided in the efforts those microbes will continue to find hosts that allow it to grow and multiply and change. I understand that as much as I long to give up the fight that has guided me for a full year now doing so would be the ultimate surrender to impatience. I refuse to go there even as I dream of how much easier it would be to do so. 

I keep replaying the image of my wonderful professor over and over again in my mind. Anecdotal evidence has proven to me so many times that we should all be tortoises if we want to reach our goals. For someone like me with the mind and DNA of a hare it is so difficult to emulate the very trait I most need but I am determined to do so because I believe in the truth of what I have observed. I have made my own life a success by forcefully remaining patient even when it was excruciatingly difficult to do so. I know and have observed the power of patience. I am determined to see this moment through as I hope I can convince others to do as well. More than ever before the whole world needs a huge dose of patience.

Growing up along the Gulf coast has meant that I have very little experience with exceedingly cold weather. Around here ice skating is done in a refrigerated arena and coats last for decades because they are hardly worn from year to year. We’re lucky to get a quick freeze in the thirties now and again and the fireplaces built into all of the newer homes sometimes seem to be a bit of a waste of space. 

Go north a bit and things really change. The cold can be brutal on the open prairie of Oklahoma which is only a day’s drive from my hometown. Lots of people from the Houston area are drawn to universities in Oklahoma for various majors like meteorology and, in my brother’s case, fire management. So one December day we followed him and his sons to a graduation ceremony at Oklahoma State University where he would be receiving an advanced degree. 

He had warned us to bring warm clothing but we underestimated the bite of the freezing temperature combined with the brutal wind. It literally felt as though sharp icicles were slamming against our faces as we hurried from the warmth of the car into the housing that he had reserved for us for the weekend. I’d never in my life experienced anything quite so harsh. 

It was warm and comfortable inside but the sound of the wind was constant. Not even the hurricanes I have experienced made the kind of roaring sound that continued all through the night as I lay huddled under the warmth of multiple blankets. I found myself reliving an episode of Little House on the Prairie when Pa was out of town and Ma was trying to keep the family warm during a deadly blizzard. I truly wondered how the students at the university were able to walk from class to class in such weather without freezing to death. 

The morning brought sunshine and reduced velocity for the wind but the temperature had fallen even more. Just walking around was difficult as we literally gasped for breath as the cold seemed to be pushing against our faces and our ears with a constant frigid pressure. We decided to visit the campus bookstore to purchase school gear as souvenirs but also hoped to find some earmuffs and heavier clothing to layer under our sadly insufficient coats. 

While we were shopping one of my nephews and his girlfriend decided to explore the campus more outside so that they might get some interesting photos to commemorate the occasion. As we were paying for the items we had chosen my nephew burst into the shop shivering and wet from head to toe. His girlfriend announced that he had walked onto the frozen surface of a manmade pond hoping to get a great picture. At first he only began to slide across the surface but then he became acutely aware that the thin ice was not going to hold his weight. There was a groaning crack and soon he was up to his waist in icy cold water which seemed to almost be freezing onto his body has he waded out of his predicament and scurried to the warmth of the building where we were. 

By the time we saw him his lips were turning blue and he looked at though he was going to pass out. We quickly purchased sweatpants, a sweatshirt and a warm jacket for him. Someone else found some hot chocolate for him to drink while his body adjusted to the more gentle temperature. It seemed to take forever for him to finally get warm. 

I had always thought that I wanted to live in a place where the winter weather regularly brought ice and snow. I dreamed of bundling up in hats and gloves and mufflers and coats so warm that I would look like a mama bear. It seemed nice to have a real winter season but I had never come close to imagining what real freezing weather is like. Somehow I found myself yearning for the more comfortable climate of my home.

That evening before the graduation ceremony we bundled up in our new layers of warmth and felt a bit more comfortable as we set out for dinner. Somehow it seemed appropriate that the place where we ate was called Eskimo Joe’s because the little college town really did seem to be located in some exotic arctic outpost. As wind sang its triumphant song once again that night I shivered at the mere thought of the cold and went as far down into the nest of blankets as I could without suffocating from lack of oxygen. I liked the feeling but knew that it was not something I would want to endure for weeks and weeks every single year.

On the way back home we stopped in Oklahoma City to visit the memorial dedicated to the victims of the bombing that had so horribly killed innocents. The design of the area was as stark as the incident. There was a single rigid chair made of stone for each person who had died, large ones for the adults and tiny ones for the children. The cold and the snow enhanced the bitter grief that I felt as I walked among the snow covered area. I longed for the life that comes with warmth and as we drove away I knew that deep down inside I am a creature of my own environment no matter how much I complain about the summer heat. 

I often think of Oklahoma in the winter and the hardships that the weather must have imposed on the people of long ago whose homes so often let in the in the cold through the chinks. I wonder how well a single fireplace warmed the house and what it was like to care for the livestock and make the trip to the schoolhouse in such conditions. I suspect that those who lived back then and even today are hardy folk who adapt to whatever nature sends their way. As for me, I’ll take my ocean breezes.

