Category: Commentary

I suppose that by anyone’s standards I am a senior citizen, an older woman, someone who’s been around the sun a few times. I don’t see myself as someone who has all of the answers even after a lifetime of learning. I try to keep up with the news, the trends, the modern ways of doing things. Taking a page from my grandfather’s playbook I tend to look to the future rather than wallowing in dreams of the past. My working days are not quite over since I teach a variety of mathematics courses to around ten students, but I admittedly no longer have the energy to work with a full classroom for eight to twelve hours a day. I’m no longer in the big mix of things like I once and I’ve lost quite a few dear friends and beloved family members as each new year completes its cycle. I suppose that my point of view is affected by the slower pace that I am now allowed to follow in honor of my age, but I still have a roaring type A personality that leans more towards impatience than a willingness to allow things to work at their own pace.

We’ve all been affected by the past couple of years during a time of global pandemic. People in my age cohort have been deemed most likely to get severe or even deadly cases of COVID-19, and so we have been blessed to receive the first doses of vaccines and boosters. The world is lovingly considering our situation and taking care of us, which has been a humbling and most appreciated blessing. Those still working and raising families have had a more difficult time during all of the chaos that the tiny virus has created. They are still making their way through the journeys of their careers while also navigating the care and education of young children. It has been a difficult and sometimes confusing and precarious balancing act for them. Our youngest people are somehow adjusting and dealing with the trauma of this event just as they tend to do. Of course, they will not be left without scars, but somehow there is an energy in children that provides them with the ability to be more flexible and open to the necessities of change. 

Over my many years on the earth I have learned that very few things that happen to us are simple, nor are the solutions for the problems that arise. We humans have to be more like the children, open to change, willing to adapt to unique situations, curious about learning new skill and ideas. As the profound song goes “you can’t always get what you want, but sometimes you get what you need.” 

I’ve repeated that line often during the past almost two years of life-changing and sometimes disturbing times. I’ve done a great deal of soul searching and I’ve tried my best to be flexible at a time in my life when I had grown fond of clinging to routines. I have had to curb my impatient nature and learn how to calm my tendencies to want to hurry things along. It has been a good exercise for me. I’ve stopped long enough to see the big picture and my own small place in the cares and woes of the world. I have in a sense been forced to be less self-centered than I might otherwise have been. 

I have seen that the vast array of people the world over are doing their very best to keep our engines of society running smoothly, but the illnesses, deaths, and slow downs in production have created kinks that were not there before. Our world is like a great big family in turmoil and we can all work together or we can yell and scream at each other. I suggest the former.

Back in early March my husband and I ordered a home generator that is produced in Wisconsin. We were told that the processing and delivery of the unit took about three months, but because production had been slowed by the illnesses of workers it might take an extra month or so before it could be shipped and then installed. We soon learned that there are many moving parts in the creation of an item like this. The manufacturers depended on parts from all across the globe and had to wait for them far longer than usual before putting the generator together. There were also shipping issues that slowed the process as well. We had to be exceedingly patient while we waited for the machine to arrive. It finally came in November five months later than promised. In the end, it really did not matter because we knew that everyone along the chain was doing his or her best to accommodate us. There was no reason for us to be surly or to point fingers at anyone. We are all in the gooey mess together.

The delay was not a simple matter of lazy people unwilling to go back to work, or building things in America rather than relying on other nations. Whether we like it or not, commerce is a global affair and no doubt always will be. In any business if workers are sick, things slow down. If we have to wait for supplies from the far reaches of the world, more complications develop. Then there is the matter of our human traits. There have been so many differing response to the virus making it more and more inevitable that the smooth flow of goods and services would be interrupted. We did not immediately go back to normal just because we wished to do so.

This is hardly the first time in history that we have been challenged by shortages and delays. Just ask anyone who was alive during World War II what kind of things were unavailable during that conflict and they will tell you about ration coupons and recipes that used substitutes for eggs and sugar and other staples that were difficult to find. They will show you high school yearbooks made from pulp paper without hard covers. Inside those annuals there will be a noticeable lack of young men because most of them had gone off to war. They will speak of patching tires because there was no rubber for new ones. They did whatever they had to do because they understood that it would have been absurd to expect their lives to be exactly the way they had always been. For some those war years lasted six years and even after the fighting was over there was a long period of adjustment.

