All It Takes Is A Little Love

One of the duties of middle and high school teachers is to serve as chaperones at dances. It can be a somewhat onerous job because it involves a great deal of policing. It begins at the door when eagle eyed adults scan the kids for improper clothing or other infractions of the stated rules for attendance. It continues for those unlucky enough to be assigned to walk through the hallways of the school and the outside grounds for the duration of the dance. The purpose of this duty is to find stray students attempting to make out, smoke, or even ingest drugs or alcohol. While it is actually rare to find anyone daring enough to try such things on a school campus, when it does happen a delicate and time consuming investigation ensues. Finally, there is the job of walking around the dance floor to be certain that no inappropriate groping, or gyrating takes place. 

Most of students at such functions are wonderful and with a bit of luck the evening can be quite fun. Even when the dancing becomes a bit inappropriate a gentle reminder or a stink-eyed look from one of the teachers usually calms down those teen-age hormones. Once in a great while there is a bit of sassiness which I always combated by reminding the offenders that a good metric for knowing how to behave is to consider whether or not they would do the offensive behavior in front of their grandmothers. That mostly elicited good laughs and willingness to comply with the rules for the event. 

I often had great fun at those occasions. I liked joining in with the line dances that were usually led by one of the students. Once in a great while one of the boys would ask me to take a spin around the floor with him and even though I felt a bit uncomfortable it was always in good fun. Mostly I enjoyed seeing the students all dressed up in their finery and being so much more relaxed than they ever were in class. They were generally joyful occasions, but once in awhile they descended into emotion ridden disasters. 

I vividly recall a lovely young student arriving in the early moments of one of those dances. She looked absolutely beautiful. It was apparent that she had made a great deal of effort to look her very best. I knew that she was nervously waiting for a particular young man to arrive. They had been a bit of a pair around campus for several weeks and all of us who taught them thought they were precious together. Both of them were very bright, well behaved and sweet. I knew that the young man for whom the girl was waiting would be delighted when he saw how lovely she looked on that night. 

Not long afterward the boy did arrive shocking us all. He had brought a date, a student from another school who seemed somewhat incongruous with him. She appeared to be older and more worldly than he was. She had an unpolished toughness about the way she was dressed and the tone of her voice. He appeared totally smitten with her and did not even acknowledge the young lady who had been so excited about meeting up with him at the dance. As he walked right past her as though she was invisible, she almost collapsed into a convulsion of tears. Several teachers and her many friends surrounded her with comforting hugs and comments, but she was beside herself. Meanwhile the young man and his date became the focus of everyone’s interest.

I felt so incredibly sad about the situation, but I knew that such things were simply part of the angst of the teen years. I wanted to do something or say something, but I knew that I needed to leave it alone. My heart broke for the girl who had been so humiliated. She was and always would be so sweet and kind. Her situation felt so brutally wrong. Meanwhile the boy seemed to be a hit with his peers as his date performed her dance moves that had to be corrected by the chaperones more than once. It felt as though he was being purposely cruel which stunned me because he had seemed as naive and innocent as the girl he had stood up. 

Things eventually worked out for everyone. The girl got over her sadness and the boy reverted back to the gentlemanly and compassionate behavior that had once been his trademark. They both moved on, went to college and created lovely lives for themselves. I suppose that the ugly event may have affected me more than it did either of them. I’d like to think that it was all just the result of immaturity and inexperience. I suppose we all had moments in our past that were as painful as pulling a scab from a wound. I doubt that many of us would ever want to go back to the awkward time of our adolescent and teen years when we made horrendous blunders in the way we treated others, especially those of the opposite sex. 

Chaperoning those dances and watching the young people so awkwardly attempting to slide into adult roles gave me a whole new perspective about growing up. I saw that even the very best and seemingly most mature of those kids created horrible debacles in their relationships. As I witnessed those things I found myself silently forgiving myself and anyone else who had really mucked things up when we were young. I understood how difficult the transition into becoming an adult really is for each of us.

Hopefully we learn from all of those horrible lessons that make us cry or appear to be heartless fools. We gain perspective about ourselves and those around us. We find the true meaning of love and respect. Too bad that wisdom often only comes after we have been hurt. Even worse is when we just keep repeating the same mistakes. I’m glad my two students found their way to making wise choices. It’s good to know that they got past the hard knocks and are now okay.

