Author: Sharron Burnett

Lead by example with hope, never fear. —-Michelle Obama

I am a huge fan of Michelle Obama. I found myself identifying with her when I read her autobiography. I certainly cannot totally understand what it is like to be a Black person, but I do know a thing or two about the roadblocks associated with being a woman. Like Mrs. Obama I often found myself wondering if I truly had what it takes to be successful in a world that often convinced me to underestimate my own abilities. Even as I succeeded academically there was a part of me that felt as though I was not really being taken seriously. All too often I heard comments from teachers about my hard work being the source of my good grades rather than intelligence. They would remark that I fooled them into thinking that I was actually rather dull given my quiet demeanor and reluctance to assert myself. Their attempts to explain their surprise when I did well in their classes only fortified my own fears that perhaps I was somehow lacking and unworthy. 

Perhaps it was being thrown into the unexpected role of caretaker for my mother before I was even twenty one years old that provided me with the courage and conviction that I eventually developed. I became unafraid and unconcerned with other people’s opinions of me. I realized that I had what I needed to find navigate through life and it didn’t matter whether it was because of my determination or my I.Q. Like Michelle Obama I ultimately found myself and my destiny. 

I proudly became a teacher determined to help my students overcome the fears that they had. My goal was to increase their knowledge but also their understanding of their own capabilities. I wanted to give them hope, so I tried to push through the fears that they had. I especially wanted to do this for all of the students in my classroom because I knew what barriers they might one day face. While society has certainly advanced with regard to opportunities for everyone we have all seen and encountered people with old school prejudices. 

I remember having a discussion with a young girl who was doing poorly in all of her classes. She smiled and told me that she did not need schooling because her goal in life was to marry and become a mother. While I regard that as a noble vocation I worried about what might happen to her if for some reason her husband were to die or become abusive. I knew that she would be better off if she had skills that would make her strong and independent.

She argued that she would just go back home to her parents if things went awry with her marriage. I countered by pointing out that her parents might ultimately grow old and die leaving her without a plan to take care of herself and her children. Her response was that she would depend on her brother if that happened. When I asked her what she would do if her brother was unable to provide her with aid she suddenly paused as though she was thinking things through for the first time.

Eventually I convinced her that she was smart and able to take care of herself. I urged her to take advantage of building a foundation of education that would assure that she would always have backup goals for any emergency that might arise. She shook her head in agreement as though a light had just become illuminated in her mind. From that moment she went on to become one of my top students. She believed in herself and began to glow with confidence.

Teaching was almost a religious experience for me. I so often found children whose souls had been severely damaged. They were afraid of being found to be inadequate most especially in mathematics and so they adopted a false bravado or they disappeared into a protective shell. I knew that helping them to see their worth and how to use their abilities was just as important as demonstrating how to solve an equation. I was open to them about my own self doubts and spoke of how I discovered how to find the conviction that I needed. I tried to be patient with them as they tentatively made efforts to attempt to master concepts that were difficult. I urged then to enjoy the journey of learning rather than be afraid of it. We worked together. Everything I did was geared to make them stronger, not to tear them down. I never knew for certain if they had understood what I was attempting to accomplish with them until a few mornings ago. 

I went through my early in the day routines of playing all the word games in The New York Times then I went to Facebook to wish happy birthdays to anyone born on that day. After that I posted my blog for the day and began to scan the posts that showed up on my wall. Imagine my surprise when I saw that one of my former students had named me as the best math teacher that she ever had. Her reason for doing so was that I had patiently helped her to realize how competent she was as a student. Honestly I had thought of her as a brilliant young woman from the start. I literally cried upon realizing that I had change her feelings about herself because that it what I had always hoped to do for anyone wondering if they had the ability to grow in knowledge. When other students joined in on the post with stories of their own I realized that my students had reciprocated in helping me to understand that I had somehow accomplished my life’s goal. it was a moment of mutual admiration. I knew that my example had been positive for them and they in turn had bolstered my hopes that I had made a difference. 

