All It Takes Is A Little Love

There is nothing like a random journey, those times when you just drive around seeing whatever comes into view. We experienced one of those the other day and it was glorious. It began in a very banal way when we drove over to Alvin, Texas to meet up with a young man who repairs window screens. We had two badly damaged screens and were struggling to find replacements when a guy at our local Ace Hardware store told us about Tanner who specializes in exactly the kind of repair that we need. So early a few mornings ago we set off in search of the help that we needed. 

We ended up at another Ace Hardware store in the middle of the Alvin, Texas business district. Alvin is a small town just outside of Houston which was made famous as the birthplace of Nolan Ryan. It was once a sleepy little place until the encroachment of the Houston metropolitan area made it more of a suburb of the fourth largest city than a municipality in its own right. While it still has the feel of a small town there are signs of incredible growth that include new neighborhoods and a Town Center that is slated to bring stores, restaurants and medical facilities to the area. For the moment though, the central business district is still quaint and home town friendly. 

Tanner was quite busy as it seems tha thet word is out regarding his skill with window screens but he promised to repair ours at one fourth of the price of purchasing brand new ones. He told us that he would call us when he had completed the job which he believed would be only a matter of hours so we decided just to enjoy the sunny day with an aimless excursion.

We stopped for lunch at a Kelly’s Country Cooking restaurant that offered daily specials for lunch that included one entree and three sides for around ten dollars. The place was packed with mostly older people and the waitress was like a character out of central casting with her uniform and references to my husband and I as “honey” and “sweetheart.” She nodded and smiled when we chose the chicken fried chicken breast and the chicken fried steak.

The food was exceptional, as was the service. It all tasted like the kind of meal that my grandmother might have cooked back in the long ago. The portions were twice as large as either of us were able to consume. We were stunned when the waitress told us that she had given us the “senior” helpings that were not as large as the regular fare. We left with two take out boxes filled with enough leftovers to feed both of us and my father-in-law for dinner that night. Then we headed out in search of the apartment where we had lived before purchasing our first home. It had been located in Pasadena, Texas, another town adjacent to Houston. At the time it was brand new and even had that never been used before smell that comes from paint and virgin carpet. We were excited by it’s size and the layout of the rooms. It felt luxurious with its swimming pool, game room, huge laundry rooms and garden areas. 

After driving all over a very different Pasadena than we remembered we found our place which had not worn the fifty years since we had lived there very well. It was only half the size it once was and luxurious would have been the last work anyone would use to describe it now, Nonetheless I smiled at the memories of our time there when I met incredibly interesting, wise and strong women like Debbie, and Rosie and Diane who taught me so much about people and life. I came into my own as a person under their tutelage and as I looked at the remnants of that once grand place I could almost hear and see all of us sitting in the courtyard watching our children play while we talked and laughed and learned from each other. 

I remembered where my eldest daughter first took dance lessons in one of the buildings of what was then one of the largest Episcopal churches in Pasadena. The buildings are still there but they now belong to a non-denominational church with a name written in Spanish. Not far away are the boarded up remains of what was once a mall where I spent many a time shopping for Christmas gifts and just browsing with my friend, Pat. 

So much had changed that my husband and I both lost our bearings a few times. Only the street names seemed to have remained the same but there was still a new kind of vibrance with stores and eateries in strip malls up and down the roads. Both of us spoke with so much joy about how wonderful our time had been there and the memories that came spilling out of our conversation.

Since we still had not heard from Tanner that our screens were ready for pickup we decided to journey to the first home that we purchased after we moved from the Pasadena apartment. It was located within walking distance of Hobby Airport and we so loved it there that we literally raised both of our girls inside those walls, not finally leaving until we had spent over thirty years there. It was exciting to see that our home not only looked wonderful but it was apparent that the owners had taken care to make it even better. They had added more rooms, replaced the old windows, installed a wooden fence where the chain link one had once been. 

The trees that we had planted were now fully grown and well trimmed. Near the front door there was a sign announcing that a St. Thomas High School student live there which warmed my husband’s heart because he was a graduate of that school and had always maintained that if our children had been sons we would have sent them to the all boys school that dates back over a hundred years. 

Again we thought of how incredibly happy we had been in that house that my friends Linda had told us about when we were looking for a place to live. The names of the people that we loved rolled off of our tongues. We thought of Carol and Bob and their five sons, Betty and Dave with their beautifully blended family, Traci and the Washburn family, Lynn and Missy and so many others who had enchanted our lives with incredible friendships and so much joy. 

