Author: Sharron Burnett

Two years ago my father-in-law walked into our home using a walker. After losing his wife, enduring a major surgery, catching Covid and spending six weeks in various hospitals and rehab centers He was barely able to shuffle to the room we had prepared for him. I would be lying if I said that I imagined him growing stronger and thriving better than ever two years later. In fact I somehow assumed that he would be gone before a year had passed. Instead he is lively and still going strong with some memory loss and an inability to maneuver safely through a crowd. 

While my father-in-law looks great for a ninety-five year old he still has many difficulties that make it impossible for him to live alone. His essential tremors are such that he cannot open boxes or cans or containers without help and many ordinary tasks are impossible with his shaky hands. He also gets confused about dates and his medications so my husband religiously keeps his pill minder up to date. We have a system for insuring that my father-in-law gets his medications at the proper time each day. 

We have had a few heated discussions about driving with my father-in-law as well. He managed to convince the state of Texas to renew his license when he turned ninety-five to our incredible dismay. He still thought himself capable of driving across town to his home until something changed and he began to insist that my husband drive him on such journeys. Now he only takes a spin in his car down to the CVS which is only a few miles away on a thirty mile per hour road. I still maintain that he should permanently turn over his keys but for now those short and infrequent drives with have to suffice as a compromise. 

For the most part my father-in-law gives the impression of being totally capable of caring for himself but that is mostly because my husband and I quietly take care of all of the different daily routines that are troublesome for him. Now his days consist of rising between eight thirty and nine in the morning, eating breakfast, taking his pills, and signing on to his computer where he entertains himself for most of the day. I keep him supplied with the apples, oranges, peaches and fruit that he snacks on between meals. I also make sure that he is stocked with plenty of the Glucerna that he drinks everyday. I launder his clothes, clean his room and cook for him. In addition to using his computer most of the time, he spends fifteen to thirty minutes walking at a slow pace on the treadmill and joins us for dinner and conversation and maybe a television program or two each evening 

We have taken him to visit our daughter in the San Antonio area but such outings tend to wear him down. He comes back home looking the worse for wear. He is a creature of habit and changes of any kind throw him off balance, so we keep him happy by ensuring that we will meet his daily needs. All in all it might seem to be a rather easy routine to follow but as the months pass by we ourselves become more and more homebound because we know that he cannot be left alone for more than a few hours or so. We have to plan very carefully just to go out with friends. 

The point of all of my descriptors is to admit that taking on an elderly man at our own late stage in life is much more mentally and physically difficult than most people might imagine. Over the past two years I have found myself being in awe of friends who cared for someone in their homes for multiple years. The unrelenting routines, concerns and isolation can be devastating. Sometimes it indeed feels like a very lonely task even as we have made it manageable for now. 

Then there is the worry about what may potentially happen as more time passes. The reality is that nobody in our home is going to get better. All of us are aging and losing bits of our stamina from one year to the next. I have to work hard to control the scenarios that run through my mind, especially when my husband and I develop health scares of our own. When I was juggling three different health issues that slowed me down I felt panicky wondering what we were going to do in the event that we all became in need of help. 

I have learned that the role of caretaker is far more difficult than it may appear from afar, even when the person being monitored appears to be as independent as my father-in-law does. While he may seem perfectly capable, he is not, and the never ending vigilance can become exhausting even as we know that it is something that we must do. 

There are times when I feel downright ugly. I miss the trips that my husband and I used to take and I resent that I am being held down during the years when I should still be traveling and enjoying the freedom of retirement. We have not used our trailer in two years. It sits waiting for us to take a spin down the road that we dare not take lest something dire happen to my father-in-law while we are gone. We only managed to travel to Maine last summer because my daughter and grandson were available to watch over my father-in-law in our absence. This year it has been difficult to find anyone with the time to step in so that we might plan a little vacation. Hiring a professional is out of the question for now because my father-in-law insists that he does not want a stranger around the house. So for the moment we are simply marching in place.

I am presently reading multiple books about caretaking. I know that our situation could be far worse. I try to focus on the moments we we are talking and laughing together or enjoying a cup of frozen yogurt on a warm day. I know that we are not alone, in fact more than ever before there are elderly people being watched by family members all over the nation. From now on when I hear of such a situation I am going to be more inclined to offer to somehow help. I now know how difficult the long days of being mostly homebound can be. I appreciate those who do such things with an optimistic smile. Taking care of an adult is no easy job.

