Baffling Times

The insults and playground rhetoric were enough for me. Mocking a handicapped man. Insulting people’s appearance. Calling American voters “stupid.” Demeaning women. 

I was, frankly, baffled by Donald Trump’s win in 2016. 

Oh, I understood some of the reasons people gave-- people I respect, intelligent people who are passionate about their beliefs. I understood the willingness to ignore personality in favor of policy. I could also agree with a common argument: You don’t question the character of a surgeon, you simply want someone who’s qualified to operate. 

I just never saw Trump as being qualified to lead the free world. As a Christian, I prayed for him. As an Independent, I appreciated some of the accomplishments. As a realist, I encouraged gloom-and-doomers to wait it out. “One man isn’t that powerful. It’s just four years!” 

And it was. 

But incredibly, a second Trump presidency is possible. Added to previous insults is the injury of multiple indictments, including two felony counts regarding the January 6, 2021 insurrection. The reason for continued support is – in my opinion, at least where many are concerned – an unwillingness to research, to objectively read the speeches, to watch the hearings and listen to Trump’s own staff members reveal his part in the day’s events.

That winter I was a substitute teacher for high school social studies classes while their regular teacher recovered from surgery. Sophomores and juniors focused on different eras in U.S. History but as it was a momentous time in their own histories, I encouraged them to watch or read about the certification of the 2020 presidential election. 

        Who doesn’t like extra credit?

Even as I naively steered young minds in the direction of Washington, something insidious was transpiring. On my way home January 6, I tuned my car radio to WCNO, our local public station. My heart sank.

The nflammatory tweets. Trump supporters reminding followers that blades over 3 inches weren’t allowed. The rebellion was about to begin! The Vice President was staging a coup! Speechmakers used words like “fight” and “combat.”

About half of the people gathered at the Ellipse to listen to then-President Trump’s speech were not allowed access because they refused to pass through the magnetometers used to detect weapons. He was reportedly furious: “I don’t [expletive deleted] care that they have weapons. They’re not here to hurt me … Let my people in. … Take the [expletive deleted] mags away.” 

He spoke of a stolen election, an opinion that wouldn’tbe shared by multiple (even Trump-appointed) judges. He called on Mike Pence to do “the right thing”— actually an unconstitutional act—  by picking and choosing electors that would guarantee his victory.

“And we fight,” he said. “We fight like hell. And if you don't fight like hell, you're not going to have a country anymore.”  

So they fought, wreaking havoc, creating chaos, causing injuries and death. Three hours later Trump finally tweeted to “remain peaceful” and to “respect the Law.” Later, he thanked the mob, expressing his love. 

    Despite its violent attempt to thwart the democratic process, however, Vice President Pence affirmed the election results in the wee hours of January 7.

I apologized to my classes that day for the assignment. I wouldn’t have knowingly encouraged them to watch an insurrection. But I also pointed out that, differences of opinion and partisanship aside, the process had worked. The Constitution held. The checks and balances remained. Democracy was intact.

The question is, will it still be intact a year from now? I remain hopeful. Whatever the outcome of the November election, I will continue to pray for our President. I will appreciate good decisions and policies, and try to remember when things don't go as I would wish...that it's just four years. No one person has the power to bring down our country. No single leader can turn the attitude of the world against us. 

        The grand experiment of American democracy has survived, evolved and improved since its inception. I believe that it will continue. The health of American democracy does not depend on any one person or any one election, but this year's presidential race is key to the immediate future. 

        Having said all that...for what it's worth...let's also remember that relationships are more important to our health than politics. If that means an agreement to refrain from discussing politics at the dinner table (if people still do that) or the gym or on Facebook because of the ugliness it can trigger, so be it. How you vote...and how you think I should vote...shouldn't be a wedge between us. There are complex issues. Layers of nuance. In the end, it's just you, your conscience and your God there in the voting booth. 

        A lot can happen between now and November. A lot can happen in the next four years. Please choose wisely.

    

We The People

The United States Constitution was written in 1779. Lawmakers and law enforcers pledge to uphold it. Students at school memorize its Preamble. At times people try hide behind it, as if personal preferences are constitutionally guaranteed. As the song goes, “It ain’t necessarily so.”

 

Revisiting the majesty of the Preamble is always enlightening: 

We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.

We the People of the United States – At the time of its writing, the Constitution had less grace than it does now, thanks to amendments and the Bill of Rights. “We the People” no longer includes slaves and owners, thankfully. No longer do the women of our country have limited rights and resources. We aren’t technically divided along racial, ethnic, religious, political, or other lines, although our reality falls short. Old prejudices remain, as all-too-frequent news stories tell us, but from a constitutional standpoint, we stand together.

In Order to form a more perfect Union – Note the absence of audacity or arrogance. Our union is not perfect, but it is more perfect. “More perfect” than Crown rule. More perfect than taxation without representation or accommodating British soldiers. Originally, the Constitution covered just the basics but provisions were made for additional material. The writers said, in effect, “This is as good as we can do right now, but changes are inevitable. Don't be afraid to make them."

Establish Justice – What is justice? Fairness, righteousness, handling conflicts between factions with objectivity and impartiality. The folks in the 18^th century had justice to varying degrees. In the 21^st century, we have more. It takes time to establish Justice. Are women better off today? Minorities? Immigrants? I believe that the answer would be a resounding “yes” across the board. We are still “in process” but we are moving in the right direction. Next year I have confidence that there will not be more civil rights abuses, but less. The progress is not as quick as we always want, but it is quantifiable.

Insure domestic Tranquility – Laws are in place to protect We the People, our families and property. Law enforcement provides accountability. We want punishments to fit the crimes, safeguards to ensure that the innocent are not punished nor the guilty acquired. Is our judicial system perfect? No. But it is “more perfect.” It, too, is fluid, researched and dissected to find better methods. There may be cries to “defund,” but it was the Constitution’s framers who took on the responsibility. A nation with no police, or undervalued police, is not a nation with domestic tranquility. 