Perhaps it was because the sun was shining or maybe it was the fullness in our bellies but we both felt recharged by our little journey and the memories we had recalled that were filled with people who had been so important in our years of becoming. When the call came from Tanner that our screens were ready we zipped over to Alvin with smiles seemingly tattooed across our faces. Sometimes it’s good to make a return to the past to be reminded of our good fortune. It was certainly one of those days for us and as ordinary as it may seem, it was glorious.    

I have searched everywhere for a photograph of my great grandfather, John William Seth Smith. He served in the Union Army during the Civil War so I expected to find at least one picture of him somewhere. I have seen images of his wife and many of his children, but nobody appears to have a single picture of him and I can’t really say why. Perhaps he was simply one of those souls who avoided cameras or maybe nobody ever bothered to take his picture. Not a soul in the family ancestry group seems to know why there is nothing to show how he looked. 

It’s interesting to me how much photography has impacted the world today. Even the most ordinary among us snaps photos with our phones to record our milestones and celebrations. We take pictures of our families, our friends, our pets, the places we have been. There is so much visual representation of the world around us documenting our time on this earth. That fact makes me wonder about the vast majority of the people who once inhabited this earth who will forever remain faceless to us. In fact, most of their stories will never be known. We can only intuit what life may have been like for them based on general knowledge of historical periods.

I remember taking an educational psychology class in preparation for becoming a teacher. The professor pointed out that never in all of time had humans been as focused on children as we have been since the twentieth century. For much of history the odds of a child surviving to adulthood were quite small. Women may have had countless babies but few of them lived past their childhoods. Some died within days or weeks of being born. Because of that reality people understood just how frail their grasp on living actually was. Their daily struggles just to stay alive bore down on them. They no doubt never imagined the plenty that most of us now enjoy. 

Our times are luxurious compared to what our many ancestors experienced.  At least here in the United States we have access to medical care unimagined in the past. Women are more likely to have proper pre-natal care  They have the ability to plan their families. Once babies are born they generally make regular visits to pediatricians to insure that they are meeting their milestones properly. Clean water is taken for granted. Educational opportunities are free. Ours is a world that did not even exist for kings or lords in times past. Certainly nobody back then even imagined many of our modern conveniences that we now demand as our right.

I find out how my family and friends are doing from day to day with my phone that has more computing power than the room full of machines used to monitor the journey to the moon. I can talk with a friend in India and call for help if I have a flat tire. I am able to instantly memorialize any occasion with a few commands from my fingers. I see people traveling to the ends of the earth within minutes of their posts. Artificial intelligence even creates images of how famous historical figures might appear in today’s modern world. 

I’ve been sitting with my daughter’s dogs while she is on a trip. She sends reminders to me and checks to see how we are all doing. I entertain myself with my laptop and games on my phone while the puppies sleep peacefully around me. It’s all rather amazing when we stop to think about it, but all too often we simply take such things for granted.

I hear a great deal of grumbling about how hard the times are and I hark back to stories I have heard about my great grandfather. I have official paperwork from his wife, my great  grandmother, describing how his health was affected from serving in a terrible war. He along with so many others endured terrible conditions that affected them for the remainder of their lives. Even after the war life was difficult for my great grandfather. He had many children to feed with few resources to help. There was no doubt little time for frivolities like sitting for photographs. Life was serious business. 

I think that instead of complaining about what we seem to think that we don’t have we would all do well to take note of our many many blessings. Lately whenever I get grumpy or feel sorry for myself I remember that I am not in a war torn country. Neither do I live in poverty or want. My address is not in the middle of a medical desert. I can find a doctor within minutes not far from my home. The stores around me are filled with delights and people buying them. I know that not everyone in the world has such good fortune. In fact there is great suffering that we all too often do not wish to see or discuss. 

I wish that we were all more amenable to sharing our wealth without deriding such an idea by insinuating that all instances of collective cooperation are some terrible form of communism. There is such a thing as conflating virtue with taking care of our fellow humans. There no doubt is more that many of us might do to spread comfort and joy to those in need and it should not only happen at Christmas time. Our pictures of celebration should also include many random acts of kindness that become as much a part of our natures as posting photos of our adventures. A little bit of generosity multiplied billions of times over can make a huge difference.

