Category: Emotions

The Importance of Being There

Published on by Sharron Burnett1 Comment

largeAs adults we wear many different hats, all of which takes chunks of time to accomplish. We have relationships to nurture with family and friends. We may hold jobs that demand enormous numbers of hours. We want to be healthy, and so we may be dedicated to a routine of exercise and healthy eating. If we are religious we attend church services or read from tracts integral to better understanding our faiths. There are tasks related to our finances, the maintenance of our homes, and personal care and feeding. We push back moments of relaxation even though we know that we need them as much as the other dynamics of living. We are on the go from the moment that we arise in the morning until we fall exhausted into bed at night, sometimes far later than we might have wished. If anything happens to alter our routines we may feel as though we are drowning. An accident, an illness, a death, an unexpected event has the power of throwing us out of kilter, because we already feel pushed and prodded from all sides. Since we are responsible we do our best to satisfy everyone who is asking us to give them our time and talents, but we often feel as though we are slighting everyone and every aspect of our busy days. We find people among us who appear to keep it together so much better than we do which only adds to our feelings of imperfection. We are taught to admire the over achievers among us and to scoff at slackers, but we somehow think that living on a perpetually moving hamster wheel isn’t the best way to spend our days.

I’m as guilty of running at full speed in the rat race as anyone. I tend to be a classic Type A personality. I recall times when my mother or my in-laws would drop by our home unexpectedly throwing my finely honed schedule into a state of chaos. I still remember how anxious I felt and how much I wanted them to leave as quickly as possible so that I might resume my routines. Sadly I can’t remember any of the tasks that I was so frantic to do, but I do have fond memories of those visits and I find myself wishing with all of my heart that my loved ones might come knocking on my door once again. It’s funny how our perspective changes over time, and how we ultimately come to value our relationships over all of the other distractions that once seemed so important.

I copied a quote from someone’s Facebook wall that spoke to me. It goes something like this:

What if we stopped celebrating busy as a measurement of importance? What if instead we celebrate how much time we had spent listening, pondering, meditating, and enjoying time with the most important people in our lives? —-Greg McKeown

It’s funny how Mr. McKeown’s words are little more than common sense, but they seem so profound. Why is it that we all too often choose to ignore what is truly significant in favor of tasks and duties that other people tell us are important? Why are we so often fearful of shedding some of our responsibilities so that we might devote more of our time to making ourselves and the people around us happy? Why aren’t our heroes the people who have learned how to say “No”, or those who allow a bit of dust to accumulate in their homes so that they will be free to have some fun?

As an educator I sometimes encountered parents who were well known and highly regarded in the community because of their many outstanding achievements, but they were literally neglecting their children. Somehow their little ones had become not much more than props that helped in the advancement of their careers. When their kids began to falter and fail they could not understand that their continual absence from the home was a major contributing factor. Instead of altering their own behaviors they often threatened to send the young ones away if they did not work harder to overcome their lazy ways. What those students actually needed was a more stable and loving home life, not lectures on becoming more like their parents. The oft lauded parents had eschewed their duties in favor of devotion to careers, and somehow never learned how to balance their lives to include loving time for their offspring. 

I’ve also met brilliant men and women who chose to view their jobs as an adjunct to the real purpose of their lives, which was to build a nurturing and loving home. These individuals were often viewed as being rather average employees because they gave full efforts during normal work hours, but insisted on going home at reasonable times. For them what happened at the end of the day when family gathered together was the highlight of their efforts. The job was work, but what happened at home defined their essence. We sometimes overlook the enormous accomplishment of being an excellent parent, even to the point of dismissing women who spend a significant portion of their lives staying home to raise the children. We dismissively ask them what they do and judge them to be uninteresting once we realize that they have not had exciting careers outside of their homes.

Perhaps many of the ills that we presently see in society have their origin in the frantic paces that define so many of us. We are so busy running from one event to another that we don’t allow ourselves to do the things that Mr. Mckeown suggests should be backbone of our existence. If we were more willing to listen there would be far less hatred and far fewer broken souls. If we allowed ourselves to ponder the things that we see and hear and read we would be less inclined to fall for propaganda. If we were to make meditation an integral part of our days we might learn to relax and love ourselves just a bit more. If we were to spend more time with the people that matter most to us we would find more contentment, and most assuredly we would build more beautiful relationships and memories.

