All It Takes Is A Little Love

I recently served as a substitute Bunco player with a group of ladies who’ve been enjoying a monthly reunion for over twenty years. They were a friendly and lively bunch who had quite obviously become quite close through their tradition of sharing their homes to host dinner, drinks and gaming twelve times a year. They were particularly excited because the pandemic had halted their get togethers but this year they had managed to meet with regularity. 

They spoke of watching their children grow into adulthood over the span of time that had united them. They shared stories of teachers, sporting events, churches that they had mutually attended from the time that they were young mothers leaning on one another for advice and support. They were a happy and friendly bunch who warmly welcomed me to their circle if only for that one night. 

I realized as I listened to their chatter and laughter how much I had missed such gatherings during the past couple of years. I also felt a bit out of step, unaccustomed to being around so many people at once. I had somehow lost my ability to be relaxed in a crowd. It felt as though I had been in a long slumber like Rip Van Winkle and I had awoken to find that I was struggling to resume my former enthusiastic and energetic interaction with the world outside my home. 

I mentioned to the ladies that I had somehow lost track of time and found myself constantly having to refer to my calendar and my reminders to keep up with the rush that is resuming in my life. I had slowed myself to days, then weeks, then months of journeying from room to room in my home without the least bit of urgency to follow any kind of routine. In the process I had grown to enjoy the solitude, especially on days when the weather turned cold and rainy. I began to prefer the lifestyle imposed on me by the virus and my own sense of caution. 

I opened a big discussion with my observation. Each of the women admitted that they had lost all sense of time and place and were still struggling to return to a way of life that they had hitherto taken for granted. Part of them longed for the old days and part of them enjoyed the slower pace and the quiet that the pandemic had granted them. They had adjusted their lives to a new way of doing things. 

I have always liked the colder weather of winter and even the days when rain chills my bones and makes me think of warm cocoa, a comfy chair and a good book. Those are the times when I did not want to have anything to do on my schedule. I gloried in being able to stay at home back in the days when I was mostly rushing from one place to another, one task to another, but most times I did not have the luxury of halting the demands on my time. Then came the pandemic that changed everything. Slowing down so dramatically during the past many months has made me more inclined to cancel an appointment when the weather or my mood yearns to simply enjoy the quiet sound of rain falling outside my windows. 

Even my students and their parents trend toward more a more leisurely way of enjoying life. They are more likely to cancel a lesson if they feel a bit under the weather than they once were. If they are overwhelmed by commitments they back away from rushing to meet every demand. It is as though all of us are reassessing what is important and how we want to proceed forward with our lives. Old habits are being called into question as we put our routines back together and decide what we really want to do. 

I learned from the ladies at the Bunco party that everyone’s life has changed in some very dramatic way. Each of us had spent time assessing our values and determining how we wish to proceed. Most of us have chosen a slower pace, a desire to devote ourselves to enjoying small things, the favorite things, rather than attempting to do everything. Some of the women are exercising more. Others are traveling. They are leaving jobs that make them unhappy for those that give them a sense of joy and purpose. They are scaling back, taking time to sit with a warm cup of tea and just relax on a cold rainy day. 

I enjoyed the Bunco party even though I was a bit anxious about being with strangers and wondering if I still have a knack for chatting. I found that listening was much better than talking. It was quite enjoyable to learn how people that I only met for that one night were coping with the craziness of the world. There were many commonalities among us even as we were also so very different. 

I am glad I had the opportunity to meet them but now I plan to hunker down for a couple of days as a cold front with rain is coming my way. I want to balance my interactions with quiet and serenity. There’s another party in a couple of days and I am not yet back in my old form. I’m not so sure that I can handle so much gaiety without balancing it with alone time. 

I sometimes wonder if those of us who have traveled together alone will ever re-adjust to the old ways of living. I know that I missed my busy schedule when it first became interrupted. Now I find myself questioning why I ever rushed so hectically from one hour to another. I hardly ever stopped long enough to really enjoy what I was doing. For years many of my dearest friends and relatives have cautioned me to slow my pace, allow myself time to just relax. I always protested that I did not know how to do such thing, but now I do and it is gloriously freeing. I have learned how to come inside from the rain without feeling guilty and I like it.

Most of us will begin decorating, shopping and planning for Christmas in the coming days if we have not already done so. I’ve begun many of my preparations by visiting the stories while there is still lots of inventory from which to choose. I’ve noticed that the Grinch is particularly popular this year. He’s always been part of our yuletide celebrating because somehow my family has great fondness for him.

It began when my husband and I were children and we watched the Dr. Seuss cartoon on television with Boris Karloff narrating the tale. As children we learned how to sing “You’re a Mean One, Mr. Grinch.” The words of that song were pure genius and we laugh at them to this very day. In honor of those beloved memories my husband wears a really ugly Grinch t-shirt every Christmas day and we scatter Grinch memorabilia around the house with our other decorations. 

