Category: Emotions

That’s Not What I Meant At All

Published on by Sharron BurnettLeave a comment
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Words matter. The words we use and how we choose them matters. Even when we are careful the things that we say may appear to be offensive. Communication can be like walking through a minefield. One misstep in how we express ourselves may lead to irreparable misunderstandings. Even the tenor of our voice might be misconstrued. When we write things down the potential for imprecise interpretations of our thoughts becomes even more likely. For that reason it’s generally a good idea to really think before speaking or writing lest the nuances of our communication become twisted into something that we never intended.

The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock has always been one of my favorite poems because it encapsulates so much of our fragile humanity succinctly in some of the most clever lines ever written. For some reason I have often thought of the words of the protagonist of that work when he stammers, “That’s not what I meant at all.” Each of us has found ourselves in situations in which we meant one thing, but were thought to have said something completely different. Crawling out of such a hole is both difficult and dangerous because as we attempt to set things rights we often find ourselves falling deeper and deeper into trouble. This is particularly true whenever we speak without much forethought or in the heat of an argument. Our words become muddled, distorted and capable of taking on new life in a manner that we never intended. In the world of education we refer to such situations as having unintended consequences.

I was once participating in an exceedingly heated discussion of school policy that turned nasty when one of the members of the committee verbally attacked another member. Thinking that the moment called for a bit of diplomacy I attempted to forestall the ugly comments by reminding the speaker, who was a black man, of the kinder methods of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. The combative nature of the meeting cooled down and we ultimately found solutions without insulting one another, or at least that’s what I thought was happening. I later learned that many members of the faculty who had not even been at the gathering were intensely angry with me for what I had said to the man who was verbally attacking another member of our group. I was befuddled because my intent had only been to find a way to cool the heat of the arguments in a non combative way. I did not see that I had done anything wrong and wondered why the argumentative man was seen as the good guy while I was being viewed as he villain.

I immediately went to the man who had been so outspoken in his criticism of the other faculty member to find out how and why what I had said had been so insulting that it had created a frenzy of anger and mistrust aimed at me. He was not shy about insisting that my mistake had been in using the words of the great Dr. King against a black man when I was a white woman who had no way of truly understanding what they had meant to an entire people who still struggled for their rights. I was so shocked and taken aback that I burst into tears in front of him, something that I rarely do. He was stunned by my stammering, “But I love Dr. King too! He is my hero. I was honoring him, not insulting you.” With my admission our mutual understanding of one another was suddenly complete and we hugged by way of apology.

I’ve thought about that incident for years. I did not understand in the moment in which I chastised the man who was haranguing another that I might as well have stabbed him in the heart. He heard my words as just another attempt by a white person to cut him down. The insult was compounded by my use of the words of someone who, like him, had suffered the indignities of racism. I thought that I was simply defending a colleague, but what actually happened was steeped in a long history of struggle. I had embarrassed this man publicly and in the worst possible way without ever realizing what I had done. Luckily the evidence of my sorrow as witnessed in my tears demonstrated to him that I had not meant to hurt him at all.

My mother repeated the old saw about taking care with how we communicate over and over during my childhood., “If you can’t say something nice. Don’t say anything at all.” We might do well to make that a national goal for a time much like the campaigns against smoking or drugs or drunk driving. We take our freedom of speech so for granted that we have pushed it to a new level of insult and hurtfulness. We bandy about words and phrases without really thinking about how they may sound. It’s just way too easy to tap our fingers on a keyboard and post our grievances in the space of seconds. We react without considering who may be hurt by what we say. Even when we believe that we are protecting some person or some group we may inadvertently be inflaming another. We think ourselves immune from the consequences of our utterances because we have grown to honor the most outspoken among us and thought of those who measure their words out of respect as wimps. Little word bombs go off all around us and we have grown immune to the dangers. Friendships erode. The tension rises.

