Category: Commentary

I first noticed my mother’s mental illness in July of 1969. I suppose that there were signs of her impending breakdown long before that time but I was so innocent and naive that I had never before witnessed the ravages of the mind that mental illness sometimes creates in even the most incredibly brilliant and brave souls. My mother had seemingly been a tower of strength after my father’s death. She was only thirty years old when he died leaving her to care for three young children ranging in age from two to eight years old. It had to be a daunting task to rebuild our family life but somehow she did it with so much finesse that I believed that she was superhuman. 

My mother shielded me and my brothers from the darker side of life. She was always optimistic and generous and loving. We grew in wisdom and age and grace under her care and somehow thought that she was capable of conquering the world. Sadly she was human and I suspect that the stress of going it alone and dealing with a tight budget was bound to have had an effect on her. Looking back my brothers and I realize that there were signs that she was faltering that we wrote off as a kind of quirkiness or the type of worries that everyone seems to have at one time or another. 

I remember a time when she told me that she had been engaged to another man before she met my father. She loved this man dearly and planned to marry him when he returned from his stint in the army during World War II. He was fighting the Japanese when he was killed. She recalled that she went through a long period of sorrow after his death. She even remembered seeing the Virgin Mary on the front porch of her childhood home one evening when she was particularly depressed. The way she described that moment was a bit scary but I still thought nothing about it. She had obviously overcome the grief of that tragedy and had gone on to meet my father and create a wonderful life with him. 

When my daddy died she frightened me because she had always appeared to be so strong and yet in that time she stayed in the darkness of her bedroom for days and days not even checking to see how me and my brothers were doing. That is when I decided that it was my duty to watch over my younger siblings and to be as good a girl as ever I might be to help her. 

Eventually she came back to life and managed to appear to be a tower of strength for the next dozen years. She bought and paid for a house, earned a college degree, became a teacher, was admired by countless friends and acquaintances. I thought that she was the most remarkable and perfect woman. I was still too young to fully understand the stress that she had endured. I took her loving care for granted little thinking about the many sacrifices she had made for me and my siblings. 

I was a newlywed when the most egregious symptoms of my mother’s mental illness presented themselves. I first realized how sick she was when she had no interest in the landing of the first humans on the moon. She had been so interested in space travel and it seemed out of character for her to be unable to concentrate on the crowning moment of human achievement. Instead she recounted one fear after another with eyes darting in terror. She closed the blinds in the house and languished in the dark worrying that someone was out to take her life. She was deeply depressed and certain that we were all in danger. 

I bungled her care in that moment mostly because I had little or no idea of what to do. When she eventually became well again I believed like she did that she was somehow cured of the disease that had so overtaken her mind. I rejoiced that it was over and carried on as though it had never happened. Then the symptoms returned again with even greater force. That time I was older and had much better ideas of how to find her the help that she needed. I took her to a wonderful doctor who would treat her for the next twenty plus years. He truthfully told us that her condition was chronic but that he could help keep her symptoms under control. 

She would follow his advice and take her medication for a time but always found reasons to toss the pills aside and attempt to stay well on her own. She hated that weight gain that made her feel fat even as she ate like a bird. She did not like the feeling of numbness that the medications created. She tried to use self care to stay healthy but then had one relapse after another. Ultimately she quit going to see her doctor altogether and that is when she becomes sicker than at anytime in her life. 

I found myself searching desperately for a new doctor for her because the one who had so faithfully helped her for so long had grown old and no longer had the heart to deal with a patient who would not follow his directives. I spent over two weeks on the phone all day long calling one psychiatrist after another. Some only dealt with teens, others did not not accept insurance, some worked with all ages but not seniors which she had become, some were about to retire and only working part time. I finally broke down in tears after days of trying to find someone willing to take her. The kind doctor with whom I was speaking spent over an hour comforting me and finally suggested a doctor who specialized in geriatric psychiatry. To my great relief I soon had an appointment for my mother with him and he would prove to be better at keeping her well than anyone who had ever treated her. 

Just when it seemed that my mother’s care was certain the fabulous doctor announced that the state of Texas had cancelled all of the funding that allowed him to offer his services to older patients. Instead they were assigning him to a hospital for criminals with mental illnesses. He gave us the name of a program that would take my mom but it was erratic and until the day she died my brothers and I never knew if she would get proper care. 

