All It Takes Is A Little Love

• “When it is obvious that the goals are unattainable, don’t adjust the goals; adjust the steps” — Confucius 

I taught a lovely young girl who sat attentively in the front of the room during my first period Algebra I class. Next to her was a young man filled with energy who often had a difficult time sitting still, but not in my class because the students on either side of him made sure that he was always on task. Next to him was another outstanding young lady who would rise to the number one spot among her peers. Between the three of them there were many dreams which may have seemed daunting when they were freshmen but would ultimately come true because each of them set goals and then adjusted the pace and the steps that they would need to accomplish what many might have believed were unattainable dreams. 

One of the girls wanted to be a medical doctor. She had good grades and earned admission to an excellent college where she strove to graduate with a strong enough GPA to impress a medical school but to her dismay she just barely missed what most universities were looking for in their students. She went to work in a hospital as a medical scribe following doctors and writing down their diagnoses and treatments for the record while she recalibrated her plans. She had a knack for all of those medical terms that most of us would not know how to spell. 

Eventually she confided to the physicians of her longing to work in the medical community in a more challenging way. She was worried about what her grades on the MCAT exam might be, so while she was studying for that test she went back to college to earn a masters’ degree in hospital management. She graduated with honors and worked for a time until she felt brave enough to take the MCAT and apply once again to medical schools. She not only got a good score on the test but many of the doctors with whom she had worked enthusiastically wrote recommendation letters for her. This time she got an acceptance from Howard University and finally fulfilled her dream. This fall she will take the medical board exams to determine if she is soon to be called a doctor. 

The young man in the middle wanted to be an engineer so he went to a university of south Texas where he was not tempted to party or do so many of the usual college extra curriculars. He worked hard and earned a degree by taking classes step by step until he had earned enough credits to graduate. Sadly there were few jobs in his field when he graduated so he found work that was unrelated to his major. Eventually an opportunity arose out of the blue in a small town. He jumped at the chance to show his mettle, working long hours and on weekends until the managers of the company saw his work ethic and enthusiasm and began to mentor him for better things. This month he will take the test to become a Professional Engineer. 

The third young lady went to Syracuse on a scholarship and graduated with honors in four years but she was not ready to quit working toward a higher degree. To earn funds she drove an ambulance and took all kinds of little jobs here and there while plugging away at earning a Masters degree and then a PhD. Hers has also been a long journey during which some wondered why she kept working so hard. Now she is doing a fellowship at a hospital in New York City and she proudly bears the title of Doctor. 

I often think back to when those three students sat in the front of my classroom taking notes, asking questions, eagerly pushing themselves to get better and better at math. They became three of my all time favorite students and I somehow always knew that there was no question that they would be quite successful. 

The funny thing is that I actually had other teachers come to watch me instructing my students to discover how I inspired such studious behavior in these three and others in that class. The truth is that I had nothing whatsoever to do with their hard work. They were the ones teaching me. From them I learned the power of determination and patience. I watched them create goals for themselves that many of the adults in their lives thought were fantastical. They were never once derailed from the paths that each of them ultimately took. I admired them then and admire them even more now. They have surpassed me in every measure and I am honored to have known them and been a tiny part in their success. 

We all too often underestimated ourselves and those around us. We forget how tough the human spirit can be. These three showed me the power of sticking with dreams even if the ways of doing so had to change a bit. In the end each of them has scored an enormous victory and created a well lived life just by adjusting the steps one at a time.

We often speak of love but what is it really? What does it look like? How do we know it is there?

My mother often spoke of growing up during the Great Depression. She remembered how her father had carefully worked to pay for their home in small steps starting with purchasing the land with cash. Then he saved enough money to build a home one room at a time until it was large enough to lodge a family of ten people. When the worst economic downturn of the Great Depression came, the family was safe because my grandfather owned the house and the backyard where he had been wise enough to plant vegetables. He had also purchased enough land to serve as a pasture for a cow that provided the family with milk. His job at a meat packing plant was a source of meat and while the diet that each person enjoyed was sometimes meager, nobody ever missed a meal. This was love at its best.

While my grandfather was working all day long doing back breaking labor, my grandmother was mending clothes that were handed down from one child to another. Grandma repaired old shoes as well, keeping a stock of cardboard boxes to carefully line the worn leather of the soles that had become dotted with holes. All the while there were meals to prepare and budgets to stretch so that none of the children went to bed hungry. 