There is nothing good about verbally attacking someone. We should all agree on this, but it is also wrong to be unwilling to admit and clarify unintended mistakes or misunderstandings. We are not less of a person when we make amends for hurtfulness that we did not expect to happen. It is a sign of courage to be willing to hear and understand differing points of view and to attempt to come together as people with the common goal of bettering the world. The bravest among us think before they speak, and strive to unite rather than to tear apart. Maybe we’d all be in a better place if we were more circumspect when we speak. Words are powerful and we must bear that in mind each time we choose to utter them. 

A Cry For Help

Published on by Sharron BurnettLeave a comment
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Life is serendipitous. In spite of our best efforts there is so much about each day over which we have no control. We may leave early for work to get a head start on the day only to encounter a huge traffic jam caused by a stalled car. Our outdoor wedding may have to be rushed indoors when an unexpected rain storm comes roaring through. Of course there are even worse things that burst into our world like a phone call in the dark of night bringing us unwanted news of a loved one’s death or a serious look from a doctor delivering a diagnosis that we don’t want to hear. None of us can escape such moments. They are an inevitable part of our humanity, and yet we all know of souls who appear to be stronger and more optimistic and capable of overcoming even the most horrendous situations.

We often wonder why one person falls apart in the face of challenges and another appears to react with grace and courage. Is it good fortune? Is it a quirk of DNA? Are there actually people who don’t have to experience as much pain and sorrow as the rest of us? These are the kinds of thoughts that may come to mind whenever we feel beaten down by life events. It always seems as though the whole world is spinning in delight while we are left alone with our worry or grief.

I’ve said little about the historic fiftieth anniversary of mankind’s landing on the moon in 1969. In different circumstances I might have been ecstatically happy when I watched Neil Armstrong plant the American flag on the rugged surface of the orb that seems to light the sky each night. I had been watching the progress of space travel since my science teacher, Mrs. Colby, heightened my enthusiasm in the seventh grade. I watched Alan Shepard become the first American to travel into space in her classroom, and later gathered with my classmates in front of a black and white television to witness John Glenn orbiting the earth. My brother had walked around the house clutching my father’s copy of a book describing a journey to the moon written by Wernher von Braun. I lived in the very city where NASA was headquartered. I should have been over the moon with joy on that July day, but instead my mind was focused on other things, worries that were threatening to overwhelm me.

The summer of 1969 had begun well enough. I was a young bride of only seven months still in honeymoon mode. My husband Mike was working as an electricians’ helper for the summer, taking a hiatus from his graduate studies at the University of Houston, and making good money pulling cable under the floors out at NASA in preparation for the big journey to the moon. He worked long hours, sometimes coming home only to grab a bite to eat, shower, change clothes and return to his job again. He traveled with his uncle so that I might have our car to run errands and visit with family and friends while he was occupied.

I beat a path between our apartment and my mother’s home more often than not. At first everything appeared to be normal there, but before long I noticed how preoccupied my mother was with her thoughts. Her usual joyful nature was clouded over in ways I had only seen in the days just after my father died. My mother had been let go from her teaching job and I suspected that her pride was mortally wounded. She had always been quite successful at anything she tried, so this was an experience that she didn’t quite know how to handle. She had also been dating a man for quite some time but had begun to feel that her relationship with him was toxic. She vacillated between wanting to walk away from him and feeling a certain level of love for him. She often asked me for advice, but I was young and inexperienced and unable to fathom the depth of her concern. I thought that with a bit of time she would soon be her old self.

Instead of getting better as June turned to July her behavior became ever more concerning. She kept the blinds and curtains in her home drawn tightly shut, blocking out the summer sun. She became less and less able to follow a simple conversation and tended to burst into tears without warning. She refused to turn on the air conditioner or even open the windows, so her house was stiflingly hot. Nothing seemed to draw her from her ever darkening frame of mind, not even visits to see her mother.