As I look back over the sixty plus years of my life I recall  hundreds of spectacular moments that make me smile and feel accomplished. Few of them resulted from performing mundane tasks to impress people who would eventually drift out of my life. The best of them center around people, members of my family, my friends, my students and colleagues. In the end it is not how busy we are that makes us important, but how well we spend the time that we have. In being there for ourselves and the people who mean the most to us we find our ultimate success.

Stepping Back

Published on by Sharron BurnettLeave a comment

earth-from-space-westernI possess a rather odd and illogical dread of odd numbered years. I suppose that my superstition began because almost consistently the most significant people in my life have died in a year marked by an odd number, or some especially dramatic and tragic event has taken place in times ending with a 1, 3, 5, 7 or 9. I quietly take a deep breath every other New Year’s Day and then heave a sigh of relief when we return to a reckoning in which an even number denotes the passage of time. I tend to laugh at my silliness and don’t really believe that there is some kind of curse on years not evenly divisible by two, but it’s a difficult  habit to kick when a coincidence of bad karma occurs again and again just as I feared that it might. God knows that this year of 2017 has been rather strange and difficult for virtually everyone, but there is in fact a silver lining that is almost always hidden in even the most trying times.

We have dozens and dozens of platitudes about our human resiliency and the notion that the hardest moments in our lives often bring out the best in us and the people around us. Loss and trauma are no small things and their after effects often linger for decades, but those also tend to be the very instances when the overwhelming goodness of humans becomes the most evident. It is when we feel as though we are in our lowest valleys of despair that we learn that we are not alone, for heroes appear of whom we were often not even aware.

I just finished Mitch Albom’s novel The Five People You Meet in Heaven. I had never before read it because I was miffed that Mr. Albom had appeared to have created a best selling story that was similar to an idea that I had. I had to set my pettiness aside because two of my grandsons are reading the tale as one of the assignments for their English class. I sometimes help them to demystify the intricacies of literature and so I needed to be familiar with this particular book. I found that the theme and the writing style were far more interesting and less maudlin than I had supposed. The thread of the story reminded me that life takes so many unexpected turns that may seem negative at the time, but often contribute to our betterment without our even realizing it. It is when we are most challenged that we witness the true courage of the human spirit.

Nobody who is suffering really wants to hear that what they are enduring is God’s will or that what doesn’t kill them makes them stronger. In the midst of tragedy we are mostly overwhelmed and struggling just to make it from one day to the next. Sometimes it feels as though our entire lifetimes are riddled with challenges that keep us perennially weary. Like Eddie, the protagonist of The Five People You Meet in Heaven we may even feel as though we are dying a slow death. We fail to see what is really happening in our lives. We are so fixated on hurt and betrayals and losses that we never realize the thousands of ordinary moments when people are loving and sacrificing for us. We are driven to react more by the ugliness that we see than the goodness that is far more overwhelming. We become locked in a struggle to unravel the old conundrum of deciding whether the glass is half full or half empty.

As an educator I often encountered problems that were so trying that I began to question my abilities. I would stew over my powerlessness to reach the hearts and minds of everyone of my students. I tended to focus on the most terrible incidents of my daily routines in the classroom rather than recalling that I had done well more times than I had failed. Like most humans I was unforgiving of myself in my quest for a perfection that is in fact nonexistent. We innately know that none of us will get through life without enduring or even creating total mess ups now and again, and yet we upbraid ourselves for our very humanity. It takes a great deal of living and self reflection to ultimately learn how to be kind not only to ourselves but to our fellow men and women as well. The wisest among us are those who take the hard knocks without beating themselves just for being normal.