My goal is to become more like a friend who has dedicated much of her life to traveling to Africa whenever possible to help build schools and hospitals. She uses her teaching talents to educate people and show them how to transform their lives. She has adopted entire families, sending them gifts of understanding and sharing of her largess. I think of how much better the entire world would be if we all attempted to be more like her, one kind act at a time, each and every single day. Think of the many faceless people we would begin to see. We have the power and the means to change the face of the earth.  

I have bad bones. I suspect that I was born with DNA that has led me to the disturbing reality of having osteoporosis. Three of my aunts had it. My paternal grandmother had it and some of my female cousins are afflicted as well. A doctor first diagnosed me when I was in my forties, but I suspected that such was the case far sooner. I watched my mother’s three sisters becoming increasingly crippled by the disease and I noticed similarities between me and them. Hearing the words from my doctor was devastating.

I was once one of the tall girls in high school at five feet six and one half inches. I took pride in having a long waist and strong legs. I did not even notice that I was shrinking until my clothes began to fit differently. The first time a technician measured me as part of a bone scan I broke down into tears when she told me that I was only five feet four inches tall. I asked her to check her measurements again but the results were the same. I was not surprised at all when the scan showed that I had osteoporosis. 

I initially panicked and went into a funk. I am an energetic person to the max. I like to hike in the mountains and work all day without stopping. Knowing that my three aunts all ended up in wheelchairs inside nursing homes made me shudder. I began to imagine a greatly constricted life that was so contrary to the way that I like to be. I eagerly embraced exercises and medications designed to keep me walking as long as possible. I endured a two year experience of injecting myself with Forteo every single day for hoping to build new bone in my skeletal structure. Luckily I did not have any of the side effects that lead to having to stop the process. 

The Forteo did in fact work for me. For the first time in years I was no longer classified as having osteoporosis. I was ecstatic but only a year later I had lost much of the progress that the drug had made. Once again I became incredibly defeated. I felt the clock ticking until the time when I would no longer be able to perform all of the tasks that I so loved doing. I sobbed like a baby in the presence of my doctor who assured me that times were changing and new research was providing answers and therapies to keep those with my disease upright and moving around. He put me on a regimen of Prolia injections twice a year. I visit an infusion center to get the medication and so far it has stalled the progression of bone loss in my skeletal structure. This has been a big win for me. 

I suppose that I began to take it for granted that I am going to be okay and that I can do anything that I want to do. I ignored suggestions from my family that I should not be climbing in and out of my attic to procure decorations for holidays. I ignored pleas that I no longer climb ladders. I have been determined to stay strong and keep demonstrating my high energy demands even as I began to notice that my aches and pains were increasing. I learned to ignore the twinges in my hips and knees and shoulders that urged me to rest a bit more. There are always so many chores to do, so much to accomplish. I carried on with a dose or two of Advil. I was not going to let osteoporosis win the battle for my freedom to move around. 

Then it happened. I was decorating for Christmas and I banged my ankle into the hard edge of a table. An hour or so later I was unable to put any weight on my foot. For the first time in my entire life I had to visit an emergency room. I felt stupid and uncomfortable there. I kept telling the nurses and doctors that I am a strong person who knows how to ignore pain. I did not want to be treated like an elderly invalid. I needed to get better and get back to work. Only that is not what has happened. 

Nothing was broken but I was quite banged up. My entire foot and much of my lower leg was so bruised that it looked as though someone had beaten me with a baseball bat. I was only able to walk if I wrapped the foot in an ace bandage and wore an orthopedic boot. I spent a day in bed with my foot elevated. I kept an ice bag nearby to limit the swelling. Things seemed to be doing well so with the aid of the boot and some Advil I went back to all the activities associated with my teaching and my preparations for Christmas. I even spent a day shopping for gifts. By the end of the week I was in intense pain and unable to walk comfortably so it was back to a day in bed again. 

My anxiety and depression returned as I read posts from friends who were baking cookies and preparing for Christmas with same kind of abandon that I always put into the effort. My daughter sent my grandson to help me and then suggested that I scale back my Christmas dinner this year. I began to imagine myself sitting alone in a wheelchair inside a nursing home once again. I held a bonafide pity party for myself as I wondered what I was going to do if I was no longer able to climb the stairs in my home. My father-in-law now resides in the downstairs master bedroom and I worried that I would have to sleep on on couch if I became limited in my mobility. I lay awake for several nights overthinking the entire situation when all I actually had to do is admit that it was okay to slow down and not be so intent on aiming for perfection in all that I do. 