I tell this story because we hear many lawmakers insisting that deadly criminals just needed proper treatment before they hurt others. They babble on about setting aside a few million dollars but little realize that the system for caring for those who suffer from diseases of the brain are all too often either ineffective or unavailable. Funding for the health of American citizens is broken and especially for those who suffer from mental illness. Until we rectify this problem there will be great suffering in families trying to keep their loved ones well. It is a daunting task and even more so when the person is inclined to self harm or extreme anger and paranoia that evolves into murderous behavior. 

Luckily my mother was always a gentle soul who would never have hurt herself or anyone else. Nonetheless she endured great pain over and over again because we have yet to genuinely invest in the healing of those whose madness is often both feared and misunderstood. Advocating for research and treatments for the mentally ill has been my holy grail for over fifty years of my life. I know all too well how much we need to unravel the mysteries of why sometimes our brains turn on us. I know there is an answer if only we are willing to pay the price for finding it. A wise world would certainly make every effort to end the cruelty of only half heartedly working to understand diseases of the brain.

Each January on the holiday honoring Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. I pause to remember what an enormous figure for justice he was. He had a way with words that inspired millions of people to reconsider their hesitation in supporting the push for civil rights. He had a dream of a time when the prejudices and narrow thinking that sadly remains part of our national heritage would evolve into a state of equality and opportunity for all. 

Martin Luther King was my hero. I have sat in the Ebenezer Baptist Church and listened reverently to the speeches that he made. I have traveled to Memphis, Selma, Birmingham and Montgomery to pay homage Dr. King and all of the brave souls who were willing to endure good trouble to end the stain of segregation that kept our Black brothers and sisters from fully enjoying the perks of our nation. I have shed tears of remembrance in each place.

The Civil Rights movement was a dominant part of my life as a child, teen and young adult. I vividly recall my grandfather explaining what was happening in Arkansas when the governor and many citizens tried to impeded the entrance of young Black children to schools with white kids. I began to follow the slow progress of the people who decided that doing what was right was more important than following prejudiced laws being used to hurt Black citizens. While I was not yet old enough to participate in rallies or marches I quietly became more and more educated about the plight of Black Americans who bore the hatred of prejudice in spite of their efforts to become equal partners in our freedoms. 

I was not yet twenty years old when Dr. King was assassinated. It was one of those moments that I vividly remember because the shock and the grief that I felt was enormous. I was washing dishes when my mother burst into the kitchen and announced what had happened, I was so stunned and devastated that I dropped the plate that had been in my hands and it shattered on the linoleum floor. When I stooped down to pick up the pieces I lost all control of my emotions and just sat next the shards crying. I knew that we had lost a great man, a martyr for one of the most important causes in our nation’s history. 

A few years back I had the honor of taking two of my grandchildren to Washington D.C. There we visited the many memorials to great leaders including the one set aside for Martin Luther King. My grandchildren took note of my emotions in that sacred place. They saw my admiration for Dr. King full force just as my students did on a Civil Rights tour in 2007. 

I have read much about Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. He was by his own admission an imperfect man, but He did his best to be fair and honest and dedicated to the cause of freedom for all people. He noted that often good people decried his methods because they were strict followers of rules and they felt that his methods were outside of the laws. He noted just as Jesus did that sometimes the most righteous thing to do is to help those in need even if doing so skirts rules that are unfair. 

In this moment we are engaged in battles of right against might all over the globe. Old prejudices are openly rising from nooks and crannies where they seemed to have been hidden. At the same time ordinary people are standing up for neighbors and nations that are being attacked by authoritarians who do not value every person. Those marching in the streets around the world are following the lead of Dr. King and the many freedom fighters who risked their very lives to do what they believed to be right. Because of those brave souls we have a roadmap and a call to duty in ensuring that prejudice never again takes over our nation. Sadly, there is still much to do. 

The work of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and his fellow leaders did not diminish the worth of the white population. In fact it simply set right what should have been done for the descendants of slaves who built this nation in chains. We should all celebrate the progress but also be aware of the moments when anyone is being treated as though he or she is somehow less than the rest of us. Making America greater does not include going backward to a time when little Black girls were taunted and harassed simply because they wanted to attend the same schools as their white counterparts. It should not be a time when people are judged by the color of their skin, their religious beliefs or the accents of their voices.