It is going to take time to assume any sense of normalcy. Europe is experiencing another wave of COVID-19 among the unvaccinated. The winter months may slow the flow of commerce even more. Our prices may respond by going higher. It will be up to each of us to find ways of helping the cause. Instead of complaining we can do like our forebears and be thankful on this day if we are still alive and able to celebrate our good fortune with a Thanksgiving meal with family or friends.

“Ask not what your country can do for you, ask what you can do for your country.” should be our mantra. We’ve spent too much time complaining. Now it’s time to get creative and deal with our realities like reasonable individuals willing to work our way forward. It will take time and adaptability. Let’s demonstrate that we have not forgotten how to make sacrifices and be flexible. Let us not ignore the most unfortunate in this world. The present state of the world is not about any one of us personally. It’s about everyone together. Let’s us be thankful for whatever we have and pledge on this day to be kind and patient and aware of the needs and hopes and dreams everyone around us. Sometimes that means waiting a bit to satisfy our desires. In our hearts we know we can do it. We just have to redirect our anger and our attitudes like good people before us have always done.

Happy Thanksgiving everyone!

I was not quite eighteen years old when my senior class visited a university English lecture. During my four years in high school I had become enamored with the artistry of words through the influence of my teacher, Father Shane. He had introduced me and my classmates to the magnificent world of literature and poetry. With his guidance I viewed the human experience in the brilliance of words strung together by gifted writers. I began to realize the nuance of a single phrase, the Picasso-like abstraction of language that only geniuses know how to create. I was enamored with the power of words to tell stories and awaken feelings. Then I listened to the professor lecturing my group of soon to be college students on the brilliance of The Great Gatsby and my love affair with language reached a fever pitch. 

I spent my time at the University of Houston studying the way we humans express ourselves with words. I analyzed our parts of speech in minute detail and learned about the almost mathematical precision of our linguistic structures. I studied literature from folksy oral traditions to Nobel prize winning authors. I began to realize the delicate importance of how language is used. I saw that word choice is akin to the blending of colors on a canvas. The same sentence heard or read by hundreds of people will be interpreted in countless ways from the literal to the highly imaginative and figurative. I found the power of verbal expression to be intoxicating, but I also understood that its misinterpretations might bring devastating wrath down on the speaker or the writer. J. Alfred Prufrock’s proclamation, “That is not what I meant at all.” was a reminder to me that how we use our words can make or break our efforts to communicate our thoughts and beliefs to others.

Hills Like White Elephants by Earnest Hemingway is a short story that uses the most carefully chosen words to concisely and powerfully convey a multitude of thoughts and emotions. The title itself is a masterpiece. Those four words convey the gist of the story before it is even told. Even without careful analysis the encounter of the protagonists is interesting. With a deep dive into each phrase and sentence a word picture emerges that is more visually stunning than a movie. 

Sadly, we are presently ensconced in a time when a kind of puritanical or Cromwellian attitude towards art, and particularly the way we communicate, is sweeping across the land. People are interpreting words at their most literal level and in the process often missing their nuanced meanings, or even worse indicting them with imagined beliefs. I suppose that this trend points to the importance of clarification and the need to consider time and place when choosing a word to describe something specific.

When we talk about the need to overhaul our criminal justice system talking of “defunding police” may have a very benign meaning for the inventor of that phrase, but may sound like totally eliminating our police forces to others. In such instances it is a disservice to the cause to use such an easily misunderstood word choice. Since a discussion of how to better serve the citizenry with regard to policing is critical to our justice system, clarity is demanded. Vague and easily misleading words should not become the catch phrases for the cause. They only lead to confusion and the potential for those opposed to any changes in the way we do things to strike false fears into the hearts of persons who do not take the time to learn how that phrase originated and what its exact meaning is. 

Our words are often heard or read in ways that we never intended. I know that each time I write a blog there will be many different reactions to my words. People tend to skim the surface in their hurry to get to the next thing that they must do each day. They see and hear things in tiny bites. They are always influenced by their own personal experiences and environments. Speakers and authors must take such realities into account. 

Words are powerful they can hurt or heal. They can be twisted to mean something never intended. Once they are free in the universe it is difficult to take them back. Jesus warned us that our words are like setting a bag of feathers loose into the air. Some will see them as a lovely things. Others will be reviled by the mess they have made. Never can we completely reclaim them or try a different way of expressing ourselves as an explanation. 

