Category: Commentary

I’m sitting at my daughter’s house watching her dogs while she is out of town. It’s easier than taking care of them at my home. They are familiar with the place and far more relaxed than when we attempt to haul them across town and introduce them to a strange environment. They are much happier than they ever are when they come see me. So here I’ll be for the weekend, but I’m still close enough that I can make a quick dash to where I live if need be.

I’m enjoying the quiet of this neighborhood and the fact that I don’t need to do chores like I would if I were at home. I’m feeling somewhat pensive as I sip on my tea and hear a train rolling along the tracks in the distance. I slept fairly well last night and had the usual strange and meaningless dreams that have haunted my nights since the beginning of Covid. There is nothing frightening about them other than the fact that they all feature individuals I have never known, and make absolutely no sense. They simply jump from one ridiculous situation to another. At least I’m snoozing now, which I was not for about a three week period of time. It’s amazing how much better I feel with regular sleep.

I read a story this morning about the hard lives of caretakers and the impact of the work they do on their health. Most of them make ridiculously low salaries that keep them at the poverty level even when they work forty hours a week. Others are family members who toil for free, and lose income that they might have had if they were working. The conditions that they experience often lead to huge turnover and so there is a concern that those who cannot fend for themselves are not always getting the best quality care. There is a kind of crisis in the industry which is only slated to grow worse as more and more Baby Boomers require assistance to survive from day to day. 

The story reminded me of a friend who was stricken by a stroke that left her unable to walk or work or take care of herself. She had no family but she was able to hire people to take care of her in the comfort of her home. Eventually one of the women moved in with my friend and was assisting her twenty four hours a day. It seemed like a wonderful situation, and when I visited I marveled at how lovingly the woman catered to my friend’s every need, at least that was how things appeared. I would later learn that the caretaker also brought her son to the house and that he often sold and used drugs on the premises. Eventually the woman left suddenly after getting my friend to sign over her car. Once she had left we began to realize that most of my friend’s valuable items were missing. It was a devastating discovery. 

Sadly my friend died not too long after being robbed by the woman who had seemed so kind and loving. Until her death the people who came to watch over her changed so often that I never knew who was going to be there when I checked on how things were going. While I don’t think that what happened to my friend is necessarily commonplace, I have heard of other such situations. I tend to worry about anyone who has to find assistance from people that they do not really know. I also think of how difficult my friend often was due to her anger at being incapacitated, and I wonder if that is what made it so hard to keep good people working for her. 

I suppose that we get what we pay for, and sadly the cost of full time care is astoundingly high whether it is in a nursing home or a someone’s house. When family members take on the task, it can be incredibly difficult to maintain the needed energy. My mother and her siblings always took turns nursing their mother, but there were eight of them along with their spouses and a host of grandchildren who were able to volunteer for a shift. Nobody had to work more than once every two weeks and even then it was only while my bachelor uncle who lived with my grandmother was at work. I’m not underestimating what they did, but with so many available nobody ever reached the point of exhaustion. Today’s families are much smaller and less able to sustain such a plan.

There was a period of time when my brothers and I were tasked with checking on our mother every single day. We created a calendar designated which days each for which each of us would be responsible. We each were soon traveling to her home two times and week and then an extra day every three weeks. It doesn’t seem like much but after several months it became more and more difficult to keep up with the routine. We found it easier to have her live in one of our homes for a year and then move to the next place. It worked somewhat well but we knew that we would not be able to maintain that plan for much longer because she was having more and more difficulty moving around on her own. 

We all want the very best for the people that we love, but circumstances can rapidly become untenable. As long as my mother was able to walk we were fine, but her mobility was decreasing and we knew that at some point we would have to rely on the kindness of strangers. We hoped that when the time came we would be lucky enough to find reliable and honest people. 

I have a friend who did a great deal of research and ultimately found a very good nursing home for her mother. Even then she visited multiple times each day to be certain that her mother was receiving the best possible care. Her dedication resulted in a mostly good experience, but I know that she was often very tired. For many the cost of an outstanding institution along with the time needed to emulate my friend’s dedication just are not easily doable, and so I suspect that we may be heading for a national disaster with regard to the care of the elderly and disabled. I hope that we take this issue seriously and find ways to ensure that both those who need care and the people who provide it are all treated fairly. 

I can’t really say why my thoughts focused on this topic today other than the fact that I was alerted to it while I was blissfully reading a little of this and a little of that while watching the dogs. I had time to learn about the issues, but how many others might come across the same article that I did or something similar? How many will take the time to read such things and actually think about what to do? It’s certainly something to consider.