It has almost become a blood sport to criticize people and actions that we do not fully understand. We sometimes hide our own insecurities in a cloak of smugness, pretending to be more righteous than we really are. The best among us are less likely to do that, and we often secretly long to be more like them. We all know someone who seems to maintain an almost angelic optimism and an ability to keep a cool head when everyone else is melting down. If we take the time to learn more about such individuals we generally find that they have worked hard to be self aware and nonjudgemental. They actually choose to take life’s blows in stride. Theirs is a very conscious effort to stay calm and carry on even when the disappointments that they face threaten to push them into the abyss. They allow themselves to be fully human and to find the good that is always present even when it is unseen.  Nobody ever escapes the trials of life. There is no Garden of Eden anywhere, but there are ways to step back just enough to get a wider view of what is happening and to witness the big picture of the world around us. When we are able to do that we almost always see that we are surrounded by more love than hate, more goodness than evil, more hope than despair.

In an era when we feel as though the very earth is wobbling it is especially confusing. We worry that mankind has gone mad, and there is certainly evidence that a significant proportion of our species is behaving badly. Still we have to remind ourselves that the sun is still rising and providing a new day to set ourselves straight. We have to inhale and truly see the brave souls who wade through high water to rescue the stranded, the courageous who run toward the bullets to aid the wounded, the friends and strangers who surprise us with their largesse. We are essentially a human race with the same blood tracing through our veins, the same desires for happiness, the same generous spirits. We cannot allow the ugliness to overtake the beauty of who we are as people. We shouldn’t have to go to heaven to learn the important lesson that each of us has significance in the flow of history and that our collective impact on life is far more dramatic than we might ever have imagined.

Perhaps if we all were to become more self aware and more conscious of all of the people around us we might find more hope even in odd numbered years or stressful times. We would gain a more realistic perspective of what is really happening in the long run. We would realize that it is incredibly rare for anyone to be always bad or always good. We might begin to enjoy more moments of clarity and insight if we learned first to look for the true meaning of what it means to be human. We might even find that those platitudes that sometimes irritate us exist because there are grains of truth and wisdom to be found in them. Mostly we will find the peace we seek when we take more time to number our blessings big and small.

I always think of how confused and unpleasant the world may appear to be from the vantage point of being in the middle a crowd on a noisy street. If we instead travel into the vastness and solitude of outer space we look down on a blue planet that is stunning in its beauty. It is as though in seeing the entirety of the earth we are able to finally understand how remarkable it truly is. That is what we must also do in assessing both ourselves and our fellow travelers in his journey between birth and death. It is a breathtaking experience to see all of the events of our lives put together forming a whole. Look carefully and you will see how truly beautiful we are.

Arming for the Good

Published on by Sharron BurnettLeave a comment

CkgWhiteBackPeopleThere were no guns in the home where I grew up. My mom was a widow and had never felt particularly comfortable around weapons of any kind and so I never really thought much about owning a pistol or a rifle. I did, however, have a number of relatives who were rather casual about having and using guns. A bachelor uncle who lived with my maternal grandmother kept a loaded pistol on his dresser that fascinated me and all of the cousins, but we had been schooled in respect for personal property and so we never thought to even run our fingers over the the object that was a fixture in our uncle’s room along with matchbooks, cigarettes and loose change. Several other uncles were hunters who braved cold damp weather each year and enjoyed telling stories of their rifles and their adventures. My cousins who were their children eventually learned how to use firearms safely and tended to take it for granted that everyone felt as comfortable around them as they did. I suspect that I was most amazed in knowing that my paternal grandmother often hunted in the hills behind her farm. We were often treated to wild animal delicacies that she had bagged and then turned into gourmet fare. While my brothers enjoyed the tastes of wild game I was unable to erase the images of the animals from my mind, and so I was never able to bring myself to even taste those dishes. When my brothers and I were grown only one among us became an avid hunter in the tradition of so many of our relatives. I never developed a comfort around guns, not even when I married and learned that my spouse was as relaxed with the idea of owning arms as most of my kin had been. He had grown up around men who regularly hunted, but he actually disliked that sport and only enjoyed testing his weaponry on paper targets rather than living creatures. We installed a safe to lock his armaments away and forged a separate peace in terms of having them inside our home.

