All It Takes Is A Little Love

My Grandpa William Mack Little is a cipher. He listed his mother as Marion Rourke in the family bible, but try as I may I have never been able to find any sign of her on Ancestry.com. or anywhere else. The same goes for his father James Mack. It is as though my grandfather just popped up in a cabbage patch one day. Nonetheless he had a story of family that included being raised by his grandmother after his mother died shortly after he was born. I can’t find a thing on her either. For that matter I don’t find any proof of Grandpa’s existence until he is well over forty years old. 

Grandpa told me all about his grandmother and wove stories of living with her in the backwoods of Virginia near a coal mine that his she ran. He was quite the teller of tales about his childhood and his early teen years. He even had a wonderful story about the time his father and stepmother had smallpox and he was fetched to take care of them. When his grandmother died he was only thirteen and had to help a judge choose a guardian for him. He didn’t think his father would be a good choice since he had never supported him before that time. Grandpa suspected that his old man would just squander the small inheritance from his grandmother, so he chose a man named John Little, This was supposedly his uncle, although I can’t find a connection to Mr. Little’s family and my grandfather anywhere. John Little was actually Captain John Little, a graduate of the United States Military Academy. Sadly Captain Little died from typhus after being sent to help with hurricane relief in Cuba in 1900. By that time my grandfather was twenty one years old so he had already set off on his own doing mostly construction work but he missed having the guidance from his uncle. 

Grandpa traveled all over the United States finding jobs wherever they were to be had and staying in rented rooms. Perhaps his vagabond lifestyle is the reason that he was never registered in a federal census until he was a middle aged man. He never really settled down, not even when he met and married my grandmother. He took the family here and there looking for work just as when when he was single. Most of his jobs ended up being in Oklahoma and Texas so that’s how he ended up in Houston with my father in tow. 

Most of Grandpa’s adult life took place before the introduction of Social Security and because he had been without work during the Great Depression he never managed to save a great deal of money. Nor did he have a very large pension from his union. My grandmother’s cancer and the hospitalizations it required wiped him out financially. He ended up living in a rented room from the time he was eighty eight until he died at the age of one hundred eight. 

Grandpa had lots of grandchildren and great grandchildren so I was shocked when I learned that nobody was willing to join together to pay his funeral expenses. I was just shy of being forty years old at the time and my brothers were still in their thirties. We weren’t swimming in cash but we were able to put enough together to have our grandfather buried next to my grandmother. We remarked that we would install a grave marker later because we had already stretched our budget on caskets, flowers, cars, police escorts and all the rituals associated with laying a great man to rest. 

We would visit the cemetery often and I rarely mentioned how much it bothered me that my grandmother had a headstone, but Grandpa did not. On one of my birthdays my husband suggested that we visit the cemetery, since my grandfather and I shared a birth month. It seemed like a wonderful way of remembering him and not just focusing on myself. 

When we got there I was surprised to see that my grandfather had a marker of his own that was styled the same ways that Grandma’s was. I was overjoyed when I saw it because if ever there was someone who deserved to be remembered for all time, it was William Mack Little. It seems that my sweet husband had purchased the stone as one of my birthday gifts. 

While I have received many wonderful gifts over the years I have to admit that nothing has quite topped that incredible surprise. My grandfather had been like a second father to me and I had gained so much wisdom from him. He was the person that I always wanted to see whenever I was feeling anxious. Just sitting with him and listening to his never ending stories always set me at ease and reminded me how lucky I was. I don’t think I ever adequately conveyed to him how much I loved him or how much he had meant to me. My thoughtful husband had understood my feelings and honored both me and my grandfather with his gift. 

It’s funny how we humans like to give things to each other. Sometimes our gifts are expansive and sometimes they are tokens. Presents are an indication that somebody cares about us. When they say the old phrase that “it is the thought that counts” it rings true with me because on that wonderful birthday I received a gift that topped them all. 

