Category: Commentary

As a teacher and later as a school administrator I often had the onerous task of judging a student’s innocence or guilt in a particular situation. Once culpability was clearly established I then had to decide what form of discipline was most appropriate. It was the most difficult aspect of my otherwise delightful career. Judging another person regardless of the situation is not something to be taken lightly by any of us and yet there are times when we must do so to maintain a semblance of order in a household, a classroom or a society. Determining how to react to an individual who has clearly done something wrong is never to be done rashly or without great consideration of the consequences of our decisions. 

When I was a child it was not uncommon for corporal punishment to be used both in homes and schools. It was not something that I experienced from either my mother or my father except for one instance when I admittedly and knowingly challenged my father who then gave me a swift swat on my backside. It was more of a reminder that when he asked me to do stop doing something that I knew was wrong, I needed to respectfully cease my bad behavior. I instantly got his point and never again felt audacious enough to taunt anyone the way I had done with him. From that point forward neither of my parents ever laid a hand on me. Instead they guided me by example and with words. 

Early in my teaching career the paddle was still in use in schools. I mostly took care of my students’ discipline inside the confines of my classroom but now and again something happened that I had to report to the principal. On those occasions I sometimes found myself having to mete out justice with a paddle as decided by school administrator. It was an oppressive task that I never felt comfortable doing. My strokes were so half-hearted that my students had to force themselves not to laugh. I’d talk with them later and somehow we quietly agreed not to do anything that would land us in the court of school justice again. I became known as one of those teachers who had control of my classroom without needing the assistance of the folks in the office. 

I was thrilled when corporal punishment was banned from schools. I may be in the minority on that issue but I never felt that spanking other people’s children did anything to improve their behavior or the environment of the school. Most of the time the worst rule breakers were already being brutalized at home and knew little about kindness and the effects of their actions on others. It was more often than not far more effective to counsel them and require them to think about the consequences of what they had done. I held them accountable without responding with the kind of physical abuse to which they had become immune. 

Still, there were always behaviors that could not be ignored nor simply accepted. Those were the toughest situations when the young people needed to face the consequences of hurting others with violence or theft or bringing drugs into the school. Such situations required the wisdom of Solomon from mere mortals like me who never quite knew whether or not the punishments were both fair and effective. 

These days we argue amongst ourselves about how to judge and decree punishments for the most criminal actions around us. We no longer draw and quarter the guilty nor do we display their heads on pikes until they rot, but we can’t seem to agree how how much justice is too much, and how much is not enough. The hardliners believe that there are no grey areas in meting out fair play while others prefer to err on the side of reformation rather than retribution. Somehow we have yet to find the sweet spot that leads to equitable punishment, but also creates positive changes in behavior. Perhaps we never will be able to control the bad elements of our society as effectively as we might wish.

It is a sad truth that we will always have violent and evil people in our midst. My early teaching experience tells me that whipping children early in their lives does not seem to work any better than counseling them in the ways of controlling their unlawful urges. We can make a difference in some cases, but the frustrating truth is that many people among us are so damaged that nothing we do seems to work to make them better. Sometimes holding them accountable boils down to removing them from our midst. The conundrum that we face is in knowing how to decide who must be locked away and how to effectively treat them once they are imprisoned.  

We have innocents who are rotting in prison cells and offenders who get away with their crimes. Our justice system is not always blind nor is it always fair, but it’s what we have and in most cases in the United States we do our best to get it right just as most families and schools also do. Our challenge is to be certain that nobody is above the law while also realizing that no one group should be unduly persecuted by the law. We humans still have a way to go in perfecting the way we deal with problematic behavior. We walk the tightrope of justice everyday and hope that our decisions will have the effect of bringing positive change. It’s a delicate and angst ridden balancing act.

This was perhaps one of the fastest moving years in my life. I can’t quite explain why I feel that way, but I think it may have something to do with the fact that my husband and I spent the first five months driving back and forth from his father’s home while his father’s wife was growing weaker and weaker from her congestive heart failure. It was quite sad to watch two formerly vibrant people slowly fade while we also lost other family members and friends. Our plans to finally travel without restrictions were cancelled one by one as we realized that for the time being our duty was to care for the older members of our family. 

