My mother and I recently sorted through hundreds of photos. Some dated back more than eighty years, and others were taken within the last few years. We reminisced about people and retold stories about our family and friends. We talked about how my grandmother advised my aunt to make younger friends, and then my aunt told us the same thing. My mother, like my grandmother, has outlived most of her long-time friends. We spoke of neighbors who became good friends and how sometimes your friends become like family. She told of times when she helped others and how others had helped her throughout the years. I saw pictures of myself as a baby, a child, a teenager, a wife, and a mother. One of the pictures that has one of the best stories is my eighth-grade graduation picture. My braces had recently come off my teeth; my hair was long, but styled; and my mom helped me choose a pretty blue sweater to wear. I was ready.
Like most students, especially girls moving on to high school, I was excited to see how my picture turned out. When I saw it, however, I was completely mortified. What neither my mother nor I realized was that the pretty blue sweater looked more fitted than we had anticipated in the photo, and the photographer was framing the photos from the waist up. Let’s just say that when one looked at the picture, one’s eyes did not go to my face. One’s eyes immediately looked lower at a pair of rather large body parts. I was so embarrassed. I was a young girl. These things were not supposed to be so big! Some girls may have been envious about mine, but what they didn’t know was I was envious of theirs.
I came out of school crying, and my friend from next door saw me. When I told her why, she insisted that it couldn’t be that bad. We all know that girls this age can be over-dramatic. I showed her the picture. One look, and she said, “Oh. It is that bad.” Some may think that this would make me feel worse, but it didn’t. She was honest, and she agreed with me. She let me know that I was not being too critical of myself or the photo. Over forty years later, I still appreciate what a good friend she was that day.
When I got home, I showed the picture to my mom. She called the photography company. God bless my mother and the person who answered the phone. That worker said it was no problem—they would just cut them off. They reprinted the photo after a strategic crop job, and all was fixed. May I say that I never wore that sweater again unless I knew no one would be taking pictures? Lesson learned.
Sitting at the table sorting photos, my mom and I came across the 8 x 10 of that picture. We chuckled a bit. “Oh, that’s the one where they cut off your boobs! What a nice picture,” she said. I thought about how good is it when people—family, friends, neighbors, and strangers—help a young girl to feel good about herself. It is something this girl will appreciate the rest of her life.
Author: marebear (Page 8 of 11)
I was working with a small group of sixth grade math students when one asked, “What does “psychotic” mean?” Before I could say anything, the girl’s friend answered, “It means you’re cray cray.” She didn’t say it in a mean way, and the first girl’s feelings were not hurt, but I could tell that she was concerned. I didn’t ask why she wanted to know, and she didn’t volunteer the information. My answer was something like, “If a person is psychotic, it means that he has been diagnosed with a type of mental illness.” I could tell by the look on her face that she was still worried, so I tried to reassure her by saying that people with mental illness can still have successful marriages, careers, etc. This seemed to satisfy her, and we moved onto the subject of math.
I often think of that girl, and I hope she or whomever she was worried about is okay. I know that life is hard enough without chemical imbalances, depression, PTSD, etc., but that people who suffer from these things have an even harder time. I also know that therapy and medication can help.
Two celebrities recently committed suicide, and even though I did not follow them, it still makes me sad. The family of one of them said that the woman was afraid of getting help because she was worried about her reputation. The stigma of mental health issues is apparently still strong in our society despite public service announcements and efforts of celebrities and every-day people. This needs to change. We all need to encourage the people we know to seek help when they need it and to not worry about what others will think.
We also need to remember that despite our best efforts, when loved ones take their own lives, it does no good for those of us left behind to blame ourselves. We will always miss them and wish that we could have made things better for them, but blaming ourselves will not bring them back. Our love for them will continue, and we need to forgive both them and ourselves.
I’m sorry if this month’s blog is a bummer, but I felt the need to write about this subject. The fact is that all lives are worth living. If you or someone you know is battling depression, I encourage you to get professional help. The National Suicide Hotline can be reached at 800-273-8255. God bless us all.
“If a person wants to make a lot of money, he should not become a teacher. He should be an astronaut,” a person tells me. I respond, “Without teachers, there would be no astronauts.” I know it has been said before, but I don’t think most people really think about what it means. Much of what was taught to us in school, we don’t remember learning. We think we just know.
Unless we struggled learning how to read, we don’t remember that an adult once taught us our letters, their sounds, and how they fit together to make words. We think we just know how to write a sentence and that sentences form paragraphs. Some people are better readers, writers, and spellers than others, but most American adults can read and write well enough to get through life. Some remember their first-grade teacher’s name (Sister Anna Marie was mine), but many people don’t even remember the name of the person who taught them the basics of reading.
