Tribute – Page 34 – All It Takes Is A Little Love

The Honor of Work

Published on April 4, 2017March 28, 2017 by Sharron BurnettLeave a comment

Mexican_Fruit_Pickers_(7618119180).jpg When I work in my yard I go all in. I usually end up with dirt smeared on my face and caked under my fingernails. Sweat runs downs my neck and my hair sticks up in all directions. There is nothing pretty about me in those times. The work is hard and often leaves my muscles aching and my back shouting at me in pain. The truth is that I overlook all of those things because I love being a weekend gardner so much. I can feel bursts of serotonin taking me to a happy place in my brain. Still, I think of my grandparents who themselves worked on farms day after back breaking day. I imagine how difficult it must have been for them to rise early and routinely toil in the sun. For me the labor is a hobby, one that I have the power to ignore anytime that I tire of the effort. For them it was the means of earning money to pay for a place to live and food on the table.

My grandparents’ descendants have done well. We generally have professional occupations that allow us to work in air conditioned buildings and bring home salaries good enough to pay others to do most of the back breaking work that we require if we so wish. We purchase our fruits and vegetables from Sprouts and have enough income for luxuries that they never even dreamed of owning. I feel their spirits when I am on my hands and knees caring for my plants while the sun beats down on my head. I frequently stop to savor a cold drink when I grow weary. I survey land that is my own, not the property of someone else. I remember and appreciate all of the things that they did so that one day all of us who came from their blood, sweat and tears would have a far better existence than they had.

I see beauty in the tomatoes, oranges and other produce that lines the bins at HEB. I don’t take such delights for granted because I understand the drudgery that people endured to bring those items to the markets where I shop. There were individuals who picked the fruits and vegetables hour after hour, day after day as long as the sun was shining. They were paid little and only received monetary rewards for full bushel baskets and bins. Their work was routine and tough on both body and soul. They are the nameless men and women whose plight has almost always been ignored throughout history. At one time they may have been slaves or indentured servants. In other eras they were the poor like my grandparents. Today they are mostly immigrants who toil from farm to farm, season to season in search of jobs that few of us would want.

I once traveled to a small town school to work with teachers who were struggling with the Hispanic children in their classrooms. They complained that the sons and daughters of migrant workers were skewing the test scores used to appraise their effectiveness as educators. They referred to the parents “the tree cutters” and insisted that these uneducated people didn’t care enough about their kids to realize the importance of schooling. It didn’t seem to occur to the baffled teachers that the mothers and fathers who worked so hard were in fact incredibly dedicated to their children, so much so that they were willing to do even the dirtiest of jobs. I was saddened by the ignorance of people who should have known better than to treat a significant portion of their student body as stereotypes. Even after my partner and I had shown them how to reach their charges they appeared to be as adamant as ever that the children of these hard working people were an inconvenience that would have preferred to simply wish away.

Most of us who live in the United States of America enjoy a level of plenty that might have made our ancestors feel wealthy. We are provided educational opportunities that were not afforded them. It was not uncommon in my grandparents’ day for youngsters to rarely attend school after the third or fourth grade. Sadly in many parts of the world even today people struggle to meet their most basic needs and even to feel safe. They are chronically hungry and suffer from health problems that are rarely addressed. We on the other hand are a nation that has mostly forgotten what it is like to live the way so many of our grandparents and great grandparents actually did. The conditions under which they labored are now mostly deemed illegal.

I watched a group of students perform in the one act play, Gut Girls, not long ago. It addressed the working poor at the beginning of the twentieth century. It featured young women who worked in meat packing plants where the conditions were deplorable. I found myself imagining my grandfather who did a similar job for all of his working days. His legs became riddled with varicose veins and more often than not he was in pain but he never missed a single day of work. He boasted to his children that he had managed to feed them all the way through the Great Depression and keep a roof over their heads when others became homeless. He was proud to have regular work no matter how difficult it may have been and his children do not recall a single time when he complained. He endured his aches stoically.

There is great honor in hard work. We should celebrate anyone who is willing to devote time and effort to making an honest living. The person who collects our garbage is important just as the clerk behind the counter of a fast food restaurant is. The janitor is as indispensable as the manager, maybe even more so. We need our engineers and our electricians, our professors and our plumbers. The yard man who sculpts my lawn each weekend is always reliable and willing to do whatever is needed to make my home a lovely place to be. I truly don’t know what I would do without him.