In late May my father-in-law’s wife died on the same day that he was being rushed into emergency surgery to save his own life. He made it through that ordeal but was so frail that he recovered quite slowly and then contracted Covid which compounded his health woes when he ended up on a ventilator. As he worked hard to reclaim his health in a rehabilitation facility we divided our time between fitting our home with equipment to facilitate my father-in-law’s needs and visiting him at the rehab center in an attempt to keep his spirit positive. Days, then weeks, were a blur when we finally looked at a calendar and saw that it was already the middle of July. 

Then came the transition for my father-in-law into a new lifestyle that involved bringing him to live in our home. It’s been an adjustment for us all with ups and downs and moments when life felt so very different and each of us struggled to define our new roles. Instead of our usual vacations my husband and I worked hard to create a routine that worked for three adults all of whom have distinct ideas about how life should be approached. Our focus on adapting that took us beyond September and well into the last months of the year. 

My father-in-law will be ninety four when April rolls around. He is a sweet man with a decidedly hard headed streak that is accepted by my incredibly flexible husband, but sometimes creates friction with my own bull headed insistence on being a very independent woman. He is from the old school where gentlemen opened doors for women and men took care of all decisions. I suspect that my boldness irritated him in the beginning, but at the age of seventy four I was not about to become meek and mild. Happily we have both finally managed to understand each other a bit more and accept the way we are without too much judgement. At least we have learned how to keep quiet about our differences and just let each other be who we are.

Leaving the house to teach my students three days a week has helped me to cope with my new reality much as school has always been my refuge from difficulties since I was a child. I am certain that it was also a good relief for my father-in-law that allowed him to be with his son without my constant presence. The two of them bonded over watching sporting events and making trips to check on my father-in-law’s home. September, October and November flew by and as those weeks passed my husband and I even managed to feel comfortable enough to leave his father for a few days to go camping in our trailer. Our three day sojourn alone revitalized us.

Twenty twenty two has been a year marked by the deaths of far too many people that we loved and illnesses of family members that have been frightening. Somehow all of it points to the fragility of life and the fact that each of us has a very limited time on this earth. I suppose that it has made me enjoy each moment more fully than I might otherwise have done. I’m finding that it takes very little to bring me great joy these days. Just being with people that I love is really all that I seem to need. 

As we head toward a new year I am thinking less about resolutions and more about just taking the time to appreciate the life that I have. I have learned in the days and months from 2020 until today just how incredibly fragile life is. I have said goodbye to far too many people who were so important to me to waste time quibbling over much of anything. I don’t get upset as much as I used to do. I have truly learned how to live in the moment and not worry so much about the future which may or may not pan out the way I have so often attempted to force it to do. I’m just happy with the mundane and if something exciting happens in the meantime it’s like a cherry on top of my good life. 

Some of my high school friends are planning a cruise in the spring. Aside from the fact that nothing seems to quell my seasickness even on calm waters, I am not quite ready to make plans that do not take my father-in-law and his needs into account. I suspect that we have to be careful about scheduling extended time away from him for now and that is actually okay with me. I’ve come to prefer our quiet days and the slow and gentle routine of our lives. This is quite different for me. I am generally a ball of energy ready to go, go, go. It feels good to be able to change, to become an old dog learning new tricks. It’s also nice to make a small sacrifice to insure that my father-in-law is safe and loved.

If I had one wish for the new year it would be for each of us to learn how to better understand and accept our differences, something I have had to do quite often during the past twelve months. It’s not always easy to compromise, but it’s a skill we should all learn how to better develop. The constant pull and tug and hatefulness that has defined politics and religion and philosophies of late has been brutal. Perhaps it’s time to call a truce and learn like my father-in-law and I have that we have the power to get along if we care enough about each other to embrace our diverse needs. If it can work with two stubborn souls like us, surely it can work for the world.