What I know is that every single person in my family always handled their guns with respect for their power. They understood and followed the rules of safety so well that I never felt threatened by the fact that they were hidden somewhere in their houses. I never had any fear of them being used in an evil fashion. My uncles and grandmother and cousins and husband were responsible in the way in which they handled the ownership of weapons, and so I took it for granted that I would be safe not because they would protect me with their arms, but because they had been well trained in the proper use and storage of them.

A great debate is raging in our country over whether or not ordinary citizens should even own guns or if there should at the very least be restrictions on the numbers and types of firearms that should be available. It’s an emotional topic with good and bad arguments on both sides. It is true that millions of people own guns and never even have the thought of harming another human with their weaponry. They are good individuals who take their duties seriously and can’t understand why they should surrender their guns simply because now and again some murderous and evil scumbag wreaks havoc on society using firearms. Even with the alarming rate of gun violence they argue that it is still a minuscule portion of society that misuses weapons in such ways. They further contend that if someone is intent on harming others they will find a manner in which to do so whether the laws are in their way or not. I suspect that there is some merit in their contentions, but I’ve never quite been converted to felling absolutely comfortable about the laxity of our gun laws, and in many regards I am bothered by the sheer numbers of them and the fascination of them by so many whom I do not trust as much as my relations.

As I attempt to become thoroughly familiar with our nation’s gun laws I see problems that create the potential for grave abuses and I can’t help but wonder why responsible gun owners are so against at least closing the most glaring loopholes. In the most recent carnage caused by a killer almost sixty humans were mowed down in a nine minute time frame. The first thoughts were that the mass murderer had used an automatic weapon because the shots were obviously fired more quickly than possible with a semi-automatic weapon. It was confusing because automatic weapons have been illegal since 1986, but we soon learned that there are ways to get around that dictate, and it seems that the evil doer had taken advantage of them. It seems that mechanisms known as bump stocks are legal and often used with semi-automatic guns to simulate the same effects as an automatic gun. What I want to know is why in the name of logic would our lawmakers allow such an item to even exist when the intent of the 1986 legislation was to keep automatic weapons out of the hands of ordinary citizens? The shocking truth of this matter is absurd.

We also have other glaring omissions that pro gun supporters continue to endorse even though they make no sense whatsoever. Most gun show dealers are heavily regulated and require customers to register for permits, but if someone attends one of those events and walks into the parking lot where a private citizen is selling arms from the trunk of his car the reach of the law breaks down. We also have no idea whatsoever who owns what and how many. We take a numerical counting of how much money people make, how many people live inside homes, what cars they drive and so on, but we are completely lax when it comes to an accounting of firearms. Some of the same advocates of voter ID cards contend that owning firearms should be a private thing that is none of the government’s business, and so once a citizen has passed muster to purchase a gun the record is eventually destroyed.

The most popular guns in the country are semi-automatic firearms that were illegal until the legislation outlawing them lapsed. They may be fun to shoot, but they are hardly necessary in our society, especially in light of the most recent information about how easily they are adapted to be more like automatic weaponry. I frankly can’t understand why anyone would ever need such a thing.

The most frequently expressed fear of gun owners is that if we tighten the laws here and there it will be just a matter of time until the government decides to confiscate all firearms. They further contend that criminals will always find a way to find weapons and that anyone intent on evil will be successful regardless of any measures we may take. They may be right, but I see no harm in taking a few steps to clean up the wild west feel of our laxity when it comes to managing the reasonable ownership of guns in this country. I am quite frankly appalled by the spread of open carry laws that are slowly but surely bringing more and more firearms even onto places like college campuses. The idea that we should just throw up our hands and surrender because nothing will work anyway is an absurdity. We have speed limits even though some people ignore them. We are required to pass a test before driving a car even though some people skip that step and just jump behind the wheel. There are rules of all sorts that are broken but we don’t toss them out. We have ten commandments from God that people continually sin against, but we still value those basic laws. So why can’t we at least attempt to slow down the manufacture and purchase of implements that are so dangerous?

