Author: Sharron Burnett

“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.

I read the other day that there a something like eighty four Christmas movies available for the season when we get a bit sentimental and return year after year to our favorite flicks. I am one of those people who doesn’t feel like I have sufficiently enjoyed the season without repeating traditions that hark back to my youth, including watching movies that I have seen almost as many times as I am old. Christmas is a glorious time of year for me regardless of any trials that I may be enduring and my favorite movies are part of my traditions.

I have to admit that I have attempt to view Hallmark Christmas movies but I lost interest rather quickly. The stories were so predictable and the acting was so subpar that I was unable to keep my attention focused on the screen. Somehow I never quite understood the fascination that some of my friends have with the B level features. Nonetheless I am of the mind that each person should have a good time enjoying whatever brings them joy.

A friend and I once wrote a screenplay for a Hallmark Christmas movie in less than an hour. It featured a fallen, handsome and embittered ski instructor from Austria and a beautiful young woman visiting with her friends on a Christmas break. I won’t reveal the rest of the tale but if you’ve ever watched a featured film on Hallmark you will probably instantly figure out what will happen to these two seemingly opposite characters. 

Hallmark is associated closely with Christmas including its annual assortment of cute little ornaments. I first invested in one that featured Steamboat Willie whistling away. It was quite adorable and worked by attaching a wire to a string of tiny lights. It was truly one of our all time favorite ornaments until the artificial tree that we had been using fell and apart after years of use. When we purchased a new one the fitting for the ornament did not match the fitting on the lights so Steamboat Willie has been silent ever sense. When we place him on the tree we hum his tune for him but somehow it just does not feel the same.

Along the way I began purchasing Hallmark ornaments with sounds that nostalgically reminded of beloved movies, characters and toys from the past. Sadly most of them only lasted for a time and then became mute like Steamboat Willie. While they were still cute but lost much of their magic when they began to fall apart. This year I decided to skip buying anymore because I had become wise to the reality that having them in tip top condition was fleeting. I even relegated them to an upstairs tree because they seemed to be needlessly crowding my great room tree that is filled with memories of friends and family. The Hallmark cuties still bring a smile to my face but they also remind me of the vagaries of life. Nothing lasts forever, nothing ever does as they say in a song from another movie that I really enjoy. The Hallmark trinkets are a reminder to me that I should cherish people not things, and somehow that leads me to the movies that are most impactful to me.

I still get a warm and sentimental feeling from watching every presentation of A Christmas Carol that has ever been produced. I find The Muppets Christmas Carol to be the most charming of them all and maybe even the closest to capturing Charles Dickens’ timeless story. Now that I have visited his one time home in London and walked along the streets in Camden where Bob Cratchit may have roamed I have an even better sense of the moral that Dickens’ wanted us to take away from his story.

Christmas is a time when we deck the halls and come together as people. Hopefully while doing so we remember the forgotten souls who are not as fortunate as we are. We think of Jesus being born in uncomfortable circumstances and know that somewhere in the world there is another child being born in equally uncomfortable surroundings. If we truly understand the message of Christmas we will know that the giving should extend to those who need it most. The Somali child in Minnesota is as beloved by God as the son or daughter of a billionaire. All the glitter and gold is but a passing amusement in our lives if there is not love for everyone behind it. This is the kind of story that I want to watch, a tale in which we humans rise above our stinginess and isolation to embrace everyone around the world regardless of how different they may seem to be from ourselves. 

I love Christmastime and the joy it has always brought to me. I remember the magical moments I enjoyed as a child when my brothers and I hung tinsel on the tree. I have a fond memory of my father reading The Gift of the Magi to me and asking me if I understood the theme of selfless love encapsulated in the tale. I think of Mrs. McKenna singing carols at church and the creche on the altar depicting the birth of Jesus. I remember making gifts for the sick and elderly as a young girl and visiting a nursing home where some of the residents cried at the sight of us. I smile as I recall the raucous gatherings at my grandma’s house and the baking of cookies with my mother each year. My life has been mostly good so I know what is most important for living a wonderful life. 