In most circumstances I am a planner. I have rarely completed tasks at the last minute. For all of my life I have carefully crafted schedules and calendars designed to ensure that all of my duties and assignments are completed with great order and design. I do so because life has taught me to prepare for the unexpected, to be ready for roadblocks and interruptions that blowup my best intentions. If I am ahead of the game, such incidents do not deter me from meeting my obligations on time. I am always ready with plans A, B and C. 

In reality life is not so kind as to defer to my intentions. My best laid plans have often gone awry. The unexpected throws a bomb into my best efforts to be reliable. Someone gets sick. Someone dies. The weather grows angry and dangerous. My car won’t start. A hot water heater floods my home. A pandemic changes everything. The blues settle over me like an unremitting dark cloud. Any number of things change me from a long term planner to a minute by minute reactor who walks through the muck of living minute to minute, day to day. 

Each of us has experienced life changing events that give us pause, upend all of our careful plans. In those moments it’s difficult to decide what to do in the next hour much less days and weeks ahead. If we are honest we want little more than to curl up into a fetal position and just shut out the world and all responsibilities for a time. Keeping ourselves moving forward becomes a step by step process, a minute by minute exercise in distracting our minds from the sorrows of traumas that inevitably enter every human’s life. 

I’ve blessedly never been so overwhelmed by sorrow that it totally immobilized me, but there have indeed been times when thoughts of stopping the world so that I might get off were certainly appealing. I’ve spent a day locked away from all of my responsibilities contemplating my sorrows. I’ve thought of chucking it all, running away. Somehow I always regain my momentum and soldier on as my mother often said we must do. I find a tiny reserve of motivation and energy and push myself inch by inch past whatever grief has come my way. I have learned that sometimes it is actually a good thing to take one day at a time until the fog of tragedy lifts and allows me to be my forward looking self. 

We humans dislike the mix of feelings that come from any kind of loss. We have a tendency to most admire those who seem able to carry on with great courage never seeming to miss a beat. In truth it is really okay to give ourselves time to adapt to life changing events that take us by surprise. The feelings that overwhelm us are quite natural and simply ignoring them is hazardous to our health and well-being. The sapping of our energy and lack of focus is a physical reminder that sometimes we cannot, and probably should not, push ourselves to dismiss the panoply of emotions that we are experiencing. At the same time we have certain responsibilities to ourselves and perhaps others that cannot be abandoned. Learning how to find a balance while we are healing often becomes a day to day challenge that is more than enough to do. 

Ours is a very competitive society that begins even when we are very young. We leave the safety of childhood to attend school where we become one of many. We have to keep up with a sequence of learning and assignments in spite of any traumas that may be taking place in our lives. There is often little patience for anyone who can’t keep pace with the scope of one size fits all planning. We learn as little ones how to simply march along day by day even when things are amiss in our private worlds. If we are lucky we encounter insightful and compassionate adults who give us room to deviate from the pressures of learning on a preconceived schedule. 

Eventually we become adults and the expectations imposed on us become even greater. We juggle multiple responsibilities that require careful planning, attention to long range goals. One monkey wrench suddenly upending our schedules can cause incredible damage to our futures if we totally shut down. People give us a brief respite to recover and then expect us to return to our normal routines as quickly as possible even though we know that we are no longer the same as we once were. The world moves forward with or without us, so we have to find ways to cope. That often means putting one foot in front of the other over and over again until we have made it through one more day. 

It’s up to each of us to be aware of those impacted by trauma and to understand compassionately how difficult it may be for them to perform the most mundane tasks until their minds have had enough time to begin to heal. We can help them by being present for them, lightening their loads, suspending judgements of their reactions., allowing them time to grieve. 

When my mother lost her husband and subsequently became afflicted with mental illness there were angels in her midst who did everything possible to help her through the toughest of times. Her neighbors lovingly sat with her listening to her sadness and even her paranoia. They alerted me and my brothers when she was slipping again. Her boss and coworkers allowed her to take time off from work as long as she needed so that she might recover from her cycles of depression or mania. Her sisters lovingly called her each day and encouraged her to slowly get back into her normal routines. They were all loving souls who did not abandon her like so many others had. They stood with her from one day to the next, never forgetting how wonderful she was. We would all do well to be like them for surely there are suffering souls among us who need our patience and our love as they slowly recover one day at a time.