We know the difference between a quarter, a dime, and a nickel, but we can’t recall learning this. I sometimes work with students using fake coins. I have them feel the edges of the coins and tell them that one way to tell the difference between a quarter and a nickel is that the edge of the nickel is smooth. We talk about the dime being worth more than the nickel even though the nickel is bigger. Size and value are difficult concepts to learn, sometimes even for adults. Bigger isn’t always better, right?
We learn a great deal from our parents. Some are patient enough to home-school their children (I was not one of them. We couldn’t even get through homework without arguments). We also learn from television, the Internet, and other people. Learning should never stop, even when we are out of school, but it is important for us all to remember that much of our knowledge was given to us by teachers. As class sizes get bigger, expectations higher, and salaries smaller, fewer people consider becoming teachers. In our current society, some want to add the responsibility of arming teachers to defend themselves and their students. This is just one more reason for people to not want to teach. If we don’t give people incentives to become teachers, then who will teach the children?
****************************************************************************************************************************************************
An eighth-grade science class is so crowded with students and desks that one can hardly move. The school is blessed to have technology, but there is not enough to go around because the class is so big. Who will teach the children?
Teachers are constantly spending their own money on supplies for the classroom and sometimes pay for students to go on field trips. Who will teach the children?
A teacher can no longer afford her house after her adult children move out. Who will teach the children?
Students often don’t care how they do on standardized tests. They just bubble in random answers, but a teacher’s salary sometimes depends on the students’ performance on those tests. Who will teach the children?
Students, teachers, and parents are stressed because of the testing required in schools. Who will teach the children?
Students have various diagnosed and undiagnosed issues, and teachers are expected to differentiate their lessons for each student. Who will teach the children?
Some students only want to go to school for art or music or P.E. because these are the only subjects the students think they are “good at.” Budgets for these classes are often cut first. Who will teach the children?
A good teacher goes to work in Corporate America because she cannot support her family on a teacher’s salary. Who will teach the children?
Over 50,000 teachers and staff march to the Capitol in Arizona. They say, “We will teach the children. We love our students. All we want is a fair salary.”
An aide shows up for work each day even though she is making minimum wage. She loves the principal, the teachers, the secretaries, and especially her students. She will teach the children, but only if she has a spouse who can support her.
They will teach the children, but they need to be recognized, supported, and appreciated.
Someone has to teach the children.
Where did the teaspoons go? Over the years, I bought two full sets of silverware, and I should have sixteen teaspoons. I now have eight. Yes, I counted. I know thirty-five years of running a household is a long time, but still, where did the teaspoons go?
Did they get tired of constantly being stuck in scalding liquids or cold dairy desserts? Have they snuck over to the neighbor’s because they found my fiber-filled breakfast cereal and skim milk boring? Do they miss Cocoa Puffs and Peanut Butter Crunch as much as I do? Did they sneak out with the medicine bottle after a teaspoon of sugar made the medicine go down? Did one run away with the dish because of a fiddle-playing cat, a jumping cow, and a laughing dog?
Where did those teaspoons go? Years ago, our house was burglarized. Did one thief say to the other, “Dude, forget the old, giant TV. I need me some spoons?” Keep in mind, my silverware is not actually made of silver. I have never owned real “silver” ware.
Okay, so I’ll be honest. Some spoons may have fled in fear after I ACCIDENTALLY put one of their brothers down the garbage disposal, but that has not happened all that often. So, where did they go? How does a family lose something they use every single day? It is not as if we carry teaspoons around in our pockets or handbags. We do not need them to start our cars or shade our foreheads. Teaspoons are not things that we might leave somewhere other than our home.
This is one of the great mysteries of life, and I do not have the answer. All I know is that I am going to have to adopt some sisters for the brothers who are left in my drawer. Eight is not enough.
In 2011, our family bought two used Honda Civics, one for our son, and one for our daughter. Our son was working full-time, and the Civic he got was the first car to be entirely in his name. Our daughter was an out-of-state college student, and we thought it would be good for her to have a car there.
Our daughter’s Civic was a cute, little, red car with an automatic transmission. She named it Bingley after a Jane Austen character, and she and I drove it across country to get it to her college. Sadly, Bingley only survived about a month there. A man in a tow truck going about 45 miles an hour rear ended my daughter and Bingley sending them over a curb and flipping them upside down. Bingley was totaled. My daughter was shaken up and sore, but miracle of miracles, she was okay.