Soon traveling the short distance to see how she was doing became my daily routine. Her behavior was unlike anything that I had ever witnessed in my life. I grew ever more worried when she took to her bed and began speaking of unreal fears. She suspected that our family was being watched by the FBI and that someone was trying to poison her. Her eyes darted in terror as she described her paranoid thoughts. I hoped that with time she would become her old self, but instead she only became worse.

About the time that the whole country seemed to be celebrating the landing on the moon, I was conferencing with our long time family physician and attempting to understand what was happening with my mother. I remember watching the historic moment in a state of detachment. As I planned strategies to get my mom the help that she needed it felt as though I was all alone in an otherwise jubilant world. It never occurred to me that at the very moment when I was feeling so down there were no doubt others like me who were dealing with situations even worse than mine. While in the throes of tragedy we rarely consider that our woes are as much a part of existence as our joys. In the moment of worry and grief it is so difficult to see any kind of light, and yet there are people who somehow find it.

What I learned during that dreadful time is that sharing my story helped. I soon enough realized that I was not as alone as I had thought. There was not a crowd that surrounded me, but those who did were incredibly special, and often unexpected. Over the next forty years I would turn to the kindness of both friends and strangers again and again whenever my mother’s mental illness returned. I began to realize that even in the darkest hours there is a ray of hope. We have all experienced unbelievably trying times during which it is tempting to feel as though we have somehow been abandoned. The real truth is that nobody is ever all alone. There will always be someone who will help. All we need do is open our hearts and humbly and gratefully grab the lifelines that are there. It is the small step that may help us to make a giant leap.

First Do No Harm

Published on by Sharron BurnettLeave a comment
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I live in Texas along the Gulf coast. My father spent his teenage years in Corpus Christi, Texas, a place where he met his best friends and from hence he learned his love of fishing. He longed to return there to live one day, but he was never able to find a job, so Houston was the next best thing for him.

I grew up visiting Corpus Christi often and hearing my dad’s stories of how wonderful the place was. On top of having it’s own unique culture and feel, it is only a hop, a skip, and a jump from Laredo, a border town with Mexico. As a kid and then as a young adult a trip to Corpus Christi sometimes was the gateway to a quick jaunt to the other side of the Rio Grande. Things were quieter and safer then, so families traveled back and forth between the United States and Mexico with little or no fanfare.

I was raised in a Catholic family which meant attending Catholic school. Back in the day our Catholic parents believed that it was their duty to send us to the nuns and priests for our education. We not only learned the three Rs, but also studied the foundations of our faith, which included discussions of the Ten Commandments and sin.

I sat in classrooms with many of the same kids for years. We became like brothers and sisters. I never noticed that our last names read like a roll call of the United Nations. I did not even think to classify my classmates as Italians, Hispanics, Czechs, Germans or such. We were all just peers seeing each other at school Monday through Friday and then again at church on Sunday. I was probably in my sixties before it fully occurred to me that names like Luna and Villagomez indicated Hispanic heritage of some sort. I seriously just saw people as people because of my upbringing.

My mom and her siblings were first generation Americans who were often taunted not just for their ancestry from Slovakia, but also for their religious beliefs. Nonetheless they eventually melted into the great big pot known as the United States of America, and followed both the customs of both their country and their religion quite earnestly. My brothers, and cousins and I were taught to love our nation and our church as well. Mostly we were cautioned to view life as beautiful and sacred. My mom always asserted that people are people and our differences are usually only skin deep. She believed that inside our hearts we are all pining for the same things.

I’ve been rocking along for my seventy years living the way I was raised with a devotion and gratitude for my country, my state, my church, my family, my friends, and all people. For most of my life I enjoyed a career as a teacher, and many of my students were recent immigrants just as my mother had been. Most of them had come from countries in Central and South America. They struggled with many of the same issues that my mom had faced, and so I felt a particular impetus to help them to feel welcome and beloved in their new home. I also realized that some faced the additional challenge of being so called illegals. They had been brought to Texas as children without any of  the proper papers. They grew up in a state of fear that they might one day be forced to return to a place that had become foreign to them. They were the “Dreamers.”