Today we face major challenges and there are brave souls who are risking their own safety and possibly their lives to bring attention to the unfairness of ICE raids that are terrorizing innocents just as the old time KKK burned crosses and hanged innocent to intimidate Black citizens. Dr. King showed us how to protest. He eloquently explained our duties as caring human beings. On this day set aside in his honor remember him and do the right thing. 

Those of us who are speaking out are not people who make trouble. We are generally easy going, accepting and loving people. We are not generally prone to anger. We have proven our calmness in high stress jobs that demanded that we keep our heads cool. We are not agitators or members of organized groups wanting to overthrow the government. We are peaceful people who take care of people and understand that sometimes we have to speak up or watch others suffer because of our silence. 

The truth is that ICE is a very dangerous group of people who have not been trained in the normal ways of enforcing laws. They are hurting people as evidenced on one video after another. One among them murdered a woman in cold blood and tried to claim that he was in fear of his life when all of the evidence points to her keeping calm and doing her best to drive away from him, not toward him. Now our government is lying and blaming it all on her and even going so far as to investigate her spouse to determine if she belongs to a treasonous group. 

A young man lost his sight from ICE. He was attempting to help someone when ICE fired a rubber bullet into his eye. Now the twenty one year old will be permanently blind in one eye and once again the government is insisting that he brought it on himself because he was a lawless agitator. 

We keep hearing ICE and the president fomenting trouble, making up lies that we can prove wrong with our own eyes. We have not yet been blinded. We see what is going on and it flies in the face of everything that we have ever believed about our government. Telling us just to comply does not hold water because even people who cooperate are taken away and sometimes never seen again. Young people are being arrested at work even as they protest that they are American citizens. Old people are being shoved to the ground. Schools are being raided and ICE officers are invading homes. 

ICE is doing the kinds of things that the British soldiers were doing in the colonies when the American patriots revolted and let it be known that they had had enough. They knew that simply complying would only feed the king’s lust for power over them. So too are the protestors of today on the whole attempting to protect their neighbors and to shed light on the travesties that ICE is inflicting on immigrants and American citizens. 

When our president lies in the face of videos that clearly show that he is wrong it is disturbing. Dictators and fascists use such tactics. They lie to the people so often that many come to believe what they are saying while ignoring the evidence that leads to the truth. Tyrants turn innocent people into enemies. They use fear to control the populace. Anyone who thinks that the president is actually trying to do something to help us all is being fooled. It is beyond apparent that he only cares for the power and riches that his actions accumulate for him. He is not kind or loving or caring. He is a bitter man who bullies much of the population and pretends that he is only doing what is best for our nation.

I am weary of waking up each morning and wondering what terrible thing he will next do or condone. His vindictiveness is on a non-stop power trip. He shows his true colors when he pardons rioters who trashed Congress, killed and hurt police officers and attempted to stop the legal hand off of power. He calls them patriots, good people but when the harmless people attempt to protect their fellow citizens he turns them into monsters and sadly many of his followers continue to believe him. 

I am sick of hearing that we will all be okay if we just comply. Do we comply like the people did in Germany when their neighbors were loaded into boxcars and sent away? How did that work out? Should we comply when he murders people in boats based purely on theories about what they were doing? Should we comply when our Constitution is being trampled and when he says we just have to trust his morality? Should we comply with a man who thinks he can do anything and get away with it or do we voice our concern, our anger?

I will use the voice that I have that is guaranteed in the Bill of Rights. I will protest with others who like me understand the stakes. I will keep warning even those who do not agree with me. Mine is not hate. Mine is a deep and genuine love of my country. This I know,…if we do not find a way to stop the horror now we may reach a point of no return in which we no longer recognize our democracy and we no longer have our freedoms. 

What is happening now is WRONG! The good guys are the ones trying to help us see what is really happening. We should all do everything possible to save our nation. Rarely before have the stakes been so high. Those of us speaking out are not the trouble. We are the solution!

My mother and father had a reverence for the United States of America. My father was an engineer by trade but an historian by choice. He filled his library with countless books about the great moments in American history. He and my mother were both proud of the way that their generation fought against fascism to persevere the rights of humans around the world during World War II. They often spoke of our democracy with a kind of awe that I accepted without much thought. 