All of the trappings of Christmas are symbolic reminders of how each of us should behave toward one other. Above all they tell us to smile and be generous with each other. We are only here for a short time. Each Christmas season is a gift for us to enjoy and share. If those movies or baubles help us love more then they have done their job. This is the time to not just believe but also to act. It is love that actually moves the world in the right direction. God bless us everyone!

A friend who proclaims his allegiance to the MAGA way of thinking recently attempted to explain why he believes in the political ideas of Donald Trump. I read his commentary with great interest because I believe that we will never set things right as long as we refuse to hear and attempt to understand the people whose political leanings seem to be so different from our own. 

I began to parse his statements with the knowledge that I have always known him to be a good hard working family man. He worked alongside me in one of the schools where I taught mathematics. Our students were more often than not first generation Americans whose parents were recent immigrants to our country. Many of them lived in homes where English was rarely spoken. They often had to work after school to help the family pay for the basic necessities of living. While they may not have been wealthy in terms of income, most of them learned the value of determination and generosity from their parents whose sole goal in life seemed to be to create a better way of living for their children.  

This man who was a fellow teacher also knew a great deal about repairing cars so he came up with an idea for the students that he thought might help them. He purchased an old automobile, parked it outside of the school gym and offered lessons on mechanics after school to anyone eager to learn the foundations of a trade. It was inspiring to watch him working with the young people and to see how much they appreciated his extra efforts. 

Fast forward to the present and I find myself reading the proclamations of this man in which he defended his stance as a MAGA. What I learned from him is that fairness is of utmost importance in shaping his political views. He claims to have no prejudices against immigrants but at the same time he insists that they come to our nation legally. Since I observed his kindness to our immigrant students in real time I can attest to his sincerity in this regard but our opinions diverge in many other ways. 

I too believe that there have to be rules in most aspects of life but I have learned over time that there is indeed a blurred line in which following the so called letter of the law sometimes seems more unjust than taking valid reasons for infractions into account. This is particularly true when looking at our immigration system. All too often the ability to manipulate the system is relatively easier for a white male who is wealthy than for a person of color for whom many Americans still have negative reactions. Take the case of Elon Musk for example. It seems that he came to the United States on a student visa but was soon working rather than studying. He violated the conditions of his visa but little or nothing was done to inhibit his ability to stay in our nation. On the other hand, the Trump administration is openly talking about certain groups of people that he calls”trash” and indicating that we need to rid ourselves of them even if they have followed the rules one hundred percent of the time. I truly wonder if my friend is deluding himself in overlooking such contradictions to his idea of fairness. Is it really fair to classify people according to personal feelings about their worth in order to make it more difficult to be citizens of our nation?

My friend then went on to describe his desire to make decisions for himself without government interference but countered his arguments for freedom by describing ways of forcefully attempting to change the lifestyles of trans individuals and those whose spiritual lives are different from his own. He does not seem to note the contradictions of his feelings in which he wants more freedom for the causes that are important to him but less for those that he does not like or understand. Because I know him quite well I don’t believe that he is just an angry prejudiced individual but he has wrongly bought into ugly propaganda that streams regularly from the mouth of Trump and is reinforced by his loyalists. Somehow he has been convinced to link his religious beliefs with a kind of harshness that denies the worth of many segments of society. 

I struggle to speak individually with people like my one time colleague. It pains me to know that he has been mesmerized by the MAGA way of governing. Because I know him well I cannot simply indict him and I don’t want to call him ignorant either but I cannot get through to him no matter how hard I try. Our only meeting of minds occurs when he speaks so kindly about the love for his students that I know that he is genuine. He proselytizes as though he is on a holy crusade to help all Americans understand what he believes to be truth while obliterating the possibility that there may be a much kinder and more logical way of living together in harmony. I may as well be shouting into the void whenever I attempt to make my differing point of view known to him. He is adamant that I have nothing of worth to say even as I go to great lengths to give him the benefit of doubt. It frustrates me on a very personal level to know how many souls like him surround me from day to day. I wish that the MAGAs that I know would be more willing to have a genuine discussion in which we might find the common ground that we need to make the nightmare of this moment in our nation’s history go away. 