After a day of manicuring my plants, my hands are shouting at me with the sting of cuts and scrapes and bruises. They remind me to be thankful for what I have. They tell me to appreciate all good people everywhere. They urge me to be more generous and kind. But for the grace of God I might just as well have been born in another place or time that would have demanded more of me than I have ever had to expend.

East Meets West

Published on March 31, 2017March 26, 2017 by Sharron BurnettLeave a comment

east-west Years ago one of my grandson’s was building a family tree at school. He reported to his class that he was half Chinese. Since he had blonde hair and blue eyes his teacher was somewhat confused about his claim. She hesitated to accuse him of making up a tale, but found it difficult to believe that he had even a smidgen of Asian heritage in his DNA. She emailed my daughter to determine why he might think such a thing. That only seemed to confound the puzzlement, so my daughter went to the source and asked her little boy why he felt that he was half Chinese. He innocently asserted that he had come to that conclusion because half of the people at our family parties were Chinese, and he knew them as relatives, so he had come to the conclusion that he must indeed be of Asian decent as well. The mystery was solved.

One of my brothers married a lovely woman from Taiwan many years ago. He was working for a NASA contractor and so was she when he met her at a meeting. He was immediately taken by her beauty, intellect and personality and in a fashion that was totally uncharacteristic of him, he set out to find her and ask her for a date. He learned that her last name was Liu, and he began calling all of the people in the phone book who shared that same name. Eventually he got lucky and actually reached her when she was visiting a friend who was also named Liu. He was smitten from the beginning and it wasn’t long before they were both in love.

Becky has brought so much wonder to our family. Aside from introducing us to the the history and exquisiteness of her culture, she has shared her family members who melded with us as though we had all been born to be together. It is little wonder that my grandson believed that he was related to her parents and siblings by blood. They have faithfully stood by our sides through celebrations and tragedies. All the while they have taught us extraordinary lessons about generosity and determination.

Becky was born in mainland China before it was taken over by Mao and the communists. Her father had been a professor of physics and an officer in the army. He was from a family of intellectuals that included a newspaper editor who had spoken out against the revolutionaries. When the political takeover of the country came, Becky’s parents knew that they must flee with their children. Her older sisters recall being dressed in many layers of clothing into which their mother had sewn money and valuables to use as barter for their safe passage our of the country. At the time they did not fully understand what was happening, but they sensed that it was something dangerous and frightening as they made the long journey of escape.

Becky grew up in Taiwan with two sisters and two brothers. All of them were studious and worked hard to earn the opportunity to travel to American universities to earn degrees in sciences, engineering, and computers. Eventually they became citizens and brought their parents to live with them. They emphasized hard work and academics with their children who grew up as peers of my own girls. In reality all of the kids thought of themselves as cousins and were as close as they might have been if their bloodlines had been from the same tree.

We found ways to get together as a family on birthdays, for Thanksgiving and at Christmas and Easter. We celebrated births and milestones, like graduations and marriages. They introduced us to the Chinese opera and dim sum. We sat around a hot pot and laughed and told stories while sharing feasts. We marveled at the many successes of the youngsters who grew up to become doctors, lawyers, teachers, nurses, business men and women. My grandchildren played with theirs and the extended family grew and grew.

My mother thought of Becky’s mother as her very best friend. The two of them often sat together smiling and holding hands. They accompanied my brother and Becky on trips all over the United States and never exchanged a cross word. Becky honored my mom as is customary in Asian culture, opening her heart and her home to Mama without reservation and with the deepest regard and respect. I often felt humbled by the love that Becky and her siblings gave so unconditionally to our clan, even when my mother’s bipolar disorder made her less than congenial.

We have all been blessed and enriched by our association with Becky. She has given us a great gift that has made us better than we might have been. She has quietly taught us how to embrace differences and the importance of allowing our adventurous spirits to soar freely. I suspect that if we were to be honest we would have to agree with my grandson that through our many interactions we have all become part Chinese. Our eyes have been opened to the wondrous history and contributions of the east where there was a highly advanced culture long before our western civilization began to form. We have learned just how much more beautiful life is when we see the world through the viewpoints of the people of many different nations and races. Becky was the catalyst for our transformation from the ordinary.

