Category: Gratitude

A Very Thanksgiving Treat

Published on by Sharron BurnettLeave a comment

elliott-pecansI always loved visiting my grandmother’s house in November. She was sure to have enamel bowls filled with tangerines and pecans. Usually it was just chilly enough to warrant using her ceramic gas heater to warm the living room. It always felt so cozy being there with my aunts and uncles and many cousins. I came to associate such things with the month of November. To this very day I have to have tangerines in my refrigerator and fresh pecans in my pantry when the eleventh month rolls around. It just doesn’t seem to feel right without them.

My Aunt Opal made pumpkin pie all year round but unless it was November we were never certain that she would have any available when we came to visit. Not so, in November. She never failed to have one ready for us whenever we chose to spend time with her then. Hers were absolutely the best that I have ever tasted. She didn’t even need a recipe to whip one up. The directions were all in her head. I used to love watching her roll out the pie dough and mix the ingredients for the filling. She always had some interesting story to tell us while her weathered hands did their work. I can still see her working the dough with her old rolling pin and stirring the creamy mixture that would gel into pure deliciousness. My mouth waters just thinking about it.

My mother liked to take the pecans that were so plentiful in November and bake them up into a pie. She transformed those nuts into a delectable southern delight. She was rather famous for her special recipe. I recall a time when she took one of her pies to a party and placed it next to a pecan pie that somebody else had prepared. When a friend of mine heard that one of Mama’s famous creations was there she rushed in to claim a piece before the dessert was gone. She took one bite and spit it back on the plate exclaiming, “This isn’t your mom’s pie! Where did this come from?” Luckily the baker of the less tasty treat wasn’t around to hear her insult but my mother had caught the gist of the conversation and quickly came to the rescue with a slice of her pie. From then on my friend always checked to be certain that she was getting nobody else’s pecan pie but Mama’s.

Yesterday after visiting with my in-laws my husband and I ventured over to the Airline farmer’s market. We were greeted by the sound of the nut cracking machine that was busy opening pounds and pounds of fresh pecans. It is a sound that I have heard each November for as long as I can remember. It tells me that my birthday is coming soon and that Thanksgiving is just around the corner. Its click clack is so comforting. It is much like hearing a train rumbling down the tracks in the dark of night. It is a link to some of the most wondrous times in my past.

While at the market I also saw a huge display of tangerines. I rushed over immediately to fill a bag. The aroma of citrus filled my senses and told me that I will be enjoying juicy fruit in the coming days. I feel content in knowing that I am able to find such delightful items so close to my home.

We really do live in a land of plenty. I had a friend who grew up in Germany at the same time that I was experiencing a childhood in the United States. He often spoke of playing in the rubble of his city of Bremen which had been bombed continuously during World War II. He developed scurvy because of the lack of vitamin C. For most of his lifetime fruits and vegetables were a luxury. He told of a time when an aunt had a single tomato to share with the family and how it was prized as a precious delicacy. Each person took a thin slice and ate it as though it was pure gold. When he eventually moved to the United States he was astounded by the abundance that we all enjoyed. He never lost his appreciation for our country and the wealth that it provided him.

My mother always told me that her parents saw themselves as being rich simply because they always had good food on the table. They turned their backyard into a garden and raised animals for milk and meat. Even during the Great Depression they always had good meals created by my grandmother. Nothing was ever wasted. Even bones and peelings were boiled for broth for soups and seasonings. When the family ate fish my grandmother would consume the head and give the more savory parts to her children.

We sometimes forget how precious food was for our ancestors and rarely think about people in other parts of the world who are starving even as we fill garbage trucks with mountains of food that might otherwise save a life. We take our food for granted and rarely realize our good fortune in having a lovely orange or a bowl of nuts. We don’t want to think about small children with bloated bellies who are wracked with pain because they do not have enough sustenance. Thanksgiving simply doesn’t have the same meaning when we have never known want as it might feel like to truly experience grinding hunger.

In November I am thankful that my mother like her mother always found a way to keep our stomachs full. Sometimes our dinner was little more than a bowl of pinto beans but there was something on our table to sustain us even when our cupboard seemed to be bare. I often took egg sandwiches to school for lunch. At the time it embarrassed me because there were often complaints about the smell. Sometimes I chose not to eat rather than reveal my strange repast. I now think of how silly I was, especially when I consider the millions of people who would have thought themselves most fortunate to have something so tasty and wholesome to eat. In so many ways I have been spoiled.