I can never begin to express how much love I have for each and every one of my students. They are all my children and I love nothing more than hearing that they are doing well. I dream of them and worry about them, I hope that in every case I have been an example for them. I pray that they are as proud of themselves as I am of them.  

My grandmother, Minnie Bell, used to make lovely quilts for the family out of scraps of cloth. She did not own a sewing machine but instead made all of her stitches by hand. She worked on her projects when she was not working in her gardens or cooking meals and canning the fruit and vegetables that she had grown. Her quilts were lovely pieces that kept us warm in the wintertime and washed quite well in our machine. We used them until the fabric became frayed and holes began to appear leaving batting material to peak out. Eventually we traded them for manufactured blankets that were never the same as the colorful creations that our grandmother had made with love. 

Of course I wish that we had taken more care is using the old quilts from Grandma Minnie. It never occurred to us that her fingers would become so afflicted with arthritis that she would not longer be able to work with a needle for long periods of time. We never predicted that cataracts would cover her pupils making it almost impossible to see well enough to create designs. Somehow we imagined that both she and her quilts would be an eternal part of our lives, not understanding that the gift of having her was only temporary and not for all of our lives.

I now only have a very small block that my grandmother pieced together in the final years before her body failed her. It shows the downturn in her health with the imperfections that were never present in her best work. My mother lovingly did her best to create a tiny quilt for my dolls as a remembrance of Grandma’s handiwork. I was old enough and wise enough by then to handle it with care and keep it stored in a tiny trunk that I have carried from one place to another with some of my other treasures. 

I didn’t think much about quilting and the artistry that it requires until my friend, Pat Weimer, suggested that the two of attend the annual the Houston International Quilt Show a couple of decades ago. We joined thousands of quilting enthusiasts at the George Brown Convention Center on a November day to view the creative artwork of quilters from nations around the world. We walked through the aisles gazing in awe at quilts that looked more like paintings than bits of cloth cut and sewn together in ways that made them seem vibrant and alive. 

Pat and I went many times to the annual event but once she became sick and died I never again returned until this year. I had told my husband, Mike, several times that I wanted to go to the annual event, but did not want to go alone. While he showed an interest in accompanying me, something always seemed to collide with our plans and so the years and then the decades passed without a visit to that glorious celebration of artistry. Nonetheless, I put a notation on our calendar each year in the hopes that one day we might find the time to go. 

On November 2, of this year Mike saw my reminder and suggested that we go. It was a blustery rainy day spo a part of me wanted to just stay warm and cozy in the house. Still, I knew that if I turned him down such an opportunity might never again happen. I applied a bit of makeup to my face, fluffed my hair, put on my shoes and we drove through a downpour. We found covered parking in a garage with a direct route to the convention center without braving the wrath of the storm. It felt wonderful to be back once again and I immediately smiled as I thought of how Pat would have approved of the serendipity of the moment that had brought us there. She was always ready for a spontaneous adventure and surely this was one.

We took or time viewing the hundreds of quilts that were awesome in their complexity. We learned from one of the exhibitors just how exacting it is to create a pattern using pieces cut precisely at angles measured in a mathematical rendering that make seams disappear. She spoke of the art of determining the colors and the skills of keeping the projects from puckering so that they will lie flat while giving a three dimensional appearance. The messages of each piece told stories of both the creators and their ideas. 

I was gazing at one of the winning quilts when a woman came up behind me and admitted that she had kept coming back to it over and over again.. “It tears me apart,” she confessed and I understood what she meant. It was a quilt done in black white and gray. It showed the changing face of Volodymyr Zelenskyy from the time that he was a smiling comedian starring in a Ukrainian in television series through his transition from the early times of his Presidency to the present times of war. It was a study in contrasts that represented the man in the most moving ways. I too found myself shedding tears as I studied it. 

Mike boasted that the people watching was almost as fun as viewing the exquisite quilts. There were women wearing beautiful hats and long flowing dresses. There were ladies boldly sporting Kamala Harris for President shirts. There were older ladies getting around on rented scooters or limping with walkers and canes. Everyone was happy and friendly and I thought of my Grandmother Minnie and my dear friend Pat. Then a stranger looked at me and said, “Isn’t it nice to be here with our sisters?” I nodded. Yes, it was! We were all part of the artistry of life. Even Mike saw it and understood. I knew that Grandma Minnie and Pat would have agreed as well.