My mother often spoke of how her mother served everyone before she herself took a bite of food. Sometimes all that was left after the children had taken their share might be a few bits of meat clinging to a bone or the head of a fish. My grandmother would never complain as she sucked on the bone or ate the head of the fish. In fact she acted as though she had saved the best part for herself. Her love for her husband and her children was totally selfless.

My paternal grandmother was diagnosed with stage four colon cancer when she was in her eighties during a time when Medicare was not yet even a dream. The bills for her care were enormous and ate away at the savings that my grandfather had attempted to accumulate when he was still working. To pay for the doctors and hospital visits he went to work at the age of eighty eight installing rings for recessed lighting at NASA. When a manager saw the old man working on a tall ladder he was shocked to learn how old he was. He understood that my grandfather needed the money but still had to let him go for safety reasons. 

After that my grandfather ran out of funds to pay the doctors and the hospital. The powers that be sent my grandmother home after instructing my grandfather in the methods for caring for her colostomy bag and her wounds. He nursed her for many months, never telling her how dire their financial situation had become. He collected debts and lovingly did his best to keep her comfortable until she died. it was only then that he announced that he would have to sell his home and his belongings to pay all of the people and entities that he owed. He would spend the rest of his life in a rented room but mostly he was happy that he had able to keep my grandmother feeling safe and loved without ever telling her how close they had come to being unhoused while she was dying. His love for her was apparent until the day that he died at the age of one hundred eight.

I have been fortunate to have been inspired by people who showed me how to love in the most powerful ways. Their examples have been a guiding force for me even as I have never had to work as hard or endure as much as they did. Then, of course, there was my mother who courageously raised me and my brothers alone after my father died. it was a Herculean task in a time when women had fewer options for earning an income than we enjoy today. So many odds were stacked against her and yet she never let on how hard it must have been for her. She made me and my brothers believe that we should have no worries as she magically and proudly made sure that we lived in a sturdy home and never missed a meal. She took us to church on Sundays, sent us to Catholic school, kept us in touch with our extended family and somehow helped us to always feel safe and most of all, loved. She never missed her night time ritual of tucking us in and telling us how much she loved us. In truth she did not need to profess her feelings because the evidence of her devotion was visible in everything she did from dawn to dusk. 

Love is a beautiful thing found in small moments and sometimes big sacrifices that we may not even notice at the time. I often hope that my children and grandchildren understand how much they mean to me. I hope that they will see the legacy of love that has been handed down from one generation to the next in our family. We are certainly not perfect but the love is always there. 

My dear friend, Zerin, now lives in India. It seems so far away and yet I follow the progress of her life on Facebook. Now and again she gives me a call and I always think that I should return the favor but I can’t seem to get into sync with the time difference between us. Still, I need to make a better effort because when I hear her lovely voice my blood pressure lowers, my anxieties fade into the background and I feel more capable. She has always had that effect on me. 

When I first met Zerin at Revere Middle School I felt an instant connection. It was as though we had been meant to come together. We quickly settled into a deep and easy friendship in spite of, or perhaps because of, the many different journeys our lives had already enjoyed. We truly understood each other and always felt comfortable voicing both our joys and our worries to each other. There were times when we retreated to a tiny room to pour out the contents of our hearts, always leaving refreshed and certain that everything was going to work out and it mostly did.

Life sent us in different directions. I accepted a job at another school and eventually Zerin and her husband moved back to India. I thought I might never hear from her again with the exception of reading her posts on Facebook but Zerin as thoughtfully as ever made sure to call me now and again. In those brief chats I felt the full force of our kinship. We were two women talking of our families and our travels. 

Over the years that seemed to pass too quickly we kept in touch or at least Zerin did. Now we have found a way to communicate even more often with chats and texts. It seems a modern way of doing something old fashioned. As with letters of correspondence of old we express ourselves with printed words hoping that without the inflections of our voices we will still understand the feelings behind them. 

Our children are grown now, the same ages as we were when we first met. Our grandchildren have become young adults preparing for the future. While our lives have changed the bond that we feel with each other remains unbroken and I sense that it may even become stronger than ever before. 

We all need true friends who stay with us in spite of our flaws and gaffes. Friends allow each other to grow and change and even be imperfect. It is said that if you can never see anything that is a bit amiss with another person then that is an acquaintance. True friends see the good the bad and the ugly and still love each other. Nothing tears them apart. 

