Author: Sharron Burnett

The wind is howling outside on a cold morning as I write this blog and another year winds down. I would be lying if I did not admit that I am physically and mentally exhausted as I look toward a new year and another new beginning in my life. This has been a tough time for me with people that I love suffering from accidents and medical emergencies that struck them down and frightened those of us who care so deeply for them. At this moment everyone made it but the fragility of their lives is in full view and I feel humbled as I realize the good fortune that continues to surround me. Nonetheless I am not the titan of energy and good health that I once was. The years that I have been on this earth are beginning to catch up with me and my stubborn insistence in being all things to all people is slowly becoming an impossible task to perform day after day. I see the limits to my abilities that I have so fiercely attempted to deny. 

I am a gentle person when all is said and done. My whole life has been centered on comforting and supporting the people that I encounter. I like to quietly be the person who fixes broken objects and fractured souls. I do my work outside of the limelight which I despise and find both comfort and joy in being able to make a difference in someone’s life, but of late I witness so much pain and sorrow that I am unable to keep up with the work like I once did. I need more sleep, more rest between tasks and find myself huffing and puffing before my work is done. I have a new role in life as I witness my children and other young people taking the reins in situations where I might have been the leader in another time. I see that they are doing a fine job and that I would do well to step back and allow them to demonstrate their mettle. Passing the baton to them is the proper way of things just as one year passes into another. 

I am still able to achieve things but not nearly as much as I once did. I have learned to forgive myself for dropping out of the marathon to rest before proceeding again. I still make it to the end of the distance but do so walking rather than running, taking my time and lingering along the way. 

I understand better than ever that my impact on the world will be smaller but perhaps more significant that I once hoped it would be. I am but one of millions of souls hoping to create a sense of peace and joy in my little corner. I see the progress that we have collectively made as well as the human tendency to backslide into the kind of habits that destroy friendships and lead to wars. I worry that during the past year we have been led to believe that might makes right when the evidence demonstrates that it only creates more terrible problems. Somehow we have allowed ourselves during this year to sit back and watch as our neighbors have been mistreated only because they seem to be different from ourselves. 

This morning I read Dr. Heather Cox Richardson’s annual telling of the horrific story of the massacre of the Lakota people at Wounded Knee. It was a shameful moment in the history of our nation much as the attitude toward immigrants among us is today. With the boast that America should be first we seem to forget that there was a time when the white Christians that we so revere came to this place and pushed the native people aside as though their claims to the land were insignificant. The warring that ensued as settlers pushed ever westward were as horrific as the use of slaves to build the economic power of our nation. Our history is stained with an original sin that many of us are still unwilling to confess and of late we seem to be determined to fall back into the kind of egregious behaviors that we had worked hard to abandon. Sadly much of what we are now doing hides behind the mask of religious fervor.

I suppose that this is why I feel so weary. For decades it felt as though we were evolving into better people who understand the importance of honoring our differences. Instead we have once again divided into camps nervously watching each other lest our freedoms and our rights be trampled upon. It is an icky feeling to witness the hatefulness and distrust growing when not so long ago we seemed to be capable of understanding that our tent is large enough to shelter even those whose ideas are very unlike ours.

I am not so naive that I do not realize that our relationships will always be imperfect. I know that we still have many troubles that we must tackle together but the constant bickering about how best to solve our problems has created a chasm among us that is far more dangerous than taking time to know and understand who each of us wishes to be. In the long run all any of us wants is to be able to lead quiet lives without fear regardless of the color of our skin, our spiritual beliefs, and ways that we choose to love. 

My wish for the coming year is that we begin to bridge the gaps that separate us from each other instead of allowing our leaders to push us further and further away. We are presently in a state as frightening as the nervous impasse of long ago when fears gave way to the slaughter of the Lakota people at Wounded Knee. It is time to put down our weapons and talk to one another once again without rancor. It is time to work together and to share our bounty with those who are in need. It is time to bridge the ever increasing gap that has been purposely created so that powerful men and women may foist their desires on us. It is time to look to new ideas and to really hear the voices of everyone, not just a chosen few. It is a new year with new possibilities if only we are willing to change our course without rancor and fear. Hopefully we will rise to the occasion.  