All through high school I belonged to the Medical Careers Club. By my junior year I was an officer in the organization, and in my senior year I became the president. Everyone thought that I was going to go into medicine. I wanted to be a nurse, and my family wanted me to be a doctor. I worked for our family physician each summer from the time I was fifteen years old. He took an interest in me, and did his best to send me on a pathway to medical school. It only took one field trip to Baylor College of Medicine in the spring of my final year in high school to totally derail my desire to become involved with the medical field. 

I had planned the outing for the members of our club, and everyone was quite excited. We were lucky enough to get an insider’s look at the laboratories and the current research taking place at the school. One of the rooms we visited contained specimens of human body parts, some of which were healthy and some which were seriously diseased. At first I gazed at them with total fascination, but eventually I found myself becoming dizzy, and finally physically ill. I had to hide my state as best I could, but I feared losing it as my stomach churned and my head throbbed. By the time I got home to the safety of my bed, I somehow believed that I would never make it through the rigors of medical school or even nursing classes if I was unable to handle a few specimens languishing in jars of formaldehyde. I decided to choose another career.

I’ve never really looked back on my decision to eschew a medical career until recently. I enjoyed being an educator, and stayed so busy for decades that I had little time to consider “might have beens.” I was happy with my work and continue to serve as an teacher even during my retirement years, albeit on a much smaller scale than when I was working full time. What I do know is that once I had my own children I learned to deal with medical emergencies that might have caused me to faint when I was younger. I realized that when someone needs aid, my brain somehow allows me to do whatever I need to do without noticing blood or vomit or pus filled infections. 

When my youngest daughter gave birth to her twins she had a Caesarian section. Her wound became greatly infected and had to be reopened to drain the toxins. I was in charge of keeping the area germ free during the healing process. It was not a pretty sight at all and yet I found the wherewithal to follow the directions for cleaning it several times a day without hesitation. In fact, after a time I actually felt a tinge of enjoyment in being able to properly care for my girl. 

I’ve talked with friends and relatives who are doctors and nurses and they tell me that everyone goes through phases of reacting badly to various procedures. They get dizzy using certain instruments and techniques. They feel an aversion to certain smells or things that they see. Eventually they get past their difficulties and are able to deal with practically anything they encounter. I suspect that I might have been able to do that as well.

That doctor for whom I worked sometimes asked me to assist him with a patient. I remember one time holding the grossly infected foot of a man while the physician drained and dressed the wounds. At first I wanted to run away, but I did not want to appear to be a wimp to the doctor who was always so kind to me. I thought of closing my eyes, but that would have been a sure sign that I was struggling with the situation. I simply took a deep breath and focused on the process that the doctor was using rather than the horrific look and foul odor of the infection. The fact that I made it all the way through the task without so much as a flutter in my tummy should have told me that I might have been okay dealing with all of the facets of nursing or doctoring.

I’m totally fascinated by medicine. I spend lots of time reading about research into diseases and learning about the human body. I often think that I would have enjoyed working in a lab at one of the hospitals or being part of a team searching for answers to medical riddles. Right now I find myself searching for everything I can find about Covid-19 and other coronaviruses. One of the most exciting areas of study centers on the genetic makeup of those who are heavily exposed to Covid-19, but never get sick versus those who have no history of health concerns who end up with severe cases that sometimes lead to death. There are some promising leads from this work that might one day fortify vaccines for the virus as well as create treatments that will eliminate the most horrific consequences of the disease.

It’s somewhat fun realizing that I probably would have done well as a doctor or nurse. I’m not particularly sad that I chose to walk away from such a career though because the one that I followed brought me immeasurable joy. Perhaps the truth is that the way my life unfolded is exactly how it was meant to be. I’ll never know for sure, but I do know without a doubt that I prepared the foundation for many of my students to continue to careers in medicine. Maybe in some ways that is what I was always supposed to do, and that moment in the lab at the medical school was exactly what I needed to set me down the right path. 

My mother used to complain that I always wanted to fix things, situations, people. I suppose that I became a teacher because I have a personality that pushes me to repair hearts and minds. Most teachers are sensitive, compassionate souls who want to make the world a kinder gentler place. While this is not true of every educator, it is also a fact that many other people in our world also have what I call nurturing tendencies. When we see suffering, we want to somehow eliminate it. 