If he would actually listen I would say to my friend that fairness can’t be limited to only his point of view. If we indeed believe that each person should be free to be himself or herself then that must include people whose ideas seem to be diametrically opposed to our own. Our only way out of this morass is going to be the moment when we are once again able to rationally discuss issues for the common good of all people, not just a chosen few. That is the very definition of fairness and in that regard there cannot ever be exceptions.

When my grandparents came from Slovakia to the United States they settled in the east end of Houston so close to downtown that they could see the buildings from the front porch of their home. A short walk took them to Navigation Street where they often caught a bus to ride into the center of the city. Sometimes they even walked the many blocks from North Adams Street to their destinations in town. 

My grandfather worked in a meat packing plant that no longer exists. It was located along the railroad tracks for easy loading and unloading of animals and products. He wore a suit to work and then changed into a dungarees to do his job of cleaning the floor where the slaughtering took place. Year after year he faithfully arrived to do the dirty work of which he was very proud. He loved the United States and the freedoms that it afforded him and his children even though they were often jeered for being dirty immigrants. Being a well read man who understood all too well the largesse of opportunity here, he counseled his children to ignore the taunts and learn to be good citizens. Indeed that is what they became. 

My grandfather died before I was born. I only understood who he was from hearing his story of dedication in caring for his family. He had purchased land and built a house without any debts. He faithfully executed his responsibilities by never once missing a day of work even as the aches and pains in his legs became more and more severe. He had a fine collection of books dedicated to mathematics, business and agriculture. His dream was to retire to a farm on the outskirts of southwest Houston on land that he had purchased. Sadly he had a stroke before he had retired and his farm was not to be. 

We visited my grandmother every Friday night in the tiny house where ten people had lived. As a child I wondered how they had managed to survive in such a small space. Even the tiny houses of today seem to be larger than the one where four boys and four girls shared two tiny bedrooms. I was grown before I ever realized how remarkable my grandfather and grandmother had been. 

Each Christmas Eve the entire extended family gathered on North Adams Street to celebrate the season. It was the best night of the year in my mind. We munched on oranges and nuts that filled enamel bowls set around the living room. Of course my grandmother busied herself serving coffee to everyone including the smallest children. On the dining room table there would always be a fresh loaf of dark rye bread form the Weingarten’s bakery along with the biggest Whitman’s Sampler I had ever seen. I still remember one of my cousins ignoring the map on the lid of the box that identified what each bon bon was. Instead he would stick his finger inside each candy until he found the one that he wanted. 

Ours was a raucous group with so many people talking at once that it was difficult to hear any conversation. The shyer people in the family congregated to the corners of the room and simply watched the more outgoing souls who seemed to be yelling at the top of their lungs. The winners in that category were my Uncle Paul and my Aunt Polly. The rest of us clung to our chairs lest moving would result in losing a place to sit. 

The big event was the passing of the envelopes of money that my Uncles Paul and Andy always presented. Someone in the group would be lucky enough to walk away with over a hundred dollars. The rest of us would be content with the six dollars that came from the low end of the prizes. Some families seemed to have the midas touch when it came to winning the jackpot but it was never the fate of my branch of the family tree.

The other delight was watching my grandmother open her Christmas gifts from each of us. This was a kind of contest in itself to see which present seemed to please her the most. The original eight siblings were quite competitive in this regard and to my mother’s credit she often won that designation. Then my grandmother would quietly store everything away in her attic to be used at a later time or even never. 

We cousins often found our way outside to the front porch where we concocted different kinds of games. As we grew older and found our potential spouses the game became watching the boyfriends and girlfriends run the gauntlet of our zany group. We always knew that if they could handle Christmas Eve with us they were good for life. Many a potential bride or groom chickened out but my husband Mike glowed with delight and fit in almost automatically. 

