Category: Commentary

I once had a friend who had become a widow at an early age. She had four small children and was unsure of how she was going to provide a stable life for them. Her parents had a big house with many empty rooms, so they suggested that my friend bring her brood there, at least until she would be able to map out a plan for the rest of her life. As time went by, it was apparent that the situation was more than satisfactory for everyone, and so my friend stayed put in her parents home. 

Eventually my friend was working and contributing greatly to the expenses of the big extended family. Her children grew and left the nest one by one. Her parents became old and less able to care for themselves and my friend kept them safe and comfortable. It was a wonderful arrangement filled with much love. My friend’s tradition from recipient of her parents support to main caretaker for her parents was smooth and mutually beneficial to everyone. 

I’ve witnessed a number of situations in which people that I know have cared diligently and lovingly for their aging or ill parents. It has been an inspiring thing to watch them devoting so much of their time to their mothers or fathers in a kind of reciprocity of love. In a time when so many elderly are left to their own resources, it is uplifting to see how much goodness is happening all around us. 

My friend Linda made the art of caring for her mother into a masterpiece. For many years her routine was defined by daily visits to her mother’s nursing home every single morning, lunchtime and evening. She made certain that every aspect of her mother’s care was in order from dawn until her mom went to sleep at night. She literally became friends with the people who worked to make her mother safe and secure, often bringing them generous tokens of her appreciation. I marveled at Linda’s steadfast goodness, but it did not surprise me because she has always been the quintessential essence of thoughtfulness.

More recently I have watched Cristel, the daughter of one of my dear friends, making daily visits to her mother who suffered from a stroke just before the Covid pandemic began. While the rest of us were worrying about the virus, Cristel was teaching school each day and then donning robes, masks, face shields and gloves in the evening to spend time with her mom. While she sometimes mentions how tired she is, she never suggests that taking care of her mother is making her weary. I am continually impressed with her faithful routine of making her mother happy with gifts of milkshakes and stuffed animals and humor. 

A high school friend had an horrific accident this year that resulted in damage to his brain. His whole world was turned upside down and his daughter, Rachel. immediately came to his rescue. She became his voice with doctors and therapists. She found her father and his wife a place to stay where they would be assisted with their transition necessitated by their medical emergencies. She helped to sell her father’s home and set up a special Facebook page to keep all of her father’s friends informed of his progress and setbacks on his road to recovery. Somehow she did all of this while being a new mom. Her energy and enthusiasm for her task has literally taken my breath away. I admire her so greatly because most people as young as she is do not have to take on such tremendous responsibilities.

I have another friend, Paula, who delights in watching over her mother. She joyfully posts photos of her frequent visits to the care facility where her mom resides. Like the others, Paula devotes much of her time to maintaining a loving and healthy environment for her mother. All the while she does it with a smile and a sense of appreciation rather than duty.

My daughter’s mother-in-law lost her husband a while back. She has been adjusting well since his death, but recently her daughter, Terri, who used to live nearby moved about an hour or so away from her. Terri, has a great deal of land on her new property and so she has been trying to convince her mom to build a little casita there so that as her mom ages she will be close enough that Terri will be able to care for her. During the Thanksgiving holidays Terri and her mother met with an architect and chose a design for the little house that will soon be a new home in a delightful plan for the future. 

As someone who spent forty years caring for my own mother, I know how all consuming such  responsibility can be. It is often a frustrating experience as well, but in the end there is so much peace of mind in knowing that the person you so love is getting the care the he or she deserves. I was not quite as saintly and positive as the friends that I have written about. There were times when I wanted to run away from it all. My admiration for the wonderful women that I have noted in this blog is boundless. It makes me happy to see their magnanimous spirits in a world that sometimes seems not to care. To me they are a gift to all of us with their example of how things should be done. I celebrate their goodness each time I see yet another reminder of their love.