A couple of days after Christmas I actually slept in for the first time since May of 2020. That’s when my father-in-law went to the hospital on the very day when his second wife died. That summer was filled with concerns that he was not going to live much longer himself. He spent most of June and July fighting one medical emergency after another in hospitals and rehabilitation centers. When we finally brought him to our home he was barely able to walk into the house with a cane. Many people attempted to prepare us for the worst with him, insisting that he probably had no more than a few months to a year to live. Almost four years later he is still with us even though he recently had a bad fall that left him in a weakened condition once again. 

My father-in-law lived with us until a few weeks ago. We gave him our master bedroom and bathroom and moved upstairs to a small bedroom that we had called the guest room. We crammed our clothes and toiletries into the area and learned how to find a bit of privacy there each evening just before we fell asleep. 

At first I was full of spit and energy and so taking on the care of my father-in-law was an easy task for me. I would arise early each morning to prepare things in the kitchen so that he would have an easy time preparing his own breakfast which he liked to do to prove that he was still healthy and independent. As the weeks and then months rolled by he became stronger and stronger even as my husband Mike and I began to age. 

It was an interesting situation because my father-in-law is only eighteen years older than his son and only nineteen years older than I am. In a sense we became three old people living together. As Mike and I crept closer and closer to the end of of seventieth decade of life we both began to develop health problems that slowed us down.

Mike has heart disease and not long after his father came to stay with us he had surgery to open the valves of his heart. The process went a bit awry and he had some dangerous moments but luckily eventually turned out well. Next I injured my leg while decorating for Christmas and later developed spasms in my back that sent me to the emergency room twice. Mike was diagnosed with cancer and spent an entire summer receiving daily radiation treatments and my knees reached a point of being bone on bone so that I was limping whenever I walked. Still we were able to take very good care of my father-in-law who seemed to be a man of steel while we slowly fell apart bit by bit. 

I kept to a strict routine of rising as early at five in the morning to prepare things so that my father-in-law would be able to follow his routines. I made sure that he had his favorite foods at all times and created healthy dinners that would not irritate his sometimes picky stomach. He liked to sit down for wine and cheese each evening before having dinner so we timed our days to comply with his wishes. Those evenings of conversation were fun but also began to wear on our energy which was constantly being challenged by new aches and pains that seemed to taunt us. 

In the meantime my younger brothers began to develop serious illnesses that threatened their lives and forced them to curtail their lifestyles. It was quite worrisome for me to consider that I might one day be left without my brothers who were younger than I am and who had always been so strong and healthy. I began to feel greatly anxious for my husband and my brothers who all seemed to be moving closer and closer to a more limited lifetime. I worried about how I would be able to help care for them and also for my father-in-law while limping around on knees that were painful twenty four hours of the day. My doctor finally convinced me that I first had to take care of myself if I were to be of any use to others. It was a bitter pill to face because I have always been a bundle of energy with an almost excessive caretaker personality. 

Not long after my seventy seventh birthday my father-in-law agreed that he would like to go live in a lovely apartment in a senior living facility. He was in such good shape that the nurse agreed that he was fully independent and would not need anyone to provide him with assistance in his daily needs. 

The truth is that Mike and I set things up for him so that his only real tasks were bathing and dressing himself and taking the pills from the bill minders that Mike had been creating for him for the past four years. All of his meals were prepared at the facility and someone came once a week to clean his apartment, change his linens, and wash his clothes. Nonetheless I worried because I knew that we had mostly created the illusion that my father-in-law was totally independent by constantly going behind him and repairing any problems that he created for himself. In truth I worried that he needed to be supervised every single day just as we had quietly done while he lived with us. Not a moment had gone by in which he was on his own. We kept his routine appearing to be perfect with our continuous vigilance. 

Sadly, just before Christmas my father-in-law fell in his bathroom in the early morning hours. He says that he did not trip. Instead he just suddenly fell forward and the damage to his body was enormous. He spent the next almost two weeks in the ICU teetering between life and death but once again made it. 

Life became even more exhausting for me and Mike while we balanced our lives between checking on my father-in-law and preparing for the annual Christmas festivities. I continued to rise early from my sleep and work until very late at night to make certain that things would go well and they did. We had a glorious three days of celebration with our children and grandchildren and extended family. My son-in-law helped with the Christmas day cooking which I appreciated more than he will ever know. Now we have the uncertainty of the days ahead and what will happen with my father-in-law as he leaves the rehabilitation center. 

