Category: Blog

Rest In Peace

Published on by Sharron BurnettLeave a comment

ashes-01

Back when Mike and I were newlyweds he was working toward an advanced degree and serving as a teaching assistant at the University of Houston. He had already been the best of friends with a fellow from Germany named Egon and the two of them were selected for the honor of working with undergraduates along with a few other students. Among them was a bright and lovely young woman from the University of St. Thomas, whose name was Marita. She hailed from a big Irish family in Chicago and it wasn’t long before the three of them became inseparable at the university.

Marita liked to joke that she was looking for a relationship at that point in her life, and that she first set her sights on Mike until she noticed the gold band that he wore on his left hand. Being a good Catholic girl she quickly shifted gears and began a flirtation with Egon who was flattered by the attention from a cute girl with the mischievous twinkle in her eyes. Soon enough they were a steady couple who often joined Mike and I for fun on weekends. It didn’t surprise us at all when they announced their engagement and impending wedding. It was to be an elegant affair with their families from Chicago and Germany coming to Houston to attend. Mike and I were honored to be members of the wedding party where we met their relatives and celebrated with joy.

Mike and Egon were both only children who became like brothers rather quickly. Mike’s mom would joke that she was happy to have two sons. We spent countless evenings laughing and talking with both Egon and Marita until late in the night. They were both intellectual giants whose conversations were always interesting and fun. Ours was a glorious friendship that seemed certain to extend well into our old ages. Somehow we were simply perfect together.

Egon and Marita were unable to have children of their own in spite of many valiant efforts so they more or less “adopted” our two girls. Both of their families lived so far away that they became bonafide members of ours. They were fixtures at every party, celebration or gathering that we had. They watched our children grow into adults and in the interim they became incredibly successful in their jobs. Egon worked as a sales representative for an international company and he was consistently one of their top earners. Marita used her talents to become a lawyer, graduating with honors and scoring high on the Texas Bar exam. She was hired by one of the premiere law firms in the city. We celebrated each milestone in our individual lives and found such great joy in being able to take for granted that these two remarkable people would always be by our side.

Life has a way of throwing challenges at us when we least expect it. Egon’s parents both died in Germany rather suddenly and unexpectedly. Shortly thereafter he was diagnosed with a number of very serious diseases including diabetes and heart problems. Marita’s father had died when she was young but her mother too died while all of this was transpiring. I suppose that they were reeling from the constant ponding of bad news and they turned to terrible and unhealthy habits to still their demons. Their lifestyle affected their performance at work and before long both of them had lost their jobs, something that was almost unthinkable given their talents and their intellects. They became more and more depressed, more unhealthy and more isolated. We saw less and less of them and we worried.

I urged them to visit their doctor and follow his instructions to the letter. They had made an appointment and assured me that they were not only going to pull themselves together, but also come to visit us on my upcoming birthday. Sadly they were never able to fulfill either promise. Shortly before their meeting with the doctor Marita became so ill that she had to be rushed to the hospital in an ambulance. Her prognosis at the time was dire and so our concern focused on Egon who was not handling the situation well.

One afternoon I had a bout of foreboding and called Egon to tell him that I was coming to check on him once the school day was over. He insisted that he was fine and asked me to just go home and visit him at another time. I reluctantly agreed but had such a strong sense that something was amiss that I called my daughter, the nurse, to get some reassurance that I was doing the right thing.

At approximately the time that I might have arrived at Egon’s home had I gone there that day he died of a heart attack. It appeared that he had checked his blood sugar and his blood pressure just as I had urged him to do because the instruments that he used for those things were sitting on a table right next to his phone. It broke my heart to think that he died alone although I realized that I would not have known what to do had I been there other than call 911. Still I felt very guilty for a long time.

Miraculously Marita recovered from her own illness and worked successfully for several more years but two separate strokes left her unable to endure the rigors of a job. She instead required help at home and slowly but surely became worse. She became a shell of her former self who was almost unrecognizable as the once powerful woman that she had been. When her best friend from college died she seemed to lose her willingness to fight. By then she was quite alone save for visits from me and Mike. She was too far away from Chicago for family there to check on her regularly and she and her brother had not been close for some time. It was a dreary and sad situation.

Marita died about fourteen years after Egon left this world. Only the staunchest of her friends attended her funeral. I gave a halting eulogy and some of my dear friends and family were there to honor Marita and support me. I felt empty and sad.