It is in the small things that we feel the most delight. For me the tangerines, pecans and pumpkins that were the treats of my childhood Novembers are still a special treasure. When I eat them they are more than just tasty. They are ways of tangibly remembering some of the most happy times of my childhood and the special people who made it so. I can see my grandmother’s smile as she watches me enjoy a tangerine with the juice running down my chin as I laugh with my cousins. I can hear my Aunt Opal telling us wondrous tales as she shoves a pumpkin pie into the oven. I recall my mother whispering her secret recipe for making the best pecan pies. The taste of the food on my tongue jogs my memory and releases happy feelings that tell me just how wonderful my life has always been. It really is a great time of year to be thankful as I remember and appreciate.

No Greater Love

Published on by Sharron BurnettLeave a comment

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Greater love has no man that this, that a man lay down his life for his friends.

I cannot even conceive of the courage that it must take to be a soldier. We all too often forget that many of our fellow citizens are in harm’s way in dangerous places even on this very day. They quietly pledge to protect our country and sometimes lose their lives in the process of doing a day’s work. Only last week a young man from Houston was killed in Jordan. He had attended Strake Jesuit High School and the University of Texas. He was known by his friends as someone who was fun and generous. He was bright and talented and had a whole lifetime of possibilities ahead of him and yet he chose to enter the military, an action that he felt was an honor and his duty. His friends and family grieve that he is gone and all of us should feel a sense of sorrow as well. It was for those of us that he never even met that he gave his life.

There were a couple of young men who went to my high school when I was there who died in Vietnam. One went to war shortly after graduating. He was a friendly fellow with an inviting smile. It broke my heart to hear of his death. The other soldier was brilliant. He had graduated from college and had a promising career but he wanted to help in the effort to maintain a democracy in South Vietnam. He too lost his life, a tragedy that touched me in a very personal way because his little brother was good friends with one of my siblings.

At the time that these two soldiers were killed it never occurred to me that theirs had been an act of love. I was too busy protesting the war and participating in rallies. I actually thought that they had been foolish to take part in the conflict. As the years went by I began to see their sacrifice as something sacred. I began to hold them in high esteem. When I visited the Vietnam wall on the National Mall I found their names and ran my fingers over the etching in the stone. I wept. I felt the love associated with what they had done. I spoke to their spirits and thanked them for their service to our country.

I came of age in an era of protest. I thought it noble and fitting to speak against a war that seemed unreasonable to me. It never occurred to me that it was so incredibly easy to do what I had done while the efforts of the soldiers who had been my classmates were monumental. It has been five decades since their passing. Their love of country inspires and humbles me.

I have a long time friend who served as a medic in that same war. I often think of the horrors that he must have seen as he fought to save lives. I suppose that I never expressed enough gratitude for what he did but I can imagine how important his efforts must have been to the soldiers who lived because he was there. I know that he never discusses those days. He came back far more serious and contemplative than he had been. His wife told me that he often had nightmares as he relived the battles and thought of the torn and bloodied bodies that he viewed.

We sit safely in our cities and towns and rarely think of what our fellow citizens of the military are doing. We complain about the unfairness of our country. We criticize and speak of being ashamed of our nation. We refuse to sing the national anthem or salute the flag. All the while the men and women of the Armed Forces are doing the heavy lifting that we don’t want to do so that we will have the freedom to make ourselves heard. They deal with uncertainties and danger as a matter of course. We all too often take them for granted, sometimes even neglecting them when they return home. Even worse is when we insult them by self righteously assuming that they are violent individuals who somehow deserve our scorn rather than our praise.

On this Veterans Day and everyday we should honor the present day military and those who once served. They are real heroes who deserve our highest consideration. They are mostly humble and silent about the work that they have done for you and me. They rarely bring attention to themselves. They will tell you that they were happy to be able to give back to the country and its people.

I see a great deal of whining in today’s world. People continuously complain about what they don’t have and tend not to count their many blessings. They take more note of slights than opportunities. They make degrading comments about our country, its leaders and our soldiers. They have little idea of how safe and secure they are because of the unseen, unsung men and women who are guarding us twenty four hours a day. They rarely think of our military if at all.

Take the time to remember our veterans and our Armed Forces today. Don’t just think of them. Thank them. They won’t ask for your gratitude but I can’t help but think that they will appreciate knowing that their efforts have not gone unnoticed. God bless them and their willingness to lay down their lives for friends that they don’t even know. There is no greater love.