The Olympics have a storied history. Most people know that they actually began in Greece, but what few realize is that those male athletes of old performed their feats in the nude. There have been lots of changes since those days and many events added that the ancient Greeks would not have understood. It seems that we humans have invented so many sports over time that it is difficult to decide which competitions to include every four years. 

I recently learned that in the early twentieth century croquet was featured in the Olympic games. Evidently it had become a very popular Victorian era pastime and somebody thought that spectators might enjoy watching a rousing game with representatives from around the world pushing the wooden balls around with their mallets. The hoped for competition only lasted one time in the menu of sports for the Olympics because when the day of the competition came there was only one spectator. So much for the wide world of  croquet!

In truth I would love to see the Olympics return to their roots, with clothing of course, as well as the inclusion of women. If I were to only watch certain events they would all be in track and field. Somehow those seem to me to be the very essence of human athleticism. Other than better shoes and aerodynamic clothing, it is only the athlete who determines the winner. Track and field is about strength and speed and a bit of thinking. It shows the human form at its finest. 

I often think about how track and field events are not dependent on the economic or racial status of an individual or a country. A talented individual  from a third world country is just as likely to be a competitor as a wealthy individual. Track and field is an equalizer and I love that aspect of the sport. 

One of my sporting heroes is Jim Thorpe, the native American who won the gold medal for the pentathlon and decathlon in 1912. As a child I read books about him and a movie about him continues to be one of my favorites. I was both delighted and fascinated by his story. Later I would feel he same way about Jesse Owens whose four gold medals in sprints and the long jump flew in the face of Hitler’s Aryan superiority theories. 

I suppose that I love stories like these because I have watched economically disadvantaged students struggling to compete with wealthier students who have had training in various sports from the time they were children. It’s very difficult to overcome the economic challenges of going toe to toe with athletes who have the advantage of the finest equipment and private trainers. When an individual manages to win on sheer native talent there is something quite stunning and inspiring about that.  

Of course today there are talent scouts everywhere searching for gifted athletes wherever they may be. The Jim Thorpe and Jesse Owens stories are rare. The Olympics are a big money event and those who make it there have been carefully trained with lots of investment in time and money. This reality does not make them any less talented, but it takes away some of the excitement of hoping to see an unexpected hero emerge. Today’s games are often a foregone conclusion and in most cases the predictions about who is most likely to win come true. 

I wish that those who broadcast the Olympics would devise a system that allows viewers to choose what they want to see. Of late there is far too much blathering from the commentators and focus on sports that have little interest for me. I know that volleyball is important to some people, but I am not one of them. I’d much rather be allowed to pick another event that is happening at the same time. I’m sure that others agree with me. Why not let a mega fan watch all of the soccer games rather than only the ones that have been chosen by the television crew.?

I understand that the producers have to pick and choose what to show or else the expense will be unbearable, but in recent years the programming all too often focuses on sports that make me yawn. I suspect that is why viewership is down. Perhaps the Olympics have become a bit too commercial and maybe they have added too many new sports over the years. I really don’t understand why anyone would think that shooting should be included in the mix or for that matter horse riding. 

I’d like to see the Olympics go back to more of a focus on the basics. The last one felt like an abysmal fail, a pandemic notwithstanding. The whole thing has become far too commercialized. Jim Thorpe lost his medals because he got paid to play ball while he was training for the Olympics. Now such a tragedy will not occur because athletes are allowed more leeway in earning funds to keep them afloat while they practice. Still, we seem to have gone too far in the other direction as athletes make a fortune with ads and endorsements that seem to be the driving force behind what the stay at home spectators get to view. Some of the glory is tarnished by the commercialization. It’s really time to get back to the basics again, but please keep requiring the athletes to wear clothes.

