Category: Commentary

As I grow older I have the time to notice things about which I once knew little. I was always up to my eyeballs in being busy with life. I’ve had jobs since I was fifteen years old in addition to going to school, earning degrees, managing a household, having children, doing all of the things that modern women do. I’d leave my home in the dark each morning and rarely go to bed before it was almost the next day. Whenever my mother became ill with her bipolar disorder my balancing act became even busier as I cared for her until she was well again. 

I knew about some of troubles that plague our American society through my interactions with the students whom I taught. For most of my years in the classroom I encountered a preponderance of young people eligible for free and reduced lunch. They lived in areas of town through which few middle or upper income people would want to even venture to drive. They were often lacking in books and things that many of us take for granted. They were more likely than not unaccustomed to the kind of preventive medical care that so many of us take for granted. Initially most of the schools where I worked had nurses who kept busy providing them with referrals to free clinics where they might receive the medical attention that they needed. Sadly, toward the last years when I was teaching more and more schools relied on traveling nurses who had little time do insure that every student was receiving regular medical care. Since retiring I have become more acutely aware of the strains on our medical system and the tremendous inequities in who is receiving attention from doctors.

My father-in-law has enjoyed a lifetime of exemplary medical care. Even as a child growing up in the great depression he did not experience the kind of want and desperation that most people of that era saw. As a young man without college he found work in a unionized company that provided him with free health insurance and a generous pension plan that sustains him with “Cadillac” style living into his ninety fifth year. He can afford a concierge physician who sees him every three months. He pays little or nothing to see the best heart specialists, opthamologists, dermatologists, and dentists in the city. At the age of ninety five his doctors keep him in tip top shape because his insurance will pay them without needing referrals. They will see him immediately if he feels even a twinge. 

My father-in-law has been blessed with good fortune that not many people in our country enjoy. We may have the best doctors anywhere but for far too many citizens seeing them is too costly and so they simply ignore symptoms until it is too late. Most Americans today have to pay exorbitant fees for health insurance and then face ridiculously high bills when they seek medical care. Younger workers today rarely earn the kind of pensions to protect them in old age that my father-in-law enjoys along with Social Security. Theirs is a quiet panic that is rarely discussed but needs to be addressed. Far too many people do not have the means to regularly visit doctors even as they continue to work hard and attempt to save for an uncertain future. Those who are poor have even drearier prospects. 

My mother, like me, worked from a very young age. She unexpectedly became a single parent at the age of thirty and enrolled in college to become a certified teacher. Hers was a balancing act that few would be able to handle, particularly given that when she was forty years old the first dramatic episode of her mental illness became apparent. She lost her position as a teacher and found herself hunting for work that would provide a reasonable healthcare benefit and flexibility in dealing with her illness. Luckily she became a member of a research team at the University of Texas Health Science Center. Her health insurance was free and she earned a pension with the Teachers Retirement System of Texas. More importantly her boss and coworkers were incredibly understanding of her bouts with mental illness. As a result she was always able to address her health issues with proper care even as things tended to get more and more difficult as she aged. 

The luxuries of free health insurance and generous pension plans are fewer than they once were. Even while my father-in-law was grandfathered into the incredible plans of the company where he worked until early retirement, those in my age group who worked along side him learned that such perks would be a thing of the past. He was the last of the people who would retire never having to pay into any of the plans. Today’s workers in the same company would not recognize the benefits that he earned simply for showing up to work. 

We have safety plans for Americans that are often inadequate. The poorest among us tend to wait until they are so sick that they verge on death. We comfort our feelings of guilt by making assumptions about them that are often far from the truth. Many times such people are actually working at many jobs, none of which provide them with viable benefits. They are not simply lazy or ignorant, but more often just victims of circumstances that have made their lives difficult. They have experienced a lifetime of drudgery and fear of becoming homeless and faceless in a world that does not always see them as people worthy of the same perks that some of us enjoy. 

My grandfather lived in a time before Social Security and Medicare. He was old when my grandmother became afflicted with cancer. Since Medicare was still a few years away Grandpa depleted the savings that he had stored away for his later years in order to provide her with the care she needed. When all of his money was gone the hospital sent my grandmother home to die. Grandpa became her nurse at the age of eighty nine. I was only fourteen years old and my mother was busy working so there was nobody to help him from day to day so he emptied my grandmother’s colostomy bag and dressed her wounds. When she died he moved into a rented room because his only source of funds was a very small Social Security check. Fortunately it was a win win situation for him and the young widow who used his payment to keep her home.