While we laugh at the Grinch we often obscure the profound meaning of his story with our focus on his Scrooge-like ways. In truth he was a tortured soul, isolated from the rest of society by prejudice and misunderstanding. He was a foundling initially loved by two women who saw his goodness in spite of how different he was. At school, however, he was bullied and often shunned. His attempts to be part of the group went unanswered, angry and frustrated he moved as far away from the town and its people as possible. His only companion was his faithful dog. There his feelings of hurt and anger grew and grew until one Christmas he focused on seeking revenge by stealing the trappings of Christmas that seemed to be so all important to the townspeople.

Of course we all know the story of the Grinch stealing presents and stockings and even the roast beast for the Christmas feast. He was about to push the sleigh loaded with all of the holiday cheer over a precipice when he heard the people of the village below singing happily even without their worldly goods. It was then that he realized that sweet little Cindy Lou was atop the sleigh and in danger of falling onto the rocks below. His heart swelled and he saved her and all of the presents just in the knick of time. He became a changed man. 

We rarely pay enough attention to the Grinch’s reconciliation with himself and the people of the town. He found the goodness that had always been in his heart and that goodness overcame his anger from being shunned by many of the people in the village. At the same time, Cindy Lou taught everyone the meaning of unconditional love. It is a true Christmas story as earnest as It’s A Wonderful Life. 

In truth we have many Grinches living among us who have become that way because they were deemed to be different or unsavory or unworthy by the societies in which they live. Being treated with disdain over and over again tears down the soul. Over time it sometime leads to seething anger and maybe even crime. Being an outcast is difficult and rarely leads to good outcomes. Peace only comes from everyone setting aside their preconceived notions about each other and demonstrating kindness and understanding.

The Christmas story is all about love. A baby was born in a manger and that baby would grow up to be Jesus. His message remained the same throughout his very short lifetime on this earth. He embraced outcasts, cured the sick, bent rules to perform miracles. He loved children and women and even prodigal sons. He told us to love each other the same way we love ourselves. He would have loved the Grinch and would have urged us to do so as well. 

The Christmas story is about forgiveness. We know that eventually Jesus would die on a cross like a common criminal. He would remind us as he was dying that he was willing to forgive those who tortured him. We too have to power to renew our determination to be our better selves. All we need do is sincerely have contrition for our sins. We in turn must be willing to forgive others.

The Christmas story is told in so many different ways but its message is universal. Our task is to be good to one another, even the least among us that we sometimes do not understand. The story of the Grinch is a parable. With humor and rhyme and song it reminds us that during the holiday season there is nothing more important than embracing our fellow humans no matter how they look, or speak or believe. 

Love was born at Christmas time. Spread good cheer wherever you go. Welcome all. Watch your heart grow. Be the Grinch!

My mother was a wonderful cook and she did her best to create healthy and delicious meals that included a variety of recipes, but with her rather meager food budget our favorites tended to come back around with great regularity. She wasn’t as tied to repetitive meals as some of my other relatives. I have one cousin who swears that on Sunday his family had roast, on Monday it was stew, on Tuesday hotdogs, on Wednesday fried chicken, on Thursday soup, on Friday fish and on Saturday hamburgers without fail. He didn’t seem to mind the routine at all. In fact, he notes that he always knew what meal was ahead and he enjoyed the dishes that his mom chose to present on the table. 

For many years Sunday meant having dinner with my grandparents and there was no telling what my grandmother might have in store for us, but the meal would always be fabulous. It really was the best day of the week, not just for the food but for hearing the stories of long ago time from both of my grandparents. Grandma might have chicken or ham or roast or pork chops but her most delectable delights were her vegetables. She’d cook creamed corn, okra, potatoes, green beans, peas, squash, tomatoes, broccoli. The table would be lined with her dishes that somehow seemed to come from a five star restaurant. Everything was made fresh. Nothing ever came from a can. Much of what we ate grew in her backyard. She’d pair biscuits and corn bread with freshly churned butter and jam that she made from berries. Our favorite was dessert that might be strawberry shortcake filled with freshly whipped cream or one of her famous pies with crust so light that it flaked on the fork. 

On Mondays there was no telling what our mother would create. She often made the meal a bit lighter since we had eaten so much on Sunday. This was a day for her soups and stews and hash or maybe a big bowl of beans with a side of cornbread.

By Tuesday she was ready to venture into a lovely meal with chicken made a number of different and delightful ways. She was masterful at taking a canned vegetable and turning it into a gourmet wonder. There were rarely leftovers from one of her meals unless she decided that it was time for beef liver and onions.

