Category: Commentary

I was perusing newspapers and social media sites in the early morning much as I do each day. I saw an ad for a t-shirt emblazoned with the message “I have no shelf control.” Of course, the play on words had to do with buying excessive numbers of books, a habit that I have yet to learn how to curb. I’m a book junkie and have been for most of my life. 

I suspect my love of reading started with my father who had accumulated quite a collection of volumes of his own. His daily habits included listening to music and reading as soon as he came home from work each day. The nightly ritual included scanning the newspaper and sharing the funny papers with me and my brothers. After dinner or on weekends he might immerse himself in a new book or read the latest edition of National Geographic magazine from cover to cover. His taste in reading material was amazingly eclectic and might cover anything from classic fiction to volumes on future travels to the moon in a time before NASA even existed. 

I can’t recall ever passing a bookstore without going inside with my father. Trips to the library were weekend adventures. People still laugh when I tell them that our family’s exploration of Hollywood focused on spending hours in a multi-story shop filled with volumes of every kind. Our souvenirs were texts on how to tie knots and beautifully illustrated fairy tales. 

My father’s father was an avid reader as well, so I suppose that my own addiction to collecting and enjoying books comes naturally. It may not be in my DNA, but it was certainly influenced by my environment. Reading is comforting to me. I can lose myself inside the pages of a good story or recitation of history even when my world is turned upside down. It is a kind of therapy that focuses my mind and lowers my level of anxiety. it keeps me company and reminds me of the feelings and experiences that all humans share. 

My most prized possessions are books that my father and grandfather gave me when I was a young girl. I even have one that belonged to my daddy when he was only a boy. Its pages are brittle, yellowed, tattered and torn. The cover fell off even before my grandmother gave it to me after my father died. She proudly proclaimed that he never stopped reading once he had mastered the art of the process. He even made several failed attempts to teach her how to decipher the combinations of written letters that formed words. She was proud that he had worked to give her the gift of literacy even though the essentials of reading eluded her. 

I often told my students that there was no greater freedom or sign of privilege than knowing how to read. In the long history of the world literacy and education was often denied to all but very wealthy men and a small number of lucky women. Education makes us think and ask questions, a dangerous mix for those who want to stay in power and control certain members of the population. I warned them to beware of anyone who attempted to censor what they might read or even to limit how much education they might receive. 

It saddens me to realize that there are still places in the world were ignorance is forced upon certain members of society. Denying women the right to learn is an abomination. Neglecting to support public education is elitism. Unfortunately such situations are still happening even in our modern world. 

My father encouraged me to be curious. He showed me how fun reading actually is. He wanted me to push myself to be able to comprehend more and more complex ideas. Not long before he died he counseled me to challenge myself more than I had been doing. He explained that the great ideas of history came from tearing down the boundaries of our minds. He encouraged me to never stop reading and learning and to be grateful that I had the skills to become ever more knowledgeable about all facets of the world. 

I suppose that his influence has bolstered me throughout life. I have six large bookshelves scattered through my home. There are books sitting on tables and nightstands. I have volumes stored in drawers and trunks. There are many more texts stored on electronic devices and large baskets under my coffee table. I’ve culled my collection now and again just to make space and each time I have regretted letting any of my books go. I comfort myself in knowing that I have shared my wealth of books with someone else.

I am my father’s daughter. I purchase books for newborn babies. I respond to teachers’ requests for book donations to their classrooms. I buy books on virtually every trip that I take. I have to pay extra fees for the weight added to my suitcase by volumes that I was unable to leave behind. I get a warm feeling sitting in a bookstore or walking around a library. My father’s legacy has brought me much knowledge and contentment. I suppose that I will never have shelf control.

I’m still fascinated by the seemingly instantaneous collapse of the mega company Enron. It’s demise was actually years in the making, but its problems were so carefully hidden that even most of the employees had little idea that troubles were looming. The documentary, The Smartest Guys in the Room, tells the story of arrogance, lies and secrets that created a toxic and destructive environment that was certain from the start to lead to trouble. 

I’ve always been curious about those who possess an exaggerated sense of their own importance. On the one hand I admire their confidence and willingness to take risks, but on the other hand I abhor their almost narcissistic belief that they are indeed more likely to have all of the answers than the rest of us mere mortals. I suppose that we need such souls in some ways because people like me constantly question ourselves and tend to hold back because we are so fully aware of our limitations. We are unlikely to believe that our ideas are necessarily better than others. 

Nonetheless, we’ve all encountered people and organizations that are almost haughty in their certainty that they know how to do things better than the rest of us. They possess the audacity to shut down discussions that demand give and take. They push their philosophies and beliefs on the people around them. They are often unwilling to work with others, instead insisting that things be done their way or not at all. Their power grabs are often successful as they appear to be in control of themselves and the world around them until someone has the temerity to question them or to note the emptiness of their thoughts.