I did not know him. I had never even heard of him before the tragedy. Now his story haunts me. I have sobbed upon hearing what happened to him and to his family.  Somehow I have not been able to get him out of my mind. 

He was a brilliant young student who was also known for his generosity and friendliness. He was gifted in so many ways, a light in the world with a future that  seemed to be so bright. He won a full ride scholarship to Bowdoin College in Brunswick, Maine, one of only five hundred students chosen to be a member of the Class of 2026 at the prestigious school. He was already well versed in the workings of computers and became known as someone who would help his fellow classmates if they encountered difficulties with the coursework. It seemed that everyone he met was drawn to him. 

His parents were refugees from Somalia who were incredibly proud of their gifted son. He had taken full advantage of educational opportunities, joining his high school robotics team and leading them to championships. His interest in computer science grew during his high school years and he seemed destined to do great things in college and later in life. 

On December 3, he attended a student event at his Bowdoin. There were snacks which he enjoyed along with the friends that he had already made. Suddenly he felt his throat begin to swell and realized that something he had eaten must have had traces of nuts to which he was highly allergic. He excused himself and rushed to his dorm to retrieve his epipen. That’s when things went crazy. 

Whether or not he actually had time to use the epipen is not confirmed but he did reach out to his Resident Assistant in the dorm as his breathing became more and more difficult. They decided that driving to the hospital might be quicker than calling an ambulance and headed out in search of help. Along the way he was struggling so much that they called 911 and were met on the road by paramedics. The crew began to administer aide in route to the hospital but their efforts were all in vain. The brilliant young student died. 

My granddaughter and the entire campus of only two thousand young men and women immediately went into a state of profound grief. In a place where everyone seemed to know everyone else word of his death spread rapidly. My granddaughter was so upset that she called her mother sobbing and barely able to speak coherently. She and her roommates had to comfort each other as they all wondered how such an horrific thing might have happened so close to the end of the semester and the holiday season. They shared stories of how wonderful their fellow student had been.

The university offered counseling to those who needed it. They brought in furry animals to to calm the students and the teachers. The young man’s roommate was an emotional wreck as were those who had become close to him. His parents were shocked and devastated. The students and teachers at his former high school fell apart. He was beloved by so many people, a person who was filled with goodness and promise. It felt unreal to think that  consuming a little snack could be so lethal. 

We sometimes hear people poking fun at the notion of those who have allergies to nuts or eggs or gluten. They act as though the very idea of an inability to process certain foods without harm is a sign of weakness or overreaction. They scoff at the reality that such things can literally kill a person. Danger is ever present for them often from the time of their childhood. These souls travel through life assessing whether or not the things they consume will hurt them. Often there is little sign that the toxic elements are even present in the food that they eat. Just a few crumbs mixing in can create a storm of reactions in them and yet the reaction to their needs is all too often negative rather than compassionate. 

While this young man’s story seems to be an extreme, the dangers for those with severe allergies must be taken quite seriously and without judgement. I doubt that whoever prepared the food that sent him into a medical emergency ever thought of the consequences of serving something with nuts. They may not have even realized that nuts were part of the ingredients. It seems so bizarre that just eating something that is okay for the rest of us might lead to hospitalization or death. It’s something that we all need to take into account whenever we share food.

I once taught a student whose reaction to gluten was so severe that if she picked up even a crumb from regular bread she would become seriously ill. She missed many days of school because of her condition. She was abnormally thin because her body was unable to process much of what she age. Her eyes were sunken and surrounded by dark circles and yet there were teachers who believed that she and her parents were overreacting. They had little sympathy for her situation.  

I have been unable to get the incident of the Bowdoin student’s death out of my mind. I keep thinking of how broken his family must be. None of us send our children out into the world believing that we will lose them. I’m sure his parents believed that he would be safe in a school that provides so much nurturing attention to its students. It is a tragedy that someone who might have changed the world with his brilliance has been taken far too soon. My heart aches for everyone who is grieving for him. 

