Author: Sharron Burnett

He grew up poor and had bouts of depression. On one occasion his mood grew so dark that friends worried that he would kill himself. He was a back woodsy kind of man sho always appeared to be a bit rumpled compared to his more polished peers. He was thought by some to be a homely fellow whose gangly appearance made him seem awkward. Few thought he had a chance against his better educated, more refined and admired competition but somehow he earned the nomination of his Republican party to run for President of the United States. In a greatly divided race he won by a razor thin margin in a time of great anxiety for the nation. 

His name was Abraham Lincoln and he decided to bring disparate forces together by assembling a cabinet composed of the brightest and best of his political rivals. It turned out to be a master stroke that contributed greatly to saving the union when the country split in two. He understood human nature and managerial skills like few who have ever held that office. Knowing that he would never be able to lead the country by himself he created a team of expertise that kept things running while he directed a war. 

Few would have thought of such a thing. They might have surrounded themselves by “yes” men who fawned over his every suggestion. Instead Lincoln often deferred to ideas that would never have crossed his mind when he realized how effective they would be. He also made sure that the person or persons responsible would get the credit and attaboys they deserved. His uncanny abilities and unflagging devotion to the country ensured that our union would hold. His inspirational speeches only cemented the deal. 

The story of Abraham Lincoln’s tenure as president is remarkable on every level. For a man with tendencies toward fragile darkness he maintained a national optimism and strength. Not only was he worn down by the loss of life and property from the war but also by personal tragedies that took a favorite son and drove his wife into a near state of madness. He understood that maintaining a determined course to free the nation of the stain of slavery while holding the government together made him a target for violence and even murder. Nonetheless the good of the people was more important to him than his personal issues. 

We have had many good presidents and some of them have even been beyond great, but none of them ever faced the total destruction and dissolution of our country. While initially appeared to be an odd choice for our Chief Executive it is clear in retrospect that he was exactly the man that we needed at the moment. It is uncertain that anyone else would have had the fortitude to do what was right while brooking no quarter to the idea of a permanent state of conflicting governments. He understand exactly what was at stake and held firm until victory was assured. 

Once the war was over he was open to reconciliation and healing but he also wanted a smooth transition of the former slaves into society. He hoped desperately to heal the wounds that had turned brother against brother and led to the greatest wartime loss of life the United States would ever see. Neither he nor those who supported him had any idea that he would not live to see the reconstruction of the nation because the hatred that had stalked the country was still very much alive in the hands of an assassin and his accomplices. 

I cannot even view the Lincoln memorial without becoming emotional. It is a monument to all that is best in humans. Lincoln was a very imperfect man who found extraordinary courage in a moment when our country most needed it. He was not bound by personal pride or gain or reputation but the purest of all motives. He was fighting to save a nation that he believed deserved to be better than it had been. He was determined to right the wrongs of a century of denial. He somehow held himself together and admitted and corrected his mistakes until he ultimately got it right. Few in our history have ever come close to exemplifying his greatness.

I sense that Abraham Lincoln would be disturbed by what he sees happening in the United States of today even as he would recognize the warning signs. I suppose it would bother him to witness the rise in overt racism and the violence that has burst forth on the streets of America. Surely he would wonder why our military bases are named after Confederate generals rather than the brave warriors for the Union army. He must likely be confused by the statues of treasonous secessionists lining the streets and government buildings of some parts of the country. I suspect that he would warn us to be wary of those who would incite divisions and violence and he would remember with great pain what it was like the last time our Capitol had to be protected from its own citizens. 

How I wish that we would all think back to the greatest of our country’s leaders and heed the lessons that we should have learned from his time in office. His words echo through the ages and are as relevant today as they were more than one hundred fifty years ago. Here are a few of my favorites from my all time favorite president:

You cannot escape the responsibility of tomorrow by evading it today.

Let every American, every lover of liberty, every well wisher to his posterity swear by the blood of the Revolution, never to violate in the least particular, the laws of the country; and never to tolerate their violation by others.   

As I would not be a slave, so I would not be a master. This expresses my idea of democracy.

We are not enemies, but friends. We must not be enemies. Though passion may have strained, it must not break our bonds of affection. The mystic chords of memory, stretching from every battlefield and patriot grave to every living heart and hearthstone all over this broad land, will yet swell the hours of the Union, when again touched, as surely they will be, by the better angels of our nature. 