These days we hear lots of catchy phrases that attempt to encapsulate entire belief systems. They may be powerful in appealing to a lack of imagination, but they do little to clarify the kinds of thinking and solutions that we should be seeking. I would contend that words matter and we need the best examples of them to progress as humans. Each of us needs to learn how to take the time to parse meanings and search for truth either when we are setting forth words or when we are attempting to define their meanings. There are no shortcuts to understanding. It’s time for each of us to slow down and become more serious in our analysis and presentation of words. There is too much at stake to allow silly hats and memes to be our guides.

We each encounter tough times as we advance through the ups and downs of our lives. For the past couple of years we have had the collective burden of uncertainty caused by a tiny virus that has invaded the world like a silent army. Everything feels upside down, out of whack, as we attempt to adjust to a new normal that has restricted our human contacts, threatened our sense of security, and sadly divided us into sometimes raging camps. During this seemingly never ending sojourn we have all lost loved ones either to the virus itself or to other diseases or accidents. Somehow the impact of each death has been magnified in our minds, often because we did not have the opportunity to say goodbye to people who had meant so much to us. Even as we attempt to bridge the gaps made by two years of uncommon ways of living we are wary that somehow nothing will ever again be the same. 

These many months have included a litany of deaths. The recitation of the names is painful more so because we have worked so hard to keep ourselves, our families and our unraveling society together. Some of us have turned to science for a solution. We’ve taken jabs of the vaccine. We’ve religiously donned our masks and proceeded with caution. Some have attempted to simply carry on as though the braver thing to do is to keep living as usual, counting on strong constitutions or God to carry us through the pandemic and back to our lives as we had known them before 2020. Sometimes it’s difficult to tell who is right and who is wrong or if there is even a definitive way of determining the best way of surviving all of the chaos. 

We prefer to control our lives. We want order and design in our world. We have our routines and when they are interrupted we don’t function as well as we should. Our brains send us messages that something is not quite right and so we react, each in our own ways. Some among us have an illness that is as real as the virus. They suffer from depression, a deep and dark despair that hurts as painfully and surely as a broken bone or a cancer. The source of their disease is often hidden and almost always misunderstood. We nudge such souls to get a grip, to just do this or that to chase the darkness away. We do not understand why they cannot adapt and take command of their feelings. It frightens us to see them in such a state and so we often look away from them at the very moment when they need us most. 

I have been deeply saddened by the deaths of friends and family members and acquaintances. Some have died from COVID 19, but not all. Every single loss has affected me and those who loved them a bit more deeply during this strange and trying time. Recently I learned of the passing of a very good man who had devoted his life to helping young people to achieve their athletic goals. He had touched my heart by showing up to encourage my grandson in all of his races. He was a constant in our family’s life, a bright light in a sometimes difficult world. He took the time to let my grandson know that he was important. He had trained my grandson in the art and skills of running for over eight years. He was as proud as a parent when my grandson was recruited to run for Trinity University. I liked him so very much because he was someone who genuinely cared. 

This wonderful beautiful man took his own life. It was soul crushing to realize that he had been so depressed that he lost all hope. It made me wonder if he realized how much we had admired and loved him. Should we have been more explicit in our feelings for him? Do we as humans miss the cues that someone is struggling? Have we been so wrapped up in maintaining a semblance of normalcy in our own lives that we did not see his suffering or even think to inquire about how he was doing? 

There are people around us who are deeply depressed. All too often they hide their feelings behind fake bravado or humor. We tend to prefer them that way. It is awkward and difficult to hear someone who is in a dark place express the true feelings that they have. It frightens us to know how intense their pain actually is. We want to push them into a state of happiness before their minds are ready to be there. We provide them with platitudes and advice rather than understanding that they need intensive care to overcome their very real illnesses that make them feel weak and unworthy. Without the right kind of help their pain can overwhelm them. They have to make it stop and we lose them just as we have lost this very good man and so many others like him.

There is so much noise and chaos all around us. We are raging about the cost of living instead of asking who needs a hand to survive. We are upset because we can’t get what we want when we want it instead of being patient and accepting that we may have to make some sacrifices for a time. We want to rush back to the way things were instead of easing our way back into our old routines and maybe even making changes that will make our lives better than before. We are rushing around pretending that if we just wish things to feel normal again they will be. In the meantime we might better use our time quietly contacting or connecting with the people who mean much to us. We should be checking on one another regularly, sharing our good fortune with those who have less. This should be a time of listening, understanding, loving. We don’t want to one day wake up to find that a very good man’s life became so dark that he saw no way out but ending it.