I do not like to argue. I generally find that if a discussion devolves into an a disagreement there is little chance that any points I may be attempting to make will change a person’s mind. In fact it is more likely that such situations will switch from logical debate to an emotional word salad. Nobody is actually listening anymore when that happens so attempting to clarify my position is fruitless. 

The few times when I have attempted to hold my ground with someone while expressing my views have generally gone badly. Unless the airing of differences is controlled by agreed protocols the results can often be devastating to a relationship with little progress made in reaching an agreement or at the very least some kind of compromise. Maintaining cool heads in which each person is respectful and honest is the only way to reach a common voice. Particularly of late we humans appear to be struggling with the concept of allowing differing points of view to give voice without being ridiculed or derided. We seem to be more inclined to quickly choose sides and stand firm while making so much noise that common ground is unlikely to be found. 

Emotions and insults all too often become the stuff of disagreements which sadly lead to ruptures in relationships. Those kind of breaks end friendships, divide families, and sometimes lead to all out war. When we turn each other into enemies simply because we choose differing ways of living in the world, everyone suffers.  There may be winners and losers for the moment but the enemies that we make will be around long after the dust settles. How wonderful would it be if we might find a way to talk about our differences without hurting each other or being implacable?

We all have moments, however, when we must plant our feet and become at least somewhat immovable. For years I had to insist, with the aid of my brothers, that my mother see her doctors and take her psychotropic medications. Simply allowing her to devolve into a state of extreme mental illness was out of the question. We worked as a team to keep her healthy even when she raged against us. We do similar things with children or teens who are heading for trouble. We push long and hard to keep them from harming themselves or others. Doing such things requires love and patience and determination. The issues are so serious that turning away is not a viable choice. 

I totally understand the sorrow and difficulty of having a child who is acting out in frustrating and dangerous ways, especially if they are threatening to do something violent. Such instances are not always amenable to simple persuasion. Nonetheless we have surely seen enough tragedy as a society to know that we have to find ways to get those young people aggressive care and monitoring. I can’t imagine thinking that providing such a person with access to guns might help them to get past their anger or depression. 

We should be able to enlist the help of counselors, doctors and intensive therapies with every ounce of our concern. Instead I know that our system is littered with roadblocks that make it undeniably difficult to get the care and support that our loved ones need. It is as though we are incredibly naive about mental health and the needs of those who suffer. When we see them calling for help with frightening words and actions we seem to have no idea what to do. We back away, look the other way, make excuses for their behavior, choose all the wrong ways of handling the escalating illness.

If someone we know bleeds, we not only immediately clean and administer to the wound but we also want to know what caused the hemorrhaging in the first place. We notice the physical aspects of the people in our families and get them to medical care as soon as possible. We are far more reticent when the ailment is mental. We shy from dealing with it and many times there is no help to be had even if we were to put our hearts and souls into the effort of getting them well. 

I often sat on the phone for days attempting to find someone willing to take my mother as a patient. She was too old or she had the wrong kind of insurance or not enough money. She would have to wait for weeks or sit for hours in an emergency room only to be told that there was nothing anyone might do for her. Hospitals were full. Budgets for psychiatrists were slashed. While hearts and cancers garner public interest and funding, mental illness is the stepchild of our medical communities. Nonetheless every time there is a mass shooting we find out that efforts were made by people who were concerned with an individual but they somehow came to little or nothing. In other words we can say that we need better mental health for such people but we have yet to take our resolve seriously. 

I don’t like to argue in situations that have little hope of changing minds, but I do believe that somehow inside each of us there is a nagging feeling that we must do better when it comes to helping those whose mental states have become unravelled. This should be a societal issue that everyone rallies behind. When we look away or walk away children at school are killed, an assassination is successful, innocents lose their lives at ordinary events. Surely we can agree to quit shouting at each other and focus on building a serious mental health system that will not require anyone to wait unnecessarily or be so expensive that people have to walk away. Our safety demands that we humanely use all our resources to help quickly and with firm determination. Surely we can agree on that!  