We will all be serving snacks and foods this holiday season. Take the time to be aware of the many different needs that people have. Be careful in planning menus and be certain to include a variety that takes allergies and preferences into account. Be kind when considering how difficult it must be for those whose bodies reject certain foods that are toxins to them. Nothing about such conditions is a sign of weakness or the stuff of jokes. In the worst case scenario a tiny bit of the wrong food can sometimes kill. 

Power shopping was a social sport for me and my mom. We were not necessarily intent on purchasing anything. Rather we were determined to walk and talk for hours while in search of  ultimate bargains. I loved being with her as we sauntered up and down every aisle in a Macy’s or Walmart or even a Dollar Tree. Finding good deals was like unearthing a treasure for us, but mostly it was a fun way just to be together. 

The only other person I have ever found able to match my mother’s stamina and enthusiasm for shopping was my dear friend, Pat Weimer. She was a gold medal champion of endurance, able to spend entire days on her feet checking out stores with precision. She had an eye for finding just the right item for anyone on her list, but she was always careful to compare prices and be certain that she had found the best possible deal. 

One of Pat’s favorite times to check out stores was on Christmas Eve when everyone was exhausted from Christmas shopping’ Only a few desperate men were roaming the aisles on the day before Christmas hoping to find a last minute gift in stores that appeared to have been decimated by a riot. That’s when Pat often found hidden jewels that were all but free as merchants attempted to move out the holiday inventory to make way for the next season. Sometimes she would call me and ask me to accompany her on her treasure hunt and I almost always felt intrigued enough to go along. 

My friend Cappy was, and still is, the thrift store queen. She has found the most remarkable items at second hand stores. She trolls certain places on a regular basis and has no hesitation to dive into a pile of seeming junk. When she still lived nearby we would begin our shopping days early in the morning to beat the crowds. She had certain favorite shops that determined the route that we took. She always brought along wipes to clean our hands and bottled water to keep us hydrated. When our conversation stalled to one word grunts she knew that it was time to refuel with lunch for which she always had some kind of discount coupon. I still smile when I think of the marathons we ran through charity guild shops and mega thrift locations. 

Those were the days! Shopping was a social occasion and a competitive sport all in one grand event. It was a way to laugh and tell stories without ever actually having to spend a dime. It was our excuse for being together. Sometimes we even managed to find a treasure that would become a cherished addition to our homes or our closets. I loved those days mostly because I loved being with those women. 

Now two of them have died and one lives over a thousand miles away. I don’t spend much time shopping anymore because it just isn’t fun when I am alone. I’d rather find what I need online and have it delivered to my home. Wandering around a store without a beloved companion holds no joy for me and taking my husband makes it even worse. He is one of those people who grows impatient with browsing. He knows what he wants when he walks into a store and homes in on the product with precision. The less time he spends hunting for his intended purchase the happier he is. Shopping with him is a sprint rather than a marathon. To him it’s a heinous job, not a form of entertainment.

Most people these days are not particularly enamored with the idea of day long shopping trips. It’s almost impossible to find anyone with enough desire and stamina to spend hours perusing wares. Everyone is either very busy or uninterested in devoting so much time to a seemingly trivial pursuit. I have resigned myself to surfing the Internet alone to find the things that I need. The process is lacking in social merit but I’ve adjusted to the new ways while sometimes longing for the days of old with my olympic worthy shopping mother and friends. 

This morning I saw a photo of someone that I know embarking on power shopping with her mother at an outlet mall. It made me remember those days with mama or Pat or Cappy. I got a warm and gooey feeling all over as I smiled at the thought of memories of our crazy times together. I’d love nothing more than to enjoy one more day of shopping with any of them. We would not have to purchase a thing but we would surely solve the problems of the world as we sauntered along every aisle examining the quality of wares like the traders of old. 

One of the places that my mother enjoyed the most was the Macy’s at Almeda Mall. After she had died it was damaged in a hurricane and I thought it was doomed to be closed forever. Then one day I received a notice that it was opening again. I went to the gala and sobbed tears of joy as I remembered the many times that Mama and I had roamed from one department to another. I had such a warm feeling being back inside and I still feel that way anytime I go there. Somehow my mother’s spirit seems to still be there and I feel such happiness remembering how much fun we had there. Those were the days!