Wednesdays might be anything from pizza to her famous secret special hotdog recipe which is still a carefully guarded family favorite. She also had a way of making beanie weenies seem like food fit for a king. Her chili was scrumptious just like everything that she made.

On Thursdays she often went all out because she knew that our meatless Catholic Fridays were coming. She created heaven with a round steak or a pot roast. She liked to make interesting salads long before most people thought of such things. I loved her coleslaw or carrot salad. Her vegetables were almost as good as Grandma’s but her mashed potatoes were prizewinning. 

Fridays might have been a bust because of our prohibition of meat, but my mother’s tuna salad has never been recreated by anyone. It was so good that we actually looked forward to it. She also created homemade pimento cheese that was legendary even among my friends. They speak of it in awe to this very day. Once in awhile we had fried fish and if Mama was in a rush to get to her mother’s house for our Friday night rendezvous with the family, she just popped some fish sticks into the oven. They were okay, but not really worthy of my mother’s culinary talents.

We often had something fun on Saturdays. It might be hamburgers or hotdogs or even Tex-Mex dishes. This was a day for spaghetti and homemade meat-sauce or barbecue that our mother seasoned with her own recipe. Saturdays brought “kid” food that we absolutely adored. 

I suppose we took those wonderful meals for granted at the time. We did not think of the hard work that went into earning money to pay for the food or the labor of love that went into the cooking. We just eagerly rushed to the table where the most delightful aromas enticed us to chow down. Looking back I realize that she had to be very creative with her budget and her menu planning to keep us so full and satisfied.

I have such warm memories of sitting around a table with my mother and my brothers. We laughed and talked and actually paused long enough to really pay attention to each other and to the food. There were no phones. The television was not turned on. Our focus was on being together and really tasting the delicious morsels that our mother had made. It was a simple but quite delightful time. 

I forgot to mention something that my mother often did that absolutely thrilled us. On Saturdays she almost always made a fabulous dessert of some kind that we ate late in the evening while watching old movies on the television in the dark. She was literally known for her chocolate cake with buttercream frosting, so it was our favorite. Sometimes, though, she made cookies or ice box lemon pie. Other times she simply bought ice cream that we devoured in a single sitting. It was a wonderful life and I am grateful to have experienced it. I suppose it has much to do with the contentment that I feel to this very day. 

There is hardly a person on the face of the earth whose life is always smooth sailing. Sometimes we observe people who appear to be immune from the trials that stalk the rest of us, but the truth is that they too have dealt with tragedy and disappointment just as we all do. The sad fact of life is that sadness and loss is inescapable. There will indeed be times when we will have to pull ourselves out of the depths of despair and find ways to keep moving forward in the hopes of finding brighter days ahead. 

I learned this at a very early age when I lost my father so suddenly and cruelly. In those days adults assumed that children were generally unaware of the kinds of deep emotions that come with adult grief. The general feeling was that keeping children busy with play and friendships would be enough to pull them out of the doldrums of sadness. It was a belief in innocence that prompted such thinking, but we now know that it was wrong. Children indeed have complex emotions that should be addressed, but are not always noticed because they have an amazing ability to adjust to whatever situation befalls them. They instinctively find ways to survive.

My own resilience came from school. I quickly learned that being a good student was a way of crowding out the sorrow that was consuming me. If I paid attention to my teachers, did my homework, studied and read I filled the hours of each day with a powerful diversion. I was able to carry on as though I had moved on from the horror of my father’s death. Nonetheless my pain remained buried deeply inside my soul. It was agonizing to hide it and to pretend that all was well. it made me feel self conscious and different because I did not yet realize that other people were carrying challenges of their own. 

I made it past the debilitating feelings of loss because I channeled every bit of my anguish into being an exceptional student. I found so much solace in my classes at school. Just learning and moving from one grade to the next was my tranquilizer, a method for calming the beast that lurked inside my mind. Everyone marveled at how well I had adjusted to my father’s death. One of my dearest friends even wondered aloud how I had managed to forget him so quickly. I was unable and possibly unwilling to admit to the sorrow that stalked me every single day. I worried that if I opened that Pandora’s box I might never recover again. So I remained silent and just kept using school as my therapy.

Eventually I matured enough to be open about how devastating my father’s death had been to me. I found that talking about it with caring and intelligent people was incredibly helpful. I saw that bottling up my feelings and pretending that all was normal only intensified the anger that I felt in losing the man who had influenced me so profoundly. Honesty with myself and others helped me to heal the damage that still lingered in my heart. 

I suppose I was about twenty five years old when I looked in the mirror and realized that I was really okay. I had learned that tragedy is as much a part of life as triumph. I found joy in both my work as a teacher, which was a kind of extension of my studious childhood, and in admitting to my feelings no matter how scary they were. I found a balance that has sustained me through other challenges that unmoored me from time to time. I learned how to be good to myself, how to calm my worries, and how to freely admit to my human frailties. All in all this has served me well. 