In the present day we seem to be overrun with people who claim to know what’s best for the world even to the extent of refuting experts who in reality know far more than they do. They argue and boast to the point of taking the air out of a room and instead filling it with their personal opinions. They belittle anyone who poses questions or offers alternative suggestions. Over time they tear down relationships and wreak havoc where they live and work. When things go wrong they moan and groan and blame everyone but themselves.

There were honest souls who came forward at Enron to warn of discrepancies that did not seem to support the company line. They were smugly ignored, ostracized,and often asked to leave. Instead of listening to everyone, the company followed the loudest and most obnoxious individuals gave them the power of lead positions. By ignoring warning signs of wrongdoing, the lies and deceptions ate away at the integrity of the company and its shocking demise was as rapid as the fall of financial giants in the early two thousands would later be. 

On a personal level we have all witnessed individuals who are all too quick to assert their wills over the people around them. They haughtily argue that they are the gifted possessors of all of the answers that we need. Because nobody has a chance of contradicting them, they take center stage while everyone else sits quietly pretending to comply with them. They create a fantasy world for themselves that may look good on the surface but is little more than a cardboard facade.

The real heroes of the world possess a quiet humility and a willingness to analyze a situation and seek answers for discrepancies that they find. My grandson, William, is one of those people. He sits quietly through an uproarious discussion only to speak once he has honestly assessed all of the ideas. More often than not his methodology leads to pearls of wisdom if not perfect answers. We would all do well to adopt his style. 

Perhaps we need to be reminded that many of the world’s greatest leaders were humble men and women who understood that great leadership comes from a willingness to hear all voices and only then make decisions based on the general good. This is true of friendships, families, organizations, businesses, and governments. Dictators generally end up only doing what is best for them. Their agenda is to keep power and nothing else. The wise person always understands what others need and strives to honor everyone by actually listening to and hearing them. 

We have so many upheavals in the world today that are making us feel uncertain and even at times misunderstood. They are found in the halls of our government and those around the globe. The art of working together seems to be rather unpopular right now even in personal relationships. We are dominated by those who think they know it all while ignoring those who have important things to say. We pretend that all is well when we know that much is very unhealthy. We have generally been as fooled as the world was about Enron and we envision a collapse of things that we hold dear. 

What has to happen is a resurgence of  integrity and humility in all facets of our lives. Our healing demands respectful and honest communication rather than loud performances designed to hide the truths of our situations. We can change for the better but we will have to demonstrate a willingness to turn down the volume of the domineering fakers and work together in a spirit of compromise and good will. 

The best friendships are based on mutual trust. The best families sacrifice in a spirit of honesty and love. The best businesses honor everyone’s contribution. The best government bring the citizens together. Perhaps if the Chinese calendar is right in predicting peace and hope in 2023 we may be on the verge of saving our most sacred institutions just by giving everyone a voice. It seems that the smartest guys in the room are not the loudest, but instead the ones who quietly and humbly speak the truth. 

Christmas has come and gone.and it feels as though Christmas 2023 is a long off as we hunker down in the new year. Somehow though I find myself thinking of the classic movie It’s a Wonderful Life. Despite being irrevocably associated with holiday viewing, the film has a message that should resonate all through the year. 

Of course we all know the story of George Bailey, a man who had dreams of traveling the world, leaving his small town behind and living a life of learning and adventure. Sadly he found himself having to accept the cloak of responsibility for his loved ones over and over again. He lost the opportunity to attend college when his father died and he was chosen to take over the struggling family business. A run on the Savings and Loan that he managed interrupted his plans for an exciting honeymoon. The births of children sidelined his dreams of making big changes in his life. Ultimately he is threatened with jail time and loss of his reputation and business after his uncle loses a large cash deposit. 

All of his struggles come crashing down at once and he literally questions whether his life has even been worth living. That’s when Clarence, an angel, enters to show him what the world would like if he had never lived. He learns that even small things that he had done had a dramatic impact on the people of his town and even a ship filled with soldiers in World War II. Without him many lives would have been broken and sorrowful and even lost. 

We sometimes don’t stop to think how much our actions affect the people around us. We underestimate the effect of a smile or a wave. We cannot imagine how important each of is in the grand scheme of things. Everything changes if any one of us never existed. Our reach may be small, but it is important to those around us. If we understand that, we are more inclined to be the best versions of ourselves. We strive to be kind, to observe when others are struggling, to give of ourselves rather than taking the air out of a room. From day to day the little things that we say and do have the most profound effect on the people we encounter. It would be nice if we each had an opportunity to actually witness our overall effect on the world around us so that we might either improve our presence or stay the course of how we live. 