When I was a child I felt loved and secure. I don’t remember ever worrying about anything until the third grade when my world was upended. It began with an unexpected move to California that rocked my quiet and content little world. I did not want to leave my friends or my extended family in search of adventure. I was quite unhappy with the prospect of going to an unknown place to start over again in building relationships. Sadly the next many months of my life would be filled with tumult and, ultimately, one of the greatest traumas of my life. 

In the third grade we moved four times and I attended five different schools. That alone had been enough to shatter my sense of complacency, but when my father died at the end of the rambling school year I was crushed in a way that I was never able to voice until long after I had become an adult. My mental well-being was rocked to its very core, but people did not think to provide therapy for children back then. I suppose they believed that kids were mostly ignorant of the pain of loss and that I was resilient enough to adapt quickly to my new circumstances. Instead I spent the next decade dealing with my grief and attempting to rebuild the confidence and sense of security that had been destroyed upon my father’s death. 

It might be said that I became tough, a stoic who simply accepted that life was difficult. I learned to submerge my emotions by mostly ignoring them. I found that I had power over dark feelings by throwing myself into work. It was a deceptive technique that kept me going even when my mother became severely mentally ill and the responsibility for her care fell to me when I was twenty years old. By that time I had accepted that mine would be an unusual life interrupted intermittently by tragedies that I did not want, but knew how to overcome. I was saved from total desolation by having the good fortune of being in a life long relationship with a very good man who has relentlessly stood by my side in the most difficult hours. 

My students taught me that I was not alone in my suffering and that there were many individuals who had to endure even worse challenges, often without the love that I always found even in my darkest hours. My heart grew from working with them. My compassion expanded and allowed me to once again accept my feelings, even those that hurt. In many ways working with my students became the best therapy for my own traumas that I might ever have found. I saw their problems and understood their sorrows in ways that ran deep into my heart. I became known as “Mama B’ to my kids, the person who would truly understand their trials and their sorrows. In turn, helping them led me to being honest with myself about my own emotions.

I speak openly of my journey these days, not for the sake of finding sympathy, but because I want to encourage others to speak of the demons that have haunted them. Talking about uncomfortable feelings and owning them is a first step to overcoming them. I suppose I understood this best from an incident that occurred during one of the multiple times that my mother was in the throes of her bipolar disorder. Her illness coincided with an annual wellness appointment that I had with my doctor. During the visit he remarked that I was so healthy that he had little to say to me, but suggested that I might want to discuss something that was bothering me. Uncharacteristically I told him every detail of my life and the pain that I was feeling. I cried as I unpacked decades of sorrow and he listened intently. 

At the end of my rant he spoke with total understanding about my situation. It was as though he had somehow found a window to my mind, my thinking. He even perfectly described what he thought my emotions might be. He congratulated me for my bravery and told me to never again bottle up my feelings the way I had been doing. It was as though he had lanced a poisonous sore on my heart. As the infection drained away, I felt as that a miracle had just occurred. 

I now know that tragedies come and go in our lives. Some are almost unbearable and others bring a short interlude of sadness. By being honest with myself and knowing whom I can trust with my thoughts I am now able to heal after each battle with the vagaries of life. I have many scars and some of them flare up from time to time. There are triggers that bring tears and even worry. Mostly though I have learned that the pain of loss, betrayal, illness eventually lessens even if it never goes completely away. I am still strong, and even stoic, but I no longer push my true feelings aside nor do I attempt to go it alone. 

We are in a time of protracted uncertainty and sorrow. Unlike my own forays with such moments, this one is affecting the entire world. As humans we are worried and exhausted. It should be okay to express our concerns without judgement. In turn we should be ready to listen with intent to really hear what the people around us are saying just like my doctor did for me. We all need understanding, and while a stiff upper lip can be admirable under certain circumstances, it can also be an iron mask trapping our pain in a toxic way. 

This is a moment of great importance when we must set our differences aside and minister to those who are in grave need of kindness and compassion. Our world is in turmoil not because of a single individual or one way of believing, but because we have forgotten how to truly care for one another, starting with healing ourselves. 