I must admit that writing lightweight news articles for a high school newspaper does not give me status as a journalist. Being editor of that same newspaper does little to sharpen my credentials either. That being said, I learned a bit about the difference between chronicling the news and voicing an opinion with my words. I was schooled in the rules of “Who, What, When, Where and How.” My job was to seek facts and to verify them before emblazoning them on the front page. I also had to learn how to write headlines that might attract readers without attempting to sway their thinking. “Just the facts” was the rule by which I ran my page. 

I admittedly would have preferred editing the opinion page or being in charge of the literary section. I felt as though I was in a bit of a straight jacket having to be so precise and concise in checking what my staff wrote. I suspected that a lack of titillating stories probably made my part of the paper seem a bit boring. The students much preferred the opinion page and the sports page was a smash hit. Nonetheless, I often dreamed of working for a major newspaper or magazine and be charged with going after the big stories. For a long time I considered majoring in journalism in college and Edith Bell, the editor of The Daily Cougar was my heroine.

I understand the importance of honest reporting, checking sources, maintaining truth rather than spewing innuendo. Sadly with so much print available from hundreds of sources in today’s world there are often stories that are not true because nobody took the time to vet the information. Innocent people’s lives are ruined when this kind of thing happens and it actually did last week when posts showing a video of a young woman yelling at a baby during a Kamala Harris rally in Houston went viral on X and Facebook. 

While the behavior of the young woman was despicable what happened later was even worse. A rush to determine who she was ended up placing the blame on a woman named Jordan Bowen. Those ready to find her guilty as charged came up with information on where she had attended high school and college and even the fact that she had at one time worked for the Democratic party. There were even postings of her phone number and address. The trouble was that Jordan Bowen was not the woman in the video. In fact, Jordan Bowen looks nothing like the screaming person and on that day she was wearing different clothing and a name tag. 

Even though it has now been verified that Jordan Bowen was misidentified as the woman in the video, she continues to get texts and phone calls threatening her and her family. Even her mother is being insulted. When facts are not checked before being publicly published this is what happens. Even as the Bible warns us, idle and untrue gossip is much like throwing a bag of feathers into the wind. The likelihood of retrieving them all again is unlikely. No matter how many photos and alibis are presented to prove Ms. Bowen’s innocence he name is permanently and wrongly smeared. 

I’ve always remembered the rules that I learned as a cub reporter in high school. I am religious about checking my sources before speaking publicly about an incident or an individual. Even then I have made mistakes now and again. With so much false information floating around it can be daunting to find the absolute truth. We all know that even eye witnesses to an event may sometimes walk away with totally different recollections about what actually happened. We consciously or unconsciously filter reality through our belief systems which almost always affect our worldviews. 

I remember taking a course on the works of William Shakespeare in college. The professor insisted that we first read a text outlining the Elizabethan worldview. By knowing the history of the times we were better able to understand the thinking of Shakespeare himself. Our analyses were sharper by putting ourselves in his shoes rather than relying on our modern thinking. This exercise taught me the importance of context along with the need to judge events as factually as possible. It has helped me to better glean truths about controversial situations. In many ways it makes me a kind of journalistic detective who is unwilling to go with only my initial gut reaction to what I see and hear in the media.

I myself have mucked up things. In a particularly emotional situation I spoke publicly before thinking during the pandemic. My failure to follow my own rules resulted in the loss of a long time friend whom I still love in spite of our seemingly permanent split. We do indeed hurt people when we jump to erroneous conclusions without taking the time to calm down and gather facts rather than relying on our feelings. 

We have a hard political season that has created massive divisions between the citizens of our country. Perhaps they have always been there underneath the surface but now so many of them have become public. Sadly they have led to misunderstandings when they might have been prevented if only we were all willing to first do our research with an open mind for find the truth. Let us hope that we can learn how to tame the beast of misinformation that is out there so that we might make fewer hurtful mistakes and always be in search of only the facts. It’s worth the effort to search for the truth.