Of late politics have pushed two issues to front and center, namely immigration and abortion. Ironically those topics are at odds with the way I was taught to think, which is to value human life above all else. On the one hand, I worry about the people fleeing to our borders in attempts to escape hopeless lives, and on the other hand I am increasingly appalled by the almost blasé attitude of the murder of unborn children. The irony for me is that quite often those who are concerned about the immigrant issues think of abortion as simply a matter of choice rather than violence, while those who are adamantly opposed to the influx of immigrants without limits are often deeply saddened by abortion. Somehow I see the two has having much in common, and find it difficult to understand the inconsistencies in current thinking.

I was therefore rather excited to learn that there is a group of pro-life women known as the New Wave Feminists who are demonstrating their genuine concerns for all people and all life by raising funds to bring the immigrants now being held at the border the kind of supplies that they so desperately need. In other words, they are putting their beliefs into action rather than simply complaining about the situations. Their spokesperson, Herndon De la Rosa has expressed their thinking quite beautifully, “We are pro-life because we care about the inherit human dignity of every living person, inside the womb and out,” Herndon-De La Rosa says. She feels a heightened responsibility to not look away from people at the border because “as a Texan . . . it’s happening in my backyard,” she notes. “All are vulnerable and all are human beings.” (National Review, July 8, 2019)

We have too many politicians these days who seem to believe that being bipartisan or using consensus to solve problems is a sign of weakness. They think that there is only one possible way of seeing issues, and anything less than total victory for their causes is unacceptable. As  a result, much of the humanity that I was taught to treasure is being hurt while the fights between ideas rage on. We are indeed all human beings and all vulnerable. Our instinct should be to first do no harm, and then find a way to hammer out a way of dealing with our differences in a manner that considers the value of all humans.

I am not so naive as to think that any of our problems will be easily solved or that our solutions will be perfect, but the reality is that both the living and the unborn are suffering even as we rant and rave with one another. Surely it is time to consider that we will ultimately be stronger by remembering to love while we determine how to honor the inherent dignity of all persons both living and unborn. Long ago we got it wrong when we allowed slavery to continue as we began our country. Perhaps it’s time that we learn from our mistakes of the past and move forward together. 

Finding Beauty In Life and Death

Published on by Sharron BurnettLeave a comment
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I’ve seen more than my share of death. As the calendar moves relentlessly forward I have had to watch the passing of my elders, the people who loved and guided me when I was a child. Of late I have seen far too many of my peers leaving this earth as well. Death is inevitable and yet still such a frightening and unwanted state for most of us. We cling tenaciously to life even as we understand that not one of us is immortal.

A friend posted an article that defined the ways in which one might experience a “good” death. It was filled with all sorts of ideas that might work if one has the luxury of knowing that the end is near because of an illness that points in that direction. For many death is more sudden and unexpected, making it impossible to take charge of the event as described in the article.

My mother always spoke of being ready to die at any moment. She did not broach this topic in a morose manner, but rather from the standpoint of living life in such a way that no matter what might happen she would be ready whenever her time on earth was over. She did this with several routines from which she rarely diverged and from open discussions about her preferences long before there were any signs that her death was drawing near. As a result her passing was beautiful, and done on her terms just as she had always wished.

Mama never let a single day end in anger or hurtfulness. She asked for forgiveness for her transgressions which were always of the very minor variety anyway. She communicated her love for the people that she knew daily. There was no need at the end of her life for her to make an act of contrition to either God or family members. We already knew as I’m sure God did as well that she was sorry for anything that she had done that hurt anybody.

My mother expressed her desires to refuse all artificial means of prolonging her life on many occasions. She only hoped to be as free of pain as possible, but beyond that she insisted that we not take any extraordinary measures. We therefore felt comfortable conveying her wishes to her doctors who all smiled in agreement with her wisdom.