I’ve been quite happily married for over fifty years so the thought of ever dating again rarely comes to mind for me. Still, I have friends in my age group who have become single again who are embarking on late life romances that appear to be quite successful. My Aunt Polly married again when she was in her seventies as did my father-in-law. Both found new love after their long time spouses had died. 

My preference would be to have my Mike around until I’m so old that my own heavenly reward is looming and the idea of dating someone and falling in love again would not be worth the time and effort. If something were to happen to my beloved while I am still somewhat young and active I’m still not so sure that I would be up to the task of dating again. I always found dating even when I was young to be a rather stressful endeavor, at least until I found persons who were a good fit with my own quirky personality.

I’ve always been an exceedingly independent woman, liberated long before that term was used by the media. I suppose my personality evolved from living in a home with a single mom. I saw the challenges that she faced but also the freedom that she enjoyed. She got to be exactly the kind of person that she wanted to be and to live her life the way she wished. Her decisions became her own and she liked being able to make them. Nothing held her back but her own imagination except for a brief period of time when she was dating a man who became very jealous and abusive toward her. She literally unravelled before escaping from his grip.

Don’t get me wrong. I see the happiness of my father-in-law with his second bride, a woman quite different from his first love, but a sweet and caring woman who snatched the loneliness away from his hours. They have fun together and share their golden years with a quiet routine of understanding. I see their relationship as a beautiful thing so I know it is quite possible to find a new kind of love after the first one is gone. 

My problem is my own personality and the fact that I have settled into a quiet agreement with my Mike in which he allows all of my foibles to exist and flourish. I need my quiet time in the morning for gathering my thoughts and enjoying my writing. He makes his own breakfast and does his own thing while I slowly greet the day in my own way. We are both comfortable and understanding in our routines. He encourages me to continue my teaching on a part time basis because he knows how much it means to me. In fact he has always been that way, supporting me through continuing education that often took me away from time with him while I attended classes and studied. Ours is an equal partnership built on mutual respect and admiration. He does his thing and I do mine. We are so in tune with one another that we can complete each other’s sentences and we often have exactly the same thought at the same time. We can laugh at a joke that has not even been uttered just by observing a situation. Life is fun together while still feeling so free.

I see couples in my age group that are so traditional that the woman mostly defers to the thinking and demands of the man. They are not abusive but there is a kind of tediousness about them. In other cases I observe women who so dominate the men that the word “henpecked” comes to mind. I find myself thinking that if something were to happen to Mike I would not be willing to risk being caught up in a relationship that would feel constricting and uncomfortable. Perhaps I might be willing to have a gentleman companion now and again but even that kind of arrangement can come with far too many complications. That’s why I find myself leaning more toward a Golden Girls kind of existence if I one day found myself alone. 

I’ve watched friends get together with other women, either their sisters or daughters or friends and forge a fabulous life. My former neighbor Betty went to live in a house next door to her daughter. For a time her roommate was her sister. The house was designed to give each of them a private wing with a central area of cooking, eating and entertaining. Betty was so happy with the arrangement and eventually ended up sharing it with one of her daughters. It seemed liked a perfect situation to me. 

I have another long time friend who recently purchased a house with a woman that she has known since they were teens. Both of them had lived in different cities during their working years building wonderful careers. When they retired they decided that it would be nice to have someone in the house with whom to enjoy the hours no longer determined by work. Like Betty they found a home that allows them to each have a private area but also a central location for coming together. They have distributed the household duties based on their particular likes and skills. 

My daughters and their friend Lisa, who is like a third daughter to me, often dream of building a family compound in which each of us have a small home where we can do our own things but close enough to watch over each other. They have shared photos of tiny houses and immense estates. They’ve considered islands and cabins in the mountains. We all constantly joke about such an arrangement and attempt to decide who is who in this Golden Girls dream that I actually find the concept quite appealing.

Then there was my grandfather who was the founder of the Three’s Company idea. When he was ninety years old he rented a room from a recent widow of age sixty five. For the next eighteen years he lived in her tiny home along with her sister. They had great fun together and he ultimately considered the two women to be like daughters. Since he was actually the healthiest member of the group he often took care of them. It was a great way to spend his final years in comfort and without the anxieties of living along. 