For much of my young life I took my freedoms for granted. It was only when I went to college at the age of seventeen that I began to understand that the best aspects of our nation are constantly in a state of evolution. I saw that we all must be protectors of the ideals of the United States even in times of peace. As I approached history and current events with a more adult point of view I saw that it was not just okay to critique the problems that seem to be a common thread of the continuing story of the United States of America but it is our duty to continually strive to reach the ideals that our forefathers outlined even as they themselves were unable to reach perfection.

I suppose that because I was raised by a widowed mother from the time that I was eight years old I saw the strength in her femininity. I became a kind of fangirl for women who historically worked for the rights of all of humankind even as they were sometimes ignored. I voraciously read about Abigail Adams admonishing her husband not to forget the women while crafting the constitution for our new nation. I adored the fact that Eleanor Roosevelt was often the conscience and force behind so many of her husbands bold moves in recognizing all people of our nation. I admired the courage of Rosa Parks in refusing to give up her seat on a bus leading to a movement that changed the course of history for the children and grandchildren of former slaves. These women and more gave me a deep appreciation of my country and showed me how to use my voice to protect it for all. 

I am not a wild eyed revolutionary. I tend to be more of an observer than someone who takes the lead in voicing concerns about our country, but I treasure the fact that I am free to speak my mind. That ability provided in the Bill of Rights was as important when it first became the law of the new government as it is today. Throughout our history it has allowed every citizen to point to problems that they see and to bring their critiques to public discourse. It is a core element of our democratic republic that even a common person can note problems and protest with impunity. 

When I see American citizens protesting my heart swells with pride because regardless of what point of view they have, they are exercising a right that makes them free people. That freedom is what makes us great, not obedience to one way of thinking. The fact that the people of our country care enough to point out problems and to act to bring them to our attention is a glorious thing. I fill with emotion when I remember the people marching to Washington DC with Martin Luther King Jr. in a grand celebration of their freedom to struggle for justice for people whose ancestors were brought here in chains. Those kind of moments are the most glorious times in our country. They are the ones that puff up my soul with pride.

I have participated in three “No Kings” events in my hometown. I have marched through the streets with fellow citizens to bring attention to our concerns about the present troubles. We have chanted joyfully and brought flowers to the police officers guarding us. I have felt so much gratitude that I can partake of the privilege that our forefathers created to provide to each of us. My thoughts matter in the United States and I can voice them because of the brilliance of our founders. We are already a great nation and have no need to return to times when only a handful of powerful men ran everything. If we want to honor the ideas of the Founding Fathers we will surely understand that they never wanted one person to see himself as the ruler of us all. We should all be unwilling to devolve to a return to treating some among us as being lesser than the rest of us. When I march I feel the full impact of the United States of America and its promises of freedom from tyranny. My heart swells with pride and I feel that I am a part of the long historical arc of justice.

My mother’s eyes used to fill with tears whenever she heard the national anthem. She was the child of immigrants who taught her to enjoy and protect the freedoms that we have here in the United States. She cherished those rights and encouraged me and my brothers to be critical thinkers when it came to how to cast our votes. She taught us to study the issues and to never forget how fragile and precious our freedoms are. Over time I have understood her emotional reaction to discussions of our nation. I too feel the love for this country that keeps me writing about the issues that need to be addressed and marching with my fellow citizens to bring attention to our concerns. 

I am a mother and a teacher and I know that even the best family encounters problems. Each of us have different personalities, different dreams and beliefs. A wise woman allows those differences to bloom and flourish. Just as my mother so carefully raised three children none of whom are exactly alike, so it is with our nation of over three hundred million people. We are a glorious tapestry of backgrounds and cultures that makes our nation ever stronger and more beautiful. Our differences keep us from becoming static and obedient to the whims of any group or person. It is the reason for our success as a nation and it is a glorious thing. 

I am a proud American who will never be silent when I see glaring problems that must be addressed. When I exercise my Constitutional rights I am acting as a patriot, not as a dangerous dissident. Our forefathers understood that we need all ideas, not just one. They divided power between the three branches of government and within the voices of the people. It is our honor and our obligation to strive toward a more and more perfect union in the nation that we love. It is not just possible but necessary to so appreciate the United States of America that we are never afraid to point to its troubling issues. The ideals of our nation are still evolving as we learn the calculus of freedom that gets us closer and closer to perfection. We are the people protecting liberty and justice for all.

A wise friend posted a New Year’s Day message about self care that resounded with me. It went something like this:

Be willing to accept limits.

Use that heating pad when you need it.