Both Egon and Marita were cremated and Mike and I kept their ashes in our home hoping that one day we might determine their ultimate fate. On several occasions they had spoken of wanting to be spread in the fjords of Norway where they had spent many happy times with Egon’s relatives from his mother’s side of the family. Now most of them were also gone and we had no idea how to fulfill their wishes. We considered taking the two of them to Galveston Bay because they had often camped on the beach there. They loved the ocean and had many happy times together in their pop up camper. Still, we just never felt that our idea was completely right.

Recently Marita’s brother who lives in Chicago with the rest of her clan contacted me. He had begun to worry that he had done nothing to provide his sister with a final resting place. He asked if I still had the ashes and wondered if I would be willing to send them to him. Of course I  understood that he had more right to them than I did. I was also happy that he had overcome whatever feelings had kept him at bay for so long. I let him know that I not only had Marita’s ashes but Egon’s as well. I asked if he wanted them both and he eagerly replied in the affirmative. We both believed that they would have wanted to stay together no matter where that may be. Soon they will find a place with Marita’s family where they will be honored and loved by nephews and cousins who like us remember how gloriously wonderful they were.

Sending them away is somewhat bittersweet, but it feels right. I have a sense of relief in knowing that their fate will be resolved. It is time for them both to rest in peace. I hope they will also know how much they were loved.

Put Out the Fire!

Published on by Sharron BurnettLeave a comment

 

 

burning building

I’m angry. I’m sad. I’m frustrated. I’m worried. An entire host of emotions is stalking me and most of them are related to what I perceive as the state of our country. I can go on a little trip, watch a good movie, do a little shopping, read, visit with friends or any of the things that usually put me in a better frame of mind and I keep coming back to an emotional meltdown. My concern for the health of my country and the safety of its people is mounting. I see images of frightened souls running from a backfiring motorcycle or hear of shoppers abandoning malls because of rumors of a shooter and I know that we have reached a tipping point in our tolerance for the hatred and violence that only seems to mount as we argue about what best to do.

Frankly I’m not too worried about myself. I’ll be seventy one on my next birthday and I have had a great life. I’m going to be struck down one way or another in the coming years. It is inevitable. I think more about the innocents who still have so much more to offer to this world. I grieve that so much fear festers in the background of even the most common things we do. As schools begin to reopen once again I can’t help but think that parents are a bit fearful. We used to feel safe in the certainty that the odds of something happening to our children as we send them off were slim to none, but more recent history has taught us to think differently.

I’ve had my fill of listening to arguments that remind me that car accidents and heart attacks also kill just like mass shootings I don’t want to be lectured on the number of people harmed by gang violence in big cities. I do understand that someone intent on murder will ultimately find a way regardless of any laws that we enact. I am weary in knowing that while we hesitate to take action the numbers killed in mass shootings grow. It is as though we have sent the evil doers a message that we are not serious about our intent to stop them. 

I do indeed agree that solving the problems that we have must take many different forms of action. Our task will not be easy, and it may even reduce some of the liberties of good men and women. I have become convinced that simply discussing pros and cons over and over again is a fruitless experiment. While I believe in the power of prayer I also know that sometimes God expects us to take care of our problems. We must agree to do what will ultimately be the best for the common good. In that spirit this what I believe:

  1. We must root out hate groups whether they be from the far right or the far left, domestic or foreign. We have had success with this in the past. Now it’s time to get tough again. 
  2. We must shore up our entire mental health system. Giving a few million dollars to each state is only a drop in the bucket. It is time that we encourage research and fund the best doctors and clinics on a par with the rest of the medical community. We cannot allow insurance companies to place limits on funding care for those who need it. We have to bring mental illness into the open and treat it the way we would cancer or heart disease.
  3. All threats of violence or terrorism must be taken with extreme seriousness. All of us must be vigilant and willing to report concerns to the proper authorities just as we would contact CPS when we see a child being abused. 
  4. We must enact Red Flag laws that deny access to weapons to anyone who is mentally ill or who is on record for threatening others.
  5. It is time to close all loopholes on the purchase of guns whether at store, gun shows or from private citizens and if needed extend the amount of time for background checks to insure that all pertinent information is up to date and nobody slips through the cracks.
  6. The AK 47 and AR 15 type rifles need to be banned for use other than in the military or by law enforcement officers. The thirty round magazine should not be available for purchase by ordinary citizens. These guns are too rapid fire and they inflict wounds that are deadly and difficult to repair. There is absolutely no reason for ordinary citizens to have them for hunting or protection. It’s time to get them off of our streets. 

I can already hear the gnashing of teeth and remarks that such measures will only hurt the innocent. We’ve heard all of the arguments before and I don’t need to rehash them. I simply believe that we can no longer ignore the obvious fact that we have allowed the most hateful among us to have a field day while we turn on one another rather than taking action. If we find that what we have done fails to fully address the problems then we can convene again to determine which measures work and which need improvement. It’s what businesses do all the time. Doing nothing is akin to having a long discussion about how best to put out a fire when a building is burning down.