Just One More

Published on by Sharron BurnettLeave a comment

HacksawRidge_D33-15263.jpgFor centuries we have been sending young men into the abyss of war. Sometimes the causes have been noble but mostly the reasons for fighting have centered around politics that the average person found difficult to comprehend. History is stained with the very life blood of our youth. It takes great courage to volunteer to represent a country on a battlefield and even more to actually participate in a battle. It is something that most of us pray that we never have to endure and yet it has been a fact of history. Over and over again the treasure of our youth has had to bear arms against an enemy that they did not know for reasons that they may not have understood. We can almost all agree that war has and always will be hell and should be a last resort.

I am against all forms of violence. I think it morally wrong to abort babies, execute criminals and fight enemies and yet I understand that there are times when killing is the only choice to protect the innocent from danger. I am a conscientious objector up to a point. My faith tells me that if I have to choose between simply watching a despot like Adolf Hitler bullying his way across a continent or taking action to stop him with gunfire and bombs then I have every right to defend all that is good and just. I think that I might be able to set aside my gentle ways to stop such hate from spreading and I certainly commend those who put their very lives on the line in the call of duty. It is a sign of nobility to defend the innocent against aggressive tyrants and I often wonder if I would be capable of rising to such an occasion. I am in awe of those who find the grit within themselves to do so.

World War II was a nasty affair as are all wars but it bore the patina of being a just cause. Here in the United States virtually everyone in the country rallied to fight the despots from Germany, Italy and Japan. Young men joined the military at a fever pitch. High schools, universities and factories were emptied out as our youth eagerly volunteered to join the fight. Among them were my father, my uncles, and a young man from Virginia named Desmond Doss. What made Desmond a bit more unusual than most of his peers is that he was a Seventh Day Adventist who believed that it would be against God’s will to kill. Rather than registering as a conscientious objector and sitting out the war at home he decided to join with the intent of becoming a medic. With a kind of naive belief he actually thought that he would be allowed to accompany his unit without bearing arms.

His training for battle went well up until the time that he was instructed to choose a rifle and learn how to use it. When he refused to do so he became a pariah and the focus of a concerted effort to get him to simply quit. Somehow in spite of the bullying, insults and persecution that he had to endure he continued to insist that he wanted to be of service but simply could not and would not use a weapon. His conviction sent him to a military court where it was eventually ruled that he might be trained as a medic without bearing arms.

Doss’s battalion was sent to the war in the Pacific, a brutal theater where very different cultures clashed in some of the most horrific battles of that era. Their objective was to take a ridge known by the name of Hacksaw. When they arrived the fighting had already decimated entire units. The Japanese soldiers were relentless in their attacks and it seemed as though there would be no stopping them. Over a hundred and fifty thousand Japanese troops had been sent to keep possession of the area and so the battles were fierce. Doss followed his fellow soldiers as they attacked according to their orders. He provided medical aide to the wounded in the middle of a battle so bloody that it was almost overwhelming. Even after his group left to recoup for the night Doss stayed and rescued over seventy five men including some Japanese soldiers who had also been wounded. It was a miraculous and unbelievably heroic feat that earned him the respect of his brothers in arms. For the rest of his life he would tell of how he kept asking God to allow him to help just one more man to safety throughout that long and treacherous night.

Desmond Doss’s story is depicted in the movie Hacksaw Ridge, a brilliant film that brings us face to face with the sheer humanity of war. It is an homage not just to Doss but to all who risk their lives in battle. It slams the viewer into the visceral horror of fighting and asks us to imagine what soldiers have endured from the beginning of time. It forces us to consider questions of faith and to ponder our own beliefs. It is a brilliant work of art and a metaphor for both mankind’s brutality and its humanity. Through the eyes of a Godly man we see the chaos, fear and complexities of wars and those who participate in them.

I left the movie understanding that I had just seen something important. I was shaken and emotional. I thought of all of the people that I had ever known who had gone to war. I wondered what terrible and courageous things they must have seen that changed them forevermore. I realized just how fragile and strong each of us truly is. I was moved to tears as I pondered the importance of treasuring every life as a gift from God Himself. I worried that we humans have yet to find ways of resolving our differences without rancor and hate. The threat of war still looms in our hearts as long as we are unable to set aside our arms and our ugliness, as long as there is evil lurking on our planet. I contemplated our goodness as people as well. It occurred to me that there are individuals like Desmond Doss all around us, those who stand for something bigger than themselves. They quietly and peacefully work to serve us because it is right and just, not for glory or compensation. They are truly exceptional and they far outnumber those who would harm us.