To this very day Becky is extraordinary. She looks like a gorgeous movie or rock star in her Facebook profile photo. She spent decades doing incredible things at NASA, contributing to the betterment of science and space exploration. She excels at virtually everything that she attempts. Most recently she has taken up painting and quilting with the most incredible results. I have to say that I have been somewhat in awe of her for most of my adult life, but now the two of us are able to just sit together quietly like her mother and my mother once did. We are bound by our roles as wives, mothers, grandmothers and sisters. Family has become our most important pursuit and we find ourselves quite happy that we are in the same one. I hope that just maybe Becky has enjoyed learning about us as much we have been about getting to know her. It has been remarkable experiencing our moments of east meeting west.

Finding Marion

Published on March 16, 2017March 12, 2017 by Sharron BurnettLeave a comment

shamrocks There is a theory that most people will be completely forgotten within three generations. After that time nobody still living will have heard the sound of their voices or felt the impact of their personalities. They may leave behind photographs or documents attesting to their presence on this earth but essentially they are defined not by memories but by images. Of course the modern era is rectifying this with digital footprints that might include recordings and moving pictures. Such used to be the purview of only the wealthy but now even common folk have access to technology. This is not the case for most of those who came before us and so they are slowly but surely being forgotten.

I have a great grandmother who is a mystery. I think that her name was Marion Rourke but of that I am not certain. She was the mother of my grandfather, William Mack Little. He told us that she died three days after he was born. There is no record of any of this. In spite of my relentless searches, Marion remains a cipher, as though she never even existed.

Of course there has to have been such a person because William was not just found in a cabbage patch. He had a father named James Mack who took him to live with a woman that he called his grandmother known as Sarah Reynolds. Sadly I have been unable to find any records for these individuals. They walked on this earth as though they were ghosts, phantoms of my grandfather’s imagination.

William never knew Marion but he thought enough of her to name his first born daughter after her. It was his touching way of honoring her. I suspect that he always wondered who Marion was and what she was like, just as I do. It saddens me to think that she died at what should have been one of the happiest moments of her life. She had a good strong son who would ironically live to be one hundred eight years old. He was a very kind and intelligent man who treated women with the highest regard. He no doubt would have been a dutiful son to the woman who brought him into the world.

Marion’s last name indicates a connection of some kind with Ireland. My grandfather always claimed to be half Scottish and half Irish and I have verified such roots with a DNA test that I once took. I wonder if she was born in the Emerald Isle or if she was a descendent of someone who originally came from there. She had a beautiful name and was someone’s daughter, but who might that have been? She was obviously quite poor according to what little my grandfather knew of her. He was her first child and I wonder what happened that made her so ill that she died.

When I had my first daughter my labor was long and hard. There were complications and my doctor later told me that in the old days I might have lost the baby or even died myself. I wonder if I somehow inherited the same genetic disposition for difficult birthing that Marion had. Do I have an idea of what she might have endured? Was she alone and frightened as things went awry? Did she realize that she would not live long enough to see her son grow into a man? Such thoughts haunt me as I attempt to remember her without any facts to steer me in the right direction.

I try not to forget Marion. Someone has to think of her. Each St. Patrick’s Day I celebrate the Irish in me and attempt to imagine my great grandmother. I cook corned beef and cabbage and celebrate my own life that would not exist were it not for the sacrifice of her own. I so want to know her and probably never really will.

My grandfather is not quite sure where he was born nor where he spent his childhood. It was somewhere in Virginia where he was able to see hills in the distance. By the age of thirteen he was orphaned again when his grandmother died and he became a ward of the state. He chose John Little as his guardian because he was an honorable man, a graduate of West Point. Grandpa took “Little” as his last name in honor of the individual who helped him to complete his journey into adulthood. Sadly John Little died of typhus when he was in his early thirties leaving my grandfather all alone again. Grandpa had to fight hard to find reasons to to stay alive, and somehow he always did. He had an optimism that was inspiring. I wonder if he inherited that trait from Marion? Would she have been proud to see him overcoming one challenge after another?

I feel a kinship with Marion both as a woman and as her great granddaughter. I know that she lives somewhere in me. I would love to know where she was born, what she did as a child, how she met James and where she was finally buried. It has been a kind of holy grail for me to find out who she really was and I am not yet ready to give up even though I have spent years searching for someone who seems not to have even existed. She deserves to be known and loved and treasured.