I was in the sixth grade when a new girl came to our class. She was even more quiet and shy than I was at the time. Even though we wore uniforms to school she somehow looked different in them. Her shoes looked clunky and were mismatched with the loafers and saddle oxfords that the rest of us wore. Her hair was wild and frazzled looking. She mostly kept to herself, standing in the shadow of the building during recess when we were all giddily chatting with one another. She kept her head down and averted her glance when we passed by her. Somehow none of us ever thought to invite her into one of our many circles of friends. All of our alliances had already been established and she seemed unlikely to fit into any of them. We would see her but not see her.

I walked to and from school in those days. I’d take a route down a sidewalk on one of the main streets of the isolated and quiet neighborhood where I lived passing the homes of many of my classmates along the way. I began to notice the girl walking just ahead of me day after day. Her pace was purposeful as though she was in a hurry to get home but I too walked quickly back then so I was usually just a few steps away from catching up with her. On a whim borne more out of curiosity than kindness I one afternoon decided to quicken my steps and introduce myself. That’s when I learned that her name was Evelyn and that she and her family were renting a home only one street over from mine. Thus began our routine of accompanying each other on the long walk home. 

Evelyn never told me much about her herself or her family circumstances and I decided not to ask since she seemed uncomfortable talking about that subject. Instead we spoke of school and laughed about things that had happened during our time there. We both adored our teacher Mrs. Loisey and had crushes on some of the boys in the class. Once Evelyn became relaxed with me she shared a radiant smile that made her seemingly plain face stunningly beautiful. She was funny too and exceedingly kind. I found myself looking forward to our afternoon chats and liked her more and more with each passing day but once I reached my street that was the end of our time together. She politely turned down my suggestions that we get together in our homes which might have baffled me if I had been older and more observant but did not bother me much back then.

At school Evelyn was still an outsider. I asked her to join me with my friends but she mostly stood on the edges of our recess time gatherings. For the most part she remained an enigma to most of my classmates who never saw her joy or heard her laughter. In time she became the victim of bullying, often by the very boys that the two of us had most admired. It was painful to watch them making jokes about her that were just audible enough to spread through the classroom like a rumor but not noticeable enough to disrupt the orderly flow of learning. It was only when the torture that she was enduring reached a crescendo of cruelty and humiliation that she lost it one day and struck back at one of her offenders loudly enough that the entire class halted in stunned silence.

I have always remembered how deftly Mrs. Loisey handled the situation, saving face for Evelyn while humbling the boys with stern reminders of how unmanly their behavior had been. All the while she somehow managed to accomplish the blow to the boys’ egos with humor that left most of us laughing but understanding how wrong and silly the campaign of terror had been. 

Nobody bothered Evelyn after that and we never spoke of it in our daily sojourns together. She seemed to become more and more relaxed at school and even ventured into other friendships during our recess time. Somehow we all began to accept her quirkiness and as she felt better and better about herself she slowly became one of us and then just as suddenly as she had come into our world she was gone. 

I missed her on my journey home each day. I had come to depend on her company and the corny jokes that she told. I wondered where she had gone and how she was doing because she had not even shared that she was about to depart. Maybe she did not even know that she would be leaving imminently. I hoped that it was not going to once again be difficult for her to adjust to a new home and a new school. I worried that she might be bullied again and that her teacher might not be as wonderful as Mrs. Lousy in handling the situation.

When I became a teacher I found myself noticing the “Evelyns” in my classroom. There often seemed to be some poor soul who did not fit in well with the strict social standards of teenagers. They would struggle to be comfortable and more often than not become the butt of jokes and harassment. I made it my duty to watch over them and help them navigate through the ugliness that young people sometimes dish out because of their own immaturity and insecurities. I did my best to be a Mrs. Loisey for them. 

Bullying seems to only have become worse with the advances of technology and social media. The torture inflicted on victims is sometimes not apparent at school. Instead it is more likely to be happening online after hours for all the world to see. The audience can grow to thousands of strangers who giddily join into the terrorizing of some innocent soul. It is much more difficult to see or combat than in the past and much of it is done with an anonymity that allows the bully to be even more ferocious that he/she might have been in a face to face encounter. The old saw of just ignoring it does not work as well when the pain and insults feel like threats or when so much of society even among adults has joined into the ugliness with the stroke of a few keys on a phone or computer. It’s something that has grown like a disease.

Celebrities and First Ladies have mounted campaigns to confront bullying and schools have even provided instruction to students about its horrific effects and still it is there. It is up to each of us to do our parts within our families, circles of friends, and our communities and to serve as examples and champions of decency. If our children hear us calling someone names or laughing about differences they will surely believe that doing so is acceptable. We can one by one do our best to stop bullying by being kind in our own interactions with people. We can also teach our young how to work together to look for those who are alone or suffering and include them rather than simply leaving them to be alone. Everyone has a part of their souls that makes them beautiful. It’s up to us to help them show how wonderful they really are. We all need to ensure that the “Evelyns” in our world have a reason to smile.