At my age the possibility of losing my husband is real. I shudder at the very thought but wonder in the back of my mind how I would deal with such a thing. Certainly the idea of dating again is difficult to even imagine. On the other hand I do like the sound of a different way of living. Maybe I can find some women who would like to create a late life dorm in my home or perhaps that imagined compound will become a reality. All I know is that it’s way too late to ask me to change my ways and adapt to a new man.

The beginning of 2020 should have been a warning to our family that it was going to be a rough year. Within days of the dawn of a new decade one of my most delightful cousins had died leaving a hole in our hearts that we have yet to fill. Only a day or so later a sweet and favorite aunt had also passed from this earth. We attended back to back funerals before ten days had heralded the new year. We provided ourselves with solace by insisting that there was probably a joyful celebration happening in heaven as all of our departed loved ones gathered in a welcome party for the newcomers whose loss we were still grieving. 

Thinking the happy thought that our loved ones were in a better place was our way of dealing with the heartache that we were feeling. Somehow knowing that they would no longer feel the pain that had dominated their final days on earth provided us with comfort. Believing that they were joining those who had already left us seemed a just reward for the goodness that they had given all of us when they were at their lively best. Speaking of heavenly rewards was not just a belief of our faiths but also a kind of coping mechanism for dealing with the mysteries of life and death. 

I do believe that we humans experience something beyond our time here on earth, but in all honesty I have little idea what that might actually be. We have a tendency to see heaven as a place much like our earthly reality but devoid of all pain, sadness, hatred. We imagine it as a kind of Garden of Eden, the way the world might have been if Adam and Eve had followed God’s directions. Since nobody save for Jesus has ever returned from the dead to describe what life after death is actually like we have to use our creativity to determine what that might be. 

Obviously we do not take our bodies with us. Our skin and organs and bones eventually turn to dust. Perhaps it is only our souls, our essences that somehow find a state of perfection, a Nirvana in which there is eternal contentment. That feeling of perfect bliss may be all that we need. It is possible that we will only join those who have gone before us in a great cosmic mix so unlike anything we have ever experienced that there would be no need for reenacting our earthly practices. 

I have often wondered if we do indeed see the people who have died before us. If so, how do they look? Do they take the form of their most perfect moments on earth or do they remain as they were when they died. Will my father be a thirty three year old man and my mother a woman of eighty four years or will they be a young and beautiful couple? Will I only know them by a feeling rather than a physical presence? Will I have proof that they are there because they somehow greet me or will I simply understand that we are all together in a great mix of the entirety of human history?

Such questions have been the stuff of philosophers and theologians for centuries and nobody has a concrete, inarguable answer. All of our human ideas about heaven are based on requiring a great leap of faith and for some who require scientific proof for the existence of things it is too much of a stretch to accept. Nonetheless I am a believer, albeit one who would be loathe to think that I have a clear picture of what heaven will be like.

Stories of the resurrection of Jesus describe him as having his earthly appearance but also a kind of aura that made him other worldly. The apostles saw him but did not totally know him because he was different in ways that they found hard to convey with words. I suspect that heaven will be unlike anything we have ever before experienced. It will be mind boggling but we will be in a stage in which we do not need explanations. What is will be. 

To steal an idea from one of my cousins, life is a tapestry of many threads all woven together to hopefully create a beautiful and unique story of joy and sadness, blessings and tragedies. This is what it means to be alive on this earth. There is a concreteness about our time here that is represented in things but heaven is ethereal. It is about who we have been without the trappings that we all too often use to judge ourselves and one another. I’d like to think that in heaven we are only about what is most important and we no longer see our differences but only what makes us perfect children of God. 

We often discuss heaven and whether or not it exists. We describe what we think it may be like if it is indeed real. As someone once told me once we are dead there are only two possibilities regarding heaven. Either there will be no heaven and since our brains are dead we will not care or there will be a heaven and those who have been deniers who nonetheless get there will be pleasantly surprised. Still it is a most pleasant possibility to consider. Maybe heaven ultimately is whatever we most want it to be. For me it would be an eternal reunion and an ongoing festival of love. 