Mama lived a faith filled life that never wavered. She believed with all of her heart that our earthly home is only temporary and imperfect. She looked forward to an eternity of peace and happiness with God. On her last day of life she had an angelic glow and a beatific smile as she motioned toward heaven whenever we asked how she was feeling. She believed that her reward for a life well lived was coming soon. She had no anxiety and her peacefulness spread to each of us who visited with her in those final hours.

One by one the people who had meant the most to her came to pay their last respects. She made each visitor feel her love as she held hands and did her best to help them to accept the inevitable. She orchestrated final moments that none of us would ever forget, and gave us a gift of peacefulness that is unimaginable. In fact, even the nurses who cared for her in the ICU felt the joyousness that she projected. One of them cried as she left her shift, telling me and my brothers that she had never witnessed such a blessed ending to a life. She understood as we did that my mother had chosen this way of spending her final hours by living her entire life in preparation for the end.

My mother was always a caretaker who sacrificed for the needs of others. She asked for very little for herself and she certainly had moments when she was filled with all of the human frailties that we have. Somehow she always found her way back to a kind of inner peace and a total dependence on God to comfort her. She never asked Him for things or even to take away her sorrows or pain. All she wanted from Him was a bit of help in managing her attitude toward whatever was happening. Sometimes it took awhile, but always she found the serenity that she sought.

Mama’s life was difficult from beginning to end and yet she was one of the happiest people that I have ever known. From the time that I was a child she explained her joy by reasoning that she was able to tackle any challenge because she always knew that God was not going to leave her to act alone. Even, and perhaps most especially, in death she had a certainty that He was with her and that the best was coming. She was never angry with Him for the difficulties that mounted at her door. She accepted her travails as being a part of life.

I understand that it is difficult for many of us to curtail our anger, resentments, suffering and sorrow. Life can appear to be very cruel and death is often prolonged and painful. Keeping the faith and finding a way to smile even under the worst of circumstances can seem impossible, and yet I saw firsthand the power and beauty of my mother’s unwavering determination to be in charge of her life and her death by choosing an attitude of trust, faith, hope, and joy. She showed me and those who knew her how to have a beautiful death. I only hope that I will be able to follow her lead whenever that day comes for me.

Oh Honey!

Published on by Sharron BurnettLeave a comment

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My Aunt Polly was a hoot, a fireball, an original, my godmother. She was the most energetic person I have ever known until she wasn’t anymore. Age caught up with her and she began to slow down around the time she was in her nineties. Before then few would have been able to guess her age. She appeared to be a good ten or twenty years younger than she actually was, but life events caught up with her, leaving her with a more careworn look on her face. Soon after her ninetieth birthday her house burned down with along with all of the photos and home movies and other small treasures that meant so much to her. She and her husband had been setting out Christmas decorations when the flames began. They were both safe but the stress of losing their home took its toll.

Aunt Polly settled into a new life style in independent living quarters where she hosted domino and card games on a regular basis. Her children and grandchildren often joined her in those pursuits and her laughter and gregarious spirit returned once again. Then she endured a series of deaths of people near and dear to her. She sat at my mother’s side only hours before my mom, her little sister, died. Not long after that her son Jack also passed and she showed up to his funeral bent and using a cane. She was subdued and even though she tried to be her old self I knew that she was suffering greatly from the loss. When I next saw her at her husband’s funeral I hardly recognized her. She sat quietly in a wheelchair looking frail and vulnerable. This was certainly not the tough courageous woman that I had always known.

Last week my Aunt Polly died quietly, but even as she slipped away most of us who knew her thought that she would recover and soon enough be her old feisty self, because more than anything she was a fighter. She never backed down from asserting herself or taking care of weaker souls like myself. Many a time she became my hero as I watched her in action. She was a true feminist before there was such a thing or such a word for it. My mother used to say that her sister Polly wasn’t afraid of the devil himself.

