Author: Sharron Burnett

Many years ago a neighbor called and asked me if I would be willing to watch her mother-in-law while she ran some important errands. I had nothing on my calendar so I immediately volunteered to help her out. In truth I had not even known that she was caring for an elderly relative. She lived on another street in my subdivision and we mostly interacted at school events. 

I had wondered why I did not see her out and about more often but thought little about what her situation may have been because she was always upbeat and never complained about being bound to her home. I saw helping her out as a way to let her know that I would like to see more of her. I really enjoyed that times that I was around her and wanted to move our sometimes acquaintance to the level of friendship. I eagerly drove to her home to sit with her loved one in the hopes that it would seal our relationship. 

When I arrived she was a bit harried and very unlike the happy go lucky woman that I had always encountered. She introduced me to her mother-in-law who was a sweet looking lady in a wheelchair. She thanked me over and over again for coming on short notice and explained that she normally had to plan very carefully to find the time and resources that would allow her to leave her home. I told her that I was eager to help and to think nothing of my very small sacrifice.

I never knew what she had to do on that day and I never wanted to ask about it. She was gone for around three hours and by the time she returned I was more than ready to leave. Her mother-in-law required a great deal of attention, making request after request that began to wear me out as the minutes turned into hours. I found myself constantly looking at the clock and noting mentally that it was harder watching the old woman than sitting with an infant or young child. The lady had so many needs that had to be instantly met and i became more and more anxious as I worried about what I would do if I had to lift her out of her wheelchair or if a medical emergency arose. 

I found myself stealing glances at my watch and gazing out the window hoping to see my neighbor returning to her home. When she finally arrived I felt an instant sense of relief. I noticed that the short outing had transformed her from the angst ridden women I had seen earlier to the relaxed and optimistic person that I had always known. She offered her thanks over and over again and finally admitted that she had taken more time than she actually needed because she was enjoying the freedom from constant confinement in her home. 

She told me that she had hit a wall earlier in the day and had an urge to run away from her duties. She told me that she had been caring for her mother-in-law for over four years and at times her tasks seemed endless. She mentioned that there were moments when she was filled with negative emotions that frightened her. She was anxious, depressed and angry. She confided that getting away for even a few hours made her duties more bearable. 

I urged her to remember to call me anytime that she needed to get away and asked her if she had others who might help. She remarked that things were often better in the evenings when her children and husband came home. They would assume many of the tasks that she performed while they were absent, but in truth the whole family was exhausted and in need of a long vacation from the sacrifices they had been making for years. 

My neighbor never called for my help again. He mother-in-law had a stroke not long after I had sat with her. It became too difficult for my friend continue caring for the olde woman. The mother-in-law spent her last days in a nursing home and my neighbor was suddenly constantly on the go spreading joy with a boisterous laugh that I knew reflected the panacea that she had needed. 

Since that moment I have had great admiration and empathy for anyone caring for an elderly or disabled family member. I no longer assume that everything is okay for such caretakers even if they walk around with smiles pasted on their faces. I witnessed my neighbor’s emotional outburst in a moment when she was unable to maintain her facade of strength. i understood that daily confinement even with a pleasant person is difficult. I began to look at those responsible for the well being of family members with different eyes. I knew the toll that their sacrifices were taking on them. Again and again I witnessed individuals pushing themselves to keep going even in the face of exhaustion. I knew that I had to do something to make their tasks just a bit easier.

We would all do well to be supportive of anyone who is bearing the brunt of responsibility with an elderly or sick person. No matter how strong they appear to be they will always be grateful for any help we can offer. It’s important that we do not leave them to handle the load alone. Sometimes all they require to keep going is a few hours just to be away from it all or even a moment to vent the poisons that are cluttering their minds. The phone call we make to them may be all that they have been needing. It’s important that they know that they are not forgotten and alone.