I think that we need to do something to send a message to our society that we value human life so much that we are all willing to work together for a compromise that cleans up the gooey mess that gun legislation or lack of it has created. We don’t have to take away arms from the ordinary guy who means no harm, nor should we neglect to tighten up our rules just because we don’t believe that they will make a difference. There is a middle pathway that will begin the process of healing. I hear so many advocating prayer and saying that we need to unify. Why not use this moment as the time in history when we chose to become brothers and sisters once again? This is an opportunity to arm ourselves with a spirit of brotherly love. U fail to see how that is bad.

A No Gladiator Zone

Published on by Sharron BurnettLeave a comment

gladiators-12I remember a time when I was in the eighth grade and my entire class was called together because the teachers and the principal of the school were displeased with our general behavior. I was honestly a very good girl, a student who always wanted to be respectful, obedient and pleasing to my elders. I did not understand why I was being subjected to what amounted to a harangue about how bad me and my peers were. About five minutes into the all encompassing lecture I stopped listening. The tongue lashing continued for quite some time but I was not interested in hearing any of it because I did not believe that it applied to me. Furthermore I left that assembly feeling intensely angry over the insults that had been hurled at me and my classmates, and I felt more attached to my fellow students than ever including those whom I knew had created the furor with their less than sterling actions. Lumping an entire group into one basket of stereotyping does that. It creates unified tribes that might otherwise not exist.

We humans are funny like that. We don’t like the idea of being misunderstood and viewed negatively by anyone who makes sweeping assumptions about us. When those things happen we get as angry as I did when the teachers subjected me to a lecture that I knew was unfair. Such situations all too often push people to react negatively or emotionally and to ally themselves with groups in which they might otherwise have had no interest. Thus it is with the political climate in the United States today. We can’t get anything done because we are too busy thoughtlessly bashing one another. Far too many of people are no longer interested in the least in listening to what the other side might have to say, because they feel that they have been insulted one time too many. Thus we find ourselves deadlocked, divided to the point of hatefulness. The situation is so bad that I sometimes find myself wondering if we will ever again be able to work together for the common good of our nation. Things look very bleak as of now, and those who lead us are not helping with the matter. No side is innocent in this war of words and ideas that more closely resembles the battle between the Hatfields and McCoys than rational political discourse. Until the yelling, accusatory and self righteous behaviors cease or at least subside we are in deep trouble.

At first glance we appear to have a vast gulf of disagreement between Republicans and Democrats, but that is an over simplification of the problem that contributes to much of the rancor. Within the Republican party there are multiple layers of thinking that range from the far right to stances that are much more liberal. The Democrats also have their differences, and battles for the heart of the party ensue between those on the far left and those who trend more toward the middle of the road. Unfortunately there is a tendency to simplify reality by assuming that there is one set of identical Republicans and one set of matching Democrats. So we find far too many people posing arguments that are filled with fixed images about each of the parties.

So how does this look in the real world? Well, if someone is thought to be a Republican they may be subject to taunts from progressives that classify them as rednecks, bigots, mean spirited, ignorant, racist, homophobic, religious zealots, gun toters, abominable, haters and so on. The people who so easily toss around these highly charged labels then wonder why individuals who tend to be more conservative are often unwilling to listen to them. It is actually human nature that they would be defensive, and ready to pick a fight at the first utterance of such words.

On the other side we have Democrats who are accused of being snowflakes, enablers, communists, overly sensitive, emotional, liars, unpatriotic, lazy, rude, too politically correct, overly liberal, crooks, and other pejoratives too inflammatory to print. Again, why would someone who has had to endure such wrath be the slightest bit interested in hearing what the other side has to say? Thus we reach the present state of impasse on so many issues that are important to the American people. With the “my way or the highway” attitude that is so persistent there is little chance that anything will be resolved. Sadly there are large numbers of people who demand all or nothing. Thus we are expected to join one side or another or be totally ostracized by almost everyone.