I was in my mid twenties when I moved into Gulf Freeway Oaks in Southeast Houston. When I left I was in my sixties and had literally grown up there under the watchful and loving eyes of the most wonderful neighbors. Among them were Bob and Carol Hall, a stunningly attractive couple who like Mike and I had moved into the their home many years earlier as twenty years olds. By the time I arrived they had five sons ranging in age from high school teen to pre-school toddler. We became the best of friends in no time because of their generous personalities and I learned a great deal about parenting and general life skills from them. 

I was a ball of energy back then and often spent entire Sunday afternoons puttering in my expansive yard that was rivaled in size only by that of Carol and Bob. Before long Bob became regular yard buddies he wearing his straw hat to shade his handsome face from the sun and me being silly enough to get regularly burned. He would stop to take a break and have a smoke and strike up a conversation over the chain link fence. He was a quite interesting man so I was often tempted to forget about the work I needed to do and just spend the afternoon listening to stories about his job and his life. We must have repeated that routine hundreds and hundreds of time over the years and so I got to know Bob rather well.

Bob was a true handyman with a garage filled with tools of every sort and spare parts to fix whatever might need mending. He was as proficient in puttering with cars as doing carpentry or putting a new roof on his home. I marveled at his skills and he and Mike often traded home care tips. Whenever we needed anything or were at the point of frustration with a repair Bob would miraculously show up with advice and just the right tool or item that we needed. 

Living in a house built in the nineteen fifties meant there was always something that had to be replaced or fixed. Sometimes there were even extraordinary and unexpected challenges. On one occasion we kept hearing the sound of a meowing cat in our great room. I could not understand how it was possible for it to sound so loud since it had to be coming from outside. I mentioned it to Bob and he suggested that a kitten may have somehow gone onto the roof and then fallen into the chimney for our fireplace. While that sounded a bit bizarre to me experience had taught me not to doubt Bob’s wisdom. He and I traced the sound from the outside and he pointed to the exact place that he thought was the origin of the frightened cries. We took some shingles off the the exterior, cut into the black paper behind it and surely enough there was the tiny creature who was so afraid that she would not allow us to pull her out. 

Once again Bob had an idea. We opened a can of tuna and left it for the kitten to find it. I watched from the great room window as the little creature was led from it’s imprisonment by Mama cat into the open where they both gobbled down the treat I had left. Bob and I immediately resealed the area and then he suggested that we enclose the chimney with chicken wire to be certain that we might never experience the problem again. He and Mike went up top and secured the opening for posterity. 

That was Bob Hall to a tee, a man with a plan for everything and a great neighbor in every way. He was also a wonderful husband who respected his wife Carol’s wishes by never smoking in the house. We’d often seen him rain or shine, hot or freezing cold standing on his driveway or just inside his garage puffing away. More than that though he taught his five sons how to be great men and he encouraged them to follow their own dreams. They went on to become a salesman, a firefighter, a heating and air conditioning repairman, a nurse and a teacher. 

After we moved from the old neighborhood Bob and Carol ultimately did as well. Sadly Carol became ill and died not so long after they had moved into their new home. Bob contacted us to help him with some legal documentation and we agreed to continue meeting regularly because we enjoyed being with each other so much. After that we would meet with Bob at Starbucks and spend hours reminiscing, hearing about kids and grandkids and listening to Bob talk about his role with the Small Business Association and the University of Houston. He had a wry sense of humor that kept us laughing the whole time. One regular joke often repeated was how he rarely went hungry because the “Tupperware ladies” were continually showing up at his door with casseroles and other epicurean delights just to make sure that he was well fed and okay. Since Bob was still a very attractive and sweet man I always believed that many of them may have been hoping to lure him into a more romantic relationships than just friendship but he rarely spoke for long without bringing up Carol. Their’s had been a romance for the ages.

A few years back Bob had a stroke and with it lost much of his capacity for being as entertaining as he had once been. One of his sons told us that Bob did not feel comfortable with visitors and that in fact they tended to make him anxious so we did not get to see him anymore but I always hoped to hear that he had recovered to his old self that we would be able to once again sit for several hours over cups of coffee and tea just talking about a little bit of nothing. 