I’ve been to a blues guitar concert. I’ve eaten out. I’ve stayed in a hotel. I’ve received a booster for my Moderna vaccine. I recently celebrated by seventy third revolution around the sun. None of these things would be extraordinary in most times, but we all know how strange the last couple of years have been. Somehow in spite of all of new beginnings I have safely enjoyed, I find myself feeling a bit unwilling to declare that the threat of COVID-19 is over. A little voice in my head keeps reminding me that I am doing well because I have been very cautious. I still wear a mask whenever I go shopping or to a public gathering. I keep my distance from others and I still teach and take classes via Zoom. Somehow I have been unable to ditch the precautions that have directed my behavior for so many months lest I celebrate a victory over COVID prematurely. 

My age puts me in the demographic of the elderly, but I feel incredibly young. My joints ache from arthritis, but I still have almost boundless energy. My recent birthday would have been just another number to me save for the fact that strangers treat me with the kind of delicacy reserved for older persons. They do not see a woman who still behaves like the energizer bunny most of the time. My wrinkles and my slower gait give away the truth of my how old I am. 

I was shocked by my recent visit with an ophthalmologist. I finally need to wear glasses all of the time, something I have avoided all of the many years of my life. I always had managed to see well enough with drugstore readers that I did not think that I would ever need a real prescription. The hints were there, but I was choosing to ignore them. There were times when print appeared to be so small to me that I had to ask other people to verify what I was actually seeing. Nonetheless, I went into a state of shock at the announcement that I now need to perch spectacles on my nose all the day through. I was even more stunned to hear that I had the beginnings of cataracts. I don’t need surgery yet, but the day will come for sure. 

I suppose it would be easier for me to behave like an older woman if I actually felt that way. Sure I get a hitch in my get-along now and again, but most of the time I feel fabulous. I suppose that I should have taken the hint that I am no longer a spring chicken when I ended up among the first to receive the vaccines for COVID. My recent sojourn with physical therapy for an injured arm was yet another indicator that I am not actually as spry as I want to believe.

Nonetheless, I do think that outlook has a great deal to do with how one ages. I’m not yet ready to put a shawl around my shoulders and give up the little bits of youthfulness that I still possess. So far my mind is holding up quite well, save for a tiny bit of forgetfulness now and again. With my electronic reminders thanks to modern technology, I don’t have to worry a bit about missing something because it slipped my mind. I keep my brain working hard with my reading and writing and teaching of mathematics. If I need glasses to continue to do those things it is a very small price to pay to keep my thinking young. 

I suppose that I am a fuddy-duddy in some ways, but my beliefs are more in line with young people than my peers. I don’t long for a simpler time from the past. I revel in progress and embracing innovation. I look forward to one day driving an electric vehicle and getting my power from the sun or wind or both. I am always looking ahead to the future. I enjoy my memories but would never go back in time.

And yet, I am a cautious person. I’ve never been one to dive blindly from a cliff. I believe in science and when the experts explain to me how best to behave I listen, not because I am a sheep. In fact, I am more of a rebel than a follower. If I ran with the tide of my peers I would be worrying about the young millennials and wondering how our world will survive in their hands. Instead, I am incredibly optimistic about a future time run by those who are now in their twenties and thirties. I know that generation well. I have taught them and talked with them and admired them. Sometimes I think I have more in common with them than most of the folks who are my age. 

So I will keep enjoying small milestones and celebrating the progress we have made in the battle with COVID. I like to think that we are where we are because of the millions of wonderful men, women and children worldwide who have followed science and made sacrifices for the sake of all the world. I sometimes dream of how wonderful it would now be if everyone had been inclined to work for the common good. I might be planning a trip to Scotland or feeling free to do all of the things I once did without a thought. For now I will hold steady with my cautious optimism. I see the sunshine up ahead and better days to come, but there is no reason to rush. All good things come in time.

My first childhood memory of my cousin, Delbert Dale Stewart, affectionately known as DD, occurred about the time that I was five years old and he was sixteen. I remember being in awe of this blonde curly headed teenager whose smile made me feel welcome in his home, but not the sanctity of his room. He was sweet but not particularly interested in spending time with a little kid. Nonetheless, he would always ever so politely greet me before gravitating to my father for a long and serious conversation about things that I did not yet understand. 