We think of ourselves as the greatest nation on earth and there is much to demonstrate that we have bragging rights. Nonetheless, it would be wrong to allow anyone in our country to flounder at any age in life without proper medical care or the ability to at least find a room with someone kind enough to share a home. With all our great wealth surely we should be willing to make certain that everyone has a minimal assurance of a roof overhead, food in a pantry and access to medicine when they need it. Making our country great has nothing to do with selecting one religion for all or flying flags. It is about making sure that all of our brothers and sisters have the care that they need. 

I love the innocence of little children, especially the adorable toddlers who are so excited about learning and trying new things. They have a sense of wonder that is untainted by preconceived notions. They embrace each new day as a grand adventure in which they encounter new situations with unfiltered interest. Those children who have only been loved and are yet to feel the sting of rejection or hate are bold in their willingness to discover the world. They want to know how things work. They find joy in the process of learning. They are at the peak of adding new words to their vocabularies and imitating behaviors that they witness from their parents and their siblings. They are free with their emotions, laughing with delight one moment and loudly expressing their frustrations in the next. 

I often wonder what happens to dampen the uninhibited joy of those little ones. Is it a natural aspect of our human development to become less enthusiastic and more self conscious as we grow older or do we unwittingly teach our children to be wary of being themselves? In a world of rewards and punishments do they learn to fear failure, thus becoming less willing to experiment and consider new ideas and concepts? Are we somehow responsible for dampening the natural human inclinations to approach the world with an investigative enthusiasm?  Do we rank and quantify our children’s actions and personalities too much instead of reassuring them that each of us develops in differing ways?

I began my career in teaching working with four year old children in a pre-school program that was mostly a fun way of learning. We used activities to teach numbers, counting, land etters and their relationship to one another. It was a happy time for those of us who were the educators and for the children as well. Every little one worked at his or her own pace. Their were no comparisons, no systems for grading. There was a great deal of singing and laughing and seeing how things work. There were many personalities that we attempted to nurture rather than change. Sometimes there were tears of frustration if something was difficult but mostly we let our little ones know that is was okay just to try, to interact with each other and the world around them. 

I eventually ended up working in the upper grades, teaching mathematics. Numbers and the rules that make them orderly were easy for some of my students and daunting for others. By the time those young people came to my classroom they had been graded and sometimes degraded many times over. They were tested and compared so often that they knew what came easily to them and what was quite difficult. They had divided themselves into many different categories. They were nerds and jocks, popular and unpopular, confident and broken. Sometimes they became sullen. Sometimes they asserted themselves as bullies. All of them were simply attempting to fit into the round holes and square spaces that the adult world had unwittingly created for them. They had been told that they were “good” or “bad” and they believed those things. They were loved or rejected by the adults who had been tasked to raise them. 

I saw all of these things and had to attempt to repair the damage. I had orders to push them through a carefully designed nine month curriculum whether or not they were ready for it or so advanced that they were bored with it. The required methodology often created the “I’m no good with math” crowd and elevated those who did not need to expend much effort at all to soar. Test scores and grades and awards and punishments endemic to schools made certain that each of them came to know both their limitations and their strengths without realizing that they were simply on a continuum of learning that should never be rushed. 

I suppose that we need to know what our young people have learned and what they still need to master but because of the way we have organized our educational system we forget that development is not linear with an identical rate of change for each person. That is true of all human activity. Given the right individual pace each of us is capable of learning or doing almost anything. Our level of expertise will vary but if we do things properly everyone will continue to find joy in the process of discovery. 

I was that kid who ran away from sports because it took me longer to develop the coordination and kinetic skills for making my body respond to incoming objects. Without patience and guidance from those who ran sports programs I learned to avoid athletic endeavors at all costs. In my math classes I encountered many who had adapted to the world of numbers with the same kind of avoidance and because they were being pushed forward continuously they lacked so many of the skills that they needed. They gave up on themselves and I had to put them back together, light that fire of enthusiasm that is so natural in each of us. 