Provide for the common defense – We the People have reason to be proud of our military. The world looks to us to protect them. We’ve overstepped at times, suffering great losses. But we have mostly avoided the need to draft unwilling soldiers because of our excellence of training, resources, and benefits. We the People have not endured war on our own soil in many years. Few countries have been so blessed.

Promote the general Welfare – This broad stroke takes in the collective desire that We the People enjoy health, peace, morality, and safety. Numerous government agencies work to that end, but citizens must be active participants in the process. We pay taxes. We fill out the census questionnaire. We vote for leaders who, we hope, will facilitate programs effectively for the greater good without causing undue hardship on their constituents.

Secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity – The Constitution knows its end game. Often we focus on isolated issues, certain that their successes or failures will be the all-deciding factors. While every individual of We the People is important, the big picture is equally important. Liberty is indeed a blessing; sometimes we must sacrifice today to secure that blessing for tomorrow.

Do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America - The United States is, relatively speaking, one of the new kids on the block as far as sovereign entities go. Growing pains are only natural. Perhaps today’s turmoil clutters the headlines, but when the U.S. is as old as, say, Great Britain or China, today’s tweet or cause du jour (however important now) will hardly cause a ripple of historic interest. While many seem hell-bent to divide us in however many ways possible, “We the People” will have the last say.

But We the People need to vote. We need to stop getting our information from memes and sound bytes and social media. We need to ask questions and research. We need to realize how easily we can be manipulated by emotion or bias and, armed with this awareness, do whatever we can so that we are not. We need to be willing to lay aside a long-held notion or belief when presented with logic and truth to the contrary. We have to lay down prejudices and assumptions. I, for one, am weary of being lumped in with everyone of a certain color or religion or gender or political persuasion. I do not think and act as all other white people, or all Christians, or all women, or all non-partisan voters. Whatever the labels and categories of We the People -- and acknowledging the importance of the collective -- we are also individuals.

This November we face, perhaps, the most important election of this nation's history. Because of the increased speed of information, the tremendous impact of the Internet, we can ill afford a casual treatment of words and speech and behavior. The next president of the United States has more potential influence for either good or bad than any previous president since George Washington. 

At the same time, We the People must not lose sight of the fact that whoever lives at 1600 Pennsylvania in our nation's capital is there because of us. We vote them in, we vote them out. They are there for a minimum of four years, a maximum of eight. They are temporary. We the People are here to stay.

Twenty Years

Adam Rogers Gillette
5/22/84 - 8/22/00

Twenty years. For some, that's a lifetime, but for most of us, it marks a coming of age. For some, retirement after twenty years marks a successful career. A twentieth wedding anniversary is, these days, a real accomplishment.

August 19, 2000, began as a good day. My son Adam, 16, flopped on the bed beside me and ran lines with me for an upcoming play. He needed to take his computer for a repair, then headed to work as a restaurant busser on Hutchinson Island off Fort Pierce, Florida. He enjoyed his job and told me to always tip the server 20%, because it had to be divvied up with other staff.

Our daughter Becky was visiting, leaving that night after we celebrated our other daughter's birthday. Terri had just turned 21, so it was a big deal. We had dinner where my mother, Jane Pendergraft, was playing piano at Out-of-Bounds. It was a special evening. Becky drove north; the rest of us headed home. 

In the wee hours of Sunday, August 20, 2000, Adam had worked late, driven a co-worker home and (if memory serves) had dropped him off somewhere. Driving home, something went wrong. Along US. 1, his front right tire went off the shoulder. When he turned the wheel to the left to return all four tires to the highway, his car spun out of control close to what is now Dyer Chevrolet (formerly Bill Shultz Chevrolet).

A driver coming from the opposite direction saw the erratic headlights of a car spinning and called 911. Adam's car flipped and landed on its roof with such force that he was ejected out the rear window.  His head and one arm took the brunt of impact. He never regained conciousness, but that driver did what he could by calling. Twenty years later, I am sure he remembers that night. I hope he is well.

Two young women on their way home from a party stopped and talked to him until the ambulance arrived. They showed up at the hospital, too. Twenty years later, I'm sure they remember that night, too. I hope they are well.

We got a call from my brother-in-law Stacy, who had retired from the St. Lucie County Fire Department. Someone had heard the Gillette name on the scanner and called him, but we didn't know anything. Shortly after that, however, we had a call from a police officer at the local hospital. "Is it bad?" I asked. 

"You need to come now," he said. Twenty years later, in his line of work, that officer has doubtless made other similar calls, has seen trauma of all sorts. With today's social climate, many officers are leaving law enforcement altogether. I hope he is well. I hope he knows how much I appreciate his insistence on speed.

When we arrived at the hospital, Adam filled the emergency room bed. When had he gotten so tall? At 16, he was a handsome guy with auburn hair and freckles. One of the nurses said, "We knew by looking at him that this was someone who was loved." 

Twenty years later, much has changed at the hospital. Then, there was no neurologist on call. Today there is a trauma unit. First responders had not been able to intubate Adam on the highway and so they took him to the closest hospital. We waited for a bed to open up at the nearest trauma center -- Holmes Regional in Melbourne.  

(When I eventually got copies of the records, someone had signed that "parent was too upset to sign" off on numerous unnecessary tests that were performed, which was not true. Of course we were upset, but we were all too aware of what was going on. I refused to pay until I got some answers, but in the end, that answer was "When a child comes in, people want to do all they can." They also reduced the bill to something manageable.)

Mark Zook was the Florida Highway Patrol homicide investigator sent to the scene. He is also a friend who fingerprinted Adam as a little homeschooler years before. He told us that Adam might have been changing a CD in his beloved new sound system or scratching his leg. He wasn't driving recklessly or too fast. Alcohol was not a factor. 