It’s that time of year for sending out Christmas cards and hopefully getting a few in return. I always enjoy running through my contacts list and thinking about the memories that I have shared with the people who made it there. I take the opportunity to update addresses and delete those who have died as well. Sadly this year I have had to eliminate far more names than I ever before recall having to do. By the time I reached the Ls I actually shed a few tears to think that so many of my cherished friends and relatives were gone. Removing their names and addresses and and phone numbers, one after another, was particularly difficult this time around because the precautions of the Covid era had separated us for such a long time. 

If found myself thinking of how nice it would have been to have one last conversation and hug with each person, all of whom had brought great joy into my life at different junctures. I thought of Bob, my long time next door neighbor, who worked in his yard each weekend just as I did. We would exchange dreams of having gardeners to do all of our tasks and then laughingly get back to work. Eventually we enjoyed meeting up for coffee and long chats after we both had retired from our jobs. 

I smiled when I remembered taking my precious pups to Jake. I trusted him to love and care for my dogs, and he never disappointed. He was also a friend with a pleasant and inviting personality that made him so easy to be around. His compassion for people and all God’s creatures will be missed by so many.

I loved my moments at work with Martha, and then later when we would meet regularly for lunch and lots of girl talk. She was a woman with a heart of gold and a determination of steel. She loved her family and much of our talk centered on the escapades of our children and grandchildren. I enjoyed her adventurous spirit that led her to travel, take up acting in community theater, and to teach immigrants how to speak and write and read English. 

That there was Bren, a brilliantly delightful woman with a touch of whimsy. Her sudden death shook me to my core. I still find it difficult to believe that she is no longer posting photos of her delightful seasonal decorations from her home on Marcy Street. I miss the notes that she sent and the impulsive phone calls in which we shared our thoughts. 

It was hard to believe that Jackie is also gone. She was one of the most elegant and eloquent women I have ever known. She always seemed like a big sister in many ways. I learned from her and sometimes even modeled myself after her. She was always kind and generous and infinitely wise.

My dear cousin DD has died as well. He was a giant of a man who endured decades of pain and suffering with the most pleasant demeanor. Conversations with him reminded me of those I had with my grandfather. He was a learned man who always seemed to impart knowledge and a joy of learning. 

Then there is my dear Aunt Valeria, a constant in my life, who is now with the angels because she herself was an angel. It’s the hardest to imagine a world without her. She was the one who so sweetly told me that my father had died. She spent her life taking care of my mother and me and my brothers. She had an unforgettable laugh and a wry sense of humor. Somehow it still has not become real to me that I will never see her again.

There is something so viscerally final about admitting that I do not need their contact information anymore. There is also a sense of regret that we did not communicate more often. I keep thinking of a friend whose son was murdered this year and the moving posts that he shares each day. His recurring theme is a sense of regret that he did not take even more time than he quite obviously did to walk and talk with his son. His hashtag has become “hug them until they let go.” 

I suppose that I find myself wondering if those who died this year really understood how much they had impacted my life. I know that I might have done better in conveying my feelings to them. I have a phone and I had their numbers. I wish I had called just to say hello but I let too much of the mundane business of life get in my way, even as I wrote blogs urging others to set aside time to reach out to friends and family members. 

Sending a Christmas card is a nice gesture, especially if it includes a brief message, but a short phone call is even better. Look at the contact list and ask if it’s been too long since talking with the people whose names and numbers are right there in front of you. Maybe a quick call will brighten some person’s day just as Bren so often did for me. 

Even if there are miles between you and so little time that you feel yourself rushing around, take a moment once a week during the coming year to return to that Christmas card list and reach out. Tell people what they mean to you. Make that list of people a source of joy, not regret. 

Have you ever received a letter from the Social Security Administration and had no idea what they were attempting to tell you? I got two of them recently and I have to say that even with my college coursework in mathematics and English I was unable to decipher the gist of the communications. I had my husband read it and he was even more confused that I was. So that meant I had to either make a phone call  or head down the the local office to pick a number and then probably wait for half a day to actually see someone.