Build your schedule around your actual energy level, not some demand that you believe you must endure.

Let your body be whatever it is telling you it needs to be.

Be truthful about your feelings and uncertainties instead of attempting to be a silent stoic.

Hibernate when you feel it is necessary.

Let January be slow and maybe a bit strange.

On most first days of the new year I find myself critiquing my flaws from the previous year and pledging to be my best self in the coming days. I almost always feel that I could have done more, been a better person, a more wonderful version of myself. I am loathe to admit that I am human until I get reminders like the one that my friend presented to urge each of us to allow our humanness to be okay. As another friend has suggested to me perhaps it is time for me to join the club dedicated to slowing down and still feeling good about myself. I keep getting messages from people who care about me that it is not just okay but preferable that I do what I feel like doing even if my only desire is to spend a quiet day ignoring the dust and the pile of laundry that will wait while I treat myself to just being myself. 

I spent New Year’s Eve with my brother and sister-in-law. We had a glorious time but also know the the coming year will be challenging for each of us. My brother has Parkinson’s Disease that is slowly but surely progressing. My sister-in-law was injured a few years back when she fell without any kind of warning and awoke to find that she had endured many life changing injuries. She and I are both scheduled for orthopedic surgeries this year that will hopefully allow us to move around without the ever present limps or pains that have plagued us all through the last year. On New Year’s Eve time stood still for a few hours while we simply delighted in just sharing a very quiet and low key evening in each other’s company. 

My sister-in-law is as brilliant in her assessment of how to live gracefully as my friend who left the post that I quoted above and the classmate from my past who welcomed me to the club of reality. All of them maintain that we don’t have to be always striving to be perfect versions of ourselves all of the time. It really is okay to admit that all we want to do is be honest in admitting to the slowing simmer of our lives. If truth be told none of us we want to impose unrealistic demands and restrictions on ourselves. We ponder the possibility that maybe it’s time to hire a gardener instead of spending hours creating a perfect landscape in our yards. Maybe someone else should clean our windows and haul the Christmas decorations into the attic. 

The fact is that my sister-in-law has been willing to sit back out of the limelight that she once navigated so well. She has a wall filled with evidence of her achievements and awards that she earned as an engineer at NASA. Now she is content to sit in her easy chair reading or enjoying the delight of watching her grandchildren at play. She has scaled back her life in ways that allow her to admit the she has entered yet another phase of living and she does not pretend to be someone that she is not. Her honesty shines through and makes her the smartest woman in the room. She is content to find happiness in the slow pace that she and my brother have taken. Her joys and her needs are now as simple as having a day without aches and pains and having a good book to read. 

I remember when both my mother and my mother-in-law decided that it was time to be real. They announced that they would no longer be able to host large galas and gatherings in their homes. They humbly admitted that they needed help from time to time. They honored their children by showing how much they trusted us to carry on as leaders in the world. They embraced their limitations with finesse just as my sister-in-law has now done. 

I recently had a luncheon date with friends who are my contemporaries. Each of them has changed the pace of their lives. They have transitioned to mostly doing what they want to do and not what they think that other people expect them to do. They are slowing down and loving life. They are eliminating annoyances and superfluous tasks they no longer believe are critical. They are finding happiness in the smallest of things whether it be finally making the quilts that they enjoy creating or taking short trips on a whim. 

I’m watching my father-in-law wither away in this moment. His downfall happened in the blink of an eye. Before that he forced himself into a daily routine that allowed no deviation. He tried to be the man in charge even as his daily habits became unsafe. He insisted with an iron fist that there was no reason for him to use a cane when his gait was shaky. He stubbornly drove his car when his reflexes were slow. Unlike my sister-in-law who is twenty years younger than he is, he insisted on being in charge, not trusting others to take on tasks that he should no longer have been doing. Now he is bedridden and must rely on people to take care of his most basic needs.

I see now that my father-in-law and I are very much alike in our hard headed determination to keep a strong hand on our power even as I preach my personal belief that there is a time and a season for everyone. Perhaps I would do well in this first month of the year to practice letting my perfectionism go and giving the younger generations the honor of my confidence in them. The world will indeed keep turning without my involvement in everything. As a lifelong learner I need to be willing to evolve like my friends and my sister-in-law have done. It is the wise and generous thing to do. Perhaps therein lies the pathway of the coming months of this year.