When I was working full time I had to awaken as early as five in the morning so that I would not be late for work. I had a standard routine for getting ready for my day and often dreamed of the moment when I would retire and no longer have to be somewhere by a certain hour. When that event finally came I learned that my inner clock had become so attuned to rising early that I was unable to sleep past six or six thirty. I resigned myself to using the time before  sunrise for enjoying the quiet in the house. 

I tiptoe through the dark to the kitchen where I prepare my tea and a small breakfast. While those things are brewing and cooking I open all of the blinds in the rooms to let in the slowly emerging light. Then I go upstairs and sit on a couch armed with my food, drink and the pills and vitamins that I regularly take. I’ve usually said some silent prayers while setting up for my morning “me time.” I’m all set for welcoming the new day.

I love the different word games in The New York Times. I go to Spelling Bee and find as many words as I can with the letters allowed for each day. So far I have yet to fail in finding enough words to earn the rating of Genius. I think of the vocabulary studies and spelling practices of my youth that introduced me to words that had at one time been foreign to me. I thank my English teacher for requiring me to read books and record new words and their meanings. I don’t think I would do as well without the education from my outstanding teachers or my father and mother who all understood the value of a strong vocabulary. 

My next challenge is the crossword puzzle. If I am hurried on a particular morning I stick with the Mini Crossword. I pride myself in knowing enough trivia to solve that one in three minutes or less. The larger puzzle takes a bit more time and effort on my part, sometimes leaving the task to rest my brain before coming back to finish it up.

Next  I turn to the game Wordle, for me it is actually more difficult than most of the others. It can be daunting to narrow down five letters from the alphabet to a single word, especially if there are dozens and dozens of possibilities with the same beginning or ending letters. There are some days when I narrowly escape running out of chances to solve the problem before it is too late. 

Connections is another fun option. I attempt to group the words according to some common feature. I probably enjoy this word game more that the others. I love to find the connections between people, events, and classifications. It’s something that I have always found myself doing. I like linking things with a common thread. I believe that understanding people and history is achieved with such linkages.

I end with a kind of strange word search called Strands that is a hodgepodge of letters hiding words with a common theme. Sometimes the hint for what I should be trying to find is somewhat vague or enigmatic. Other times it is a subject about which I know nothing. So I have to work really hard to determine the correct words and how they relate to each other. So far I have not been stumped but there are some mornings when I come very close to giving up.

After enjoying my word games for a bit less than an hour I go to Facebook to greet those celebrating a birthday and to advertise my blog for the day. Then I do what I love the most. I get serious about writing. I keep a log of possible topics and choose the one that calls to me on any given day. Sometimes I feel as though I am hitting a home run that will touch the hearts of anyone who takes the time to read my thoughts. On other days the words that I leave on the once blank space seem to be as mechanical and unmeaningful as those in the games that I play. I force myself to publish whatever comes to mind knowing that all too often my meanderings are trite and lacking in interest. Somehow I nonetheless seem to appeal to at least one person no matter what I post. 

By the time I have done all of these things the men in my household have come to life. They gather downstairs in the kitchen for breakfast but little conversation. My father-in-law is cheery and more than eager to talk but my husband needs a few more hours before he has any desire for chit chat. I learned long ago that he is like me in wanting to be alone in his morning thoughts until the cobwebs have been cleared from his head. He now often grabs his breakfast and brings it upstairs to escape the commentaries from his outgoing father.

It amazes me how two men from the same family can be so very different. I suppose that the way we each relate to mornings may be more related to nature than nurture, otherwise the two men would be gabbing away each day. I sometimes feel for my father-in-law for landing in a home where the people don’t do mornings very well, or least not like the extroverts that he is. 

I like my mornings. I actually look forward to them and no longer wish to sleep in and waste the lovely time of being alone with my thoughts. I slowly nudge my brain awake and feel frisky and ready to take on any challenges by the time the clock strikes eight. By then I have communed with God and the birds. I have been cheered by the sound of the children waiting for the bus. I have marveled at the power and beauty of words. It’s not a bad way to warm my internal engine. I think I’ll keep it up as long as I am able.