When I became a teacher I understood that my students would sometimes be dealing with their own concerns and that they might not be able to channel their feelings into their studies the way I had always done. I often helped them to get past the rough patches in their lives. I wanted them to understand that it was okay to express their frustrations and ask for help. 

For some reason we have enshrined the image of the stoic as an ideal that we should strive to achieve. We honor the person who seems able to recover quickly from setbacks without emotional turmoil. We hint that it is a form of weakness to fall apart even for a brief moment. We make fun of tears, especially from boys and men. We equate courage with those who never appear to break. It is a dangerous way of modeling behavior for our young. It leads them to believe that they are somehow damaged whenever their emotions take hold of them. Their efforts to stifle pain can lead to dependence on temporary fixes like drugs or alcohol or even spending money. 

We all must find ways to be resilient or we will be ground down into the muck. My journey to healing began with sublimation, but ultimately it also had to include an honest discussion of how deeply I felt my loss. It is only in talking human to human that we find the courage and strength to move forward, never quite the same as we had once been but stronger. Resilience is not about ignoring how we feel. It is about admitting that we sometimes need help to heal.

I used to be very competitive. I had a killer instinct when it came to winning. I tried not to be a bad sport, but I wanted to be the victor in games, grades, you name it. It gave me a thrill to come out on top. Somewhere along the way I took a complete one hundred eighty degree turn and literally don’t care one way or another about attempting to be on top in any way. I simply want to enjoy life and do my best. I no longer stew over what my ranking might be. I suppose that I have reached a point at which there just seem to be better things to do than worry about winning. 

It’s an odd and comforting feeling given my past longing to compete even with myself. I suppose that I’ve finally feel good without needing reassurances outside of my own confidence. Maybe this is what really growing up feels like, I’m one hundred percent comfortable in my own skin. I’m quite content, so much so that I can’t even think of things that I might want for my birthday or Christmas other than being able to help those who have so much less that I do. All I really desire is to quietly spend my days bringing a modicum of joy to the people I encounter. 

I think about the future and I have to admit to worrying for our younger generations. We don’t always treat them as well as we should. I shudder whenever I hear older adults trashing them, contending that they are lazy and spoiled. I know better than that and it bothers me that some people really do believe all of the insults hurled at those who are young and eager to make a difference in the world. 

I have grave concerns about the dangers of climate change. I really do believe that we are flirting with dangers that will only grow worse if we continue to deny our role in damaging the planet. When NASA engineers tells us that our earth is in a fragile state which we may not be able to repair if we wait much longer, I listen to them. They have no reason to simply frighten us. They are sounding the alarm and we are looking away. 

I see people all over the world living in poverty and under the dominance of authoritarian governments. I truly wish that we would be more concerned with such things than worrying about the cost of the many luxuries that we take for granted. I possess so much and often feel that it would not hurt me to share much more than I presently do. 

I look at the world and my future and see that I am at once both unimportant and critical to the outcome of our planet. I am no more exceptional than another human whose privileges and freedoms are less than mine. At the same time how I and every other person on earth votes, and lives, and shares makes a stunning difference in what the future of our young will prove to be. We can decide not to worry about our choices because we won’t be around if and when things get bad, or we can begin the process of healing that seems to be so needed all over the world. 

I often think of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. who in his lifetime was accused of being unpatriotic, a communist, and many other pejoratives. Some saw him as a threat to our nation. Others viewed him as a silly dreamer who envisioned an impossible world. I have always thought of him as a great hero, one of the most most Christian and courageous men to walk the earth. I know that I will never have the ability to be great like he was, but I can certainly attempt to model my life on his. 

That means working for my fellow humans. Sharing what I have. Understanding and loving all people. Remembering that the good book tells us that the first shall be last and the least among us must be honored. I don’t have to be gloomy or wear a hair shirt, but I can’t look away when I know that others are suffering. I am no more exceptional than any other human on this earth when the truth is told. Each of us is precious and each of us should be treated with the highest regard. 

My mother and my grandmother taught me these things when I was a child. I was impressed by their examples even as a young girl. They showed me the way to behave even if I did not always follow their lead. I rejoice that I now fully comprehend what they were attempting to impress upon me. It certainly took me long enough to get to this glorious place in my development. I find great joy in being totally aware of the importance of each of us. Tearing each other down to make ourselves seem better is a blood sport that I firmly eschew.

I’ll still try to beat the computer at Scrabble or get the Wordle answer of the day in only three or fewer tries, but competing with my fellow travelers on this earth is no longer something that I want to do. I simply desire to enjoy what I have and share it whenever I have the opportunity. That is what brings me peace. It’s a wonderful feeling to have, so no more competing for me. I belong to team human race.