Ours is a world of contradictions and uncertainty. We quietly wonder from one day to the next if we are truly living our best lives. We search for answers amidst noise and distractions. In the end we must do as Desmond Doss did in the middle of chaos. We must listen for the voice inside our souls that allows us to do just one more good thing, just one more.     

Unexpected Showers

Published on by Sharron BurnettLeave a comment

flower561eac4e-9ad0-4c6a-9d72-078c0400bce7My life has a distinct pattern. A red thread of continuity runs through it connecting all of its disparate aspects into a cohesive whole. There is an irony to the fact that I just attended my fiftieth high school reunion over the past weekend and today I will return to the building where I laughed and learned so long ago so that I might help a new generation of students to understand the intricacies of mathematics. My own school no longer exists, at least not in the form that it had when I was there. A unique set of circumstances forced it to close, leaving the brick and mortar structure that had housed my own hopes and dreams as nothing but an empty shell haunted by the spirit of those of us who had walked the halls before. It was rescued from destruction by the Jesuits and in particular by Father T.J. Martinez who saw opportunity in the abandoned rooms. Under his guidance a new educational mecca rose from the ashes. Today Cristo Rey Jesuit Preparatory High School stands where Mt. Carmel once lived. It is a school designed to provide minorities and economically challenged students with the academic rigors that once defined my own education.

When I am in the school the past and present merge in my mind. I am able to recall what happened in each of the rooms and to remember my own journey as a student. I find that the young men and women with whom I work are not different at all from me and my classmates even though five decades separate us. They may do their work on computers and carry calculators and smart phones but the essence of what they want to accomplish in life is exactly the same as the desires that we had. They are on an exploratory adventure as they attempt to make sense of the world around them both rationally and emotionally. They are inevitably quite earnest when they ply me with questions both related to mathematics and to my own journey when I was a student in that same place. They desperately want to make something of themselves but often fall short of being as responsible as they need to be. They are young and not yet willing to believe that they are not in a race against time. They don’t yet realize that they will have many opportunities to right themselves and begin again.

I have the perspective of age. I am able to look back and see that without a doubt we humans are a resilient bunch. We fall down and get back up over and over again. We learn as much from our failures as from our successes, sometimes even more. We generally grow wiser and tougher with each passing year. We may not get exactly what we want but as the old saw goes we tend to get what we need. I attempt to convey such thoughts to the teenagers with whom I work. They usually trust me but often become so discouraged that they want to give up the fight. I have to convince them that each of us encounter those moments when we are so weary that we no longer want to try but those are the exact times when we most need to find the strength and determination that is dwelling inside our very souls. It’s has been quite gratifying to watch so many of my charges ultimately succeed. I have been in their shoes. I have known fear. I have literally wanted to run away from challenges. I have felt alone. Always there was someone who quietly took my hand and walked with me, giving me the courage that I needed.

When I was only five years old my parents enrolled me in first grade at a Catholic school. My mother had just given birth to my youngest brother and one of my uncles was dying. The family was in a state of chaos and my elders believed that I would be happier being away from the maelstrom. Nobody consulted me. It just happened and I was not happy at all. I had never once been away from my mom, not even for a few hours. I had not been properly prepared for what was to come and I was terrified. My mother purchased a new lunch box and book bag for me and made some dresses that I might wear. One day without warning she awoke me early and sent me off with my father who quite unceremoniously took me to my classroom. I was in a fog of extreme fear but I refused to cry. When we all went outside for the ceremonial flag raising I thought that it was surely time to go home but, of course, it was only the beginning of the day.

I remember little after that. When I opened my lunchbox it had been invaded by ants which I merely picked away because I was too embarrassed to talk with my teacher. Fortunately my Aunt Polly had decided to come check on me. When I saw her she was like a visage from heaven and I have loved her forever for caring so much for me. She reported the insect invasion to the powers that be and I never again had to fight the tiny creatures for my food. Still I felt so shy and insecure but I was lucky to have a gentle and gifted teacher who saw my pain and helped me to adjust. I would forever model my own teaching style after her kindness and intuition.