Twenty years later, Mark has seen more than his share of trauma with FHP and in his own life. His own son Ian died in 2004 in service to our country. His wife Karen does a wonderful work with Gold Star moms, honoring those who have suffered loss. Today, I hope they are well.

The first responders who helped Adam, the nurses, the technicians, the staff at Holmes, Dr. Shepherd -- perhaps they have all retired by now. Once transported to Holmes, Adam was put into a barbituate coma in hopes that the bleeding in his brain would recede. Friends and family flooded the waiting room. One friend called to see what he could do and I asked him to bring coats -- the waiting room was, I'd been told, very cold, and some people were staying many hours. Others made the hour long drive to support me, or my husband, or our other children.Calls came in with words of encouragement. People visited. Usually, a nurse told me, they are more restrictive with ICU patients, but with a teen, they knew his friends might need closure. Allowances were made.

Many of those young people are now married, with families of their own. (I know of three babies born who were named after him, including his nephew Adam II.) Twenty years later, I still hear new stories about Adam occasionally, still read posts from friends and family members who miss him too. Today I hope they are all well.

On August 22, after numerous tests were performed to make absolutely certain he was gone, Adam was declared brain dead. An organ donor, he saved five lives and gave sight to two others. Although I have been in contact with some of the organ recipients, I don't know how they are today with one notable exception: Chuck Daniels, the young man who received Adam's heart, died in 2013. I regret not knowing, because I would have been at his service. I am grateful that he had 13 years in which to become a nurse and get married. I know one thing: it has been seven years since Adam's heart stopped beating, the heart Chuck let me hear again after we met in person. And I know that his mother is still grieving, because I am still grieving after twenty.

In twenty years, so much happens, so many wonderful things! Our family has experienced the joy of births, marriages, graduations, accomplishments, careers. We've met new friends, lived new places, done new things. But along with those joys, there have been losses of many kinds -- divorces, deaths of parents, disappointments, all within the same twenty years.

Such is life. It's a mixed bag. There are good days and bad, sunshine and rain. Nothing, and I mean nothing, has profoundly affected me and our family as much as losing Adam -- although I must interject with my granddaughter Jasmine's wise words to me at about age 3. She caught me crying and asked if it was because of Uncle Adam. "When you lose someone you love, you are sad for a long time," I said. "Silly Nana," she retorted. "We didn't lose him. We know where he is!"

And we do. As Christians, we believe in heaven. We know Adam's character and faith. We "grieve, but not as those who have no hope," as Paul wrote to the Thessalonian church. Hope does not, however, take away the sense of loss. It is just a fact that the young man we love and miss every day of our lives is not present. We can't call him on the phone or listen to him laugh or get a hug in his strong arms.

I have learned a lot in twenty years, much of it because of my son's death. Most importantly, I have learned that if you are settled in your mind and heart that God exists, you're stuck. If you know in your "knower" that there is a God, all the arguments about "a loving God wouldn't do this" or "a just God wouldn't do that" are futile. IF you believe that God exists, he can do whatever the hell he wants to do! He's God. You're not. He doesn't ask for our permission. He doesn't wait until we approve of his plan.

I am stuck. I see evidence of God's existence in nature, in the love and lives of others, throughout history. God doesn't behave the way I want him too, which is strangely comforting. If he did, I would be tempted to think I had created a false belief out of my own desires and expectations. God is not what I wish him to be, and yet he has convinced me that he loves me. That he wants the best for me. That he is in control.

Twenty years later, I still believe this. I don't understand why Adam died at 16, unformed, unfinished, a life unfulfilled. I don't like it. I remind God frequently of this, and yet, as a Christian mother, heaven is the destination I prayed for, for him. For all my children and grandchildren and loved ones. For all my friends and family. That he is there sooner than I anticipated is a hardship for me and for those who also miss him, but not for him. Not for him.

Twenty years. I've held new grandbabies, seen my first grandchild become an adult. Many new firefighters at Indian River State College have benefited from the Adam Gillette Memorial Firefighter scholarship started and continued by the local firefighters union. I've watched as my daughter Becky has become a nurse and expand her family. Daughter Terri has overcome many obstacles in her life, physically and emotionally. Son Caleb is a police lieutenant with a Master's degree. I know that at every birthday party, every ceremony, every wedding, every funeral of their grandparents, every family gathering, every holiday they miss Adam sorely. Then again, it's a daily thing. Sometimes an hourly thing.

But life goes on. It wouldn't honor our memory of Adam or our love for him to let his absence -- however sorely felt -- have a negative effect. People used to say, "I don't know how you do it" to which I thought -- what's the alternative? Become an alcoholic or drug addict to numb myself so I don't feel the pain? I wouldn't be able to feel the love either, then.

What has helped? Talking about Adam, hearing about him from others, writing about him -- these have certainly helped. My faith in a God who loves me so much I can tell him I hate him at times (and I have). The support of so many friends who, hopefully, will never understand what it's like to bury a child, and the support of too many friends who know it well.

Not long after Adam's death, I heard someone say this: Significant loss changes you, and you spend the rest of your life finding out who you are now. Twenty years ago, I had a significant loss that is incomparable to any other event in my life. And it did, indeed, change me. I am not as nice a person as I once was. I am more impatient with trivialities and complaints. I am not as empathetic with people who are  upset about things I consider unimportant. I feel as though I have gone through something far worse than coronavirus or social unrest or political polarization and sometimes I just want to scream at people to shutthefuck up about things that, in the eternal scope of things, don't even register as a blip on the screen.

I'm working on that.