His condition is such that neither Mike nor I will be able to adequately care for him. He will have to be lifted and bathed and fed. I am not supposed to lift anything heavy and Mike’s heart is strong now but too fragile for such difficult duties. We are both having to admit to our limitations and that is perhaps the most difficult aspect of all. We can take care of ourselves and each other but taking on a frail ninety six year old is now out of our league. In fact, when we visit him at his apartment people think that we are also residents there. 

Two days after Christmas I crashed not just from the busy season but from the culmination of four years of long days and incredibly anxious moments. I became a slug because for a brief time I was able to be so. I slept well past nine in the morning and spent the next three hours reading and writing in a recliner with a cozy blanket on my lap. I let go and admitted that I was not superwoman anymore. It was a lovely and humbling moment in which I felt willing to transition to a new phase of life. I realized that it was truly time for me to relax my grip on controlling every situation that I will encounter and allowing the younger generation to rise to the occasion. 

I hope that all will go well for my father-in-law. He has gifted professionals taking care of him now. He has friends and family who faithfully visit with him. I think that he will even be strong again. In the meantime I am getting ready to fix one of my knees and I am more than willing to finally relax and let my perfectionism go.

Life is truly comprised of phases through which we must go. I’m ready for the next way of living and the challenges that lie ahead. Mine has been a long journey to acceptance of the way that I truly need to be. Wish me luck in keeping the promise to enjoy life just the way it is.

Once a week my husband, Mike, and I engage in a delightful excursion in a hidden treasure near downtown Houston. It has the feel of entering a different world where joy and plenty are in abundance. It is a foodie heaven, a cornucopia of many flavors. Of course I am talking about the farmer’s market on Airline Drive just north of the downtown area. There we engage in the ancient art of exploring the stalls filled with delightful treats at prices that would please the most astute trader. 

We’ve been going to a farmer’s market in this location for decades now but the newest iteration is modern, airy and filled with joy. Vendors bring their best offerings of fruit, vegetables, nuts, spices, plants, cookware and odds and ends for the public to peruse and hopefully purchase. Music and laughter fill the air as though a big party is in process. There is a kind of joviality to it all that lifts the spirit and brings smiles to the faces of everyone enjoying the experience. Best of all bargains abound. 

In an age of higher prices for produce this farmer’s market is the place to be. I find fresh, juicy oranges that would sell for a fortune in a regular store being sold at a price so low that I indulge myself with a dozen to enjoy for a week. I have recently purchased twelve beautiful tomatoes for only two dollars., three bunches of gorgeous green onions for a dollar and freshly shelled pecans that have not sat in a bag for months for five dollars. The prices and the quality of the items can’t be beaten anywhere else. Best of all the atmosphere is friendly and exciting.

Tucked among the vendors of fine produce there is the Alamo Tamale Company where delicious tamales of many varieties can be eaten on site or taken home for another day. A meat store boasts some of the most beautiful cuts that I have ever seen. There are people selling jewelry and even clothing for prices that seem almost too good to be true. Children and families stroll through the narrow walkways enjoying a day away from their everyday worries. Everyone seems to find something that they must take home and nobody feels as though their budgets have been busted. 

For those who are really adventurous a bakery sits across the street with lovely traditional Mexican breads and pastries just waiting to find their way into the homes of those lucky enough to have found the place. Across the way pottery from Mexico and South America is stacked sky high with its brilliant colors luring garden enthusiasts to come take a look. Seafood is for sale or ready to eat on the spot at another location. All in all the area has the same feel as a London market with vendors offering such a variety of items that being there becomes like a hunt for treasure. 

Be sure to bring cash when you come. Everything is old school, nobody uses credit cards. If you forget there are ATM machines posted here and there ready to accept your card and dole out cash to use. If you plan to buy a great deal you might bring a wagon to haul your goodies as many people do. On your first venture you may just want to familiarize yourself with the offerings and get to know who seems to sell at the best prices. Maybe you just want to be part of the celebration, enjoying the aroma of the spices and the sounds of chatter and joy. However you wish to participate you will walk away feeling glorious, vowing to return as soon as possible. 

Since Mike and regularly check on his father and his father’s house which are both nearby the market we have become regular customers for certain items that we use in abundance. We zip in and out most of the time now but always leave with big smiles on our faces, wondering why more people who live in the Houston area do not make the market a regular destination much like Borough Market in London or the market in Seattle. Surely even guests to our city would enjoy the adventure as much as we do. 