We have a health insurance system that is a mess. We know for a fact that the Affordable Care Act is riddled with problems, but there are solutions if only all interested parties were willing to sit at a bargaining table and consider the issues one by one. Our immigration system is broken and desperately needs fixing but the combatants on each extreme have planted their flags in the ground and seem unwilling to consider alternatives. We are expected to either cheer for a wall or open the borders without exceptions, when there are possibilities in the middle. We are concerned with gun violence in this country, but again little changes because neither side is willing to budge even a tiny bit. Instead we rant and rave and shout out slogans and soundbites. We either want to leave the country or desire to push out people who disagree. We are playing a zero sum game when what we need is a plan for win/win. In truth we are caught in the web of power grabs, victims of propaganda all the way around. We seem to be self righteously convinced that we are right and everyone else is wrong. We close our minds to any discussions that deviate from our own points of view and defend our stances with insults that only drive the other side farther and farther away.

It should be a given that we are all concerned with gun violence in our country. We all feel emotional about the unnecessary deaths of so many innocents. We all want the same thing which is to curb the trend of mass murder that only seems to grow. Our only differences are in how we think it is best to solve the problem. We never quite get started with any positive solutions because we would rather continue at a stalemate than consider the possibility that we might need a combination of the various ideas woven together by compromise. God forbid that we would actually have constructive bipartisan discussions. Those who even think of doing such things these days are deemed to be weak, traitors to some nebulous cause. We would rather do nothing than incrementally move toward agreement.

I hear good ideas from many points of view but they are being drowned out by the clatter of insults. I’ve been regularly attacked by both conservatives and liberals simply because I am willing to consider alternative solutions. I’ve been called wishy washy and naive for believing that we need to cool down long enough to just listen without thinking of what arguments we are going to present as soon as the other person is finished speaking. I’ve been on the receiving end of hateful retorts on many occasions when I have suggested gathering facts and then considering how they impact particular problems. I’d love to be able to brainstorm, but instead I constantly hear people voicing slogans rather than practical ideas for resolving our conflicts.

Ironically and perhaps thankfully I have heard some of the best analyses of our national problems from the young. They have not yet calcified their thinking. They are often far more open than their elders. They are willing to explore new possibilities. It gives me hope when I hear them very logically and accurately assessing the political landscape, but I’d hate to think that we will have to wait for them to become the leaders of the future for things to change.

I suspect that there are far more people who think like me than I have found of late. The squeaky wheels are getting the grease for now, but one day perhaps those of us who have grown weary of the gladiator fights will finally rise up and take the reigns of responsibility. I long for the day when we are once again willing to work together. We have to be a team and family, for if we aren’t our problems will only grow as will our rancor at one another. That would be a terrible shame because it was long ago predicted that the very nature of democracy itself would ultimately destroy it. In other words there have always been those who believe that mankind is not capable of being fully unselfish and willing to compromise to insure equality and justice for all. I pray that the naysayers are wrong. Let’s begin to create a no gladiator zone for resolving our differences. We have too much to lose to keep fighting.

The Hero We Need

Published on by Sharron BurnettLeave a comment

mattress-mack-548x365

What the world needs now is love, sweet love

It’s the only thing that there’s just too little of

What the world needs now is love, sweet love,

No not just for some but for everyone.

We live in a confusing world these days. We dream of seeing stories and images of great love in our midst. We know it’s there. We’ve witnessed it in our families and with our friends, but we long to see a public figure who demonstrates a level of generosity and concern for mankind that seems to typify the kind of self sacrificing for which we are desperately searching. We witnessed acts of great love and heroism when my city of Houston was inundated with water. Images of strangers helping strangers inspired and uplifted us, sustaining our hope that mankind is still at the end of the day a force for great good in this world. We innately believe that underneath the rhetoric and divisiveness that has been tearing away at society there is a common yearning for decency and compassion. We just need that one person who has the capacity to represent each of us as a beacon of light in a world that has gone dark far too often of late. I believe that I have found him right here in the place where I live, and he is no doubt in my mind the real deal.