Twenty years later, I have babbled on and on, but what do I really want to get across to you? It's 2020, the year we have grown to loathe with its constant turmoil in nature, in society, everywhere we look. I would say this: There are not all that many people who truly love any one of us. Truly, deeply. Our lives do not really matter in a profound way to more than a relative handful. Think of the billions of people on the planet -- who will miss you when you're gone? Who will still cry when you've been gone twenty years?

Adam's life mattered, and continues to matter. His love for me, his constant good cheer (once he outgrew his temper!). The world...MY world... was better because he was in it. And now he isn't, not in the same way. 

So I would tell you that if you are blessed with someone who loves you...if you are important to someone, whether a parent or sibling or friend or lover or other family member ... please don't do things, or say things, that will push them away. You can't afford to lose someone like that if only because there are so few of them! Your life will be the lesser for that loss. Adam loved me - of that I am certain. He loved his father, his brother, his sisters, his grandparents and cousins, his friends. The "not-here-ness" of that love has affected us all.

Sometimes it is beyond our control -- we try to stay close and our feelings aren't wanted or reciprocated. That hurts, I know. But look at all the others who DO love us back! What a gift they are! Cherish them always.

Twenty years later, I am hurting. I am crying. I am wallowing a bit more than usual. But I am also so grateful for having sixteen years with a remarkable young man. And even more than that, I am grateful for the belief that I will see him once again.

I have hoped that many people are well today, this day before the twentieth anniversary of Adam's death, a temporary change of location that profoundly changed me and everyone who loved him, who love him still. And I do hope they are well.

I know that Adam is.

(c) 2020 Ellen Gillette

A Matter of Words

For what it's worth (get it?) I am embarrassed by the fact that it has been over a year since I posted anything here. Why have a blog if one does not use it as a platform for expressing one's views? Have I not had anything to say in the course of a full year?

Of course I have. And I have said it, in bits and pieces, on social media, during speeches at Toastmasters, in articles or poems I have written, in a manuscript, in writing homework or exercises at the writers' group I enjoy monthly. I had quite a lot to say at my father's funeral. I've been in a few plays, which doesn't really count since what I had to say then was written by others. I have said even more during countless phone conversations. I have emailed. Texted. Written ACTUAL LETTERS AND CARDS -- I know, a dying art, but one I still think is important.

My point is ... we all have something to say. Not just the pundits. Not just the talking heads. Not just the celebrities and politicians. Currently I am teaching high school sophomores for a teacher on maternity leave. Most of them do not like the grammar portion of the curriculum. Why is this important? Because they have a story to tell. Their thoughts and views matter, so the way in which they express themselves both verbally and on paper matters.

Your story matters. Everyone's does. It has been my privilege to help others with their personal stories -- some factual memoirs, others the products of their imaginations -- and tidy things up a bit to the point that they were published. It is always challenging to get inside someone else's head and write (correctly) what he or she wanted to express. More on that in a bit.

One day in the mid-1980s I was standing in my kitchen -- a young mother of four who scarcely had time to eat some days, let alone write --  when my parents walked in with an IBM Selectric typewriter. My mother worked for a CPA firm that was upgrading its equipment; she had bought one of the old ones at a great price. I started crying. I had had, at that point and several years earlier, two or three things printed. I wrote something for the church bulletin. I kept a journal. But this incredible gift spoke volumes: We believe in you.

Some years later, but many, many years ago -- 1988, to be exact -- I attended a writers' conference in Arizona. I'd never been to one. I'd never been away from my family for that long, practically a week! I hesitate to say it was a life-changing experience, because the phrase raises  high expectations, but when I look back at that time, and what it eventually meant, I think the words are accurate. My life did indeed change because of the words of two men, Jamie Buckingham and David Manuel.

As a teenager, I had the privilege of hearing Jamie preach at his church in Melbourne, and when he would visit Fort Pierce, but his is a legacy that reaches many times around the globe -- he helped Corrie ten Boom write her story (Tramp for the Lord) and Kathryn Kuhlman's. He penned many humorous and insightful Christian books such as The Truth Will Set You Free, But First It Will Make You Miserable. At the conference, one of the things that stuck with me was spoken to the entire group: "If I preach a good sermon on Sunday morning, I may impact a few hundred people. If I write a book, I can reach so many more." In his case, he reached millions more.

Jamie wrote 22 books of his own, and another 24 for others, among them Nicky Cruz's Run, Baby, Run was a cult classic of the Jesus Movement; Bill Nelson's Mission; and Jeannie C. Riley's From Harper Valley to the Mountaintop. He wrote other people's stories because they had something to say, but may not have been as gifted with the time, talent, or energy to put the words down on paper in a cohesive form. The world would have been poorer had he not been willing to not only put his own thoughts down, but those of others.

What the men said about ghostwriting, or as-told-to writing struck a chord: Everyone has a story to tell, but not everyone can write it. There aren't enough writers willing to share other people's stories.

I didn't know David Manuel prior to the conference, nor had I read any of his books (most notably The Light and the Glory which he wrote with Peter Marshall). But I was in his "group" at the conference. and I've never forgotten his encouragement.

The deal was this: conference attendees were asked to write a short story based on a few verses of scripture, intentionally narrow. They wanted to see what we would come up with, given very few parameters. Frankly, they didn't expect much, but the exercise would give them an idea of what they had to work with.

Somewhere around the beginning of the conference, they asked us why we were there. When it was my turn to answer, I said something along the lines of, "I love to write, but I'm not sure what I should do with it. Maybe I should write letters to the editor, or words of encouragement to others. Maybe I should try to be published. I'm here to find out." 

At the end of the conference, during one of the small group session, David Manuel remembered what I had said. "You wanted to know what to do, and now you do." He'd been surprised and pleased at my short story because it had taken a narrow verse or two and expanded into a real narrative with characters and layers, intrigue and romance. David Manuel, published author, liked what I had written!