Many people create goals for themselves and very successfully achieve every one of them. Others, like George Bailey, have terrible things happen to them at the most inopportune times. They have to constantly adjust their visions and dreams to care for the people around them. They probably wonder if their sacrifices are even appreciated. If we don’t tell them how will they know how much they mean to us. They may even begin to feel like failures just as George Bailey did when life no longer seemed worth living. 

I wish that I might reach out to every person who has impacted me in a wonderful way. Some of them did incredible things for me and I don’t think I ever fully let them know how much they meant to me. I got busy with life and only thought about what I might have said to them when it was too late. I experienced that when my Aunt Rosemary died and when I lost my dear friend Sharon. If only I had picked up the phone and called them or written a little note describing how important they were to me.

I often think of my Uncle Jack Ferguson who guided my family through the most difficult early days after my father had died. Without Uncle Jack we would have been little lost souls set adrift in a sea of troubles. With his folksy knowledge and always pleasant humor he found us a house in which to live and a car to get us around town. He set us right on our journey without a dad and he kept checking on us ever after. I know that I never told him how much I loved him or how thankful I was for all of his help. I took it for granted that he knew. I hope that is so. 

My mother’s best friend Edith helped me when I was so confused about how to get medical help for my mother when she had her first terrible episode of mental illness. Not even the priest at our church was willing to give me guidance, but Edith stood by me and my mother with a love that gave me the courage I needed. I lost track of her over time and never thought to purposefully create an opportunity to describe how much she had meant to me. I am sorry for that because she literally guided me to find a strength within me that I did not know was there. 

So many incredible people are responsible for the sum total of who I am today. They enlightened me, showed me how to be compassionate, modeled integrity for me. Sometimes I only knew them from afar but their influence was dramatic. I suppose that it so for all of us. 

We encounter good people every single day of our lives who make a difference in how we feel about ourselves. Their existence is crucial in changing our world for the better. Missing even a single chance moment with them might have changed the trajectory of our lives. Think about who those people are. If they are still alive spend a few moments on each day of 2023 taking the time to tell them how important they are. We never know when that opportunity will be gone or when that person will believe that they have accomplished nothing. Give them the gift of gratitude. They need to hear what you have to say. Remind someone of how wonderful life has been because they entered your life.

It was New Year’s Day and we spoke of all that had happened in 2022, the births, the graduations, the illnesses, and the deaths. As we wished for peace, happiness, and good health in 2023 one among us commented that we don’t usually get too upset when one of our parents dies because that is the way life works. We expect our parents to die before we do so it is never that difficult to lose them.  

I jumped into the discussion insisting that this theory did not work for everyone, especially when a parent dies when a child is only eight years old as I was when my father’s died. I told our group that the loss of my father was the most traumatic moment of my lifetime that impacted virtually every aspect of who I am today. At times I have struggled to deal with the raw feelings that overwhelmed me in a time when most people believed that children were hardly affected by such things. At other times my experience allowed me to better understand my students who were struggling with similar disturbing life events. 

As an educator I observed that children who had endured the loss of a mother or father either through death or abandonment struggled to cope with grief that was all too often underestimated by the adults around them. This was particularly true if the event occurred when they were between the ages of eight and fifteen. I noticed that more often than not they had been left to sort our their feelings alone and they simply did not have the proper tools to deal with the sorrow they were experiencing, nor did they know how to convey their suffering to others. They simply felt strangely adrift and created their own coping mechanisms which were sometimes harmful to themselves and others. They were at times viewed as outsiders, trouble makers, delinquents, unlikeable little people even to themselves. 

Whenever I talked with such youngsters and conveyed my understanding of how they were feeling they more often than not opened their hearts to me, revealing the confusion and hurt that they had been afraid to make public. They felt a mix of emotions that included deep sorrow and anger that guided their seemingly erratic behavior. They longed to feel the joy and innocence that had been so uplifting before the moment when their lives changed so drastically. They felt different, withdrawn, and sometimes even remorseful for making a difficult family situation even harder for their remaining parent. 

Not everyone who loses a parent reacts in a negative way. Not every family of that child ignores the signs that they are in pain. Each of us is an individual, but there is a pattern of severe emotional distress among many youngsters who have lost a parent that takes form in undesirable behaviors or a kind of withdrawal from the world. If those young people’s feelings are not properly addressed they may eventually evolve into addictions, aggressions, anger, suicides, and even criminal behaviors. I can think of dozens of such examples from the pages of the news and from my personal interactions with troubled students.

As a society we need to be aware of such things. I applaud Harry Windsor for bringing his own story to the public. He was only twelve when his mother died. The attention was thrown on his grandmother, the Queen, and his father, the future King. Harry had to don a stoic face at a time when he was emotionally devastated. In the ensuing years he was sometimes said to be the trouble making prince. The press and the people around him made light of his cries for help that even he may not have realized he was making. Now that he is honestly addressing his pain and trying to help others in the process he is still being unheard, misunderstood and even shunned by many. I applaud Harry’s courage because I know quite well how important it is to face the emotions and fears that come with losing a beloved parent.