Who would have thought that a furniture salesman who jumped up and down on a mattress frenetically waving wads of cash would one day become one of the most beloved individuals in the city. Mattress Mack as all of us in Houston know him set up a furniture store in North Houston and garnered our attention with television commercials that appeared to have been filmed by amateurs. He made bold claims about his wares and the savings that he offered, but mostly he caught our attention with his cheesy spots that tickled our funny bones and our curiosity. “Who was this character?” we wondered even as we smiled at his antics. Over time his modest business thrived, becoming a local empire. When other furniture stores closed, Mack’s Gallery Furniture continued to thrive with retailing innovations like same day delivery. Soon enough we all understood that Jim Mcingvale was no joke, but rather a business genius whose sales acumen had made him a wealthy man. Even better was the realization that Mack was more than just an entrepreneur. He was also a humanitarian with a heart even bigger than his massive store.

Mattress Mack as we lovingly and respectfully call him slowly but surely began to show up all over town doing good works. He provided scholarships to students and hauled truckloads of free furniture to people who were devastated by personal tragedies. He remodeled teachers’ lounges and honored first responders and veterans. He seemed to be everywhere donating his time, talent and goodwill to the people of Houston. No request was too large, no task too difficult to handle. Mack was a fireball of energy and good intentions. We all cheered his success as his philanthropy became more and more legendary in our town. We began to collectively love this man whose heart appeared to be limitlessly huge. Before long he had opened multiple stores and his television spots took on a professional patina but the essence of Mack remained as down home and unpretentious as ever.

Mack let us into his most private world, sharing the personal journey of his family in caring for a daughter who is afflicted with a mental illness. He wanted us to understand how to see the signs of trouble and to know that there is help for those who are affected with various disorders of the mind as well as their families. He was not afraid to show his emotions and let us see his very human side. We learned about the courage that it took for him to take the risks that eventually lead to victories over his own struggles with confidence. He visited schools and spoke to students about taking charge of their lives. He encouraged them to go after their dreams and told them how to create plans that would make things happen.

We saw Mack everywhere spreading joy and hope in Houston and we really did love him, but we had no idea that we had not yet even tapped the surface of his remarkable character. It was not until the rains of hurricane Harvey began falling unrelentingly on our city that we began to truly understand that the inspiration for which we had been searching had been with us all along and his name was Jim Mcingvale, our Mattress Mack.

There was so much desperation when the homes in Houston began to flood. The waters were in the yard one minute and then gushing through walls the next, filling the rooms so quickly that there was little time for thoughts other than baling out to find safety. People understood that they had to flee with little more than the clothes on their backs or they might be hopelessly trapped in very dangerous situations. Many of those whose homes had been so rapidly rendered unsafe lived near the original Gallery Furniture store, and remembering Mack’s history of generosity they turned to him for help because they had no other place to go. Like the Good Samaritan, Mack invited them into his store. He gave them shelter from the storm and turned his place of business into a safe haven where they would have beds on which to find the comfort of sleep. He allowed them to relax in the recliners that he so often featured in his adds. He requested their presence at the solid wood tables for which he was famous where he sated their hunger with food and love. Before long the word was out that Mack had opened his stores for shelter from the storm, all because he understood that it was his duty as a fellow human to render aid in a time of great distress.

Now that the waters have receded and people are attempting to return to normal Mack is making another in his long line of incredible offers of good works. For the next twenty weeks he will provide an entire house of furniture and mattresses to individuals who lost everything in the floods. He is requesting that members of the community nominate worthy candidates for his largesse. What he hasn’t boasted about is the fact that he has already very quietly been donating items from his store. There is no telling what the true extent of his charitable nature has been.

Jim Mcingvale is the good soul for whom we have been waiting. He is the man who has been a bright light in a world that might otherwise have seemed so dark. He demonstrates the goodness of the human heart day in and day out and we love him. Mack himself will tell you that he is not a hero or a perfect man, but what he is to all of us is a representation of the most positive values that we all seek and cherish. He embodies the qualities of the kind of person that we want to be. We are so glad that he is among us, showing us how to be compassionate and what it means to live a life of purpose. Jim Mcingvale, aka Mattress Mack, is our hero.