Our son’s Civic was a sporty, silver car with a five-speed manual transmission. He never named it, but as the miles and years went on, poor What’s-Its-Name slowly fell apart. The inner parts of the doors were not connected correctly to the outer parts of the doors, so in order to close them from the inside, one had to grab where the door met the window to pull it shut. The windshield was cracked. The air conditioning stopped working. The key fob and auto lock were broken, so he had to lock/unlock each door separately and follow a series of steps to keep the alarm from sounding. The engine, etc. was wearing out. Finally, our mechanic told him that it was time. What’s-Its-Name went to the junk yard. About a week later, my husband asked my son if he missed the Civic. The answer was that he did not miss the things that were wrong with the car, but he did miss the car because of the memories he had made driving it. He had grown up as the car grew old.
The conversation made me remember the first car that was entirely my own. It was a blue Chevy Malibu that was new when my uncle bought it, used when my brother bought it, and kind of a mess when my brother sold it to me. By the time I was done with it, the stuffing was out of the driver’s seat, so I had to shove rag towels down into the hole so I could see over the dashboard. The seal around the windows had worn off, so whatever weather happened outside also came inside. The trunk leaked, so we drilled holes in the bottom to let the water run out. There was no knob on the tuner of the radio. I kept a pair of plyers handy to change the station. The throttle stuck, so it would accelerate on its own. I once got up to 25 miles an hour without ever touching the gas pedal. It probably would have gone faster, but there was a stop sign. When it wasn’t accelerating by itself, it sometimes refused to accelerate at all. There was a time when I had to floor it on the shoulder of the interstate until the engine caught. It was sometimes dangerous to drive, but it was mine! It was the first time I could call a car my own, and like my son, I was both relieved and sad to see it go.
We become attached to things, especially cars, because of the memories we associate with them. The hardest vehicle for me to let go of was our family van. Road trips, loading bikes in and out, car pools, and family activities all took place with that van. When we said goodbye to it, we had to admit that those parts of our lives were over. It truly sunk in that our kids were adults, and those times would not come again. So, enjoy your children and your vehicles while you have them. Appreciate their quirks, imperfections, and idiosyncrasies. That goes for both the cars and the kids.
My commute to work in the morning is usually one of peace and beauty. With the sun coming up behind me and the desert opening up before me, I often see hot air balloons floating around. Sometimes they are high above, and sometimes they are coming in for a landing. I travel on a two-way highway, and occasionally there are slow construction trucks or campers because it is a main highway running east and west.
One morning I was just about to set the cruise control when I noticed a car passing a truck coming from the other direction. I quickly realized that this car was in my lane coming straight for me, and the driver was not going to have time or space to get out of my way. “Really?” I said as I drove onto the shoulder of the road. As we passed, I glanced over and saw her face. We were that close.
She did not look alarmed or scared or panicked. She did not look remorseful. I think she was oblivious. I don’t think she ever knew I was there. She had the sun in her eyes, so it is possible that she was blinded by the light. It made me want to shout, “I am here. I am here! I am here!” like the Whos shouted to Horton (Dr. Suess).
She made a mistake, and if there had not been a shoulder on that highway, her mistake could have cost both of us our lives. This incident has made me wonder how often I have been so blinded by something or so focused on my own life that I have failed to see someone else, literally see them, or just not pay attention to them. We need to look out for the needs of others, not just on the roads, but in life. We need to understand that our actions or inactions affect those around us. We are all tied together. We all matter. We are all here.
It was a day or two before my 12th birthday, and my brother was home alone. My mom had baked my favorite cake, which at the time was chocolate chip cake with chocolate frosting, and it was sitting on the counter in the kitchen. We came home from wherever we were, and as I walked through the house, I noticed a plate with a fork and some crumbs on it.
“Stay calm,” I told myself. He could have just eaten something else on that plate. Surely, even he, wouldn’t eat my birthday cake before my party. Not my big brother–even though he beat me at every game we ever played and made fun of me for losing, even though he and a friend had tormented me when we were younger by playing tug of war with my stuffed snake, even though he and my cousin had a habit of sneaking outside while I was absorbed in cartoons—not even HE would EAT MY BIRTHDAY CAKE BEFORE MY PARTY!!! I quietly walked back into the kitchen, and then screamed, “MOOOOOM. HE ATE MY BIRTHDAY CAKE!!!!!!” God bless my mother who had made arrangements that year to have a friend make me a special cake with a doll in the middle and the cake around decorated like a dress with yellow flowers. It was supposed to be a surprise for my party, but the only way my mother could calm me down was by telling me ahead of time.
This story has been told and retold hundreds of times, and my brother and I still discuss it. Did he not remember it was my birthday? Did he know it was my birthday cake but not care? We joke about when and how I will finally forgive him for such a sin. We wonder at how we ever ended up liking each other after the way we acted as children. I recently visited him over the weekend of his birthday, and I bought him a cake. After bringing it to his house, he grinned and told me I should have cut out a piece of it before giving it to him. Damn. I missed my chance!