I am appalled whenever I hear adults criticizing a child who is struggling to be whole. We need not forgive bad behavior, but we would be wise to show the young person how much we love those trying to overcome a painful loss. If we only ignore or condemn them we run the risk of losing them to their fears and demons. Love demands that we let them voice their feelings no matter how toxic they may sound and then make real attempts to help them heal before the monsters inside of them become solidified.

Little good comes from having a stiff upper lift and carrying on as though nothing has happened when a child loses a parent. Often we provide comfort to the adults because we assume that they are suffering. We cannot forget the children as well. Their personalities are in the process of forming and trauma can distort them for the rest of their lives. Much of the trouble we see in the world derives from pretending that all is well and looking the other way. The poison toxicity of ignoring pain can lead to death of a soul. It’s up to all of us to make sure that the “might have beens” of a child are not damaged. Watch them. Encourage them to talk without judgement. Drain the poisons from their minds. Listen to the children.

When I came into the world my cousin Paul was already here. He has been an integral person in my life from the first memories that I have. Growing up we saw each other every Friday night at my grandmother’s home. Paul was the sweetest among my grandmother’s grandchildren. He always possessed a calmness and sense of humor that made him a favorite of all of us. For a time we even thought that perhaps he might become a priest or some kind of minister of God.

Paul had the largest collection of comic books that I have ever seen. He never threw an issue away and they were stored in piles wrapped with string in the back of his home. He seemed like an only child because his siblings were much older than he was and had gone to live on their own from the time he was quite young. His parents doted on him but did not spoil him. They modeled the kind and easygoing behavior that was his trademark. Just being with them was enough to lower one’s blood pressure several points. 

Paul and I both attended the University of Houston in the late nineteen sixties. His education there was interrupted by the Vietnam war. He enlisted in the Air Force and spent time in Oklahoma and Germany where he matured and honed his wisdom and compassion. He would be incredibly proud of his university and his time in the military for the rest of his life. His loyalty to God, family and his country was unshakeable. 

Paul married and went to work. His mother and father both died when he was still a very young adult. When his daughter was born he focused his loving nature on her and his wife. He was a success at work mostly because he was indefatigable and had such a generous personality that everyone loved him. He rose through the ranks and life was good until it wasn’t.

During hurricane Harvey Paul’s home of many decades flooded. It was a total disaster and for the first time in his life he was completely overwhelmed. He was nearing retirement age, but realized that this setback would force him to continue working well into his seventies. Once he got over the shock of what had happened he returned to his determined survival mode and did his best to be optimistic. He repaired his home, continued working at his job and enjoyed talking long walks in the park next to his abode. He often posted lovely stories on Facebook of his life in the military. His sense of humor became ever more delightful. 

Paul finally retired a couple of years ago. I went to his retirement party and he seemed to be exhausted. He made a speech extolling the symbolism of his wedding ring and his Air Force ring, two of his most cherished possessions because of what they represented. It was apparent that his family and his country had always meant everything to him. The people who worked for and with him praised his goodness just as those of us who are his cousins have always done. Kindness is his most lovely character trait. It is what makes him “our Paul.”

I would see Paul again at the funeral of another of our cousins in late 2021. He was looking better, as though retirement was agreeing with him. We enjoyed the usual cousin’s banter complete with his great story telling and a few wonderful jokes. It was good to see him looking so well, but that was not to remain the case.

In the spring of 2022, Paul had a heat stroke while walking. Even though he appeared to only need more hydration on his daily journeys through the park, his condition continued to deteriorate quickly until he was diagnosed with advance stage dementia. The one time my brother and sister-in-law and I saw him he was a shell of his former self, but he was still laughing and enjoying a good joke. I am glad that we were able to tell him how much we love him before he reaches a point of no longer knowing who we are or understanding what we are saying. 

When a loved one has dementia it is a long goodbye. The grieving for that person begins even before they die. We remember all of the wonder of their lives, but they forget. It is terribly difficult to watch such an incredible person like Paul dwindle away. Somehow we never saw this coming or we would have made more effort to save his stories, enjoy his jokes. We would have spent more time with him and told him more often how much we have always loved and respected him.

Paul’s wife and daughter tell us that he is quickly nearing the end of his life. It’s difficult for me to imagine a world without him. He has been the anchor of goodness among us cousins. He has been the exemplary role model and voice of wisdom that we have needed. We all pray that he will not suffer too much. We know that he will immediately go to heaven. He is one of God’s angels who came down from heaven to live among us. We have been blessed by his presence. We hope that somewhere in his heart he knows just how important he is to us. We hope he realizes how much we love him.