My father had an incredible impact on me in spite of dying when I was only eight years old. I remember so many moments in our short time together that influence me to this day. I’ve written about his love of history and books and music. Even after he was gone my brothers and I listened to the records he had purchased and played each evening on our Victrola. The many volumes he had purchased lined shelves in our hallway and as me I became more and more proficient and mature in my reading skills I would learn more about the kind of man he was. 

I knew that my father was a sports enthusiast because he listened to ballgames on the radio on Saturdays and read about teams in the newspaper. He assumed that I shared his enthusiasm so he often filled me in on the latest scores and news. I don’t recall many specifics from his commentaries other than his devotion to the athletes of Texas A&M University. He would regale me with stories of coaches and players that seemed to be household names in our family. I wasn’t really interested in that kind of information but I liked that his mind was filled with so much information. I smiled at the way he seemed to charm and entertain the men who came to visit us.

While I was never particularly interested in the details of sports I reveled in watching his favorite comedy shows on our little black and white television encased in a beautiful mahogany cabinet. I suppose what I enjoyed the most was the way he laughed all the way down to his belly when a joke was particularly good. I liked that he had a sense of humor even when I didn’t always understand the jokes. I liked the happy sound of his reactions.

I vividly remember a few movies that I saw with my father and somehow they have guided me in my own viewing preferences to this very day. One of his favorites was High Noon with Gregory Peck. It was the story of a sheriff willing to stand up to a bad guy even when the citizens of his town were afraid to join him. The moral of that film has stuck with me to this very day. I could tell that my father believed in the kind of heroism that required the sheriff to find a high level of moral courage. He would talk about that story over and over again. I would end up rewatching the classis many times and seeing its value through the eyes of an adult. Later I would watch an older Gregory Peck portray a lawyer who went against his townspeople to defend a poor Black man accused of murder and I thought of my father.

Another of my father’s favorites was Shane with Alan Ladd. It too was a story of profound courage from a stranger who came to town during a time when the homesteaders were struggling brutality of wealthy cattle barons who were determined to dominate and steal. The main character helped a family struggling to keep their land and their honor and then he simply went away. My father sometimes opined that this was his favorite movie ever because it showed that common folk can and should stand up to powerful people who would attempt to curtail their freedoms.

Another movie that captured my father’s fancy was The Old Man And The Sea with Spencer Tracey. It was a slow moving film focused on the main character, Santiago, who was determined to do whatever it took to land a huge marlin and bring it back to shore. My father explained the importance of determination to me after watching the movie with him. He also suggested that I one day read the story by Ernest Hemingway whom he considered to be an incredible writer. 

It’s funny how those three movies have stayed with me. I have watched each of them many times and I draw more and more insight from them with each viewing. I also find myself understanding my father from a more adult perspective even though I never had the opportunity to interact with him as an adult. The hints that he left me and my brothers have been more than enough to provide me with a sense of really knowing him. He was a man who admired courage and grit. I realized that some of the last words that he spoke to me were a challenge to be honorable and willing to push myself to be better than I might have thought I would be able to be. He gave me models of what it means to be strong and then he encouraged me to never stop learning. All the while I saw the importance of being able to laugh even in difficult times and situations.

I suppose that with all of the upheaval in our political environment I find myself understanding that sometimes I have to find the courage of being the change that I wish to see as the saying goes. There may not be a posse coming to save me so it will be up to me to persist in doing what I believe to be the right thing for me and my family and my country. It will be a challenge and I may want to quit, but that is not what we are sometimes called upon to do. 

I love that my father was wise enough to share so many things with me and to constantly send me messages about how much he loved me and how much he expected me to be and do my best. It would have been nice to have him around a bit more but somehow he managed to give me all the information that I needed in only eight years of knowing him. My grandparents and my mother and friends and relatives would fill in the blanks for me along the way. I hope that I have done as much for my children as he did for me. His legacy lives in me to this very day. 