On St. Patrick’s Day I will once again prepare my traditional meal and think of her. It is possible that I will be the last person to do so. She will one day become forgotten just as the countless individuals who came before her. I am determined to tell her story even if I have to fill in the blanks to describe the details. I know from the scant information regarding her untimely death that she had been loved enough by James to bring forth a child and that hers was a difficult existence devoid of the medical help that might have insured her survival. I know that her son was a strong, bright and healthy man who would have been a joy to her. I know enough about genetics to realize that she must have been an intelligent woman. Her DNA has helped to produce some quite outstanding descendants.

Marion is a name said to have derived from the Hebrew “Miryam” which means “sea of sorrow.” I hope that this is not an accurate description of hurt and pain that my great grandmother may have endured. I would like to believe that she found peace and that somehow she knows how well things turned out for her son and his son and finally for me.

An Ode to Red

Published on March 14, 2017March 8, 2017 by Sharron BurnettLeave a comment

Sun-and-Clouds-Images-of-the-Kingdom-Dollarphotoclub Red was a beautiful girl, no doubt because of her striking ginger colored hair. She was always a lady who often loved to wander aimlessly for hours just enjoying the sights and sounds of the world around her. She was a very good friend, loyal beyond imagination and her gentleness was such that every member of my family loved her. When she was with me I felt special. She hung on my every word like nobody I had ever known. I was enchanted with her. Heck, even my neighbors got to know her and they too fell for her magnetic personality.

I remember a time when I was quite ill with the flu, dizzy from a high fever that seemed to be burning my very brain. Red sat right next to me all day long, keeping watch as I went in and out of sleep. It was comforting to see her there attempting to conceal her worry with a weak smile. Somehow I felt that her vigilance was more than enough to pull me through. She was like that, ever faithful and devoted.

On another occasion Red lost one of her long time friends. Her grief was so all consuming that she could barely eat. She moped listlessly for weeks and all I could do to comfort her was to hug her and assure her that everything would eventually be okay. It pained me to see her hurting but it also convinced me that she was quite special and that her feelings were incredibly selfless and real.

Red loved my two girls. She was as protective of them as I was but she also loved to frolic with them, disregarding all notions of dignified behavior. She rolled and wrestled with them on the floor causing them to laugh with unabashed glee. She raced them through the yard and played catch anytime that they wished. She was totally at their beck and call and when they had bored of playing with her she would smooth her hair and revert to the magnificently genteel ladylike behavior that so defined her and sit quietly listening to my rambling conversations.

Still there were aspects of Red that seemed almost contradictory to the cultured image that she generally portrayed. She was always up for a swim and she could hunt with the best of them. It seemed to be part of her DNA to be swift of foot and unusually alert to the comings and goings of nature’s creatures.

As Red got older her scarlet colored hair became more and more tinged with white. She moved slowly and the old energy that had always marked her spirit had faded. Arthritis plagued her joints and I suspected that her hearing was going away rather rapidly. It saddened me to see her in such a state but she continued to attempt to be her old self. Most of the time though she was just too weary to run or play with children as she once did and sadly she often drifted off into an old person’s kind of sleep even in the middle of the day.

It was only when my daughter Catherine brought a child named Maggie to visit that Red found some of her old verve. She was captivated by the little one and seemed intent on forcing herself to rollick as she might have done when she was so magnificent. Maggie didn’t realize that Red was struggling to keep up with her. She only felt the gentle love that Red always exuded and she delighted in the attention from her new older friend.

One day I learned that Red had cancer that was incurable. I was devastated and filled with emotions and memories of all of the good times that we had shared. Our whole family was engulfed in sadness as we so helplessly watched her grow weaker and weaker. It embarrassed her to be in such a state. She didn’t want us to see her like that but I was determined to be there for her just as she had always been for me.

I was with her on her final night. I held her has she moaned in pain and her breathing became more and more shallow. Now and again I grew so tired that I momentarily fell asleep. If my arms slipped from embracing her, she would begin to cry and that frightened and plaintive sound awakened me to take proper watch once again. At some point during that long and horrific night I fell into a deep exhausted slumber. When I awoke Red was perfectly still. Her chest no longer rose and fell. The color was gone from her face. She had died.

I sobbed uncontrollably as I realized that I would never again have those wonderful moments of unconditional trust and love that I had shared with Red for so long. As I gave the terrible news to each member of my family they in turn were devastated. It is never easy to lose such a great companion. Our grief would hang over the household for weeks.