When I think of unadulterated beauty I think of a small child. Nothing compares to the innocence and generous spirit that comes from our tiniest humans. They are still filled with wonder and lacking in the prejudices and hatefulness that far too many people develop over time. They see the world through the most accepting and compassionate eyes. If life were perfect their purity of mind and heart would never be polluted with with evil. We would all live in a peaceful paradise as Adam and Eve once did before their fall from grace. 

Perhaps the saddest aspect of life is the knowledge that many of our children endure abuse, want, cruelties that lead them to change from the innocents that they once were. To survive they become tough, sometimes even mean and vengeful. Their once pure minds grow dark and angry. Some even turn into monsters who hurt and others for their own pleasure or gain or to sate their hatefulness. 

Another beautiful group are the courageous souls who stand up to the bullies of this world, those who are willing to put everything on the line for justice regardless of the consequences. The men and women who marched for the civil rights of all people in the United States were such magnificent souls. The stunning protestors of Tiananmen Square in China who braved almost certain imprisonment for the cause of freedom were stunning examples of the best of our human courage. More recently we witness the citizens of Ukraine fighting one of the most powerful armies in the world in a determined effort to save their democracy. At the same time groups of Russian citizens have demonstrated their solidarity with their neighbors by blatantly breaking the law in protests that will surely bring them big trouble. 

It is often difficult under any circumstances to stand up to monsters and bullies whether they be individuals or governments. It is risky to push back on those determined to hurt others and yet history is replete with such magnificent heroes and each of us has no doubt witnessed some incredible soul who is unafraid to speak out against wrongs. In my writing I have many times extolled such individuals, my neighbor who saved frightened children from the murderous rage of their father, politicians who have taken a stance against their own parties to defend democracy like Liz Cheney and Adam Kinzinger, teachers who risked their jobs to protect their students. I am in awe of such amazing courage in the face of silence from those who are afraid to cross their peers.

As a very young child and early reader I often chose books from my Catholic school library that extolled the lives of saints. The stories that were most impactful to me were those about souls who became martyrs, individuals who died defending justice, truth, goodness. I read of their courage with a sense of wonder and admiration. It was later that I witnessed real people in my own country who died fighting for the equal rights of all people. When Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. was killed I knew that he was both a martyr and a saint. Like the others that I had learned about when I was quite young, I realized that each of us is imperfect, but if we rise to the occasion of defending our fellow humans and then die doing so we have become the most beautiful versions of ourselves. We have followed the example of Jesus Himself by giving our very lives for what is most surely right. 

Not every situation that we encounter is life or death, but standing up against evil is almost always wrought with uncertainty. We may indeed be punished for being good rather than being praised for our bravery. Nonetheless, it is important that we honor ourselves and those around us by never turning away when we witness wrongs. Joining a throng intent on bad intentions to save our own skins is not only detestable, but also soul crushing. We lose a bit of ourselves each time we ignore injustice. We don’t have to directly intervene in a dangerous situation, but we must surely make our refutations known. 

Such resolute behavior often means speaking out against the very people who mean the most to us. There is perhaps nothing more difficult than letting someone know that their behavior and thinking is hurting others. Often people do not even realize the extent of their actions in bringing harm. Correcting an essentially good person is often more difficult than chastising an obvious villain. It takes finesse and love to discuss difficult topics and there is always a danger that doing so will rupture the relationship. Nonetheless if we really care about others there are situations that are so impactful that we must speak truths. Not doing so would lead to unnecessary hurt and suffering. 

Moral example is beautiful. The person who lives a life of honesty and courage may not win over everyone and may even be shunned for the efforts. The persons who quietly and continuously lives in service to justice, compassion and truth are ultimately the most beautiful among us. Such individuals somehow find ways to maintain the incredible purity of soul with which they were born and whether we agree with them or not, we know that they are beautiful. 