That encouragement gave me the confidence to try harder, write more, take more chances, weather the inevitable rejections. A few years later, I was writing weekly newspaper columns for an editor who was equally as encouraging and instructive. More than once I was called into his office to discuss why something hadn't worked, but he was always constructive rather than dismissive. He was my first editor but also the first person to relate to me as a writer, period. He didn't know me, but he knew writing, he knew newspapers, and he knew how to manage people.

After a few years, other editors coming and going (not all as helpful as that first!), I was no longer writing regularly. Without a deadline, it's easy to let things slide. I started this blog. I wrote a book that did not, I'm afraid, make any bestseller lists (available as an e-book at smashwords.com though!). I wrote and illustrated a children's book (She-Bear in the Beautiful Garden). Guest columns. Started writing for a local group of magazines. Have a poetry blog, in addition to this one. Working on a fiction manuscript, guided by solid input from fellow writers. And now, occasionally editing other writers' books, telling someone else's story the way Jamie and David had encouraged.

Back to my point ... way up there, I know ... we all have something to say. If you write it down, the audience may grow. That's both a positive and a negative, as some politicians have found out -- there's real staying power to words. Negative writing can come back and bite you! But I have wonderful emails that I've kept for ten years, because they meant so much to me, and still do. I have cards and letters. Words matter.

Your words matter. It's a new year, writers (that would be, hopefully, everyone reading this). Write a comment on that report when you hand it back. Post something meaningful on Facebook. Tuck a note inside your child's lunchbox. Send a distant relative a card. Write to that inmate. Rant about something in a letter to the editor or (better still) publicly thank someone for a job well done. Write a poem. Jot down that story of something funny that happened in the service. Pour out your heart in anguish, retelling a time of grief or trauma (it will help, I promise you).

Maybe your writing will not be for a major publisher. Maybe your books won't reach the kind of audience Jamie Buckingham's did, but maybe they will! Your writing can impact someone. It can even, and perhaps especially, impact you in ways you might not imagine: changing you, growing you, softening you, honing your thoughts and ideas and dreams.

My sister sent me a card one time that had printed across the top: (don't forget     TO WRITE). Under it, in her own lovely handwriting, she'd added Please don't forget to write! There was more, but not a lot more. Her brief encouragement now has eight tiny holes from where it has been moved around the corkboard in my office and skewered with multiple pushpins years after it was given. Her words mattered then, and they matter now.

Words matter. Your words matter. So..... don't forget to write!

Hope in the Flames

I came across an article today entitled "Find Your Happiness Project" by Gretchen Rubin, in Issue One of Simplify magazine. Rubin writes," My college roommate was a dedicated journal keeper. She once told me, 'Every once in a while I have a big insight into myself or have a major epiphany about life. The thing is, when I look back in my journals, I realize that I had exactly the same idea a few years ago—but I forgot it.'"

I had, in fact, a similar revelation, but with dramatically different results.

Our family spent a year in India working with Youth With A Mission, a Christian organization with bases throughout the world. After training at the Lindale, Texas base, we'd gone on an outreach to Mexico City after their earthquake in 1985. We'd been housed in an unfinished hospital building with water so cold in the bathroom's overhead shower, that I got a headache the one time I tried to use it.

After that, we walked, my husband and our four young children, to the banyo once a week for hot showers. On the way, we'd buy pastries. I homeschooled the older children, my husband was on a construction team, I helped with meals. It was a great experience.

The following January, we embarked on an even bigger adventure. It is amazing now, post-911, to remember the bags of sharp tools we took on board the airplane that would take us to the other side of the planet! Four children, age two to eight, living in a foreign country, far from everything familiar.

For almost a year, we lived in one village, then another. We went on an outreach to northern India, where we visited the foothills of the Himalayas. We took rickshaw rides, bus rides, train rides. Our oldest, who turned nine, remembers the most about that year, but we gained so much, even as we slept on a concrete floor, had no running water, ate simply. 

All along that incredible journey, I kept journals. Many journals. By kerosene lamplight if the power had gone out during a brown-out, or sitting by the pond watching the kids swim, I journaled. In detail, whether writing about making love on the mat when we knew the children were sound asleep, or a visiting teacher's insight, or an argument that stung to the core.

Our year was supposed to be the first of a lifteime as overseas missionaries, but that was not what happened. Back in the States, we learned that our oldest daughter's medical condition warranted Western medical treatment. We took it as a sign that we should remain here. 

During the following three decades, we went through experiences much harder than that concrete floor, more challenging than adapting to a meager diet. It wasn't just the trials and tribulations every family faces as their children grow up. It wasn't just the challenges every marriage faces, or the way life meanders away from expectations and dreams. Issues. Death. Sorrow. Debt. Disease. Aging parents. Job upheavals. All of the above. 

Of course, there was also happiness, and growth, and abiding joy. And faith, which kept everything in perspective, that assured me all would be well, that there was purpose, a plan.

Then when our youngest son Adam died in 2000 following a car accident, I sensed -- deep, deep inside -- that as sad as I was, one day joy would return. I didn't know it would be 10 years. Faith was not shaken, but joy was. Moments of joy at graduations or babies or personal triumphs or holidays kept me going, but the overwhelming reacquaintance with joy as a constant companion, beneath whatever else life threw my way ... that was, and is, amazing.

At a writer's group I began attending, we read Writing Down the Soul by Janet Conner, and I found myself thinking about journaling again. I didn't, and don't, journal often, but I was reminded of the old India journals stored in a cedar chest.

One evening, I took out the journals alone and began reading. I skipped pages, skipped months, smiled as I saw thoses faces again, heard the lovely cadence of dialects and the ever-present beeping of horns in the city. I was also appalled at what I saw threaded throughout that wonderful year in India. Many of the same issues I might journal about today, I mentioned then. Some of the same negative aspects of my life. The same heartbreaks and questions. I could have written some of this yesterday, I thought.