Many of my former Hispanic students have tweeted that the El Paso shooting hits them personally. As humans these violent acts affect all of us personally. It doesn’t not matter if the victims are little white children, high school students, Hispanics shopping in a Walmart, gays, black church goers, police officers, or young people out for a fun night. Whenever one among us is hurt, we are all hurt. We proclaim that this is a great country, and I believe with all of my heart that it is, but we have become lazy. We want our problems to just vanish with a wing and a prayer. Surely the evidence is proving that this will never happen. It’s far past time for action and some sacrifice from everyone. We can do this, and we must do so before the poison in our country festers to a point from which there is little hope of return.

The Happy Place

Published on by Sharron BurnettLeave a comment

The road

When summer days get so hot that hardly anyone is stirring outside I often think of the trips that we took to visit my grandparents in Arkansas when I was still a young child. Grandma and Grandpa fulfilled a long held dream by purchasing a little farm in a tiny town called Caddo Gap. My grandmother had spent time growing up not far from there and she still had siblings in the area. Her mother, father, grandmother were buried nearby on land that was once their homestead and is now part of a national forest.  She had fond memories of life in the country and while she never learned to read and write, her head was filled with knowledge of how of nature. She was a master gardener whose thumb was so green that it sparkled brighter than an emerald.

My grandfather spent his boyhood somewhere in a nameless place in view of the hills of Virginia. He too loved the quiet and serenity of being far away from the noise of the city, and so it should have been of little surprise to us that he and his best buddy, my grandmother, one day pulled up stakes from Houston and began an adventure that would bring them some of the happiest days of their lives.

My grandpa was a rambling man without roots or obligations until he met my grandmother when he was in his forties. He had been searching for something that he couldn’t find at the bottom of a bottle of booze or in the countless boarding houses where he lived while following opportunities to work. By his own admission he often felt abandoned. His mother had died when he was born and he was taken to live with his grandmother who passed when he was barely in his teens. The guardian that he chose to tend to his affairs died unexpectedly from typhus not long after Grandpa reached an age at which he became an independent adult. His life was untethered and dreary. Then one day he met a lovely woman, a widow who cooked in a boarding house in Oklahoma where my grandfather had landed while in search of a job. The rest would be one of the world’s great love stories as Grandpa fell head over heels for the tiny lady who would prove to be his savior.

They had two children together and continued to move from place to place until my grandfather grew old and retired from working. At first they settled in a house in the Houston Heights but the city was already growing faster than they wished. They longed for quiet and a rendezvous with nature. It surprised us all when they announced their plan to move away to begin a new kind of life when they were in their late seventies. With great anticipation they packed up all of their belongings and made the journey to their new home.

Theirs was a busy but idyllic life. They awoke before dawn each day to tend to the cow and the chickens. By the time the sun rose they had already completed hours of labor and they would continue their toil until late into the night. They grew a variety of crops using the knowledge that was stored in my grandmother’s head. They carefully tended each plant and when it was time to harvest and preserve their bounty they existed on only a few hours of sleep each night. Their cellar was filled with racks of canned corn, tomatoes, squash, green beans, pickles, peppers and other varieties of fruit and vegetables. Their huge freezer held fish that they had caught, deer meat for which  they had hunted, and even delicacies like squirrel that my grandmother turned into a delightful fricassee. They lived off of the land and became one with it. They were happier than they had ever been. 

We spent our summers visiting them and grew to love their way of life as much as they did. We always felt so much anticipation as we left from our home early in the morning and drove all day long to reach the road that carried us over the Caddo River and wound into the hills toward their house. The path was a narrow gravel affair that only allowed for one car at a time in some spots, so our parents had to honk the horn when they reached a blind spot to warn anyone coming from the other side that we were on our way. When we finally reached our destination we were always greeted by Grandma’s collie, Lady, who barked a greeting while wagging her tail. Soon enough my grandparents would emerge from their screened porch with smiles and open arms ready to hug us until we could hardly breathe.

Our days would be filled with milking the cow, gathering peaches from the big trees that shaded the driveway, exploring the hills behind the farm, visiting with neighbors, and learning new skills from both of the grandparents. Grandma showed us how to make biscuits and pasteurize milk. She demonstrated how to capture lightning bugs and put them in a jar so that they became a home made flashlight. She designed nets from old t-shirts with which we might capture a butterfly when the morning came. Always she cautioned us to free our captives when we were done.