I am still walking with my boot. I don’t know how long I will have to wear it but I do know that I have to be circumspect in how much I do each day until my injury is adequately healed. Dust is settling on my furniture and my home no longer looks like something out of a magazine. I am trying not to think too far ahead because none of us can know exactly what the future holds for us. Learning to just enjoy the moment without all the frills is a new challenge for me. Letting others help me instead of always being the helper is an uncomfortable role that I am doing my best to learn how to do. Accepting my current limitations and finding joy in what seems like chaos to me is my new goal. This old perfectionist is learning new tricks. Maybe it won’t be so bad but my learning curve is going to be quite steep. 

My Grandma Minnie Bell was a pioneer woman. She was the kind of person you would want to have around if you suddenly had to survive off the grid and on the land. She was a tiny woman at about four foot eight inches tall who never weighed more than eighty pounds, but she had the strength of a highly trained warrior. She handled large animals as though they were toy poodles. Her knowledge of plants, animals and survival skills was uncanny given that she was unable to read or write. She was composting and recycling long before it was popular to do such things to save the planet. She carried an encyclopedia of nature and botany in her head. 

I always loved Granda Minnie Bell because she was a gentle soul who appreciated everything about the world and its people. She and my mother both taught me the importance of honoring every person that I would ever encounter. Those two ladies regarded even the humblest soul as a person equal to kings or presidents. They often reminded me to look for beauty where there sometimes appeared to be only ugliness. 

I suppose that those two incredible women gave me an incalcuably valuable gift when they demonstrated by their own behavior how to genuinely respect all of the people I would ever encounter. Somehow they looked beyond superficiality to find the character of the souls who share this earth with us. Those two women seemed to be filled with boundless and unconditional love. 

Once my grandmother took me to visit one of her neighbors in the hills of Arkansas. I suppose she realized that I might be stunned by the visible poverty of the woman who had invited us to her home, so she prepared me by describing the lady as someone that she greatly admired. Grandma insisted that I remember to show the utmost respect for her friend. 

I understood why Grandma had prepared me as soon as we turned down a drive leading to the woman’s home. It was a dreary place in need of paint and repair. It looked as though the people who lived there had abandoned all hope. Nonetheless children ran happily in the yard laughing and seeming not to be aware of their dire circumstances. 

The house was so tiny that it seemed hardly sufficient for one person much less a big brood, but it was tidy inside and filled with the aroma of a pine based cleaner. The woman greeted us with a beautiful smile and a sense of excitement on having guests. She wore a threadbare dress that had once been lovely but now showed signs of age. Still she was neat and beautiful even though the years of want had aged her more than might otherwise have been the case. Her hands were raw and calloused from hard work but her eyes were still bright even as they showed the worry that stalked her as she attempted to keep her household running and her children fed. 

She gave us glasses of room temperature water, serving them as though she was offering a fine expensive wine. She sat primly across from us chattering gaily with my grandmother. The two ladies exchanged news and stories like two school girls. I learned that the woman’s older sons were serving in the army. She proudly boasted that they wrote her letters every week and now and then sent her money to help with the rest of the family. She thanked Grandma for the canned vegetables and fruits that had been a big hit at family dinners. She seemed so happy to be pausing from her chores to entertain us. I saw how right my grandmother was to hold the woman in high esteem. 

So too it was with my mother who seemed to find something quite wonderful about every person she encountered. Like Grandma Minnie Bell my mama looked past all of the artificial ways that we often use to evaluate the worth of a person. She was unimpressed with material achievements. She would expound on how important each of us is in the grand scheme of the world. 

I spent most of my years in education working in schools with the children of immigrant parents who often spoke no English and had little formal education. Some of those parents had to work sixteen hours a day. Their jobs were those that require stamina. They did those things for their children. They wanted their sons and daughters to one day enjoy what they saw as the American Dream. I valued those wonderful men and women for their love of family and their willingness to do the kinds of jobs that few of us would want to do. I saw beyond their poverty and lack of formal learning. I often told their children how fortunate they were to have such wonderful parents. I sincerely valued and respected them just as my grandmother and mother would have wanted me to do.