If only we remembered the basics of human development we might encourage students to keep moving forward at a pace that works for them. Some will move quickly and others will take more time. The goal should be to get there, not to race there. We should not be using our young to assess students on skills that are above their level of mastery. We certainly should not use our students to grade teachers or schools or school districts. Such methodology flies in the face of what we know about how humans learn. We kill the joy of discovery when we do such things. Instead we would do well to give our young the time they need to bring out the very best of their skills and their confidence. Think of how remarkable that would be!  

Is it possible that we humans have become too sensitive about very personal and individual beliefs? Are we overreacting to comments or perceived slights that are more in our own minds than in the actual intentions of others? Are we seeing boogie men when they are not there? Do we just need to chill a bit and assume the best first and only get angry when it is totally clear that someone actually intended to insult or disrespect us?

I constantly read about outrage over individuals’ personal beliefs, particularly when it comes to religion. It reminds me of an uncomfortable encounter that I experienced when I first moved into my present home. My then next door neighbor graciously invited me to take a tour of her house as a welcoming gesture. She showed me around her rooms chatting about the neighborhood and inquiring about my life story. Her gesture was friendly enough but began to feel a bit invasive when she asked me about my religion and wanted to know where I intended to go to church. 

Because I am generally quiet about such personal beliefs I answered each question with brief replies that only allowed her to know that I am a cradle Catholic who is happy with my faith. I thought that would be enough to quell her insistence on probing my relationship with God but I was wrong. She announced that she too had been a Catholic but had grown weary of what she called all of the “genuflecting and unthinking reciting” of the Catholic mass. 

I simply smiled and demurred to her critique knowing in my heart that my relationship with God runs far deeper than such superficial descriptions. Still she kept pushing me to consider a better way of living by joining her church. Soon she had filled my hands with multiple brochures and invitations to accompany her to the next event just to try out some new ideas. She was forceful in her continued denunciation of what she assumed were my beliefs and insinuated that I was headed to a fiery end unless I was willing to change my ways.

To say was uncomfortable was an understatement because I found it difficult to imagine how she had jumped to so many conclusions about me and my spiritual life with only superficial information. Nonetheless I was respectful of her earnest efforts to proselytize me. I felt her zeal and did not want to extinguish it, but I also was not interested in changing my own carefully considered views. At the same time I was uncomfortable talking about my own religious views or even defending them with someone that I had only met a few minutes before. Sadly, my reserve led her to believe that I was somehow not particularly close to God and she surprisingly began to berate me for my apparent lack of love for Christianity urging me to see the light and mend my ways before it was too late. 

I knew she meant well but I also felt quite uncomfortable with her religious tirade and excused myself as soon as it was possible. She never spoke to me again, did not even wave at me. When she suddenly planted a “for sale” sign in her front yard I wondered if my reticence to discuss my faith had somehow insulted her. I knew by her comments when we parted that she was questioning my relationship with God and wondering if a misguided heathen had just moved into her world. 

This was not the first time that my stance on the privacy of my religious convictions has led to a kind of rebuke for me or for my children and grandchildren. Many of us have found ourselves being judged badly because of our unwillingness to reveal our deepest thoughts on God and religion. On the few occasions that we have done so with people that we did not know well, it has ended badly. I personally have been told more than once that God was no doubt concerned about me but it was not too late to beg for forgiveness and change my ways. 

I feel tremendously uncomfortable with people who insist that I am somehow spiritually defective because I do not wear Jesus on my sleeve and because I am more than willing to accept the deep devotion of those who have very different thoughts about God. I have somehow insulted some deeply well meaning and excited religious apostles who insisted on pushing me to find the true way. Such encounters have almost always led to grave misunderstandings about me along with pronouncement and predictions that I was headed straight to an eternal hell. All too often the sincerity of the person offering religious views that do not meld with mine caused them to pick up on my words and facial expressions to ultimately judge me as someone in need of salvation. They dissected my polite refusal to fall in line with their beliefs and interpreted my reticence as a kind of evil intent to insult them, and by extension, their God.   

The truth is that I always begin by assuming that they truly want to help me. I am not offended by their critiques of my spirituality but I don’t want to discuss my personal thoughts with them. In fact I find attempts to foist a single kind of religion on everyone to be invasive even as I understand that most of the people pressing for a more religious society truly have the best intentions. I simply believe that it is not proper for any of us to force our ideas on others. I am of the mind that I will model my faith as best I can in my daily actions but I am unwilling to insist that others choose my way of thinking. I honor each person’s choice and believe that the best way to deal with all of the diverse beliefs is to leave them out of the public domain. 