Grandpa taught us how to milk a cow and catch a fish. He let us watch while he repaired things, explaining what he was doing as he worked. He proudly took us with him on his daily journeys into town where he introduced us to his friends and bought us sodas from huge chests filled with ice.

At night we sat on the screened porch and chatted about this and that. Grandpa always spoke of things he had read in The Saturday Evening Post or The Reader’s Digest and Grandma showed us how to embroider and crochet. We laughed and talked about a hundred different things. We had no electronic games or cell phones to distract us, so all of our attention was focused on the grandparents as was theirs on us. Once in a great while we might adjourn to the living room to watch a favorite television program but that was mostly rare.

We went to bed in a house without air conditioning. Instead it was cooled by the breezes that came through the open windows that were designed to keep the air moving with cross currents. It was still in the dark with only the sounds of animals breaking the silence. There might be a moo or a bark or the howl of some kind of wild cat. It was magical.

My grandparents lived on the farm for only about ten years. My grandmother began to lose her energy and realized that something was wrong. A local country doctor diagnosed her with cancer so she and Grandpa decided to move back to Houston for more advanced treatment. By the time they sold their place and found a new home in Texas her situation was dire. There was little more that the doctors could do than keep her comfortable until she died.

We would all remember those halcyon days in the country with the greatest of pleasure. Grandpa would get a dreamy look in his eyes whenever he spoke of them. We would think of them as the highpoint of our childhood, and even many decades later I can still see the road that led us to our happy place. It is as vivid as if I were there once again.

Make America Kind Again

Published on by Sharron BurnettLeave a comment
four people wearing blue crew neck t shirts
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I have always believed that my country is built on kindness for the most part. Certainly there have always been mean, evil and violent people, but in truth they have lived on the fringes of society. To a large extent they have been rightly or wrongly ignored up until recently. There have also been unjust policies in the history of our country, but we have always seemed to eventually rid ourselves of them and attempted to be fair. Lately, however, being fair, calm, kind seems almost out of style. We all too often judge someone who is quiet or willing to hear all sides of an argument and even change as someone who is wimpy or without moral compass. Our admiration tends toward the fighters among us, the more belligerent souls who seemingly take delight in tearing people down and hurling insults at those with whom they disagree. Large numbers of the population of the United States see them as people of great strength and more and more often their ways are being emulated by even our young.

My nature is to be quiet and respectful. I am always willing to listen to all aspects of a particular situation. I am quite flexible and open to changes even of myself. I suppose that I may be viewed as someone who is not particularly strong, but I know when I need to be tough and I have exhibited grit whenever life demanded it from me. For the most part I have tried to never be unkind to even those who have hurt me. Instead I honestly attempt to understand why they felt they needed to be ugly. I generally find that such tortured souls are hurting inside, and their taunts are more often than not a disguise in which they hide their own weaknesses.

The most courageous people that I have ever known whether through personal experience or the study of history have been persons who possess what I see as all of the finest human qualities. They have eschewed boastfulness and attempted to be infinitely fair. They are rarely guilty of deliberately hurting another. Often they are quite humble and unwilling to boast of their own accomplishments. I admire them because I see them as being the very sort of people that we might use more of in today’s divisive and insult ridden environment. I believe that the last thing we need are bullies and loud mouths. It’s time that we search for those who honestly strive to be of service to humanity rather than themselves.

In the final months and weeks of his life Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. grieved over evidence that there were still so many people who believed that his adherence to nonviolence was a weak way to solve problems. He admitted to his own frustrations but held on to his insistence that it would only be through passive resistance that we would ultimately find a way of living together in unity. His focus was on looking to a future about which he often dreamed. He understood he might never see perfection but he still saw a vision of a promised land and it was not marred by divisions and hatefulness.

One of the most telling aspects of John McCain’s character came when he was running for president against Barack Obama. I’ll never forget when a woman accused President Obama of vile things and McCain immediately corrected her, insisting that Obama was a good man and explaining that he only disagreed with Obama on how to get things done. Some saw that as being wishy washy. I saw it as being akin to the courage that he demonstrated when he was a prisoner of war. Senator McCain became a great man in my eyes at that moment and for the rest of his life he did not disappoint me in that regard even though there where times when I did not agree with his political ideas.

I feel the same about Senator Mitt Romney. People attacked him for his willingness to change his stance on certain issues in the light of changing times and new information. Frankly I think that anyone who is so hard headed that he/she will not budge even when data clearly demonstrates wrong thinking is somewhat irrational. I am wary of such people because I have found over and over again that very little in this life is etched in stone. There are exceptions to virtually every rule or argument and being open to ideas is in fact a sign of strength, not weakness.