Bob died during the last week of January. His son said that his passing was peaceful. Somehow his death was a somber milestone for me. I realized that Bob had been the last of a team of four neighbors who had literally taken care of Mike and me for forty years. All of them are now gone and knowing that sent me into a state of uncontrolled sobbing. Bob was like a strong and loving and funny big brother to us. It’s tough to know that he is gone but I suspect that he’s happy to be with Carol again and he’s getting lots of welcome hugs from other neighbors who made it to heaven before him. Knowing Bob Hall was a special privilege that I will treasure until that time in the future when I join him and the others once again. To me he will always be Good Neighbor Bob.

I suppose that I am someone who might genuinely be called a cockeyed optimist. I have always had faith in the innate goodness of people. I believe that we are born innocent and only become evil if we have a brain defect or grow up in a toxic environment. I think that even when an evil person or group comes to power there will always be hordes of individuals with moral courage who are willing to fight for what is right and just.

I am also a realist. I know that even the best of us have imperfections. That includes countries and governments as well. While the United States of America was founded with good intentions the need to compromise to get everyone on board led to beginning our nation with slavery firmly in place. It was a kind of original sin that lasted far too long and should not have taken a civil war to eliminate. 

It would have been wonderful if all of our citizens had embraced the freeing of the slaves as not just a good thing but an act of contrition for the cleansing of our national conscience. Instead we continue even to this day to grapple with truths that we claim to be self evident, that all men and women are created equal and as such are due the same rights and privileges. We have yet to admit in unison and with fervor that in the history of our country Black Americans have been wronged and all too often along with them have been immigrants with darker skin from countries thought to be deficient. 

For a time I believed with all of my heart that we humans were slowly but surely evolving into better versions of ourselves. All too often I have been left to ponder why we so often back slide into selfish racist behaviors, sometimes seeming not to even realize we are doing so. I cringe whenever I hear people being stereotyped and misunderstood. Of late, I am sad to say, there has been more of that sort of thing than I have witnessed since I was a young girl growing up in the Jim Crow south of segregation and humiliation of an entire race of people. 

I hear those speaking of the Black Lives Movement as though the only thing they learned from it is that in some of the places where protests occurred things got out of hand and property was damaged and looted. To listen to them speak one would think that this happened in every single incident and that entire cities were burned to the ground. 

Of course we never want to encourage or accept violence of any sort even that in the name of justice. Those who break the law should be held accountable because they not only create damage to structures and businesses but they damage the message of Black people seeking to let us all know that we still have work to be done to help our brothers and sisters who have yet to reach the promised land of American life. 

It pains my heart to hear that the millions of voices raised to bring awareness to the realities of being Black in America have too often been reduced down to an unfair judgement because of the actions of a few. I wonder if those who turn against the movement because they see it as violent or unpatriotic realize that they are in truth demonstrating one of the main challenges that Black Americans face. It seems that no matter whether Black citizens kneel in quiet peaceful protest or walk through city after city with no incidents some Americans will only view them as trouble makers whose cause is overblown and unworthy of consideration. Many of these same people would argue for hours about the evils of aborting babies but are not willing to hear the cries of Blacks who live in a state of chronic fear. 

If I were able to live long enough to see one thing before it die it would be to finally view the fulfillment of Dr. Martin Luther King’s dream. I want to see a world in which Black and White Americans walk together in total harmony without prejudice and with a willingness to fully understand the impact that a long history of slavery has had on our society even today. I want to be around when racism is driven away like the plague that it is. 

I am not so foolish to imagine that my wish will come true but even becoming better and better with each new generation would be a move in the right direction. There has been progress but we cannot be content when we see that problems still exist and sometimes they are even promulgated with political propaganda. Until the day we all want to know how we can help rather than castigating those who bring problems to our attention we still have much work to do. 

I want to see us fulfill the promissory note that Dr. King told us must one day come due…

“When the architects of our republic wrote the magnificent words of the Constitution and the Declaration of Independence, they were signing a promissory note to which every American was to fall heir. This note was a promise that all men, yes, black men as well as white men, would be guaranteed the unalienable rights of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. It is obvious today that America has defaulted on this promissory note insofar as her citizens of color are concerned. Instead of honoring this sacred obligation, America has given the Negro people a bad check, a check which has come back marked insufficient funds. But we refuse to believe that the bank of justice is bankrupt. We refuse to believe that there are insufficient funds in the great vaults of opportunity of this nation. And so we’ve come to cash this check, a check that will give us upon demand the riches of freedom and the security of justice.”