When I was a child I had a cardboard box filled with items that I used for playing school. I sometimes had a difficult time convincing my friends to make believe with me because they were already in school and somehow using their free time to work math problems and take tests was not their idea of having fun. I on the other hand loved being a teacher. I even created report cards for my playtime students. I suppose you might say that I was destined to be a teacher even in my childhood. School was a place of joy and discovery for me. I enjoyed reading and learning even with the teachers that I did not especially like. Being a devoted student was something I was able to control after the chaos of losing my father. Somehow I needed to know that I was in charge of my own destiny and being in a school setting has always brought a sense of joy to me. 

Ultimately I chose educating young people as my profession. There were times when it was difficult and I had to work hard to keep my students engaged and moving forward in their academic progress. Even in the toughest years I knew that I had chosen the right career. In spite of the salary that did not come close to competing with other choices I might have made, the everyday excitement of watching young people grow in wisdom was reward enough for me. 

I retired on the day before my mother died. Ironically I had chosen to free up my time in order to care for her since she had been diagnosed with cancer. I spent a few months enjoying the freedom of not having any place to go and soon realized that I was already missing my interactions with students. Before long I was tutoring and then once again becoming a mathematics teacher for children who are homeschooled. Instead of taking vacations in the fall or spring, I have tied myself down to the school calendar just as I have done for so many years. Somehow it would not feel right to watch the children in my neighborhood riding off for school in August and not have anything to do with my age old tradition of greeting a new group of eager young faces hoping to learn about math while also admitting that it is not really their favorite subject. 

I’m old school in that I still use a traditional lesson planning book. I like to be able to jot down notes about what was right and what was wrong with my lessons as I go along. The computer is fine but I want to be able to instantly assess myself and my pupils with comments about each goal that I have created for a particular session. 

This year I will have a different challenge. I have some students who will be taking a Business Math class at a local community college. I have studied a synopsis of the curriculum and think that I may have to do some reviewing before feeling confident to help them if they run into trouble. I haven’t done much with statistics or linear programming for quite some time and I don’t want to be checking for information at the last minute. Everyone’s time is too valuable to waste while I brush up. So I have ordered some old textbooks from Abe Books that should help me stay ahead of where they are surely going. I plan to set aside some time each week to get myself up to speed and I’m already feeling intrigued by the idea of learning something different from what I usually do. 

I’ve been to Target to purchase all the school supplies my students will need. There is nothing like just sharpened pencils and spiral notebooks with a year’s worth of room for taking notes. It’s like getting a new pair of shoes and a cute outfit for the first day of the academic year. I have always enjoyed watching the initial eagerness of the students in the early days and weeks. Of course much of the enthusiasm tends to wane as we edge toward Christmas, but that’s still a long way off and this is the prime time for introducing new concepts and challenges. 

I suppose that I sound like a world class nerd but I have always believed that there are few gifts that we give our children, other than love and security, that are as likely to stay with them for all of their lives than education. I have often wondered why we sometimes take it so for granted. Maybe if it were not so readily available we might be more inclined to look forward to the new school year as much as we do a vacation. It is a splendid gift that literally changes the world in which we will live. 

This is a time when I think of my own favorite teachers and professors and hope that they knew how much I appreciated them. So just in case they never realized how important they were to me here is a short list of the ones who left the greatest impression on me. Some have gone the the great beyond but hopefully the ether will send a message to them. So starting with my pre-school days here they are:

My mother, Ellen Little

Mrs. Wright

Sister Camilla

Mrs. Powers

Mrs. Loisey

Mrs. Colby

Sister Mary Lester

Mrs. Getz

Father Bernard

Father Franz

Dr. James Cooper

Dr. Howard Jones

Dr. Carl Lindahl

Dr. Roger Durand

Here’s hoping that everyone enjoys the 2024-2025 school year wherever you are and hoping that learning will be fun.

We are all beautiful at every age...