Saturdays and Sundays are like a carnival with all of the sights and sounds and sense of celebration. Weekdays are slower and offer the best prices. Everything is fresh from the Texas valley tempting shoppers to stop and select a bit of this and that for lunch boxes or their nightly dinners. It’s a way to hike and get those miles on the watch without the boredom of simply treading down a boring trail. 

I get a wee bit more adventurous each time that I visit the Airline Farmer’s Market. I try new things and tarry a bit longer at the different stalls. There is so much to see, so much to experience and if you take the right route home you might even want to stop in at one of the oldest Shipley’s Donuts store where the sugary orbs seem to taste better than anywhere else. The secret of this fabulous part of town should be known to everyone who enjoys doing things that are out of the ordinary. You won’t regret the trip that you make. 

My growth depends on my walls coming down.  Evelyn Underhill

I grew up in a very protective cocoon. After my father died my mother made certain that my brothers and I would always feel safe and loved. Our neighborhood was a fairly new suburb south of downtown Houston in which the troubles of the outside world rarely evidenced themselves. The people there were good and so were the schools and churches and activities for kids like me. My life felt free and easy aside from meeting my responsibilities for studying and doing my homework. While my mother was struggling with a hopelessly small budget I was blissfully unaware. Somehow I never once worried that we might miss a meal or lose our home. Life was delightful for me. 

I remember certain events that seemed to affect some of my peers more than they impressed me. One was the Cuban Missile Crisis that I knew very little about until years later when I was an adult. It was only then that I realized how close our nation had been to a nuclear showdown. At the time I wondered why my teacher advised us on what to do if an emergency situation arose. It was all a passing and meaningless event to me even though as a seventh grader I should have been old enough to have some kind of understanding about the gravity of the situation. 

It was only with the assassination of President John F. Kennedy that I woke up and saw that the world was a much more dangerous and cruel place than I had imagined. His death hit me hard and from that point forward ai began to notice more and more that was happening that would have an impact on me and my fellow Americans. In the blink of an eye I began to pay attention and to change. 

When my mother had her first horrific bout with mental illness I was still shy and reticent when it came to speaking my mind but I had already been thinking about the troubling aspects of the world around me and somehow that change provided me with the courage to advocate for her. Once I found the bravery that I needed I did not stop. I began a crusade of self discovery that lead to to the possibilities of ideas that had never before occurred to me. I voraciously studied political, psychological, sociological and philosophical ideas about the best ways for humans to live in harmony in a massive world. 

Of course my life had taught me to be realistic, to understand that there is no perfect panacea for the ills that seem to taunt humans. Nonetheless I made a concerted effort to learn about people and ways of living that I had not known before. Being a child who grew up in the segregated south I was shocked to learn of the mistreatment of Black people who lived in my city rather close by where I had grown up. I realized the evil of the old ways and welcomed and supported their integration into our society. In meeting them I saw that they were far more like me than different. In fact, over time I have witnessed the human characteristics that link all of us regardless of where we were born, how we have lived, the color of our skin, the language of our communication. It is truly in the content of our hearts that I see the glory of our oneness in a desire for peaceful and safe lives for ourselves and others in this world. 

As I matured and worked with people and students of every possible economic and demographic backgrounds I realized the prejudices that I once had and how I needed to eradicate them from my thinking. I began to understand how much better we become as people when we are fortunate enough to know and love people just as they are, not was we may have once thought that they should be. The worth of an individual has nothing to do with their income, their intellect, their country of origin, their religious beliefs, or their sexual preferences. When all is said and done there is no such thing as a more superior kind of person. The man who so meticulously maintains the landscape of my yard is as important as the doctor who guides my health. The glorious variety of the world keeps us vibrant. Isolating ourselves from others who are different makes us stagnant and uninteresting. Each person who is born has special talents and worthiness that it is our duty to protect, not shun. 

At the present time the president of our nation seems intent on isolating us and choosing only certain kinds of people to be part of our freedoms and privileges. He wrongly and openly classifies whole swathes of people as being either good or bad. He ranks humans based on their wealth rather than their character. He is unwilling to even consider alternative beliefs. He wants to create a one size fits all kind of America in which we all think and act alike. He rejects the idea that each human is complex. He prefers a simplification of life based on bottom lines and adherence to a single way of thinking. He has yet to break down the walls that constrict his mind and therefore make him ignorant and dangerous. 