I am all for moments of silence in which people can pray or not, but I feel a bit uncomfortable when a group prayer implies that there is only one way to salvation. I don’t mind someone quietly praying with me or for me, but I also don’t mind if someone wants to walk away from such moments. When religious ideals become invasive, I flinch and often raise the ire of those who think that I am wishy washy or even a sinner for my unwillingness to judge others and then help them to find a canned version of God. 

How we view God or even reject Him should not be a contest and it definitely should not be governed by politicians. The history of the world has shown that using religion as a cudgel never works out well in any circumstance. I will quietly discuss my beliefs with a trusted friend as long as I do not offend that person if my views conflict with theirs. I will not argue with them or insinuate that because I think they are wrong they may be doomed for all time. I prefer a dialogue of mutual respect in which both of us learn about each other and leave loving each other even with our differences. I prefer assuming the best.

By the time I was eight years old I had lived in nine different homes in five different cities in two different states. My father was an adventurous soul who had spent his own youth moving from place to place while my grandfather followed the thread of construction work to wherever it led. Traveling was second nature to my father but my mother had grown up in the same house on the same street. While she mostly seemed excited about changing locations and seeing different people and places I think that she had become a bit weary of living without putting down roots. When my father died she quickly found a home that was affordable where me and my brothers spent the next many years growing up with a sense of deep connections in a neighborhood where everyone seemed to know everybody and safety was assumed. 

I enjoyed the security of living in the same spot and repeating the same journeys to school and church and stores. The relaxed routine of life was comforting after my father’s sudden death. My mother was wise to invest in a small but well built house near good people who would ultimately define who my brothers and I became. My childhood from the age of eight was predicable and overflowing with a sense that every adult I encountered was watching over me. 

I married a man who grew up on the same street from the time he was born. He lived across the from his grandmother and other relatives resided in houses only steps away. His mother had been born on that street and would stay until she was well into her forties when she inherited a larger home from one of her uncles in a different but nearby neighborhood. It was somewhat natural for both of us to seek a place to call home and then stay there for many years. 

We purchased our first house near Hobby Airport in Houston, Texas on Anacortes Street named after a city in Washington state. We were the “babies” on our block surrounded by neighbors with older children who had been settled there for awhile. Our wood framed home boasted three bedrooms and a single bathroom. The kitchen was large and airy, looking out on a backyard so huge that it seemed to go on and on forever. The once garage had been transformed into a den and a new spacious detached area for parking our cars and storing our hardware was just outside our backdoor. We had found a slice of heaven and imagined that we might live there forever.

Our little girls grew up on Anacortes Street ranging free with the many children who lived nearby. it was like a happy little village where neighbors looked out for each other and became like family. When the rooms of the house began to feel cramped we added a beautiful new den and a second bathroom while still having a yard so large that it was the envy of all who saw. We remodeled the kitchen and enlarged the bedrooms and felt undeniably content in our lovely home. 

Soon our daughters married and left for adventures of their own. The patter of grandchildren laughing and running through the long hallway kept the house bright and joyful but people who had lived there for decades like we had began to move one by one. We found ourselves surrounded by strangers who showed little interest in being neighborly. We reluctantly decided that it was time to move on when the two couples who had seemed like our surrogate parents made noises about retiring to other places. 

We looked to one of the suburbs of Houston for a new place to live and found a lovely house in Pearland. The building itself was magnificent and a thousand square feet larger than the one we left behind. Oddly the openness of the design made it more difficult to store our belongings and display our photos and art work but we eventually found places for everything we had brought with us. We spent the next twenty years making the structure a home. 

At first we felt somewhat lonely on our new street. We were working all day and so were our neighbors. We did not get the warm reception that had greeted us on Anacortes all those years before until one day a neighbor named Sonja stopped her car in the middle of the street to apologize for not taking time to greet us earlier. She was an outgoing woman who appeared to know everyone and she spent a great deal of time introducing us to the young people who lived nearby. We soon realized that we were the elders in our new locale rather than the new kids on the block.

Over time there has been a great deal of moving and change around us but in the present we have incredible people living near us and we often gather on holidays to celebrate our good fortune in living with each other in close proximation. We enjoy the sounds of children running and playing and laughing and watch the people walking up and down the sidewalks. It’s a cheerful place but few stay as long as we have. 