Does anyone really know exactly what is in those regular tacos from Jack in the Box? I recognize the lettuce, the hot sauce, the cheese and even the fried corn tortilla that holds it all together, but what is that mashed meat-like substance in the middle? It’s a conundrum that has haunted me for years. In spite of my misgivings I have been an avid fan of those darn things for as long as I can remember. If it’s lunchtime and I am in a pinch I love seeing a Jack in the Box drive through where I can order two regular tacos and a medium diet coke for around five dollars. it’s a perfect meal that tastes good and fills me up, but niggle in the back of my mind worries me. I really do believe that I am eating something that maybe should not got into my body. Luckily I have never had a bad reaction to that combination and so it has become by go to order on those now rare occasions when I actually imbibe in fast food.

A few years back we took two of our grandchildren to California. On the way there we stopped by the Grand Canyon and watched the sunset in that magnificent place. As we were driving back to our campground later in the evening we all suddenly felt hungry, but had a difficult time finding somewhere to stop for a bit of nourishment. The only place that appeared to be open was a McDonald’s much to my chagrin. While I have never become ill from consuming my Jack in the Box tacos, I almost always have a very bad reaction to McDonald’s food unless I order a Happy Meal or an Egg McMuffin. I did not think that it was a particularly good idea to eat something that might have bad consequences for the long drive that lay ahead of us the next day, so I was in a quandary as to how to sate my hunger. I decided that my best bet was to order an Egg McMuffin which just happened to be available twenty four hours a day at that time. It was a blessing not to have to consume anything else.

I’m generally not a fan of fast food restaurants. I don’t even particularly like Chic-Fil-A which seems to place me in the minority when it comes to my family. If I want chicken I much prefer going to Popeye’s, but it’s not always easy to find one of them and as I grow older like fried foods less and less. If I had the power to choose only one place that would be available anywhere that I went, it would be Whataburger. I like the Whataburger Junior meal with a small diet Coke and the spicy ketchup for my fries. It has the perfect taste and comes in just the right size, and not once has it made me sick. For me it is the essence of perfection if I have to grab something quickly and be certain that the quality will always be there. Sadly it’s difficult to find Whataburger in most places in the United States which we found out on that same road trip to California when my grandchildren were craving Whataburgers rather than In-N- Out.  

The absolute best drive thru that I ever encountered was a Portillo’s in the Chicago area. Their menu is divine and caters to meat lovers like my husband and those who prefer an excellent and fresh salad like me. He always wants a polish sausage with onions on a big bun while I prefer the chopped salad which is to die for. For desert lovers there are huge slices of cake that are more like your mama used to make than something one would expect to find in a fast food place. 

Portillo’s knows to expect large crowds at lunchtime so they have perfected a system for lining up the cars and taking the orders that is so quick that customers almost never stop moving. I don’t know how they do it given the enormous menu and the quality of the food. If a Portillo’s ever came to the Houston area it would be an instant hit and I for one would become a regular customer. 

I’ve enjoyed traveling with my trailer behind our truck these days. When we’re hungry we can go inside and prepare our own food. I know what the ingredients are and everything is fresh. I don’t have to worry that I will get caught having to eat something that disagrees with me. These days I enjoy vegetables and fruit much more than meat, and for some reason I only like sandwiches if I have prepared them myself. I suppose that I have become much too finicky and far less adventurous with my eating than I once was. I’d rather so inside a grocery store to choose the things that sit well with me than to take my chances at a Taco Bell. 

Fast food has become a way of life in America. Back when I was young we had Prince’s Hamburger drive ins where we ordered food from a waitress who came out to the car. The food was actually quite good but the company was locally owned and eventually mostly went out of business. As a kid I loved going to James’ Coney Island for hot dogs but in downtown Houston where you had to go inside and snake through a long line to get the best hot dogs I have ever eaten. We also had a local hamburger joint called Chuck Wagon that was fast, but we still had to walk up to order our food. Those places were the absolute best and I don’t think that the fact that I was just a kid when I craved their food diminishes the quality of what we got back then. 

I can hardly recall the last time I stopped at a fast food restaurant or even ate out. I’ve become an old fuddy duddy who would literally rather be a bit hungry than eat just anything. To look at me you would think that I munch on fried foods and junk all of the time, but I’ve all but given up those things. Give me an apple and a few slices of really good cheese and I am content until the next meal. The only fast food I now crave is Whataburger and if Portillo’s ever comes to town I’ll be the first in line for a yummy chopped salad. Of course I’m still willing to get my two regular tacos at Jack in the Box as well. It’s funny how I still don’t mind that mystery meat.