As it happened my call got dropped on my first try and the second time around I was on hold for over one hour. They did not even give me some dorky music to calm my increasingly anxious mood. Instead they keep telling me that I could find all kinds of information online, except nothing online referred to the questions that I had. My only recourse was just to patiently wait my turn to get the attention of a representative. Luckily I had my Wordscapes app to I keep me entertained during the very long interruption of my day. 

As I waited and worried that the call would be dropped again, I wondered how many old people needing answers fall asleep in their easy chairs during those wasted moments of delay. I began to imagine all sorts of scenarios involving folks attempting to make use of the time spent watching the phone. I no doubt could have baked a cake or written a blog if I had thought to bring my laptop along for the interim. Heck, a really brilliant individual might even invent something during that time. 

To say I was becoming peeved is an understatement, but this is the Christmas season and I was determined to be nice to whomever ultimately got around to taking my call. After all, the poor souls who work there are obviously overworked and no doubt underpaid as well. They also have a lousy phone system that they discuss in a recording before callers are put on hold. They admit that their equipment is prone to failures like hanging up or making so much strange noise that the attempts to speak with one another become garbled. 

I submit that any Congressperson who wanted to really address the issues with the Social Security system would likely become a great hero to the American public. There are definitely numerous issues there, not the least of which is what I consider to be the theft of my legally earned income that I paid for during the years when I was not a public school teacher. Sadly, as a teacher, my allowed benefit is tragically reduced by a windfall formula that occurs simply because I have a pension that I paid into for decades. 

When I finally got a real person on the phone I almost fainted from shock. Since I had sworn to myself that I was going to be kind, I peppered my questions with respect and a honey-laced tone in my voice. When the representative explained all of the gobbleldy gook I realized that the letter only need about three sentences to make sense. I did not, however, suggest this to the nice young man helping me because he was so bright that it was apparent to me that he had nothing to do with the letter I had received. I simply thanked him profusely for his time and suggested that he was surely overworked, worthy of a raise and in need of more help and decent equipment for his job. His surprised demeanor told me that he is unaccustomed to being treated well by callers.

I tend to be impatient with incompetence. I’ve seen too many incredibly busy systems that work magnificently, so I cannot understand why some organizations are so unable to maintain a fluid manner of doing business. I tend to believe that such places are hiring unqualified people at low wages or perhaps cutting corners by not having enough people on staff. I feel badly for those stuck in such jobs unless they demonstrate indications that they are surly or lazy. 

I’ve been to Social Security offices before and wasted half a day sitting in a hard chair surrounded by droves of others becoming increasingly angry as the clock ticks. I suppose that there is little incentive to properly staff an office that produces no income, but they could sure learn a thing or two from the Buccee’s stores and gas stations that I frequent on my travels in Texas. A trip to Chic-fil-a should be inspirational for them. I mean those businesses have people in and out so quickly that it is head spinning. 

I’m glad I decided to be pleasant with the person who translated the strange sounding letter for me. He did a great job once he was able to get to my call. I wondered how many times someone yells at him during a regular day just because the folks he works for won’t attempt to make the customer service experience a bit more bearable. In the end he wished me a great rest of the day and a very Merry Christmas and we both smiled. (I could hear the smile in the tone of his voice, in case you are wondering.)

Later it occurred to me that with the time spent composing those two letters as well as the postage to send them when multiplied hundreds of thousands of times might possibly pay for the kind of improvements that are needed. Surely there is an efficiency expert somewhere who might finally make a broken system better. It’s been out of order for as long as I can remember. Isn’t it about time to at least try to do something more than ask people to use the website rather than call? (As a side note I did attempt to use the website but ended up in an infinite loop informing me that I needed one thing or another to work my way inside.)

I suppose that all is well that ends well, but I can’t help but imagine hordes of individuals falling into a deep slumber in the process of waiting for an answer to their call. I truly hope that I won’t find it necessary to contact that office again. If so, I’ll set myself up with something constructive to do while biding my time.