I find myself thinking about my grandmothers more and more often these days. Perhaps it is because I have reached the age that they were when I recall my first real memories of them. They were still vibrant and energetic but they had given up all pretense of attempting to appear younger than they were. They embraced their senior years without makeup or artificial color on their hair. Their skin was wrinkled and their eyelids drooped but they were nonetheless beautiful in their acceptance of the aging process. 

Both of them mostly wore unexciting cotton dresses with very sensible shoes, if they wore shoes at all. My Grandma Minnie Bell was an inveterate gardener and farmer who often donned khaki pants, flannel shirts and black rubber boots for cultivating her plants. She would shade her skin with a big straw hat. Everything about her style was mostly about function and simplicity. Even when she dressed for a special occasion she wore a simple frock constructed from a finer fabric than those reserved for daily work around the house and perhaps some ear bobs and a necklace but little more adornment. 

Grandma Ulrich more often than not cut the sleeves from her dresses and did her chores in her bare feet during the hot and humid Houston summer months. When the temperature fell she donned comfortable fur lined slippers and wore a wool cap on her head to stay warm in her house which was heated by gas stoves that did not always fill every corner with warmth. She wore her long hair in a braid that trailed down her back. It stayed dark black for many years before the gray began to take over. Eventually one of her daughters cut her hair to make it easier for her to brush it each morning. I have to admit that I missed that lovely braid that seemed to be her trademark. 

Neither of my grandmothers ever seemed to eat much. Ironically Grandma Minnie Bell never weighed over a hundred pounds and Grandma Ulrich was as round as an apple. They were living examples of how differently food affects people because neither of them snacked on sweets or stuffed themselves, but one held the weight more than the other. I tended to think that having ten pregnancies had a lasting effect on Grandma Ulrich that resulted in her chubbier appearance. Even with her extra weight she was a very cute grandmother. 

Both ladies became my idea of how an elderly woman should look, but styles and times changed while I was busy becoming an adult. My mother and my aunts made great efforts to remain stylish even as they entered their sixties, seventies and eighties. They took great pains in using makeup and styling and sometimes coloring their hair. They did not seem to age in appearance as quickly and easily as my grandmothers. They never fit my idea of how the quintessential older woman was supposed to be. 

Now I am that old lady and I find myself slathering my face with creams to chase away the brown spots, dark circle and wrinkles. I can only do so much but so far I have managed to stave off many of the natural processes that would give away my age. I have only touches of gray that I hide with highlights in my still brown hair. I try to keep up with stylish clothing without attempting to look way too young and silly. My biggest concession to my age has been wearing comfortable but rather ugly shoes. My feet refuse to accept the ruse that I am still a youngster. I nod to the practicality of my grandmothers when I don my rubber boots to work in my garden or walk around my home in my fur lined slippers. 

Sometimes I just want to chuck all of my efforts at staying relevant in the world of fashion by just letting go of all the efforts to fool nobody about my age. Even when I am donned with all of my glory young people offer their seats to me on the Tube in London, someone is always deferring to my age in some way. It leads me to understand that I am not fooling anyone into believing that I am a spring chicken. At such times I think of how my grandmothers gloried in adjusting to their aging bodies without attempting to cover up the signs that they were growing old. 

There is a great deal of talk about age these days. We have two men who are older than I am running for President of the United States. I do not dismiss them because of a number that tells me how old they are because I am still teaching difficult mathematics each week and keeping my mind sharp in a thousand different ways. Still, I sometimes think that not all of the hair dye and makeup in the world actually cover the signs of aging. Perhaps we would all do well to allow people to see our graying locks, our balding heads, the wrinkled hands that attest to all of our work. Those lines on our faces should be testament to all of our achievements and hard work. We are the most beautiful when we are natural and unencumbered by efforts to fool everyone that we are younger. 

We are each part of the circle of life, moving degree by degree until we connect the finishing point with the starting point at three hundred sixty degrees of living. We should enjoy the point of each age that we achieve. We should be whatever we are wherever we are on the curve, always developing and changing, adapting to life with joy.