Most of the time the difficulties we encounter are spread out over time. Only once in a great while do we feel as though we are being bombarded by misery. I suppose that the present moment is one of those times. It seems as though good news is difficult to find under the constant threat of illness, death, natural disasters, wars, violence, crimes, injustice. It feels quite overwhelming just to read the headlines, and when we realize how divided we are in how to solve the world’s problems it becomes even more frustrating. It feels as though we first have to wade through lies, propaganda, and ugliness before we can even begin to help those whose very existences are reeling in disarray. 

I know that many of us have been feeling as though the world around us is in free fall, and our usual instincts to take charge are mired in confusion. No situation is as clear cut as solving a mathematical problem. There seem to be no totally right or wrong answers, or at least it is difficult to tell which is which. All of this leaves us with a feeling of being overwhelmed. 

I keep harking back to a time when a hurricane left our backyard looking as though a bomb had gone off. Our trees had been battered by the wind so badly that it was difficult to even walk through the jungle of huge limbs lying on the ground. The task of clearing and cleaning the area felt formidable until a wise person suggested that instead of making the entire project a goal, we should set forth to remove one tree limb at a time. I did not realize the wisdom and importance of that advice until I finally forced myself to begin. I ignored the enormity of the task at hand and simply chose one limb on which to work. I sawed it into manageable pieces and tied them together with twine. Then I moved my handiwork to the front curb for the garbage workers to carry away. I felt an enormous sense of accomplishment even though the damage had been so bad that nobody would have noticed that any work had been done at all.

I repeated this process over and over and over again for days and then weeks until one day only a single limb remained. I was amazed at how easy the task had actually been by breaking my labor down into manageable chunks. I realized that life often demands that we take just one step at a time until we ultimately achieve a goal. Sometimes I forget how powerful this process is, especially when it feels as though life is dumping all of its woes on us at once. 

Of late I hear about so many kind hearted people who feel overwhelmed by the sheer number and intensity of the problems that we face in the world. They want to do something to help to end the spread of Covid-19. They long to make a difference in the quest to heal our planet from the ravages of climate change. They grieve for the Afghan people and want to ensure that they will not become victims of barbaric vengeance. They see the suffering in Haiti and wonder how they might help in a meaningful way. They want to stamp out the ignorance, injustice and hate that they see sprouting everywhere, taking advantage of innocent people. It’s so much, too much, just like that huge pile of destroyed trees in my backyard. The tasks at hand feel impossibly daunting. 

I read an article yesterday from a woman who had a suggestion much like the one that I received years ago. She suggested that each person find the one thing that feels the most important to them, and then set small doable goals. Imagine the power of that process if each and every person were to do that starting today. All of that energy would surely begin to solve problems right and left. 

Instead of feeling angry, or stressed or hopeless we have to just begin somehow. Much like a friend whose son was murdered, we have to take tiny steps each day until one day the boulder that seemed to be blocking us from achieving a purpose has been lifted by all of the tiny pebbles that we balanced it with over time. 

This idea is not unique to me. I have heard such things before when things were difficult, and I have had success in following such wisdom.  How do you round up a herd of cats? The answer is by catching each cat one at a time. We may not be able to spoon out all of the water in the ocean alone, but we can accomplish more than we think if we just stay positive and greet each day with determination to spread the goodness in our hearts. Ignore the hateful chatter. Follow your heart, do small act regularly, and one day this too will have passed.

Two weeks ago I went to see a doctor about my torn rotator cuff. The Smith Tower medical building where he works was wide open and relaxed. We had to wear masks, but generally the anxious feeling that had pervaded the place during the summer and fall of a year ago was gone. Yesterday I went back to see another doctor for an annual checkup and the entire atmosphere had changed. 

Everyone was still wearing masks, but in addition we all had to complete a health survey to get an entrance pass to the offices. Everyone was distancing once again and many of the people working there were wearing the double protection of masks as well as face screens. The sense of anxiety was palatable from both the medical personnel and the patients. It was an icky feeling given the joy of freedom from the virus that the vaccines brought last spring. The doctor was once again urging me to be careful and insisting that I avoid certain situations including teaching in person this year as I have planned. 

I’ve now had two doctors insist that it is to the benefit of my students, in addition to myself, to have virtual classes. Last year they were more concerned with me given my age. Now they worry that there might be an outbreak in families if any of us accidentally brings the virus into our gatherings. I am saddened that we have come to this point once again. 