I’ve never been able to comprehend conflicts brought about because of religion, and yet it is a fact of history that some of the most terrible wars and persecutions were precipitated by religious fervor. As a Catholic I’ve read much about those of my own religious persuasion as both aggressors and victims of political oppression. When I witness certain religious beliefs being demonized I always worry, because so many times the initial tongue wagging and fears devolve into very dangerous situations. Little wonder that our Founding Fathers had the wisdom to demand a strict separation between Church and State. Sadly that line of demarcation is often blurred to a toxic level that has the potential to erupt into a kind of civil war. 

I recall glancing at headlines about the troubles in Northern Ireland during my earliest years as an adult. The town of Belfast became synonymous in my mind with bombs and terrorist activities. Eventually the violence spilled over into England as well. It baffled me that so much trouble occurred with religion at its root, even though there was a tangle of many other factors as well. Somehow religious wars and conflicts are oxymorons to me and yet I know that the Puritans who fled the old world for the new, did so in hopes of finding a place where they would be free to follow their own religious beliefs instead of being literally jailed because of their differences. 

Last week I watched the Kenneth Branagh film, Belfast. It was a kind of memoir of his youth in Northern Ireland. The movie centers on a young boy named Buddy and his family who were living peacefully and happily in a neighborhood composed of Catholics and Protestants. The movie begins with a lovely scene of children playing when a gang of thugs descend upon the street to damage the homes where Catholics were living. From that point in 1969, the seriousness of the situation grows ever more dire until Buddy’s family begins to wonder if they must leave the city that they love for the sake of keeping everyone safe. 

Belfast is a beautiful and touching film that makes the conflict in Northern Ireland feel intensely personal. It also speaks to the sadness of divisiveness brought on by religious bigotry, a theme repeated again and again throughout history. I left the movie feeling a universe of emotions, but mostly wondering why we humans do not see the signs of trouble long before they erupt into wars between one another. Why do we allow such poisonous behaviors to grow and multiply? What makes one group of religious folk become so self-righteous that they justify violence toward others by invoking God?

I honestly worry right now about the continuous mixing of religion with political influence that is happening in many corners of the world. In the Middle East many nations are built on the principles of a particular Muslim sect. In our own country there is a constant push to place Christianity at the center of public policy, thus ignoring the the many diverse religious beliefs of vast numbers of the population. I fret over the idea that there is one best way of governing the people when it is based solely on a limited religious preference when even within the term Christianity there are so many differing rules and traditions. 

Like the Founding Fathers I strongly believe that religion should always be a personal thing, not a purview of the State. When folks ask for prayers to be part of the daily routine at schools I doubt that they think that every conceivable religion should be represented in those recitations. Too many insist that this should be a Christian country even as we are filled with a population of many different faiths and even some who do not believe in such things at all.

When I hear of such demands I shudder because even though as a Catholic I think of myself as being a Christian, I know that many think of Catholics as being something other than Christian. We all saw the backlash against Mitt Romney’s Mormon faith when he ran for President of the United States. There are far too many advocating for a Christian country who totally misunderstand Hindus, Sikhs, Buddhists, and even Jews. Ours must be an all inclusive democratic republic that allows each individual the right to religious views of their own without pressure from the government to conform to a single way of believing. 

Watching Belfast only hardened my thinking that, but for the brilliance of those who wrote our original Constitution, we would have had a civil war not just over slavery, but also over religion. Sadly, we are dangerously close to such a slippery slope in the present. Decisions made by our government should never be influenced by one faith over another, but rather by a consideration of the general welfare of all of the people. 

We are already more politically divided than at any time since the Civil War. Friend is turning against friend. Anger has overtaken reason. Lies and propaganda are spreading like wildfire. Religion is too often being used to drive us apart. We don’t want to become like Belfast once was. Our neighborhoods are beautifully diverse. Let’s protect our lovely differences and live together in harmony and peace.    