I wept against the day my children might find the journals after my death. True, they might understand me better, but I would've already passed on, so what would that accomplish? I didn't want them to see, there in black and white, the undercurrents I had struggled with as they grew up, not without knowing all of the sides of all the stories. And that would be impossible.

And too, I remembered the ruthless room cleaning I had done just before my husband proposed. I had thrown away things other guys had given me, starting new, starting fresh, turning a corner. Within days, we were engaged.

I needed to turn a corner again, if only in my heart. I made a decision.

By then, it was dark. I took the journals to a small fire pit outside behind our house, along with lighter fluid and a lighter, and I burned them to ash. I sat there, poking the flames with a stick, until nothing remained that was readable.

When I told my writing group what I had done, some of them were aghast. Your writing! It's gone!

For me, though, it was cathartic, a symbolic act that the ways in which I had settled, the ways in which I had cheated myself out of happiness, the lessons it had taken me so long to learn but finally had...it was a dramatic gesture, but a grand one. 

We talk about "burning bridges behind you" as if it's always a bad thing, but we forget that some bridges shouldn't be built. Some bridges should only go one way. At the time, none of that was in my thinking, and I don't even care if the analogy fits my actions. I didn't try to analyze why I needed to burn the journals, I just knew it would be a good thing. 

I wept a little at the loss, yes, but there was hope in the flames.



(c) Ellen Gillette, 2018

Ullage

I attend, for the most part faithfully, a writers' group called Use Your Words. The Inner Truth Project, an outreach to victims of sexual abuse and violence, hosts us, but we are a group of women and man (occasionally more than one) who share about current projects, do homework, respond to writing prompts, and eat chocolate. Sometimes a guest facilitator or speaker runs the show, but most of the time, sweet Wendy Dwyer keeps us on track, or at least sort of. Writers, nay, women, often get sidetracked.

The homework assignment for the last session was this: Write about an area where you'd like to do better. I left it until the day of, which happened to also be the day I got a Dictionary Word of the Day: ullage. Could be the amount by which contents fall short of filling a container, could be the quantity remaining in the container that has lost part of its contents by evaporation, leakage, or use.

How appropriate for the assignment, I thought. The ullage of our lives could be said to be that which needs more work to fill us completely up, round out our character, etc. And at the same time it could also refer to a measure of what has been used up between our birth until this point.

The irony of one word meaning both things is that we are containers. As babies, we are mostly full. Fill us with joy and love during our infant years. Think of all the nurturing we receive when people hold us as if we are worth all the gold in the world. In that moment, we are precious. Fragile. Complete strangers will sniff at us, as if faced with expensive ambrosia. Our skin is stroked gently. We are bounced up and down rhythmically and immediately when grandmothers (not necessarily our own) get to hold us.

Early on, then, many of us are full. Over time, however, we leak, the holes and cracks we get in our containers the result of stress and strain or outright damage. We give of ourselves, using our storehouse of joy and love and patience on others because it feels good to us, or it's the right thing to do, or to get something in return. Sometimes we do, sometimes it's from a different source than the one we expected or thought we needed. We are neglected and the good, the love, the feeling of being in sync with ourselves and with the universe begins to evaporate.

How to make up the ullage? Where we actually lack – in knowledge, needed skills, hobbies to embrace – we can learn. We can increase the contents of our vessel. But we can never stop giving out, either. There will always be the ullage, because we will have always lost part of the contents. The trick is how we lose it. As with so many things, the choice is ours.

I don't want to evaporate. I don't want my love or joy or peace to respond to the heat of stress or anger by vanishing, little molecules of me breaking off and being swallowed by the negative force coming against me. I would say this even more strongly: I refuse to evaporate. There are people who ignore me, or neglect me, or act as if what I want or what I say is not important. Whatever. I refuse to go up in their puffs of prideful smoke. I'm here, and until God calls me home, I'm here to stay. Ignore me at your peril – or at your preference. I'm still here.

I also don't want to leak through rifts of unforgiveness and bitterness I've allowed to develop and widen. When you ignore a crack too long, there will be a break eventually. A shattering. Spillage that is difficult, if not impossible, to sop up. Never does it all get put back together as it was before. Not to say we can't heal, we can and do. But the fault lines remain, even if we find ways to hide them. They say it is easier to build men than to repair them, which is true. When a tiny crack appears, I want to address it. Forgive the one who hurt me, or ask the one I hurt to forgive me. Keep short accounts, in other words. When we don't forgive, we give our offender power over us, a power that he or she doesn't deserve.

The best way to have ullage, I am thinking, is to use what we have, and find a reliable source for replenishment. Spiritually, the source will be God, not a religious thing but one of relationship with someone who has proven to be trustworthy and faithful. We only scratch the surface, any one of us, in true understanding of how unfathomable the depths of his love for us are. Fortunately, we don't have to understand his love to accept it.

Back to the writers' group assignment, though. What area would I like to improve? Beauty. Not physical beauty, although I definitely need to stay on top of things like my weight and health, the message I communicate to others through my appearance – do I value myself in this moment? Am I confident? Do I feel beautiful, and if so, why? Does it depend too much on this or the other, or another person, or can I hearken back to that moment in my infancy when all I knew, from everyone I encountered, was acceptance and love and affirmation? That all-encompassing awareness of love was the first awareness we experienced. Life has a way of throwing up roadblocks, but knowing we are loved is still important.

As a pre-teen, I remember reading something in a book titled Calico Palace. It was about the gold rush days in California, but what I remember was a man telling a woman that "every woman is as beautiful as one man thinks she is." That's always stuck with me. You could pick that apart and analyze the psychology of it, the political incorrectness, but it is part of who I am today.