That is how I saw my grandmothers. They were wise and beautiful women whose only goal each morning seemed to be to love. They reached outward rather than concerning themselves with themselves. They made everyone in their radius feel important and wonderful. In that regard they were two of the most beautiful women in the world and they did it without the accouterments of fashion or style. Perhaps we might all consider how lovely it would be to emulate them and spend our days enjoying the simplicity of just being ourselves with all of the gray hair and wrinkles that show the world that we have really lived. Living is what makes us beautiful.

I like to be present, because that’s my life —-Unknown

I was reading a long article in The Atlantic magazine and when I saw this quote from a person with whom the author had spoken I could not get it out of my mind. The young man who said this was described as a “tired and angry troublemaker” whose life had been punctuated with much suffering. His way of coping with poverty and the indifference and sometimes disdain of people who judged him to be somehow inferior was to simply live in the moment rather than stewing over past slights or allowing himself to be disappointed if he dreamed that one day things might change. 

I found myself wondering how many people make it from one day to the next simply by concentrating on whatever task is in from of them rather than constantly analyzing the difficult moments of life. It’s an age old story repeated throughout history by individuals and groups who have been ignored or even abused by much of society. It may be the man or woman who toils without notice at a dead end or mind numbing job. It is perhaps the soul so ground down by bad luck and want that to think about the situation would be debilitating. It is the person who has suffered from tragic loss that is too disturbing to meditate upon. It is a kind of armor that provides the impetus to keep trying without too much thought of what might lie beyond. It is a step by step method for surviving in a sometimes cruel and uncertain world. 

I suppose that I am perhaps the polar opposite of this person. I tend to over analyze every situation I have ever encountered even long after the events are over. I take my critical thinking to extremes and parse sentences I have spoken, decisions I have made. It can be uncomfortable to do so but I was trained to assess my behaviors in my education classes that made the science of teaching a kind of research position. Somehow I have adopted the methodology into all aspects of my life, and being a perfectionist I believe that I sometimes go too far. The result is all too often a kind of anxious feeling that I have made far too many mistakes. 

I also look far into the future. I plan and plan and plan for situations that may never come. I think in “what if” projections. While such attention to goal setting and readiness may work in a classroom, it can become a kind of whipping post when applied to my life in general. I have to be very careful not to look too far out into the future, especially when I imagine potentially dire situations. Doing so causes me to come a bit undone and to sound like Chicken Little crying that the sky is falling. 

I am slowly learning even at my advanced age the importance of learning from the past and then letting go of any feelings of failure that I might associate with my normal human responses to the challenges that I have faced. For example, I doubt there has ever been a parent who did not sometimes lie awake at night worrying that he or she has somehow failed to properly prepare a child for life as an adult. Living a bit in the present, in the now, and accepting the idea that I did my best definitely helps me when I get overly obsessed with wanting to make up for my perceived mistakes. 

The same is true of the future. We are constantly surprised by events that we never dreamed would happen. It is impossible to predict the unknown with accuracy. Stewing over what might or might not happen is unproductive and in many cases actually damaging to our psyches. I know this, but have to force myself to rein in my imagination all of the time. 

I have a friend who tragically lost his son in a road rage murder. His journey through grief has at times caused him to wonder what he might have done differently to prevent that grievous harm that took his child. He admits that wondering what his son might now be like is excruciatingly painful. He has to compartmentalize his thinking into the now, the present, the moment in which he finds himself. It is far too painful to keep looking backward or forward. 

Theirs is a kind of wisdom in the words of the young man in the article who announced that his life has taught him to always be in the present. In doing so he maintains a kind of power over whatever is happening. Perhaps we would all do well to find a balance between analyzing the past, setting goals for the future and simply being fully engaged in the present moment. Those who have mastered the art of praying or meditating show us how much solace there is in focusing on the here and now. They demonstrate the calm and joy that comes from being totally in a present mindset. It is a technique that we might all learn how to do. Think of how deeply freeing it would be to simply take a breath and immerse ourselves in whatever is before us without the distraction of the past or the future to detract from the joy that we might otherwise feel.

We spend our lives attempting to make the most of ourselves and the people around us. We wear many hats, play many roles in life. We are sons and daughters, husbands and wives, mothers and fathers, brothers and sisters, grandparents.friends, coworkers. neighbors. We give much of ourselves to others while also attempting to fulfill what we believe to be our own destinies. We attempt to use the talents that we have to make the world a better place but often we mostly live from day to day simply hoping to overcome the challenges that stress our best laid plans. Even the most optimistic and happy souls around us falter in their resolve from time to time. Simply surviving each day can become brutish. We have to learn how to take the bitter with the sweet and keep pushing on with the dawn of each new day. 