A few weeks ago we decided to go the a restaurant in the near east end of Houston. Of course we had to pass by North Adams Street where the little house still stands as the only home that continues to exist in what was once a quaint little neighborhood. It was comforting to see the place even though my grandmother and all of her children are now gone. The memories of the wonderful times there came flooding back as I realized what a stabilizing force all of those loving relatives had always been. 

Now my brothers and I recreate the Christmas Eve experience in the home of one my niece. Just as in the old days it is a loud and joyous affair that is growing and growing with new members all of the time. It is still perhaps the happiest day of the year for me when I gather with the people that I most love. I hope the joy and love within our family never ends.

Many years ago two lovely young women gave me one of the most thoughtful gifts that I have ever received. Tucked away in a yuletide bag was the movie, Love Actually, a bag of microwave popcorn and a can of Diet Coke. The two young teachers were Lissa and Katty, outstanding educators who have only become ever better in their craft over time. Both of them were young enough to be my daughters but we clicked as friends who seemed to understand each other in magical ways. Being around them brought me so much joy and tons of laugher. It was as though we were somehow cut from the same cloth. We were almost able to read each other’s thoughts. 

I left the school where we all worked decades ago but through the wonder of Facebook I have been able to stay somewhat in touch with both of them. I still smile at their sassiness and sense of humor but also clearly see how devoted they are to their jobs of guiding young people. Needless to say both of them are cherished by their students and the administrators who hired them. They make learning interesting and fun but more than anything they make every student feel important. They have uncanny abilities to spread love wherever they go just like they did with me. 

The movie that they chose for me was apt. While it is at times free spirited and humorous at heart it is about the kind of love that lives and grows all around us even when we do not notice it. It is a delightfully hopeful motion picture that seems timeless even as hairstyles and music change. the idea that love comes in many different forms is a beautiful thought at Christmas time when we should all be called upon to open our hearts to the people who mean so much to us. It’s a great time to really let people know that you see them, think of them, appreciate them. When you begin to think about it you soon realize that the clerk who took extra time to help you find your way around an unfamiliar building is as much a part of the love we all hope to find in the world as our closest family members and friends. 

This Christmas I have heard from former students and colleagues. Christmas cards have come from people who never seem to forget me even though it may have been years since we have seen each other. Family gathers and we realize how important that kind of stability is in our lives. Dear friends bend and reschedule special occasions when something goes wrong and we have to cancel. Neighbors smile and wave and leave trinkets on our doorsteps. The yard men take extra care in making our lawn look outstanding for the holidays. People everywhere smile and quite sincerely wish us the best. We have so much proof that love is winning over the ugliness that we still witness and hope to change. 

In Love Actually there are betrayals, relationships that break down, those that are so superficial that they walk away when things get tough. Mostly there are beautiful friendships and discoveries of love in the most unexpected places which is exactly how it seems to work in real life. How often has someone surprised you with acts of kindness and caring that you never saw coming?

It would be easy to view the world with a sense of concern given the hatefulness that seems to float in the air but for every ugly action hundreds seem to step forward to proclaim good will. This is a season in which we would do well not to focus on hurt but instead to realize the incredible impact of friendship represented in a kit put together for a night of enjoyment. Lissa and Katty thought of that for me and their gesture remains a beautiful memory that only grows stronger and stronger over time. 

I have reached an age when the math tells me that I am running out of time. I have no idea how many more years I will have to shower the people that I love with the gratitude that they so deserve. Many of my peers have already gone to the great beyond. I know that I am not immortal but if I take the time to reach out to the people around me I achieve a kind of immortality for a moment. We all remember the people who spread love among us. Somehow their spirit lingers longer than they do. That’s because loving actually is the best way of behaving to which any of us might aspire. Not all the money or titles or power in the world is worth more than the thoughtfulness behind a gift that keeps on giving like the one that Lissa and Katty gave me. It was actually the gift of love.