I was in a class at church when a friend told about his trip to Bethlehem. He said that it was an amazing experience and that he kept picturing Mary riding on a donkey or ass being led by Joseph. He described her as being serene despite Joseph not being able to find a place for them to stay. Just before the class ended, the leader asked if anyone had anything else to say. I raised my hand, and said, “If I was nine months pregnant riding on an ass, and my husband could not find a place for us to stay, I would not be serene.” It got the desired laugh, but I was partially serious. Mary was very special.
Catholics believe that Mary was born without original sin. It is called the Immaculate Conception, and it is celebrated today. I have often remembered what my friend said, and I am not sure that he was correct about Mary being serene. We know she had an enormous amount of faith, but it is important to remember that even if she was without sin, it did not mean that she was without emotion.
Theologians speculate that she was only about fifteen years old, and while a fifteen-year-old in her time and culture was probably more mature than one here and now, it was still young. She was forced by politics and government to travel at the end of her pregnancy. She gave birth far from home without her mother or other close relatives nearby. She had her baby, God’s child, in a drafty barn or cave-like place. Yes, there might have been sweet-smelling hay, but it was a place for animals, so there were probably other odors that were not so sweet. I am more apt to believe that the serenity did not come until after Jesus was born. It must have been reassuring when the shepherds came and told of angels proclaiming the birth. Surely, the light from the star also reminded her that she was the mother of God; and later, when the Magi came with gifts, it must have been a comfort.
Fear is not a sin, but when we let fear keep us from doing what God wants us to do, it is a problem. Mary might have felt very afraid at many times, but she did what God wanted her to do anyway. Our lives are often not what we thought they would be, but if we can trust God the way Mary did, we will be all right.
My daughter called me the other night in tears. She was trying a new frosting recipe, it was not turning out well, and when she tried to fix it by adding more milk, it splattered all over her kitchen. She had already worked a full day, been to the grocery store, and baked cupcakes using special directions for baking at a high altitude. She was getting ready to have out-of-town guests, and she was exhausted. Since I live in a different city, all I could do was offer moral support and assure her that anyone who has ever cooked or baked, especially for someone else, has had a similar situation.
My daughter’s plight reminded me of one of the years that I was trying the Herculean task of serving a homemade pasta meal on Christmas Eve and a full turkey dinner on Christmas Day. On the morning of Christmas Eve, I found that something from the raw turkey, which was on the top shelf of the fridge, had leaked all the way down to the produce drawers at the bottom of the fridge. My main goal that year was simply not to make anyone sick. As I painstakingly cleaned the refrigerator piece by piece and threw away anything that was not sealed, I wondered how I had ever let myself get into that situation.
Sometimes there are solutions to these problems. Sometimes, however, one has to gracefully accept defeat and tell oneself that, in the future, it is okay to stop serving the homemade pasta dinner on Christmas Eve and start serving ham instead of turkey on Christmas Day. It is also perfectly acceptable to buy a tub of pre-made frosting.
I learned the lesson of gracefully accepting defeat in the kitchen when I was a teenager. My mother was getting ready to give one of her famous family/friend get-togethers, and she was making a layered jello mold. You might be imagining the typical red, white, and green mold that was popular in the 70’s, but no, this was an intricate layered mold which included several flavored jellos stacked one above another. It involved making a small amount of each flavor, pouring it into a glass casserole dish, and letting it solidify before adding the next layer. She also had to make sure that she let the newest layer cool enough in the measuring cup before pouring it onto the jelled layers so they stayed jelled. It was a tedious process, and she was well into it when she dropped the casserole dish. Luckily, it didn’t break, and we thought it was salvageable. It was okay until she dropped it a second time, and the force of the landing caused a rainbow of jello to fly through the air and land all over the floor. At first, neither of us said anything. It was one of those moments when you think, “Did that really just happen?” Finally, she said, “Well, I’ve already made a mess. I might as well finish the job,” and she took the liquid jello that was still in the measuring cup and poured it out on the floor. I howled with laughter. I think we laughed the whole time we cleaned up the mess. We still laugh about the time she poured the jello on the floor.
This is the perfect picture of gracefully accepting defeat in the kitchen. She could have been angry or sad. Instead, she made one of our best memories. Sometimes defeat is the best thing that can happen.
Moonlight shining through the clouds
Forming shadows on the ground.
Lizard sleeping on the walk;
Coyote trotting in the dark.
Bunnies hopping with the dawn;
Birds awaking singing sounds.
Another peaceful hike at day
Hoping to keep stress at bay.
I know not what this day will bring,
But life goes on, so joy will spring.