I remember going downtown to Sweeney’s Jewelers with my then fiancee, Mike, to choose the ring that he would place on my finger on our wedding day. The style back in 1968 was to have a fairly wide gold band showcasing a solitaire diamond, so that is what the jeweler first brought from the vault for me to try. It soon became apparent that my hands were way too small for such a piece. Every one that I tried went all the way up to and sometimes beyond my knuckle. It was time to look at other options. 

The jeweler was calm and seemed to understand exactly what I needed. Before long I was holding my hand out in front of my line of sight to gaze on a delicate set with thin gold bands intertwined. The engagement ring was lined with diamond and the pattern repeated on the wedding ring with a single large diamond beautifully balancing the artistry of the stones. It was uniquely stunning and I knew that I would enjoy wearing it for the rest of my days.

And so it was. Mike placed the two parts together on October 4, 1968, and there they stayed every single day since then with few exceptions. I removed the rings before going to the hospital to have my babies and when I had a couple of surgeries. I left them at home when we went on vacations because I did not want to run the risk of losing them in a faraway place. 

Recently I spoke of my rings with my daughter and granddaughter as we enjoyed a girlie moment of reminiscing in the way that only women would understand. I noticed as I was sharing the story of choosing my rings how loose they had become. Over time my fingers were often swollen so I had the rings resized. Of late I they had hardly ever been puffy and so they were now a tiny bit too large. 

On one occasion I noticed that the rings had twirled one hundred eight degrees so that the main diamond was facing downward toward my palm. I considered the prospect of having them resized once again but let other more important concerns grab my attention. I did not think about the rings for a week or so after I had looked at them with my daughter and granddaughter. It was only when I was listening to music while I drove to a tutoring session that I began tapping my left hand on the steering wheel in time with the beat. Suddenly I saw that my ring was not there and immediately went into a panic. 

There was nothing I could do in the moment because I needed to take care of my students first. I’m not quite sure how I successfully made it through the next two hours but somehow I performed my duties and then drove home trying to remember what might have become of my rings. I realized that I had been many places since last knowing that they were still on my finger. There was no telling where they might have fallen off without my even noticing. 

Upon arriving at home I searched my truck and every surface and room in the house. I even went so far as to go through the garbage and under chair cushions. All was to no avail. There was no sign of my rings anywhere. I was so upset that I was unable to eat the soup that I had prepared for everyone for dinner. Instead I went to my bedroom and cried. 

It was not so much the actual physical loss of the rings that bothered me as much as the sentimental value of their constancy in fifty six years of my life. They had been with me through all of the stories that make me, me. I had worn it in times of trials and tribulations. They were my golden circles of life and somehow my instinct told me that I was never going to see them again. Nonetheless I made countless efforts to retrace my steps hoping to uncover the hiding place where the rings lay. I even had people searching the homes where I had visited. There was an all out effort to find them for me but again nothing seemed to be effective in locating them. 

I am a realist at heart and I place a much higher value on people than on things. I do not generally collect expensive jewelry or trinkets. My tastes are simple and I am more inclined to repair something that is worn out rather than replacing it. I just spent days repainting lawn furniture so that I might use it a few more years before the rust takes its final toll. I realized as I thought of my ring that while it meant the world to me it did not mean the end of the world to lose it. I thought of people in Los Angeles who had come home after the fires to nothing but  concrete slabs where their homes once stood. I remembered the photos showing how much Ukraine and Gaza have changed since the wars in those parts of the world. I understood that I don’t need my rings to remind me of how solid my love for my husband has been. My life is the jewel that matters the most. 

Miracles do happen but I am not counting on one this time. I may never see my rings again but perhaps its time to replace them with something more practical for a woman my age. If I happen to find it them will rejoice. If I never see them again I will still have my beautiful memories which will remind me of the many blessings I have been able to count. Nonetheless, I think I will say a little prayer to St. Anthony. He’s a saint who has helped me find things before. Maybe he can lead me to the place where my rings are hiding. That would surely be nice.  