At Christmastime that year I threw my emotions into decorating my home and preparing for the annual celebrations but I was still thinking of Red. Catherine was there with Maggie helping me to complete the chore of trimming the tree that had always been such a delight but was difficult that year because of Red’s passing. As we placed one ornament after another on the branches Catherine came across a trinket that she had made as a child. It was created from an old Christmas card and it featured a lovely photograph of Red back in the days when she was still vibrant and beautiful. Catherine burst into tears as she clutched the worn and tattered memento. When she held it up for me to see, I too lost my composure and cried. The two of us released the pain that we had been trying so fruitlessly to conceal while little Maggie looked on in wonder.

Our hearts eventually healed but we never forget how much Red had meant to us. I still gently place the old paper ornament with her picture on my Christmas tree each year and I remember what a great lady she truly was. Red was as fine a pet as any family ever had. She was a sweet golden retriever who was our friend, our protector, our playmate and a member of our family. She was a wonderful dog.

A Good Ole Gal

Published on February 27, 2017February 26, 2017 by Sharron BurnettLeave a comment

buffalobayousunrise Houston is a good ole gal with a heart of gold. She’s a hard worker who doesn’t mind getting dirt under her nails but she also has an inventive mind. She’s had some crazy ideas that actually worked, like building a channel from the Gulf of Mexico to her landlocked home creating one of the busiest ports in the world. She got it in her head to establish a university that would rival Harvard, a medical center that would attract the best doctors in the country and a space center that would explore the universe. Her ideas came to fruition even as her critics laughed at her. She is fearless, unafraid to risk everything. She is exciting.

Houston is a chameleon. Sometimes she appears to be very plain, maybe even a bit homely, but then she flashes her brilliant eyes and suddenly becomes quite beautiful. Perhaps it is her undaunted spirit that makes her so attractive or maybe it is her generosity. She provides opportunity and security to anyone willing to work with her. She offers a shoulder to lean on when times get tough. She will be there to help after storms devastate or tragedy steals joy. She is ever faithful, always willing to lend a hand. She welcomes strangers and provides succor to her ever growing family.

She angers us with her unpredictable moods. It’s difficult to know what to expect from her from one day to the next. She may cry enough tears to fill our streets and our homes and then respond with a smile of brilliant blue skies and sunshine. She wears her lovely bayous like silky ribbons in her hair and then strangles us with their fury. She bears down on us with her fiery heat and just when we think that she is unbearable she brings us a day so lovely that we fall in love with her all over again.

Houston has many faces. She is a wealthy patrician with deep roots in her aristocratic heritage and a newcomer with dark eyes and brown cheeks filled with hope and optimism. She loves the rodeo and the opera, a honky tonk bar and a symphony hall. She likes ballgames and art museums, fast food and fine dining. She’s quite accommodating which is perhaps her most enticing quality. She wants to please and works hard at making everyone happy. She is the quintessential hostess.

Houston is always so busy, sometimes to her own detriment. She invites everyone to her party but doesn’t plan for all of the traffic and commotion. She seems unaware of how aggravating her haphazard tendencies can be. We wonder how someone so bright can also be so clueless. She is wild and unfettered, tendencies that we both enjoy and loathe. She is a whirlwind, a tornado, a contradiction.

Houston is a conundrum to those who do not really know her. They can’t imagine what her appeal might be. She seems simple and unattractive to the unschooled. She is a mystery that confounds reason. Her detractors wonder why any of us give our hearts to her. She seems so unworthy of our affection and yet we feel an unflinching loyalty to her. We love her even though we are sometimes hard pressed to explain why. Our feelings for her are among the grandest mysteries of life.

We sometimes consider leaving Houston and her irritating ways. We may even temporarily act on our emotions and take a break from her, seeking another to satisfy our needs. Somehow we find ourselves thinking of her in our absence. We actually miss her with all of her quirks and idiosyncrasies. We recall her openness and uncomplicated ways. We remember all of the culinary feasts that she provided us. We call to mind how unselfish she generally was to us. She was there when we needed her most with offers of education, work, and solace. We enjoyed her welcoming nature and her willingness to accept us just the way we were. She never put on airs nor did she expect us to do so. She worked her way into our very souls and no matter how far away we have travelled we find ourselves wanting to see her again, to be with her. She has a power over us that we somehow can’t escape and so we return, lingering near her and feeling the calm that being with her seems to revive in our souls.

Houston is a good ole gal, the salt of the earth, the joy of our lives. We love her and always will.