With Zerin I can be myself and she is patient. I can express my concerns and she somehow knows how to calm me. She seems to intuitively know when I need to hear her voice. I have often called her my angel because she is so gentle. I sometimes wonder how I was lucky enough to have her in my life. 

I have other friends who have been faithful over the span of many years. Cappy and Carol and Nancy put up with my tendency to talk far too long and with too much animation. They may not agree with all that I do and say but we are able to laugh about our differences and carry on. Somehow, just as with Zerin, our relationships grow ever more wonderful even when we are not at our best. 

There are people who enter our lives for a time and have a great impact on us but do not stay for the long term. They are important as well. They help through difficult moments or amuse us when we need to laugh. I am grateful for so many such individuals who influenced my thinking and facilitated changes that I needed to make. I have never forgotten them.

We humans are social creatures, even those of us who claim to be introverts. Each of us seeks the company of others who enrich our souls and with whom we feel as comfortable as a soft pair of slippers. We need relationships both deep and momentary. 

In today’s world it is all too easy to become immersed in a pace so fast that we lose the connections that bind us together. As we age we experience the loss of people who were important to our lives. We move forward and sometimes our friends become younger than we are, offering us alternative points of view that help us to keep growing and accepting the way of the world. People are essential to our lives and when we find the people who fit perfectly with who we are we should treasure and nurture them with all of our hearts. 

Blessed are the peacemakers for they will be called children of God. Matthew 5:9

So many people in the world are at war with themselves, the people near them, with those unlike them, and even with entire countries. Somehow warring instincts appear to be part of our human nature but it does not have to be that way. There are numerous examples of people working diligently to produce peace in both personal and political situations. Theirs is an often difficult and sometimes seemingly impossible task. 

Right now in the United States we often seem to be at war with each other. Our political landscape is on fire, with many of our leaders stoking the flames with gasoline and then wondering why there is so much anger and violence all around us. Sometimes a difficult situation does not call for revenge but rather for taking a deep breath and making a genuine attempt to focus on solutions for brining people together. Life does not have to be a zero sum game in which only one side gets to win. More often than not there are beautiful compromises that provide all parties the opportunity to give a bit to get a bit. 

I think of a good marriage. It never works if one of the partners dominates the relationship. The truth is that it is quite likely that even two people fall in love have many differences that require diplomacy and an openness for shared respect to keep things running soothly. The partnership has to be as even in responsibilities as possible and there must always be a willingness to allow for differences of opinion. The death of a marriage comes when the spouses are unable to communicate with each other in a way that does not demean anyone. An “I always have to win” attitude almost leads to grave unhappiness or even a complete shattering of the ability to work together. 

It’s fine to compete in sports, in a game, even in an academic or work situation but it there is not a return to cooperation peppered with real concern for all parties, every kind of relationship suffers. Teams lose, companies fail, educational environments become hostile. Bullies, no matter where they may be, are toxic and in total opposition to what we humans need to live mostly peaceful lives. 

Dominance is not strength. In fact is is almost always a sign of an individual or group that is insecure and weak. Those who always demand to be seen as the best at everything are hiding their own inferiorities under the guise of feigned bravery. If someone has to constantly boast about themselves while putting down others, they are actually broken, a shell of what a truly heroic person should be. 

So how do we even begin to foster peace in any kind of situation? 

We might start by striving for peace in our personal relationships. That means taking the time to to understand why someone is thinking and feeling in a manner different from our own. It is important that we allow even a seeming adversary to explain how they are feeling. We must do this without immediately attempting to change his/her mind with a rebuttal that we have ready practiced before they even speak. Making peace more often than not requires us to give a little, sometimes even more that feels comfortable. 

In the United States right now there is an ongoing battle between those who are liberal and those who are conservative, between those who are religious and those who are not, between one culture and another, between those who see things as strictly good versus evil and those who see positive traits in mostly everyone. Some people want to have specific directions and rules about every aspect of life and others need only a vague description of what will work best for most of us. We have people vehemently against abortion and some who believe the it has its place in certain situations. We have individuals who believe that there are only men and women with very specific characteristics and those who think that there is actually a fluidity of how we express our maleness or femaleness regardless of the physical aspects of our birth. The list of our differences are almost limitless and it has always been that way in the history of humankind. It is the reason that people have a tendency to fight with each other. Luckily the peacemakers have so far kept us from destroying each other and our planet. 