Update: Many days later I was taking an article of clothing from one of my drawers and something fell on my foot. There were my rings! Now they are safely stored away until I can get them adjusted to the small size of my finger. They will be treasured.

I love to write. It is soothing to my soul. I also feel happy when the words that I put on paper inspire someone. I know that my most popular blogs speak of the incredible people I have known and loved. My readers like to be uplifted by my thoughts and it’s usually quite easy for me to describe individuals and ideas that are positive and optimistic. On the other hand, when I write about situations that are concerning to me, I lose many of my faithful followers. It seems that many do not want to hear about anything that is even remotely unpleasant.

It would be so much easier to simply ignore the problems that I see in the world around me and just stick with unicorns and happy thoughts. Venturing into controversy all too often leads to upsetting people for whom I actually care. Many would rather look the other way rather than stare into the abyss of problematic issues. I lose much of my audience when I tackle knotty subjects in order to suggest my sometimes differing points of view. While I like to think about and talk about topics from differing points of view, I find that the many individuals are put off by my mere mention of ideas that challenge their thinking and beliefs. 

We humans are different from the other creatures that live around us. While they may have instincts that go beyond mere survival they are unable to match our abilities to think and create. The greatest ideas in the ascent of humankind have initially seemed out of the box and even blasphemous at times. Galileo was punished for the audacity of insisting that the earth is not the center of the universe. Jesus was given the death penalty for daring to question both civil and religious laws. 

While I do not dare compare myself to the greatest minds who have impacted our world, I understand that ideas often begin as questions about the everyday ways that we do things. The movers and shakers of history saw inconsistencies in practices and asked why we had to keep following manmade rules that were not working as well as they should. The men who founded the United States of America might have simply continued bowing to the king rather than suggesting that there was a better way of living than being servants of a tyrant. There were in fact many colonists who were dead set against a revolution. Some of them left the country rather than rally around the continental army. Some shut their doors and windows and looked the other way. Some worked against the effort to form a new kind of government of the people. Being a citizen who believed in the ideas set out in the Declaration of Independence was not an easy decision. It took dedication and critical thinking to ascertain that a democratic republic was better than an aristocracy. . 

I say these things because so many people that I encounter appear to be in a kind of hypnotic state of mind in which they accept blind loyalty to symbols and a mystic past that they have lionized. Even when they witness the truth being twisted into a ridiculous lie they would rather believe than challenge. They do not seem to understand that maintaining freedom is not an easy task because it must be available to all people, not just those with identical concepts and ways of thinking. 

I mull over thousands of questions that disrupt my serenity. In my mind that is how it should be for all of us. In a nation as large and as diverse as the United States there must be room for many different religious beliefs, many different ideas about how to educate our children, many different thoughts about sexuality. Forcing a single way of thinking on millions of souls is as autocratic as the reigns of kings of old. Surely we can see that those who propose uniformity of living are moving backward rather than progressing. There is great danger in a leader who would resort to banning ideas, insisting on total loyalty from the citizens, threatening those who would dare to suggest that the despot is wrong. This is not the kind of government that our Founding Fathers risked death to create. 

As we move into a new administration that will determine our fate in the next four years I would implore everyone to be willing to stand up to anyone who would refuse to work for the good of all. I would suggest that true freedom comes only when we have the right to object to rules that hurt a particular class or group of people. Ours should not be a one party nation in which only the winners of elections have the right to voice their preferences. We cannot divide ourselves into two camps that no longer speak to each other or agree to discuss differing possibilities. That is a death sentence for our very democracy. We have to hear the voice of the little boy who has the temerity to note that our emperor has no clothes. In fact we should worry that we have an emperor at all.  

I will still write about happy and uplifting people and themes. We need to hear good new from time to time but I will also take full advantage of the freedom of speech that is enshrined in the Bill of Rights that was so brilliantly and courageously designed by the Founding Fathers. I believe that they would encourage me to keep speaking my mind and would suggest to those who dislike what I have to say that rather than insulting me or shutting me down we might do better to talk about our differences and find mutually agreeable solutions. Promising to tear everything down with vengeance is not a solution. It is the destruction of decades of attempts to become better and better at protecting the rights of all. I for one plan to continue to voice my concerns.