On the way home from my visit with the doctor I drove past an area where vaccines were being provided. For weeks there have only been a couple of cars in the vast parking lot. Today the line stretched way out into the street. The county is giving everyone who gets a vaccine $100 which may account for the sudden interest, but I really think that there is a kind of fear of the virus that has been resurrected in just the last two weeks as cases and deaths rise in our area. 

I signed up for a continuing education class in Victorian history at Rice University in June. At that time the sessions were going to be held on campus, and I was looking forward to getting out and about on those days. A couple of days ago I received an email announcing that all of the classes will now be virtual. I was saddened, but I also understood. I know that the courses I took last year were just as good on Zoom as they would have been in person, and since our professor is older like I am, I would not want him or anyone else to get sick even with a less serious case of Covid.

I worried about how the parents of my students would react when I told them that I was reverting to virtual learning again. I was concerned that they would be upset. Instead they appeared to be relieved that I had made the decision to be cautious. They expressed anxieties of their own that they did not have a year ago when children were not being affected by the virus. 

My doctor asked me if I had been anxious or depressed of late. I admitted that I was indeed feeling more out of sorts than ever because it feels as though someone has burst the balloon of freedom that had felt so great. When I received my last vaccine in February I literally cried tears of joy. I felt that I had just experienced a miracle and that by this time we would all be feeling free to enjoy a semblance of normalcy. I had assumed that more people would believe in the vaccine like I do, and race to get the free shot that would change their lives. I have been confused and disappointed that so many have decided that they will not get the vaccine either because of anxieties or religious beliefs or political ideology. I would never shame anyone for doing what seems right for him/her but some of their reasons for shunning this wonderful miracle have been difficult to understand. 

So here we are moving backward instead of forward in our progress in taming this virus. Now I am hearing that we may never reach the level of vaccination needed to stop Covid in its tracks, and so we may have to adjust to a new way of living and an acceptance of sickness and death as just part of our new way of life. So yes, I do feel a bit anxious and depressed when I think of such things, but I am still determined to enjoy each day. I’ve known all of my life that being flexible is the key happiness. I know how to shift gears in a flash.

Still, I worry about young people who are chomping at the bit to return to the way things once were. They are having to adjust to enjoying the important milestones of their lives in different ways. Some are even dealing with the untimely deaths of parents and friends due to Covid. Somehow it all seems the most unfair to them and I often pray that some of those sitting on the fence with the vaccine might do it for the youth of our world if for no other reason.

I still believe that we are going to ultimately get through all of the difficulties that are plaguing us. Things are bad, but people before us have gone through worse and still managed to move forward. We are going to survive but we will no doubt have to sacrifice. It would be nice if we can also be kind to one another along the way. That may require us to ignore some really bad behaviors, and try to just understand that not everyone deals with challenges well. 

For now I’ll busy myself with teaching my Zoom classes and taking the course from Rice that should be fabulous whether or not we are face to face. The fall will bring cooler weather which will mean that I will be able to work in my yard again. I’ll decorate my home and visit with vaccinated family members and friends in small groups with masks in place. I’ll do whatever I have to do, including taking one of those booster when it becomes my turn. Maybe by the spring things will be looking way better, especially if everyone, including our lawmakers, quits grinching and fighting, and starts thinking of one another rather than only about themselves. I think there are enough of us who want to do this that it will happen, and then things really will get better. 

Most of the time I have disagreed with a great deal of what Donald Trump has said and done, but I’m not of those people who refuses to acknowledge the good in the man. When he insisted over and over again that we needed to get out of Afghanistan I wholeheartedly supported him. He seemed to understand that twenty years of fighting a seemingly endless war was untenable, something that his predecessors had been unwilling to accept. Eventually President Trump, along with Mike Pompeo, brokered a deal with the Taliban to leave Afghanistan by May 1, 2021. While I felt a bit queasy about a peace treaty with a group known for terrorism, I once again believed that President Trump understood the Afghanistan way of operating better than most and so I actually celebrated his decision. 

It seemed to me that we had lost sight of our original reasons for invading Afghanistan in the first place. We had rendered the nests of terrorists less powerful and had even killed Osama bin Laden, but the war drug on in a belief that we might somehow create a democracy where warlords once ruled. Thus our involvement in Afghanistan continued through two different presidents for sixteen years. When Trump came to office he was as good as his word in finally achieving a set date for withdrawing from the region. 