I spent most of my teaching career in public schools educating minority students. Those children taught me as much as I taught them. They introduced me to cultures and life experiences that I had never known in my mostly isolated childhood. I had grown up in the segregated south and generally had only witnessed people from other races or ethnicities from afar. From that distance I saw the unfairness of how black citizens and those from Mexico and South America were being treated in my city and the country at large. I new that there were designated areas where they lived away from the enclaves that housed me and my white family and friends. As a teen and young adult I advocated for a more equal and just nation for them and then I found myself in a position to love and cherish the historically underserved members of my community when I became a teacher. 

I have been profoundly moved by my experience with the minority children of my city. They and their parents educated me. I learned about their determination to rise up even as they were often being persecuted. I saw how incredibly difficult it was for many of them to overcome the prejudices and propaganda that had historically lied about who they were. They were good, hard working people, not the lazy violent souls that some portrayed them to be. From them came stories of profound inspiration as well as deeply disturbing examples of grievous abuse by a society that often heralded itself as the greatest country on earth. I listened to them and began to realize that I was not somehow some kind of beneficent helper for them, but rather a means for them to gain enough knowledge to continue to gain the kind of freedoms that I already had. 

I have marveled at the successes of those same students. I have proudly watched them achieve incredible goals, but I have also learned of heartbreaking incidents when not even their college degrees were enough to convince a future employer that they were polished enough to land a job. Instead it was suggested that they were still “too ghetto” for the professional world. The fact that they had grown up in poverty in a rough part of town and had still managed to earn college degrees by dent of determination did not seem to matter. The prejudices against them were more subtle than those hurled at their elders, but they still existed nonetheless. 

I mention all of these things because the vast majority of people my age and those with whom I went to school scratch their heads at my political and religious beliefs. They are of a more conservative bent and point out the violence and crime that seems so rampant these days as evidence that there are people among us who need to somehow be taught to be better. They lament what they see as a deterioration of the niceties and faiths of the past. They want to reel in the country’s leaning toward what they see as chaos and they genuinely believe that we have lost our way and that we are not as safe as we once were. They are fearful that our country is on the brink of becoming an ungodly anarchy. 

I hear them as much as I hear my former students but I disagree with their rationale and ideas for fixing the difficulties of our nation. Going back to a time where freedoms were mostly limited to the WASPs (White Anglo Saxon Protestants) is not the answer. In fact it is a rotten idea that will only compound the many problems that we face. We must protect the rights of every citizen and everyone must feel free to express their opinions. We cannot allow our individual religious beliefs to seep into our public institutions as a mechanism of controlling thoughts. I am a Catholic who is adamant that my beliefs should be my own, not a way of forcing others to comply with me. Prayers are lovely. I say them all day long, but they do not belong in public schools. Rules of freedom and privacy dictate that each person be allowed to think in his/her own way. Freedom should be about choices, not dictatorial laws and court rulings that favor one belief system over another. 

I believe that our founders understood the slippery slope of mixing religious fervor with the laws of the state. Our decisions about what should be a matter of choice and what should be curbed have to be based on rational information rather than emotional feelings. We also must surely understand that the men of 1776 while quite learned could not have adequately imagined how changed the world would become. Nonetheless they created a Constitution designed to be fluid enough to adapt to the times, not become a rigid and outdated document. The process of legislation and adjudication was meant to create laws and precedents that would evolve over time. Even at the time of the birth of our nation there were men who understood that slaves should be freed and that all men and women deserve the right to vote. They assumed that such changes would naturally occur. They did not mention every single eventuality that might need to change but they created a system that would make our freedoms living and breathing, not static and unmoving. To insist that something cannot be Constitutional because it was not mentioned in the original documents or throughout history is absurd because so much has changed through science and research and education that few of the founders would recognize the incredible advances that should have made our country more equitable, not less so. 

I pray daily, but like Thomas Jefferson I believe that God gave us a brilliant intellect that He expects us to use to solve problems rather than waiting for Him to perform miracles. I think that God exists in many different forms in hundreds of different cultures. There is no one perfect way of believing or living and we have to respect those differences. To me that means that no religion should ever be allowed to encroach on the freedoms of any individual. We should each be free to influence our children as we see fit and to model our beliefs with loving example. Forcing others to be clones of one set of beliefs is anathema to the very freedoms that we all cherish. Sadly we seem to have forgotten that very important lesson. One size never fits all. If we are to err should be in granting more freedoms to more people, not less.