On Christmas Day someone will be born. On Christmas Day someone will die. On Christmas Day someone will be happy. On Christmas Day someone will be depressed. On Christmas Day someone will want for nothing. On Christmas Day someone will hunger for food and a home. On Christmas Day someone will find peace. On Christmas Day someone will experience war. 

We spend much of December, and even November these days, preparing for a celebration of the season with family and friends, often forgetting that on this most happy day there will always be people who are suffering for one reason or another. Christmas as we know it in the modern world often strays away from the reason of the season with its conspicuous consumption of food, drink and material riches.

There is nothing terribly wrong with treating ourselves and those we love to feasts and gifts, but when we lose sight of why we have such a holiday to begin with, our efforts feel somewhat out of sync, devoid of a true kind of joy. Like Sparky Griswold we focus on all the wrong things to make our Christmases bright. Love is what should be our focus, love with a kind heart and compassion and sharing. 

Not everyone is religious or even of the same religious beliefs. We each find spiritual nourishment in very personal ways. Some don’t even need a church or particular beliefs to feel a connection to something bigger than themselves. Each of us require ways of explaining the world and the things that seem to so serendipitously happen to us. Our human need is to know the why of the events and stories that make up the sum total of our lives. 

The greatest percent of religious believers are followers of Christianity. They believe that Jesus was sent to the world by God as a savior for all of us. We don’t know the exact date on which he was born nor do we have photographs or paintings of him that were made while he was alive. What we do have are the gospels that tell his stories and report his preaching, which is a beautiful way of living even if one does not believe that He was the son of God. He gave the world a blueprint of how to treat one another with both His words and His example. It’s easy to follow because it always focuses on love. His only commandment is that we love one another as deeply as we would love ourselves. 

His is a beautiful philosophy, but not nearly as easy to follow as it may at first seem. Each of us is imperfect. We may have the best of intentions, but end up getting angry, hurting someone with our words or even with violence. We become jealous and selfish even as we try so very hard to be the best versions of ourselves. When we walk past a fellow human whom Jesus would have helped, we know that Jesus is willing to forgive us for our many sins against humanity. As long as we are genuinely contrite and willing to begin anew to be the people that He knows we can and should be we can find reconciliation.

The words of Jesus and his parables do not require that we follow sets of rules created by humans attempting to interpret His instructions for us. In fact, the evidence in the gospels is that Jesus revolted against any laws that restricted our ability to help the sick, the poor, the suffering. It is humans who dictate behaviors that restrict our us from being just and fair and kind. Jesus did not judge as much as He simply loved. Over and over again he ignored laws that might have prevented Him from saving someone in need. 

I think that even non-Christians and those who scoff at the idea of God, should read about this Jesus who really did live and walk on this earth. Everyone should learn from him. No church is required to emulate Him or to celebrate His teachings. If we focus on trying to be more like Him during these holidays, I think we might feel a calm and brightness about ourselves and the future that quenches our thirst to understand why we are here. 

A friend recently related an incident that occurred on a day when her throat was scratchy and things were not going very well. She ordered take out pizza for dinner and scurried to pick it up as soon as she got a notice on her phone that it was ready. When she arrived the place was in a state of chaos and her pizza was not yet prepared. She felt like complaining but something inside her heart told her to be kind. She thought of how this is a busy season, a time when things can go wrong even with the best of plans. Instead of fussing at the woman who gave her the bad news that she would have to wait, she smiled and demonstrated patience. It was then that the woman revealed that the place had just been robbed and that everyone was quite shaken. She thanked my friend for being so understanding. 

We have no idea what anyone is facing during the Christmas holidays or at any time for that matter. We would do well to be at our best, to demonstrate compassion and kindness. Our holidays will be so much better when we slow down enough to simply love the people around us with all of our hearts. That is what the life of Jesus was all about and what he wants our lives to be about as well. Whether you call in Christmas or the holidays it all about love actually.