Sometimes the most industrious and determined people are almost invisible to us. They toil each day without much notice. They are the people who clean and dig and gather the refuse that we blithely throw away. The tend to be nameless and faceless to us but without them our world would be chaotic. They are the women who sweep the floors and clean off the tables in our favorite restaurants. They are the young men who take extra care to bag our groceries. They are the cashiers who politely listen to harangues from unhappy customers, the men digging trenches to drain our streets. They are incredible people. See them. Smile at them. Thank them. Respect them. Grandma Minnie Bell and my Mama would also tell you to honor them.

It was not that long ago in our nation’s history that rooming houses were part  of the national landscape. These were places where individuals or couples might rent a room in a house for an indefinite amount of time and pay by the week for the privilege of having a place to stay that was furnished with a bed and linens. My grandfather came to the United States from Austria-Hungary in 1912 by way of Galveston, Texas. He immediately found his way to Houston where records indicate that he stayed in a rooming house on Crawford Street near what is now Minute Maid Park, home of the Astros baseball team. 

My paternal grandfather often spoke of moving around the country in the same era to find work. More often than not he stayed in boarding houses where he paid for a single room and shared bathroom facilities with others like himself who lived there temporarily. In fact, he met my grandmother in such a place in Oklahoma. She was a widow at the time and supported herself and her daughter by cooking for the residents who found shelter there. Her pay was meager but it included a safe place for her to live with her child.

My mother and father rented a room from one of the professors at Texas A&M College back in the nineteen forties just after they were married. Mama often spoke of how wonderful it was to have a place to stay with a nice family. Since the room was upstairs she and my father had to be inside by a certain hour at night or they would be locked out. They noticed a tree next to the window in their quarters and learned how to climb up its limbs to get inside whenever they were too late to use the front door entrance. 

Homes such as those my grandfathers and parents used for housing were quite commonplace across America at one time. They not only provided an inexpensive place to stay for those with limited incomes, but also gave the owners extra funds from the renting of rooms that they did not use. In fact, my paternal grandfather spent the last years of his life renting a space from a widow who found a way to stretch her budget by providing a space to sleep to him and to one of her sisters. The three of them lived quite happily together, sharing chores and paying the household bills for a monthly price that allowed them to still have personal spending money from their social security checks. 

Recently Houston, Texas has been featured in articles in The New York Times for its efforts in reducing homelessness in the city. The drive to help individuals without the means for either purchasing or renting a house began in City Hall at the beginning of the twenty first century. Since that time local officials and charitable groups have reduced the city’s homeless population by sixty percent. One of their tactics has been providing low cost places to stay. Rooming houses have been a significant help.

A developer from Atlanta came up with the idea of resurrecting the old practice of using a single family home as a place to board many people. The houses are redesigned to provide furnished bedrooms for multiple people who share bathrooms and kitchens. The cost is far less than inexpensive hotels and rent is collected by the week. Even those with extremely low incomes are generally able to pay for a room with a heavy door that can be locked for privacy. Such places are chosen in areas where there is also mass transportation so that residents will be able to get to jobs and medical care that social workers help them to find.  

I wonder why the concept of boarding houses went away. I suspect that there has always been a need for them but somehow they went into disfavor. Instead short term hotels sprang up to fill the void. Unfortunately the cost of such places was generally more expensive than those most in need of a place to stay were able to afford. I find it heartening to know that there are good people who are working to assure that the homeless have a place to stay other than outdoors under a bridge. 

In this most holy season when we recall the birth of Jesus, we should remember his parents searching for a place to stay when Mary’s pregnancy was coming to term. The young couple was turned away form many inns before someone offered them shelter in a manger with the animals. It was there that Jesus was born. I suspect that the compassion for all of humanity that Jesus taught us to have began with his own humble beginnings. He was not a king or a rich man. He was not even as well off as many of us are today. He wanted us to understand the worth of every person on this earth, regardless of circumstances. 

Today we would do well to see the homeless people in our midst as our brothers and sisters rather than nuisances. We might join in the efforts of helping them to find decent places to live rather than looking away when we see them. I admire the city of Houston for making the care of the homeless a priority. I hope they continue to be a model for the nation. There is still much to be done, but having a safe place to sleep at night is a great beginning for those who can’t afford a place to call home.