I was a finalist for an award naming the graduate from the University of Houston School of Education who was most likely to succeed. The prize was mostly just an honor although there was some form of monetary gift that I would have like to receive. I was excited that my professors had nominated me so I took great care in preparing for the interview. This was many decades ago when dress codes were a really big thing, so I wore a navy blue suit, stockings, and dress pumps. I did what I could with my fine hair that more often than not has a mind of its own and drove to talk with the judging committee at the school campus. 

Finding a parking place at the University of Houston has always been a competitive sport. On may occasions I would find myself driving for twenty minutes or more up and down rows of cars hoping to discover an empty spot. I had learned to always anticipate a delay, so I arrived with what I hoped would be plenty of time to begin my hunting expedition for the rare available slot and then make the hike to the building where the interview would take place. 

As expected it took me a great deal of time to secure an available place to leave my car. I was rather far away from the building where I needed to go. Ordinarily that would not have been a particularly inconvenient thing because I had built up the stamina to walk long distances on the campus. The problem on this day was that it was unusually windy and my hair flew in every direction as soon as I stepped out of the car. As though I had been cursed in some manner the wind was followed by a light shower when I was halfway to my destination. 

By the time I had finally reached the safety of the building I resembled a wet dog and I had little extra time to dry out and do something to enhance my disheveled aspect. Not only was my hair ruined, but somewhere along the way I had snagged my stockings and there was a huge run that went from my heel all the way up to the hem of my skirt. In those days it was still anathema to be bare legged, so I had no choice but to walk to the interview attempting to psych myself into forgetting how I looked. I would just have to wing it and demonstrate confidence in spite of my appearance. 

In truth i was totally unnerved and never regained the momentum that I had felt when i was getting ready at home. I sensed that the people interviewing me were wondering why I had not taken more pains to at least look presentable. My efforts to dress to impress had gone up in flames and with that so had my ability to maintain my calm and think on my feet. As I listened to myself answering each question I realized how trite and lame my answers must have sounded. I understood that someone as shaky as I was would not seem to be on the road to great success. To make matters worse I had to admit to them that I had not yet secured a teaching position even though I had been working on doing that for weeks. At the moment I felt like a major failure. 

Of course I did not win the award. My fellow classmates were somewhat surprised by my loss, but when the victor was announced at our graduation I had already resigned myself to the outcome. In the long run it had little or no effect on the trajectory of my career and eventually I even realized that any judgements of my success would ultimately come from me, not someone else’s opinions. Over the long haul I felt that I had achieved a very purpose driven life that was filled with wonderful memories of students and teachers whose lives I had affected. None of them had ever remotely cared what I was wearing or how well my hair stayed in place. Dressing for success had even become a matter of comfort and my own taste rather than something that distracted me from my attention to the people that I served. 

I had also developed an ability to speak somewhat rationally even in an impromptu situation, mostly because I was no longer so full of myself. My focus had turned from inward anxiety to outward embracing of the people with whom I worked and the children whom I taught. I could have been going bald and wearing jeans and a ratty t-shirt and only how I treated them mattered. I also understood by then I I did not have all the answers and most likely never would. Admitting that made it easier to communicate who I was.

I enjoyed the more casual and less judgmental ways of dressing that evolved over the fifty years that I have worked with students and teachers and parents. I certainly would still differentiate between dressing for a quick run to the grocery store versus donning an outfit for a job interview, but I would put far less importance of attempting to make myself look perfect. I now know how to answer questions about my philosophies and goals without worry because I have learned to speak from my heart. 