I am happy that I have been guided into expanding my own horizons. Perhaps it was my father’s influence that encouraged my journey. Maybe it came from teachers who introduced me to alternative ways of looking at life. Perhaps I learned it from the variety of people that I have met over the years. Whatever the case, I am glad that I have not restricted myself to believing that some people are not worth my attention. Each person who lives and breathes on this earth began life as a gift to us all. We would do well to focus our efforts on helping everyone to tear down the walls that lead them to prejudices and hate. Once the barriers are gone life becomes so much more interesting and beautiful. 

“What counts in life is not the mere fact that we have lived. It is what difference we have made to the lives of others that will determine the significance of the life we lead,” Nelson Mandela

When someone is in the public light and famous it is almost certain the he or she has made some kind of difference in the lives of others. Sadly that difference is sometimes quite negative and damaging. It is in the positive encounters that the full significance of a life is best measured. 

Of course nobody is perfect, so the likelihood that there will be bad mixed in with even the most good is a possibility. In most cases a person has a preponderance of a certain kind of effect on others that counts as a measure of life beyond any mistakes that may have been made. We are all human after all and as such it is doubtful that any of us ids perfectly wonderful all of the time, but some of us come very close to perfection.

I have been fortunate to know wonderful souls who truly dedicated themselves to the positive progress of humankind. My friends Sonja and VeeJay are such people. I met them shortly after I moved into my present home. They were still grappling with the medical issues of an extremely premature little girl who was so small that she might have fit inside a teacup when she was born. After many weeks in intensive care she was thriving and becoming more and more likely to finally be at home with her family. Before that her mother and father had virtually lived at the hospital and so they had missed greeting us when we first moved onto the street. As unselfishly as they would always be they wanted to make sure that we understood that they were quite happy that we had joined the cul-de=sac. 

Over the next many months Sonja reached out to me over and over again, inviting me to neighborhood events and sweetly introducing me to her friends. She and VeeJay went out of their way to make Mike and me feel very welcome in our new home. They paved the way for us to feel as good and we had in the home that we left after over thirty years of living and memories. 

It did not take long to realize that Sonja and VeeJay were loved by everyone who knew them. Why wouldn’t that be so? They embraced everyone with kindness and joy. We felt that we were very lucky to have them so close by our home and became valued friends of them quite quickly. Sadly we soon learned that they were planning to move. They wanted to be closer to a church that they had joined. They were quite active in all of the events taking place there but their drive to and from the place was long and taking far too much of their time. Besides, Sonja had decided to become a teacher there and it was also closer to VeeJays job. We had to sadly watch these two wonderful people leave us behind as they embarked on a new life. 

The best aspects of Facebook came to the rescue. We have kept in touch with them from afar and they have proven again and again to be the kind of people who make a difference in the lives of countless individuals. including ours. Eventually Sonja and VeeJay had a son to go along with their beautiful and talented daughter. Both children are like their parents in the depth of their friendliness and generosity. 

The family became especially important to everyone who knows them during the long days of isolation and loss during the Covid pandemic. They began featuring a number of videos in which they competed with each other in preparing food given certain ingredients that they had to use. Their efforts were hilarious, especially those of the boy who is a natural born comic. We all clung to the joy of those videos during what were sometimes dark moments. Theirs was a lifesaving effort to keep smiles on our faces and the whole thing worked splendidly. 

In better times they have gone on missionary trips to bring medical supplies and food to people in parts of the world where poverty seems grind good people down. They lovingly minister to them and help them to rebuild their lives and their homes, embracing them with the same offer of friendship that they gave to me and my husband so many years ago.

Sonja continues to teach one group of little ones after another. VeeJay is still doing his engineering work. The girl is now a student at the University of Houston where she uses her beautiful voice and musical talents to bring joy to a wider and wider audience. The boy is finishing high school and offering his comic sense to the theater program. All the while they embrace every person they encounter with a way of making each of them feel special and loved. 

Most people will never meet Sonja or VeeJay or their children. Maybe the daughter and son will use their talents to become famous but that may or may not happen either. Nonetheless this family has touched the lives of more people that most of us do in all of our lifetimes. They give of themselves over and over again for no other reason than to make everyone feel important and loved. I can’t think of anything more significant that a person might ever aspire to do. They have led the kind of lives that each of us would do well to model and I am fortunate to be one of the recipients of their largesse. They inspire me to be better and do better just as I am sure they affect everyone that they encounter. Theirs are great lives born from their great deeds.