Jesus found it important to praise the peacemakers in the Sermon on the Mount because He understood that by nature we often harbor tendencies to vie with each. Perhaps if He were to send us a message in our present times it would be to turn our attention away for those who would taunt us to keep fighting with each other. He would ask us not to continually judge each other and put each other into categories of all good or all bad. He would have us search for the peacemakers and listen to their reasons why we should be together. 

A peacemaker does not make deals or use bribery or punishments. The true peacemaker is selfless and fair and loving. Perhaps we should remember this the next time anyone attempts to keep our fights going with hyperbolic prodding’s that keep us choosing sides. Beware of such people because they do not have our best interests in mind, only theirs. Do not be used by the troublemakers. Find the goodness in those who are the true children of a God who loves every glorious person ever created. 

I must have been in the fourth or fifth grade when I learned how our continent got its name. The shocking truth was that it came from an Italian businessman and explorer named Amerigo Vespucci. As a young man working for the Medici family Amerigo learned that explorers were looking for a northwest passage to the Indies. When he was in his forties, after Christopher Columbus had made his famous voyages, Amerigo decided that he too wanted to explore this new world. He left his business behind and embarked on a number of explorations discovering numerous places in South America. In 1507, cartographers working on maps of the New World decided to honor Amerigo by naming South America after him. Later in 1538, a mapmaker chose to use the name America for all parts of the continent both north and south.

The idea that the word, America, has some special connotation for only the United States is historically incorrect. Those who live in Canada, Central America and South America are also Americans in the strictest sense of that word. Somehow along the way we have coopted that designation as though we are the only ones who have a right to be considered Americans. It is a rather audacious thing to do. It detracts from the contributions of all of the people who are part of the history of the incredible new world that Europeans stumbled upon in their travels. We like to say that they discovered certain areas but of course those places already existed. They were simply unknown to the Europeans of the time. The true ancestors of our nations are the native peoples who roamed the land for centuries before the explorers even arrived. 

Humans have walked across the world from the beginning of time. More often than not the earliest humans wandered in search of food and perhaps warmer places to live during the cold of winter. Eventually many of them settled down into agrarian communities where they built permanent structures and enacted rules, laws and traditions. 

It is important to teach our children such things. Knowing such information provides them with a more enlightened way of looking at how humans have evolved over time. They are able to understand why people adopted certain practices and settled down in particular areas. The ascent of humans from being hunter gatherers to creating towns and eventually nations is fascinating and speaks to the inventiveness of humans from all parts of the world. 

We live in very modern times in which even people in what may have been primitive places are driving cars, watching television, using computers, enjoying the benefits of technology. At the same time they have their own languages and cultures and ways of interacting with the world. They have created different foods and clothing and hairstyles. All in all humans have always had a tendency to move forward with their art, architecture, and knowledge of the natural world.

When Shakespeare penned the famous lines what a piece of work is man, how noble in reason, how infinite in faculty, in form and moving, how express and admirable, in action how like an angel..” he praised the best aspects of our humanity and yet there has always been a baser reality of the people who have lived on this earth. Those explorers to new worlds took for granted that they somehow owned the land and the riches of the places that they found. They pushed the native peoples aside, sometimes looking at them as being subhuman. The stories of this happening abound and comprise the realities of exploration of what would become the Americas. 

Some people seem to think that exposing children to such honesty is damaging to them, but I learned these things when I was nine or ten years old. Somehow they did not terrify me or make me think less of the people that I knew, they were simply facts that explained to me how we have historically made mistakes and then changed for the better a bit here and there over time. It helped me to understand that we are always a work in progress and that we have the possibility to be angels but have yet to rise completely to that status. For me life is a process of making mistakes and then trying to do better and be better. I am no different, no better or no worse, than those who came before me with the kind of hopes and dreams that only humans are able to envision among all of the living things attempting to survive. Those were beautiful lessons that surely made me want to reach for the perfection that Shakespeare describes with his beautiful words. 

We would do well not to believe or boast that we are somehow the golden people who deserve more than others. We might do better and be better by embracing the truth that we are but a part of a vast continent made up of Americans of many different cultures and languages. History demonstrates over and over that we are best if we remain humble and willing to understand that we are simply one version of people trying to live our best lives.