There was a girl named Virginia who befriended me. I don’t know if she felt the same about me but I always considered her to be my very best friend at school. She was wise and considerate and instructed me in the ways of doing things properly. Again and again she seemed to come to my rescue and I loved her so. I always believed that she saved me from total despair. I remembered her even when I was an aging woman moving rapidly toward my seventieth year on the planet. I often wondered what had happened to her and hoped with all my heart that she was doing well. Little did I know that I had been near her when I was in high school but somehow never realized that she was the same girl who had been so sweet to me. It was only this past weekend when I was able to put all of the puzzle pieces together and learn that the Virginia that I had so admired in my high school class was the same person as “my Virginia” from first grade.

Ironically Virginia had a career in education just as I had. The parallels in our lives are actually quite remarkable much as they are with generation after generation of humans. We move about doing our best and sometimes influence one another in ways of which we are often unaware. Hopefully it is our kindness that people remember when they think of us, for the alternative is so tragic. We experience so many emotions and in turn cause others to react to our deeds and our remarks. The circle of life is real and it goes round and round just as the earth as it travels around the sun.

I enjoy working with young people, especially teenagers because they are really at the beginning of their time as adults. They are in a state of metamorphosis that will ultimately be beautiful as long as they have concerned people who truly care about them as my teachers and aunts and classmates always did. Those unexpected showers of love help us to bloom.

I have lately been helping to edit college application essays. In them I see hopefulness for the future. I am able to travel back in time and empathize with the young people who so desperately want to make a difference in their own lives and those of the people around them. I find great joy and optimism in reading their innermost thoughts and understanding that they are me and I am them. Just as we witness the sunrise each morning, our youth are ready to carry the responsibilities that lie before them. Knowing that this is certain comforts me everyday. It binds my story with the future.

Let the Celebrating Begin

Published on by Sharron BurnettLeave a comment

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It has been fifty years since the Mt. Carmel High School Class 0f 1966 left the school gymnasium after graduation. We departed with high hopes and good intentions and the clock on our lives began ticking far more quickly than we might have imagined. Some among us served in the military. Others went to college. There were those who married and started families, some who focused on careers. We navigated through the ups and downs of life, experiencing the milestones of human existence. All the while we remembered those years when we were young. Our days in high school had at times been filled with angst and at others with joy. As teenagers we had felt hurts and victories. As full fledged adults we mostly moved past our immaturities and hangups to mellow into acceptance of ourselves just as we are. We became able to gaze into the mirror past all of the flaws and truly like the people that we had become. Somehow all we now need to know about our former classmates is that each among us has found happiness. We have embraced the contentment that comes with wisdom and age and grace.

Tomorrow evening we will gather together for our fiftieth reunion. It will be good to see one another again and to hear the stories of what happened to everyone as the decades passed. Our old friends will be there and some will bring their spouses, people that we have yet to meet but will most surely enjoy. We will view photos of travels, children and grandchildren. We will learn about jobs and hobbies and all of those things that weave together the fabric of our lives. None of us will look the same. Regardless of how well we have aged fifty years leave an imprint on our faces and our outlooks. We are now just as we once were and yet different. The essence of our youthfulness is still in our hearts but our experiences will have changed us.

I lost track of so many people after graduation day. I was busy earning a college degree, raising a family, teaching and caring for my mother who developed chronic mental illness shortly after I had finished high school. Like most people my days were filled with responsibilities from dawn until I fell asleep at night. I had little time for pursuits outside of my family and my work but I have enjoyed a long and lovely friendship with Linda Daigle Scheffler that thankfully continues to this day. Our children grew up together taking swimming lessons, watching football games and celebrating birthdays, graduations, marriages. We have met at Christmas to exchange ornaments and gifts virtually every year since our children were born with few exceptions. Monica Krider Watzak has been by my side from the time that I was a tiny girl. She was one of the first people that I met on the playground in second grade back at Our Lady of Mount Carmel Elementary. Her children also grew up with mine. We have gone on trips together and stood by each other in times both good and bad. Nancy Gracey was one of the bridesmaids in my wedding. We played bridge together on Fridays and finished sentences for each other. She eventually moved away and we lost touch for years only to reunite as though it had only been five minutes since our last meeting. I continue to encounter Susan McKenna Bolduc, another of my bridesmaids, time and again at funerals for classmates and their parents.  Judy Loisey is often there as well demonstrating the same warmth of heart that was her trademark in high school. Of course I also encounter Tommy Darst who has so graciously helped so many Mt. Carmel families during times of greatest sorrow. 