Physical beauty – or knowing that we are confident and attractive and enough for whatever comes our way – that's one thing. But where I want to grow is another. Creating an atmosphere of beauty around me. Beautiful words. Beautiful artwork. Beautiful smells and tastes. Recently, I had the privilege of attending an artist's private showing in her home. Everywhere I turned, there was something clever and creative, something that said "A clever and creative woman resides here." It was invigorating. I felt like a little sponge, soaking up the artistic atmosphere.

My world is too silent. Too drab. Often I am a quiet English countryside when there is a touch of morning fog and a lone whippoorwill sings out now and then. There is a time for that. But I also want to be a raucous Calcutta marketplace full of overpowering color and spice and heat, a tabla and sitar speeding up their beat and melody in the background as my heart is beating faster and faster, exhilarated by life.

In what area of life would I like to do better? In living, really living, every moment. There is beauty inherent in life, all around us. I want to do better at sensing life, enjoying life, and celebrating its beauty.

(c) Ellen Gillette, 2018

A Temporary Separation

My mother, Laura Jane Rogers Pendergraft, born on October 17, 1933, was named for her grandmother Laura Ellen Whitley -- I was named for her as well. She passed away January 12 a little over a year after being diagnosed with lung cancer. I was so surprised when we got the report. Mama hadn't smoked heavily ever, and hadn't smoked at all in half a century. She was a heart patient with Parkinson's, so those conditions were more expected to be the cause of her eventual end, but Mama didn't always follow expectations.

She went by Jane, but I only called her Mama. As my sister Rebecca (whom I only call Becky) shared at her memorial service, Mother sounds formal and distant. There are grown children who still call their mothers Mommy. Both our sets of kids refer to us as Mom. But in true Southern tradition, Mama was Mama.

When she was born at home, it was not an easy delivery. Growing up, we heard ... many times ... how the doctor used forceps to literally pull her out. which supposedly accounted for her long neck. Our grandfather said she screamed for three months. It's a wonder we wanted to have babies! This reminds me of something else - "Twilight Zone" was considered too dark for children in our household, and probably came on after our bedtimes. But the next morning at breakfast, Mama would tell us in great detail of the previous evening's episode, so vivid that we could relive every dark and scary moment.

Mama was a bit of a tom boy, but early on, she showed exceptional musical talent. At only 14, she marched into the local radio station and asked for her own show. She was given a spot in conjunction with a local minister, a Rev. Koestline, and she played the organ, specially trained by the organ company for three months. She played for school functions and the Rotary Club. She was also smart as a whip, valedictorian for the class of 1951 and voted as Most Likely to Succeed and Most Talented by her classmates at Albemarle High School. Later, I remember her sighing that she had more common sense than the psychologists she was secretary to at Western Carolina College when we were little, and we never doubted the truth of her statement.

Mama had entered nurses' training, after high school but left before graduating. Then, you couldn't be married in the program and she was discouraged from the long, hard hours taking care of lots of old men, she said, who tried to embarrass the young innocent students. Working at Starnes' Jewelers back home in Albemarle, she met a handsome red-headed teacher who came into the store. He was chaperoning a dance at her old high school, and asked her to be his date. At the dance, everyone parted just like in the movies she loved to watch every Saturday as a child, so that Herb and Jane could take the floor.

They married on December 26, 1953, and stayed married 64 years. They were not always easy years, especially when they lost their third baby, but the two of them taught us a lot about commitment, sacrifice, and carrying on.

Mama was a worker. At some point, she had three part-time jobs, or was it four? When we moved to Florida, Mama continued to work, in addition to being church organist or pianist. Her fingers were nimble, whether winning a typing contest or finishing a tax return, whether accompanying a cantata, or adding to the contemporary worship.

One of my most peaceful, early memories is lying in a church pew at the Methodist church in Cullowhee, North Carolina. The church was empty except for Mama and me as she practiced for the coming Sunday. Her music was flawless, and lying there, listening to her, I felt close to heaven. I think it was an accurate sensation.

Mama's nimble fingers helped her playing cards too. That era's version of gaming involved sitting tother around a table, talking and laughing while Canasta or Shanghai was played. She never, ever "let us" win, not so much a sign of her competitiveness as, I think, wanting us to be prepared for the realities of life: Whatever you receive, you have to earn.

When we were growing up, we watched one channel together, took road trips on the weekends together, went to see the relatives at Christmas together - her parents, Daddy's family, her sister "Susie Q," all the nieces and nephews. We read books together, went to church together. Rarely, to a movie or out to eat, two very big deals. 

If I were to boil my childhood down to its core, I'd say that the two main things Mama and Daddy taught Becky and me were that there was nothing we couldn't accomplish, and that no matter what, they'd always love us. The first was perhaps a form of child abuse - who can live up to that?! - but the second always caught us when we failed.

One of my favorite Mama stories is the night we sat down to supper, David and I, our oldest daughter Terri and her toddler Jasmine. Before we said grace, Jasmine piped up. "I think we need to pray for GG." GG was Mama's nickname celebrating her role as great-grandmother. The grandchildren had called her Grambo or Grandma Graft.

It's important to understand that GG had babysat for Jasmine that day. The WHOLE day. When I asked Jasmine why, she said, "All day long GG kept saying 'Help me, Lord.'" Mama was famous for those mutters, simultaneously quick prayers for grace as well as pointed acknowledgment that things weren't going as she wished.

Mama was capable and strong, and a little, shall we say, controlling? She knew the best way to do some things, and felt a responsibility to share it, because she loved us and wanted us to ALSO know the best way to do it! I have, many times, heard her correct nurses or hospital staff about cleanliness. Because she and Daddy lost their son to a staph infection at a hospital, she was obsessive about germs. To her dying day, she would not let her bare feet touch the floor, at least by choice. That was Mama - refusing treatment to kill cancer, but worried that she might pick up something from eating cheese that might have gone bad in the refrigerator. A complicated woman, in other words.