When my parents decided to hurriedly enroll me in the first grade when I was still five years old I was terrified and miserable. The fact that my mother made me some new dresses to wear and bought me a lunch box did not ameliorate my fears or discomfort. I felt abandoned and alone as I tried to adjust to a new environment. It was my Aunt Polly who came to the rescue.

One day I was at school eating lunch and flicking away the ants that always seemed to invade the inner sanctum of my tin lunch container when Aunt Polly suddenly appeared like a super hero. She had come to see how I was doing and when she saw the state of my food with all of those critters swarming on it her immediate response was to hug me and declare, “Oh honey! I’m going to take care of this” and she did. She marched straight to the principal’s office and raised a ruckus. Not only did the surprised administrator get me something without insect infestation to eat, but also ordered a thorough cleaning and extermination for the building. Never again did I have a problem.

My Aunt Polly was one of the first women that I knew who held a full time job and raised a family. She worked a number of different places before finally settling down at the Post Office. For a time she added to her coffers by serving as a cashier at the Trail Drive Inn and her extra perk for that job was to get free admission to the movies for family. I loved feeling like a celebrity as she waved our car into the vast parking lot without paying a fee. We saw so many movies there and she often joined us for the second feature once the box office closed. It was so much fun to hear her and my mom talking about the stories and the characters as though they were a couple of teenage girls rather than adults with children. I learned that Aunt Polly had a crush on Jeff Chandler which didn’t much surprise me because a had an uncanny resemblance to her husband Jack.

We spent lots of time at Aunt Polly’s house and she at ours. No invitations or even announcements were needed. We simply got together anytime anyone felt like it. Thus it was that on the night of my senior prom Aunt Polly showed up at our house. I was moping in the dark while pretending to watch television because I did not get to go to the big event. My mother had tried to cheer me up earlier by insisting that those kind of venues are always overrated and I was missing nothing of importance. Somehow her encouragement had fallen flat on my bad mood. It was Aunt Polly who once again saved the day when she came in and asked me what was wrong. When I told her what was going on and how I felt she took me in her arms and said “Oh honey!” while I cried. In that simple phrase there was so much truth and compassion. It was exactly what I needed to hear.

Aunt Polly gave me a beautiful bridal shower before I married. She came to visit me when I had my babies. Somehow she was always there when I needed her most and she did so without fanfare and few words even though her normal personality was akin to Rosalind Russell’s in Auntie Mame. I was in awe of her because she was the counterpoint to my own quiet nature.

Aunt Polly was born Pauline Ulrich in 1923, along with her twin sister Wilma whom we variously called Speedy or Claudia. She grew to be tall and beautiful with slender frame, blonde hair and blue eyes. My mother always said that Aunt Polly had to learn how to be tough in a family of eight kids or be pushed around by her siblings or the kids from the neighborhood who ridiculed the members of the immigrant family. Aunt Polly learned quickly how to fend for herself and she rarely backed down from a challenge of any kind.

My aunt married one of the sweetest men I have ever known named Jack Ferguson and the two of them had two sons, Jack Jr. and Andrew. My Uncle Jack died rather young and Aunt Polly eventually married another Jack when she was in her sixties and still looking as pretty as a thirty year old. The mantra of her life was to have as much fun as possible and she was known for the big parties that she held in her backyard with mountains of food and musical entertainment. She traveled all over the world once her children were grown and she regularly stopped by for visits with my mother, bringing her little gifts and checking on her well being.

A bright light has gone out with her passing. She was truly one of a kind and totally irreplaceable. I doubt that I will ever forget the moment when she came to see my mother who was dying in the hospital. She sat beside my mother’s bed along with her twin sister and she reassured my mom with words that only she knew how to deliver, “We’re here now honey. Everything is going to be okay.” The look on my mother’s face told us all that it was just what she needed to hear.

I am certain that my Aunt Polly has joined her siblings, her husbands, and her son in heaven. She was a good woman, my aunt, and my godmother. She taught me much about how to live.