I should have written a final tribute to Pope Francis before now, but I have been grieving. My heart has been heavy and my sorrow has clouded my mind. All I have been able to express are feelings, emotions so strong that the part of my brain able to string together the words that clearly define my admiration and love for him are missing. I seem only to be able to feel and cry that our world has lost such a wonderful man who understood and truly cared about every single one of us. 

I did not know what to think when Pope Francis was first selected as the pontiff of the church that I have known since the day I was born. My mother had taken me to be baptized at All Saints Catholic Church in the Houston Heights when I was a baby. From that moment forward she shared her faith with me and religiously followed the teachings that she herself had learned as a child. She sent me to Catholic school for twelve years where I formed the beliefs that would guide me for the rest of my life. 

I came of age when Pope John XXIII was pope and the rebellious spirit of the nineteen sixties seemed to guide the beautiful changes in how the church was finally leaning. Many of the old rules that had seemed silly to me were overturned. The mass was finally offered in the many languages of the people around the world. The priests faced forward when saying the mass and we finally saw their faces instead of their backs. It was a modernization that seemed more in keeping with the lessons of Jesus than the mysterious Latin rituals that I witnessed as a child. 

My mother received a papal blessing from John XXIII for her work at the church where I grew in wisdom and age and grace. It was one of her most cherished possessions and it now hangs in the room in my home where she spent the last year and a half of her life faithfully praying and reading her Bible. She would have been happy to know that John XXIII is now officially a saint, something she knew about him long before a proclamation was made. She died before Pope Francis was selected, but I know she would have loved him as much as I do. He represented all of the values that guided her life. 

My mother was the child of immigrants. She became an American citizen by birth. Eventually her father became a citizen as well but her mother was too busy having babies and raising eight children to learn about the United States and take a test to prove her knowledge and loyalty. Instead her progeny would become ideal citizens and Catholics until the days when they died. 

I come from a legacy of patriotism and strong faith, but admittedly I had struggled a bit with my feelings about the Catholic church during the years before Pope Francis became our pope. It felt as though the church had become too impersonal at times. Then came this beautiful man who was a champion for the poor, the suffering, those forced to migrate from their homelands. He demonstrated how to love even those whose lives seemed strange to us, like the sex workers who lunched with him and were profoundly changed by his loving acceptance of them. 

In a world filled with ever-changing rules and laws that seemed to be designed to punish rather than to inspire and support it was refreshing to have a pope who focused on helping others rather than shunning them. He was like a kind father who guided us and encouraged us to always share what we have with those in need. He showed us how to love the people that we did not understand. His example taught us to be open to differences rather than judgmental. His generosity of spiriot radiated from his face and his words, even to the very end of his life. 

I have shed many tears since the passing of Pope Francis. My heart has been heavy watching his funeral and sensing the great loss that our world has experienced. I know that what he would want from me and all good people everywhere is to follow his example. He would ask us to see the beauty and worth in our fellow humans. He would remind us to always follow the simple but daunting rule from Jesus that we love our neighbors as we love ourselves without restrictions based on our prejudices. 

Terrible things are happening in the world at large. Here in the United States people are being treated without consideration of their humanity that is so much like our own. We seem not to want to know why they are here. Our country only wants to rid itself of them as quickly as possible. They are rounded up based on the superficialities that we all too often use to determine the worth of others. We would do well to instead heed the example and words of Pope Francis to provide love and comfort to everyone among us. 

I hope that I have the strength to follow the moral code that Pope Francis has left us. I hope that I can “be” Pope Francis in all that I do and say. He was a blessed man and I will miss him, but I am certain that he is now enjoying his heavenly reward. May he rest in peace and may we all remember what he most wanted to see from us.