I did obviously finally find a job after that disastrous interview for the award. I wore the same suit and had a new pair of hosiery. It was neither windy nor rainy on of the day of my interview. I don’t think the principal who spoke to me cared much about how I looked. She seemed far more excited by my willingness to teach six class of mathematics each day requiring six different sets of lesson plans.

That job would begin my love affair with education and I mostly never looked back except to laugh at my silly self. Dressing professionally evolved from having to wear dresses or skirts everyday to being free to wear jeans and a t-shirt if I so wished. The past couple of years as I taught remotely from an upstairs bedroom I even had the pleasure of holding my classes in my bare feet. Now that is success!   

We tend to think of a soulmate as being a romantic partner. I certainly hit the jackpot in that regard, but I have had soulmates in my friendships as well. i have been fortunate in finding people to whom I can bar my soul without fear of being judged or rejected, people who love me even when I get angry or down in the dumps. We may not always be on the same wavelength when it comes to our views about religion or politics or even medical advice, but our constant is a loving willingness to understand each other. 

My soulmates have come to me at different times in my life, sometimes leaving for a time and then circling back to a reunion that feels as comfortable as our relationship was before they left. They are lovely people who know me so well that they hear my sorrow even when I am doing my best to hide it. They check to see how I am doing when I haven’t even discovered myself that my optimism is waning. They read between the lines of what I say and do. They come to my rescue at the exact moment when I need them most. 

I can laugh and be silly with my soulmates but I can also get bitchy or whiny and they have patience with my outbursts. They don’t automatically give advice or try to talk me out of my doldrums. Instead they let me know that they get what I am trying to say. They are loving and judgement free. They encourage me and keep me from crashing into a sea of self-pity. 

My soulmates run the gamut of diversity. I have known some of them since i was a child, other from the time when I was a teen. I have soulmates with women I met at work and some who were once my former students. I have had neighbors whose door were always open to me and friends from church who were only a phone call away. I found a soulmate when one of my friends took her as his wife. I have soulmates young enough to be my daughters who are wise and fun and open. I have a soulmates who are like additional daughters. One of my soulmates came as a surprise because I had known of her for many years but did not know about her until we both were much older. 

Whenever I talk with one of my soulmates I feel a healing process happening in my soul. They listen and if they say anything at all it seems to miraculously be exactly what I needed to hear. In fact there is a kind of spiritual connection between me and those who have been my soulmates, a bond that is never broken even when we find ourselves in disagreement over something. 

Many of my soulmates have died. Losing them was as tragic to me as if a beloved sister was gone forever. These were women my age and women old enough to be my mother or a big sister. Among them was my mother-in-law, Mary, who was a wise voice in my life over cups of tea and little platters of cookies. She did as much to help me become the woman that I am as my own mother. Then there was Patricia, the big sister I never before had, who showed me how to have fun and allowed me to use her as a sounding board. Betty was my neighbor and the quintessential good ole gal who gave me a common sense view of the world and gave me homespun values that I treasure to this day. Bren was a rather recent soulmate who tragically died just as we were realizing how much we enjoyed each other. 

I smile when i think of all these wonderful women who have shared the joys and frustrations and sorrows of my life. I hope that I have sufficiently reciprocated when they have been in need. I would like to think that they know that I am always here for them, loving them through thick and thin. Nothing they do or say will cause me to turn my back on them. 

The person who has been my soulmate for the longest time came into my life when I was six years old. She lived across the street from my family and we fell into lockstep almost as soon as we met. She already had four sisters but somehow we thought of each other as related, bound at the hip. We imagined living our lives in tandem but events forced us away from each other time and time again. Nonetheless I can call her at any moment and we are able to talk for hours without even catching a breath. We almost complete each other’s sentences. There is an unbroken bond between us that overcomes both time and distance. 

Somehow soulmates find each other. We recognize a bond from across a room. It is an intangible connection that produces a relationship built on great trust. I have been blessed to find women who complete me. Having them along with my incredible spouse has been one of the greatest blessings in my live. These women have been my sisters by choice and I am all the better for knowing and loving them.