Even in her last days, Mama would rally for a few seconds to tell us that they were out of paper towels, or remind us of an upcoming appointment. She didn't give up control easily. She was a caregiver who sometimes wished someone would take care of HER. God seemed to grant that request at the end of her life. Treasure Coast Hospice and Lake Forest Park Senior Living staff provided consistent and compassion care for her, for which the family is very grateful. That last week, though, when Ashley, one of the hospice nurses asked her about something, Mama didn't even open her eyes. She was too weak to shrug, but she simply said "Whatever." THAT was as significant a change to the nurse as her not wanting to eat, or her falling blood pressure. Mama was not a "whatever" kind of gal most of the time.

It was a relatively long and slow decline, going from getting tired on the way to the dining room, to needing someone to push her there in a wheelchair, to not leaving her room, to not leaving her bed. It's hard to watch someone so vital, become so weak. It was hard especially, I think, on the grandchildren, who had known her as the silly Grambo making scary faces or giving piggy-back rides. She stopped caring about wearing her wig or make-up, or was (more likely) unwilling to inconvenience anyone by asking for help. My son told her one time that she was the consummate Southern lady, make-up always perfect. That pleased her greatly, and to let that go was just another indication of how determined she was to be done with all this nonsense and get on to glory.

Mama was resolute in her decision to donate her body to science. A heart patient, she also had Parkinson's and cancer. When her grandson, my youngest son Adam, died following a car accident, he saved five lives by being an organ donor. She decided she could help too. We don't know at this time how her donation to a group called Science Care was used, but we're at peace knowing she did exactly what she wanted. Eventually, her body will be cremated, and Science Care will send us the remains. Honestly, we're not sure what we'll do with them then, but Mama did say NO WATER. She can still get us to do what she wants, even from heaven.

One of Mama's greatest regrets was not finishing nursing school. She was so proud when "little" Becky, our youngest daughter, became an RN. But she was proud of all her grandchildren and great-grandchildren. She was what Joyce Landorf Heatherley called "balcony people" in her delightful little book with the same title. Had geography and then her health allowed it, she would have been at every soccer match, every football game, every school program, every celebration. She was thrilled to attend her grandchildren's graduations, promotions, weddings, to be at the hospital for births. She loved playing with kids herself, making faces, dressing up, having them sit by her at the piano. She saved every picture, every card. She treasured us, her daughters, grandchildren, great-grandchildren. She prayed for us. At her memorial service, I asked those in attendance to really think about that. She prayed for both family and friends, so virtually everything each of us encountered or endured or triumphed over, in the midst of every good decision or horrible mistake, Mama's prayers were right there in the midst. 

In her obituary, it was stated that she encouraged everyone she met. She once said she had a "kissing ministry," the perpetual loving mother finding new children to support each day. She called CNAs by name and blew kisses to ladies across the dining room at the assisted living facility. She kept photographs of children whose names elude us. She loved. We didn't always appreciate that, because it motivated her to correct and instruct when we didn't necessarily want correction or instruction, but that's what mamas do.

In her final weeks, Mama said she wished she had something profound to say. There were family situations she always thought that if she'd just said this, or just said that, maybe she could fix it. She was a fixer. I'd remind her that some things may not get fixed, this side of heaven, but we could trust God with the details. She hoped that at the very least, the unity of family and friends at her life's end, would start a move in the right direction. Several things happened that seem to indicate that she, once again, got what she wanted -- good decisions, a softening of hearts, rekindling of friendships and other relationships as we stood around after her service talking of old times, looking at photographs, hugging one another in shared emotion.

Mama was raised in a church-going family, and rededicated her life to Christ as an adult, always faithful in attendance and service until her health prevented it. But even then, a pastor who held services at the facility where she lived said that she would challenge and bless him when he visited. She'd ask deep questions, quote verses of scripture that were especially meaningful to her. She trusted her heavenly Father with her life, as well as her death, although she was getting increasingly surprised, even disappointed, every morning she woke up here. She was so ready to be reunited with friends and loved ones. To see her baby, to see our son again, and her father (George Adam Rogers), for whom both boys were named. Her mother Polly (Pauline Whitley) and sister Marie Tucker. Friends from Lake Forest Park who went before her -- Julius, Howard -- friends from the Lunch Bunch who'd gone to school with her in Albemarle.

When she was diagnosed with cancer, she put in her order with the Lord to go in her sleep. Doctors had explained some of the possible scenarios, and she said no thank you. Like almost always, she got her way. We will miss her, every day. Some will regret not having visited more, or telling her they loved her one more time. When you think about it, no one ever says, "I wish I hadn't gone over as much as I did. I wish I hadn't spent so much time with someone who has passed." I encourage those people to stop.  Life is much too short, no matter how long it lasts, to live with regrets. Instead, let that wistful and wishful thinking motivate us to visit more, love more, share our lives more. 

As people of faith, we believe that this is only a temporary separation. We believe in eternity, in heaven. And if we believe that, then the transition to the "other side" is a promotion, a graduation, a healing to beat all healings. C.S. Lewis wrote that when people die, infants continue to grow until they reach their prime age, and the elderly get younger until they do also. If that is true, then Mama is now slender and beautiful with a full head of dark hair, unfettered by age and infirmity and devices to help her walk.

In Mama's senior year book, each graduate picked a phrase to go with their list of accomplishments at school. Mama's choice was a paraphrase from poet Bessie Anderson Stanley: She has achieved success who has lived well, laughed often, and loved much.

I think that sums up Mama's life nicely.

A link to Mama's obituary and a guest book may be seen here: http://www.legacy.com/obituaries/tcpalm/obituary.aspx?n=laura-jane-pendergraft-rogers&pid=187883633

(c) Ellen Gillette, 2018