Mostly though I lost track of the one hundred forty three souls with whom I had shared so much during those critical four years of my life. From time to time I heard stories about them but somehow I never crossed paths with them even though I must have surely been moving through the same places where they had been. It was only through the miracle of Facebook that I have slowly  reignited friendships with former classmates, sometimes finding surprising kinship with those that I barely knew when I was young. I have enjoyed reading about their trips and adventures and seeing their beautiful children and grandchildren. I’ve even appreciated the great variety of their political persuasions. Nobody can ever say that we were brainwashed at Mt. Carmel High School. Everyone has a mind of his/her own. Mostly though I have marveled at how wonderful we all became. We are good people who took the lessons that we learned at Mt. Carmel High School to heart no matter where in the world we landed.

I get excited just thinking about the possibility of seeing so many of my classmates tomorrow night. The guest list has swelled to a hundred or more including curious spouses who have no doubt heard so many stories about our Class of 1966. I get both giddy and nervous when I think about seeing them in person again after all these years. 

Even though there were once one hundred forty four of us. Not everyone has made it this far. Before we had even been gone for ten years some among us had already died from cancer or accidents. Others have gone from us more recently. They had hoped to be with us for our celebration but the good Lord saw fit to take them. Each time we have heard of a death among our old friends it has brought us great sadness. We remember when they were so bright and beautiful. We know that they meant so much to their families and to us.

When I was a young mom buying shoes for my little girls Mrs. Lippies used to ask me to pray for her son Kerry who had cancer. Sadly he did not make it. He was one of the first among us to die. I was broken apart when Bill Bailey was killed in a freak accident in Galveston. Not long ago I heard that a colleague of mine at St. Christopher’s School had lost her husband who also happened to be one of my classmates, Frank Fox, a wonderful man who had been so loved by his wife and children. I followed Cindy Cash Criss’s medical progress as she fought ALS. I loved seeing her images of kitties on Facebook and I marveled at her courage and optimism as she dealt with the devastating effects of that terrible disease. I know how much she wanted to make it to the reunion but that was not to be. Instead many of us gathered at her memorial and came together for the first time in years. We knew that she had been the catalyst for beginning our journey to the celebration that we will enjoy tomorrow. Somehow her spirit will be there with us, hoping that we love and laugh the way she always did. Chris Nixon had overcome many heath problems and came faithfully to the early planning meetings for the reunion. He too was called to heaven sooner than we had hoped. Many of us attended his funeral only months ago and cried together for a dear sweet friend.

I had lost track of my friend and high school confidante, Claudia Dean Langguth for well over forty years. When we were teenagers we had shared our deepest secrets and dreams. I had thought that ours would be a lifetime of togetherness but circumstances pulled us apart. When I recently searched for her I learned that she had died only a year ago. I wish that I had been able to tell her how much she had meant to me. I would have liked to let her know that I loved her.

Others who meant much to me are also gone. David Patton and I often competed with one another academically. I knew in my heart that he was my intellectual superior but I would never have admitted that to him. A few years back he began to email me after he had suffered from a stroke. It was sad to know that his brilliant mind had been diminished. I hope that I gave him a bit of comfort with my responses to his communications. I was crushed to learn of his death.

In school our teachers usually seated us in alphabetical order. I sat behind John Kurtz for four years and got to know him well enough to have a secret crush on him. He once told me that his juvenile diabetes would curtail his life prematurely. I was too young and inexperienced to believe that he knew the truth. I shook my head and told him that he was being silly. Unfortunately he was not wrong and left this earth far too soon for such a good man.

The list of those who have already entered the kingdom of God is longer than I would want it to be. There are about twenty four souls who have already died and will be watching over us as we convene this weekend. They will remind us that life is a treasure that we must embrace before the opportunity to do so has left us. In our minds they will be forever young and as lovely and energetic as they were on that May day of long ago when none of us were able to imagine the roads that we would travel or that fifty years would go by so quickly. They are gone but never forgotten. We can still see Janice Repsdorph as the amazing athlete that she always was. We will remember Dorothy Wheeler Cox and her sweet smile and loving presence. In our hearts we’ll think of Diane Martin in all of her glorious beauty and generous spirit. Each of them touched our hearts.

Our lives have been blessed. We are all fine people who have contributed to the benefit of our families, our friends and our communities. We have remembered what is most important and have lived the way our teachers had hoped that we would. When we left on that May in 1966 we understood that we had been called to work for the benefit of all mankind. We have kept the promises that we made. Now it is time to remember and appreciate all of the people who helped us to arrive at this remarkable place in time. Let the celebrating begin.