I have lived long enough to have observed the imbalance of opportunities for the people of the world and the amazing courage and resilience of some who are beset by more difficulties than many of us will ever endure. The courage of heroes among us is often unnoticed or undervalued. Their stories are usually untold. Their lives quietly blend into history without fanfare. 

If you follow my blog you may be familiar with the heroes’ journeys of my family members and friends who have inspired me to push forward even when my energy and optimism are flagging. They taught me to navigate the good days and those that are really bad. They showed me how to love and how to determine what is ultimately the most important aspect of walking on this earth for my allotted time. They taught me that while we all need money, wealth does not hold the key to happiness. The best of the people who have most impressed me lay in their deeds, how they treated the people that they encountered. 

I have yet to meet a perfect person but some have come very close. Sometimes it was in their most daunting hours that I realized the extent of their courage. When they seemed to lose all faith something incredible stirred within their souls to spur them forward inch by inch, step by step. They overcame illnesses, failures, losses, addictions to emerge gloriously determined to defeat whatever kind of suffering had temporarily overcome them. I have felt humbled with admiration for them and have also seen how it is often a tiny army of people who stand by with us as we each fight the demons that plague us. What they all seem to share is compassion for their fellow humans that is so deep that sometimes it threatens to derail them with great sorrow. They flounder for a time and then rise again like the phoenix. 

Even now as I write this blog I think of my good fortune in knowing them or just knowing about them. Recently I spoke with a young woman who is a recent immigrant to our country. Hers has been a difficult journey and yet she manages to focus on her good fortune more than the battles that she still has to fight just to be accepted and understood. She ignores the prejudices of people who don’t bother to take the time to realize how remarkable and good she actually is. She plants a smile on her face and just keeps moving forward.

My thoughts wander to a work colleague and friend who is beset with multiple health issues that seem almost unfair given her nine year devotion to her rather young husband who developed dementia far earlier than is usual. She gave every ounce of love that she had to help him when his mind slowly deteriorated. Only recently had she found a kind of calm once again in her life. Her respite from suffering seemed so short and her current situation seems so unfair but she is showing those of us who know her just how strong and courageous she is. 

I find daily inspiration in people who are unafraid to love and laugh even as they seem to navigate through figurative and actual landmines. They remind me daily that in spite of the selfishness and evil that dominates the news, the vast majority of the unnamed and unknown people of the world are good. 

I enjoy watching documentaries. My streaming accounts know my habits well and often recommend series that might interest me. Among them was a short feature called The Five Who Came Back which chronicled the experiences of five famous film directors who agreed to serve in the armed forces during World War II. Their jobs were to create films that would help the American people understand what was happening in Europe and the Pacific during that difficult time. They brought their brilliance and talent to bear in films that demonstrated both the horrors and humanity of war. All five men were inescapably changed by what they saw. They were humbled by the goodness of the people that they encountered, nameless souls who might otherwise have been invisible to them. One of them created a classic movie about just such a character in It’s a Wonderful Life.”

George Bailey is the everyman, the hero who lives among us without much notice. We may not pay particular attention to people like George but we would no doubt miss them if they never lived. It’s the guy across the street who always helps everyone in the neighborhood who is most impactful in our lives. It’s the mother who gave us more opportunities than she ever had just by going to work everyday, sometimes to a job that she did not particularly like, who has influenced us the most. It is in the George Baileys around us that we see what is most important in life. 

In a year of political noise and wars in many parts of the globe it is easy to lose faith in our fellow humans, to feel as though the world is going to rot. If we take a deep breath and look around we will see the everyday heroes toiling dutifully among us. They may be mowing our lawns or teaching our children. They may care for us when we are sick or encourage us when we are feeling down. They may be swimming across a river to give their families a better shot at living or ministering to the the sick and dying in places torn apart by war. Mostly we may never see them, but we should remember that they are always around us trying to create a wonderful life for themselves and for us.