The next moment that I remember about DD came when my mother and my Aunt Valeria took me and his sister, Ingrid, to the Frontier Fiesta at the University of Houston. It was a fun affair run by the fraternities and sororities and other student organizations at the school. We feasted on barbecue and enjoyed music and all sorts of games when suddenly DD appeared with a group of friends all decked out in long duster coats, cowboy hats, and boots. Though he was a member of my family, he took my little girl breath away. He looked like a movie star and I felt so proud to be his cousin. Even as a child I saw that he was a leader, someone that everyone admired as much as I did. 

Eventually DD met the most beautiful woman that I have ever known, his beloved Fran. She was as sweet and kind as she was gorgeous and I thought that I was taking part in a real life fairytale when I attended their wedding. I was still a bit afraid of my remarkable cousin because he had become a man and I was still a gawky little girl, but he was always kind to me in spite of our ten year age difference. 

DD became a banker and was a huge success in that role. He was known as an honest man who went above and beyond the call of duty both for his bosses and his customers. He rose quickly through the ranks while he and Fran created a beautiful life together. Theirs was a love story for the ages resulting in two daughters and a son. Each Christmas Eve they would arrive at my Grandmother’s celebration and be the hit of the crowd. In spite of his success, DD always remained a down to earth and loving member of the family. We in turn celebrated his promotions and sterling reputation, seeing him as a role model of a life well lived. Secretly all of the cousins wanted to grow up to be just like him.

Eventually the age difference between DD and me began to narrow as I too became an adult. We shared more and more in common and I felt less and less intimidated by his greatness. I was able to enjoy quiet conversations with him that told me how much more wonderful he was than I had even imagined. He told me stories about our grandfather who had died before I was born. I learned from DD that he and our grandpa had sat together on Friday afternoons discussing the books that the patriarch of the family brought home at the end of each work week. They’d munch on fresh rye bread and talk about my grandfather’s love of farming and his dream of one day retiring and owning a place in the country. 

DD often mentioned my father as well. He spoke of how much he enjoyed visiting with my Daddy. They would talk about an endless variety of topics including literature and sports. DD said that he often sought my father’s advice and that the two of them were very much in tune with each other. These were things that I never knew and I really appreciated that DD shared such memories with me. Somehow he understood that it was important for me to know more about what my father had been like.

DD was a remarkable man who actually reminded me of my father. Both men were brilliant and gifted with a wide range of talent. They appreciated and collected books, art, music. Both were able to quote entire passages from favorite novels and poems. They were true were Renaissance men. DD was perhaps the most interesting man that I ever knew as an adult. He had an ability to converse about any topic with vast swaths of knowledge. More importantly he possessed a kind of wisdom that is rare. I never talked much around him because I just wanted to listen to whatever he had to say. I always walked away with the feeling that I really mattered to him.

DD was known far and wide as an honorable man. He had a quick wit and sense of humor and a charisma that drew people to him. I suppose that all of my life I was in awe of him and I also loved him so. Somehow it felt very special to be related to someone as extraordinary as he was. He was awesome!

DD eventually developed Parkinson’s disease. For decades his body slowly deteriorated but his mind remained as sharp as ever. His beloved wife Fran remained dedicated to him through the difficult years of watching him grow frail. Eventually he became wheelchair bound and their lives became more and more isolated. Both of them kept up the love for each other and the fight for his health. They carried on with courage and resilience, always finding ways to celebrate even as DD became less and less able to fend for himself. 

The last time I saw DD he sat in his wheelchair barely able to talk. I’m sure he was in pain but he still sat at the table with us like the consummate host. It was difficult for me to witness his state when I new that his genius was trapped inside a body that no longer worked properly. Nonetheless his generosity and kindness and courage was as apparent as ever. The love that he had created in his family was now shared with him as his daughter and son-in-law doted over his every need. Fran was as beautiful and giving as ever.

Dale Delbert (DD) Stewart died this week. I was greatly saddened by his passing but also somewhat relieved that he is no longer suffering. Amongst my great big group of cousins I think he may well have represented the very best of us. He lived life to the fullest and embraced learning and loving every single day. He was a joyful person who brought happiness wherever he went. He was a brilliant man, a devoted husband and father, a true servant of God. I will miss him, but I am comforted by the thought that he is whole again in his heavenly home. I can see him standing tall and handsome and grinning from ear to ear. I am now and forever in awe of my extraordinary cousin DD.