We took the tabula rasa of our big backyard and turned it into a landscape worthy of a painting. We built a large patio just outside our kitchen where we listen to the doves that roost on our roof and watch for hummingbirds and butterflies. We enjoy the passing parade of the people around us even as we always remember the folks from Anacortes, most of whom have died as they advanced in age. We are settled here and more likely than not will spend our own final years on this street barring some unexpected tragedy. It’s a good place to be.

I like the idea of putting down roots. After I left my mother’s home I lived in a couple of apartments before moving into my home on Anacortes and finally to the place where I now reside. I laugh when I think of how settled I have chosen to be and how happy it has made me. The benefits of living in the same place for a very long time are great. The two houses where I lived my adult life have been homes where the stories of my life played day after day. My history resides in the walls that will forever hold memories of who I am.  

Why do we remember horrible moments in history or in our lives? Why don’t we just move forward from such times rather than thinking of them over and over again? What is the point of reopening wounds? What do we hope to get out of telling our children about people or events that seemingly have little meaning for them? Why do we relive the painful times of our past?

I know that many people are quite stoic about the horrors of life that come their way. They believe that it does little good to keep talking or worrying about things over which they have no control. For them life happens and they deal with it. Then it is time to move on and never look back. They may have learned from the situation but they see little point in analyzing or even remembering the most difficult times of history. 

I suppose that there is some merit in bravely moving forward while never looking back. I think that people like me do in fact sometimes over analyze and talk about situations to the point of appearing to be obsessed. I have learned that my thinking out loud about the ways we humans have interacted with each other and the world is tedious for some of my fellow travelers. I know that I often over think things and latch on to concerns that I will never be able to fully tackle. I am an observer, thinker and planner by nature. I have the ability to see aspects of the past, present and future as an unbroken thread that connects us all. Much of what is happening today or will happen tomorrow depends on what has happened in the past. 

I become pensive at the beginning of each summer because I never fail to think upon my father’s death in the long ago. It’s been sixty three years since his passing but he feels as much alive today as he did back then. I no longer fret over the might have beens had he lived, but I honor the memory of the man that he was. Somehow his spirit has managed to impact me year after year because my mother kept him alive as she openly and lovingly reminded me and my brothers of the kind of person he was.

I was lucky enough to vividly recall the essence of my father so I know that my mother did not exaggerate his tremendous effect on our family. My aunts and uncles and cousins reiterated their own admiration and even awe for him. Even as he was dead and gone he seemed sometimes alive, most especially at this time of year when I think back to the day of his death which is etched so clearly in my mind. 

I knew on that day of long ago how loved I was. My extended family encircled me and my mother and brothers and never dwindled their devotion to us until the days when they died. Our parish priest demonstrated the kindness of a truly Christian person when he visited us in our grief. So too did so many people of my faith who watched over our little family and continue their vigilance to this very day. My father’s music and books and papers that he had written told me what I needed to know about him. I also learned from him the importance of studying history and analyzing both its goodness and its evil. I remember him passionately discussing such things with my grandfather and with his friends. A cousin told me that he also dialogued with him.  

I was taught by my father and my mother and my teachers to remember and to think. My education into adulthood was influenced by the questions that the adults posed to me. I honored the past efforts of humanity while also understanding that I did not diminish their worth by taking note of the mistakes that they made as well. Just as I was taught to do, I have spent my life analyzing situations, sometimes admittedly obsessively, but always with the intent to do better, to be better. 

One of the last conversations that I had with my father was a difficult one. He had noticed that I was slacking off, not focusing my full attention on learning. He challenged me to focus on the joy of making a concerted effort to improve myself. He urged me to read often and to contemplate the world from differing points of view. His advice to eight year old me was very adult, but I totally understood what he was trying to convey. I knew that I was not fully appreciating the freedom and joy that comes from learning in the ways that he did. I would take his lecture to heart and become curious for the rest of my life. 

I find so much pleasure in evolving through continuous education. I ask many questions and seek answers daily. It is not a tiresome or frightening experience but one that is incredibly gratifying. I look at the past and realize how humans have stared into the universe with wonder from the beginning of time. I know that looking back is fine and even important because we learn from what people have tried before. Nonetheless. ultimately our goal is to remember while moving ever forward.