I met with a group of long time friends recently at a local Italian restaurant. We were happy to reprise our tradition of meeting and exchanging gifts at Christmas time. Mostly what we enjoy about this annual gathering, that was interrupted by Covid last year, is feeling so accepted by each other in spite of any differences in our political persuasions, backgrounds and lifestyles. We simply love each other in the most comforting of ways. Our gatherings fill each of us with a joy that sets the tone for the Christmas season.

This year we spoke of how sad it has been to see people around us allowing politics and small slights to rent their friendships in two. Each of us had experienced such things during the past couple of years. We understand how trying the times have been, but it is difficult to believe that a mother and child would become enemies simply because they voted differently in the 2020 election, and yet one of our party personally knew of such a situation. So too did everyone experience a breech in a long time friendship over everything from being vaccinated to wearing masks to believing that the 2020 election was fraudulent. 

I count the blessings of my many friends and I believe that the anxieties that many among us hold have been stoked by elected officials who have drawn lines in the sand to purposely divide us. The media of all sorts, under the guise of freedom of speech, has all too often gleefully amplified our differences in ways that sadly turn family members and friends against each other. I for one have been unfriended by individuals whom I continue to love in spite of their rejection of me. Somehow their allegiance to certain ideas has superseded their loyalty to me. A single comment or belief from me has erased their memory of the times we have shared in both happy and sorrowful moments. I have become a non-person to them as though I no longer exist. 

I can understand eliminating someone who is abusive or disloyal, but I have trouble accepting that small slights or differences are grounds for smashing a long time relationship. I remain determined to be like the father in the story of the Prodigal Son in the hopes that one day I will celebrate the return of the folks who are upset with me over small missteps that they believe I have taken in my view of the world. Somehow I cannot take the advice of well-meaning friends who have advised me to just accept that some relationships have an expiration date and I need to just walk away. These people have meant too much to me for far too long to so easily write them off. I intend to wait until a time when we might be able to make amends. 

I tend to believe that when such things happen there are bigger issues at play than a single slip of the tongue or disturbing belief. For that reason I cling to the hope that at some moment in the future my patience will pay off and I will be reunited with individuals who allowed the crises of the moment to create a rift in what had once been a wonderful union of diverse mindsets. Somehow at least for now, they do not seem to realize that I may not agree with them on particular issues, but those things have nothing to do with how I feel about them as people. We have waded through too much together for me to so quickly forget what they have always meant to me.

I have already lost so many dear, dear friends and family members. Perhaps that is why I so appreciate those who are still around to walk with me. I often grieve for those who have died and worry that I somehow never really let them know how much I loved them. I hope that somehow they nonetheless knew that I never took them for granted no matter how busy or distracted by life I became. I value people over anything else and I have a tendency to never give up on them. I suppose that I was better at letting my students know how much I cared about them than teaching them mathematics. I simply refuse to believe that anyone is expendable and sometimes my heart has been broken because of that. Nonetheless, it is the way I am and I will not apologize for my determination to retain deep feelings even for those who become angry enough to push me away. 

One of my favorite stories of reunion came from my dear friend, Egon, who sadly died all too soon. His mother was living in Norway during World War II when the German army invaded the country. Egon’s father was a German soldier charged with maintaining control of the population. While stationed in Norway he met Egon’s mother and the two of them fell in love in spite of their differing allegiances. After the war they married and lived in Germany. 

Over time they returned to Norway so that the woman might visit with her relatives, many of whom met her husband with cold politeness or even downright disdain. After decades when it became apparent that the once Nazi soldier was a good man who had been drafted into service that was not particularly indicative of his own beliefs, one of the woman’s brothers boldly announced to the family that it was time to set aside all of their rancor and welcome his sister’s husband into their midst. After that they all spent many happy years enjoying one another’s company and loving each other without conditions. 

If a group of people were able to overcome such painful memories I am confident that my beautiful ones will one day lead to a reunion with those who remain special to me. The love we have shared is far more important than our differences. The spirit and the reason for Christmas convinces me that love will always win.