President Biden would eventually announce that he was honoring the agreement but that he would mark September 11, 2021 as the day when Americans would be gone from that country. While I was a bit upset with the idea of providing an exact date, I was happy that our last two presidents had finally come to their senses as the other had not. Of course I had little idea how complex the logistics of such a maneuver would be, and I’m beginning to believe that those in charge may have been just as naive as I was. 

On Sunday, the government of Afghanistan completely collapsed in the most shocking way as Kabul fell to the the Taliban without resistance from the government. In fact, the president of the country had snuck out under cover of darkness. Chaos has ensued ever since and the opposing sides in the United States are standing in a circle pointing fingers at one another in hopes of placing blame. Thus far President Biden is bearing the brunt of the furor with even former President Trump insisting that Biden should resign from the presidency in shame. Meanwhile I am shaking my head in disbelief at the politicization of yet another issue in our country.

First of all, there is lots of blame to go around. It might be argued that President George W. Bush never should have gone to Afghanistan in the first place. If we had gone, then we should have left once the original mission was accomplished. President Obama first insisted that we needed to leave and then lost his nerve and created a surge in forces there. President Trump was able to get a deal and begin plans to leave but he was voted out of office before having the opportunity to meet the May 1, deadline he had created. We will never know if his plans would have gone any better than those of President Biden. Instead of all of the accusations and hypocrisy I think it would be best if we instead faced the reality of what is happening and worked together to get Americans and their allies out of Afghanistan as quickly as possible. 

Afghanistan has been a thorn in the sides of Britain, the USSR and the United States for over a hundred years. Part of the problem is that the country has a culture that is based on tribal and familial relationships rather than allegiance to the country. The people are more likely to respond to informal agreements with people like them whom they trust more than even well-meaning armies from foreign lands. The level of corruption among government leaders is difficult for us to imagine. Money and support that we send there does not always filter down to the places we intended it to be. The people are more likely to settle for relationships that preclude fighting when given the opportunity. It seems as though they are just as tired of the decades of war as we are.

The Taliban understands how things work in Afghanistan and so even before Donald Trump left office they began aligning with local Taliban chieftains who knew and understood who the elders were and which tribes to which they belonged. They did not suddenly overtake the country in a matter of days. They had been plotting and planning for over a year even while Trump was still president. I’m not sure why they did not choose to wait until the Americans were gone to execute their plans, but perhaps it was because they distrusted us as much as we distrust them that they took the initiative. At any rate the die had been cast already. The things that we are suddenly worried about happening to the women and girls of Afghanistan were inevitable as soon as Trump and the Taliban shook hands. What should have gone better was a process of getting key people out of the country sooner, but who knows if accelerating those logistics would have only made the Taliban react even more quickly?

What is certain is that the leaders of the government in Afghanistan, established with the help of the United States over twenty years and billions of dollars, was a cardboard sham. The fact that the president and the military surrendered so quickly is proof that none of the training and investments had worked the way we had hoped. The hearts of the people were not really in working with America to create a democracy. It would not have fallen apart so quickly if they had been willing to fight for it the way our troops have been doing. 

President Trump was right and so was Present Biden. It was time to end the war in Afghanistan as soon as possible. Five more years would not have made a difference nor would fifty or one hundred. I suspect that most of the people there just want us gone, and while I worry about how the women and girls will be treated I wonder if staying there would have made any real difference when we were not looking.

I am heartbroken by the scenes that I have watched unfold. I suspect that in our usual fashion we will direct our ire toward President Biden without thinking much about all of the others who have made horrific mistakes in Afghanistan that have led to loss of life. We won’t notice or mention that Donald Trump took down the messages on his website extolling the treaty that he had made with the Taliban. He and his supporters will conveniently forget about the photos of him with Taliban leaders at his home in Florida. They will hide the old tweets in which he chided President Biden for taking too long to retreat from the country. It will be more politically expedient for them to turn Biden into a villain than to suggest that they would like to help in speeding up the safe departure of those desperately attempting to leave the airport in Kabul. They will milk this event all the way through the next many elections rather than admitting that continuing our presence in Afghanistan for perpetuity would be a huge mistake. The only moral thing to do is to set aside the circular shooting match and help those who desperately want to leave. Those refugees must become our top priority, not making political hay.

I hope and pray that Afghanistan does not become a bloodbath. I pray for the people there. The Chinese and Pakistanis are already eyeing opportunities to bring their influence to the region. Even the Russians are considering another pass at using the country for their own purposes. Sadly the people have been pawns for centuries but we were never going to be the saviors that we wanted to be. Sometimes it’s important to know when to walk away, but not without protecting those who have helped us in the past.