In our last presidential election I honestly felt that neither candidate sincerely cared more about the people than themselves. The result of that contest has lead us to a low point in our nation’s history, but I fear that if things had been different it may not have been any better. Now we have a room full of candidates vying to see who can be the most audacious and many of them attack the very principals and characteristics of each other that I find the most genuine. They appear to be taking a page from the playbook of boastful loud mouths and that worries me intensely.

I believe that bullies, mass shooters, racists, and other vile individuals are an aberration. They do not represent our country and yet they are getting the center of the stage, and foolish people seeking power accuse the rest of us of being complicit in creating them. There is a media push to make us believe that the ugliness that we see is commonplace and typical of certain groups of people. The truth is that what the vast majority want is to make America kind again. If we manage to do that then it will also be great. Kindness does not mean allegiance to one political party or another. It means looking for good men and women who respect and understand us without rancor for those with whom they disagree. It means looking for humble and flexible people who are courageous enough to admit when they are wrong. Surely there are many such souls in our ranks. Now is the time to find them. Let’s insist on making America kind again.

Tiny Gestures

Published on by Sharron BurnettLeave a comment

It’s been a very difficult summer for many of my family members and friends. I have watched as they experienced health problems, deaths, emotional and financial struggles, and even the loss of trust. It’s always difficult to know what to say or do in such situations. I find myself searching for wisdom and feeling uncomfortable in my feeble efforts to make them feel better when I truthfully know that they need time to heal in either body or mind. All I can offer is a hug, a shoulder to cry on, perhaps a card or some flowers. All of these gestures help to demonstrate that someone cares, but the journey needed to heal the scars is often far longer than we might hope. Because of that those of us who truly care must be willing to stay with the wounded for the long haul.

I know a man who lost his adult son several years ago. It was a devastating blow to him from which he has yet to recover. Somehow I was foolishly believing that there should be a kind of time limit on his grief after which he should be able to proclaim to all of us that he is fine and ready to move forward. I mentioned this to a childhood friend with whom I was reuniting after more than fifty years. She smiled patiently at me and then explained that she too had lost a son, a tragedy that still left a hole in her heart that has never quite healed. She told me just to accept that the man about whom I was worried is reacting in the most normal of ways.

I don’t know why I expected more of the grief stricken father than I do of myself. In truth I still have moments when I cry for my father who died over sixty years ago. So many things remind me of him and I feel a deep longing in my heart just to see and hear and touch him one more  time. On Friday evenings I think of my mother and how we used to spend the launch of the weekend laughing and enjoying good food and adventure together. Even things that used to mildly annoy me about her now seem so wonderful. I’d love to have her come to my house unannounced honking her horn to tell me that she has come to tempt me to accompany her on some silly adventure. So it is with countless people who were once so important in my life but are now gone.

Our humanity is grounded in our emotions. When we open our hearts to truly love someone it is painful beyond measure to lose them. We push ourselves to carry on as we must, but in the deep recesses of our minds it feels as though a little piece of us has been stolen. We never again feel quite the same.

So too it is when we have to face a devastating illness. I remember one of my neighbors speaking of his loss of confidence when he had to live from day to day with the specter of being incapacitated. He said that his pain and his fears sometimes dominated his every thought. He sometimes felt as though people were avoiding him because they felt uncomfortable seeing him as a shell of his former self. The best of his friends were those able to just accept his new reality and still enjoy his company.

People who are in the depths of depression are quite possibly the most difficult to console. Their darkness of mind is frightening both to them and to anyone who loves them. It is tempting to just shake them and insist that they snap out of their melancholy, but in truth such tactics never work. Instead we can remind them of their worth and of how much we love them while also urging them to get professional help to still the terrors that threaten to destroy their minds, but we can’t ask them to just will themselves to get better.

I have an aunt who is one hundred years old. She called my mom every single day and lovingly modeled the kind of comfort that anyone in a crisis needs. When my father died she was the first to come to our house just to be with my mother. She gave no advice, but simply was there with her loving heart. Over the years as my mom had episode after episode of depression and mania it was my aunt who listened to her paranoid ravings in the middle of the night, sometimes for hours. She was my mother’s crisis hotline, open twenty four hours a day offering love and comfort.

We might all take a cue from my aunt. Just being that one person that someone can take for granted is the greatest form of solace that we might ever offer. Heartbreaks and grief that last a lifetime are a normal part of our humanity. We can’t really fix those things, but we can be a refuge whenever the pain becomes too intense.

Think of someone you know who is struggling in one way or another. Give them a call. Drop them a note. Send them some flowers. Each tiny gesture tells them that someone understands.