Hello on a late Friday morning,
I am in my office and have been watching some videos of the Kennedy (JFK assassination) and listening to audio tapes from Jacqueline Kennedy that were released much later. I have always been fascinated by that time in history. Perhaps because I was a little boy at the time and it is such a memorable part of my 3rd grade year. Perhaps because it is a time, albeit somewhat naively, that we believed in our government. There is so much that makes me wonder about the fate of our humanity. There is so much dissension and discord, but that is nothing new, and I know that. Perhaps it is the melancholia that is part of my inner self. Today I received the most wonderful message from a former college classmate, a person for whom I have appreciation and even more so, admiration. She is wise, caring, and brilliant. She is philosophical and understanding, perceptive and caring. It was certainly a breath of fresh aire (in a sort of Mannheim Steamroller way). Yesterday was a long day with the ending of the session and it has been a long week because of other things. There are times I have to learn that caring gets me in trouble. I am reminded of the words of Norman Maclean in the novella, A River Runs Through It: “It is often the ones we live with and love, the ones we care about the most who elude us. Even now when I look back . . . on my youth I long to understand what happened there . . . and why.” I wonder at times why my mind seems to never stop its pondering. I wonder why I imagine things that never were and wonder why not . . . . sort of in the way Teddy Kennedy eulogized his brother, Robert, in St. Patrick’s Cathedral on that June day in 1968, a speech often considered to be one of the most rhetorically profound.
I was told again that I take on too much, but it is way my brain works and my emotions follow. It is a way that a pattern seemingly reappears in my life, but I seem not to learn. It is merely stubbornness on my part or a character flaw that I cannot manage to overcome? Is all of this because I am merely trying to imagine myself as old? I wish my Uncle Clare were still around. It would be interesting to ask him what it was like to be alone for such a long period in his life, though he was 64 when he became a widower. He lived to be 91 or 92, I cannot remember for sure. As some have found out, and for that I am truly sorry, when I get too close to a situation or to people I have a tendency (or a habit) of running away. And yet, I am not completely sure why . . . I certainly have ideas, theories or assumptions, but I am not completely sure that I can say unfailingly, “This is why.” Today in a caring and reasonable way, I was told to extricate myself from a situation. While it is hurtful to hear that, it is certainly for the better. For me, the struggle is not necessarily going away, but knowing whether it is done with a sense of merely a change or having the door shut on me. Time will tell. I must also admit that I have done the same to others, so maybe it is karma coming back to bite me. As there is a sense that while I am losing something I valued, I am also being saved. Hard to tell onto which thought I should hold. Perhaps it is because the need for help has changed, but that would be a bit cynical and unfair. It is something that I need to merely be glad I helped when help was needed and now that I am not needed to learn that does not mean I am not cared for. That is my difficulty. Is it too much again to be that honest with my frailties? Is it being too honest with my thoughts and emotions? Sometimes I wonder, but then again, I do not believe that I am that different that I am the only one to struggle with such issues. I am hoping that two things might happen in this writing. First, it helps me figure myself out, but more importantly that it might help someone else who struggles in the same way. I know that the need for being around people and the need for solitude is a constant battle for me. I am sure that some people from my earlier years might find it hard to imagine me wishing for a sort of hermit-existence. I remember my pastoral colleague once telling me the worst thing that could happen to me was that I might be locked in my office alone with no phone. You can ask people, now there are times that I leave my phone at home and I am not really accessible. I will say that I do not do it on purpose, but I never, or at least seldom, feel that missing that thing in my hand or pocket is some trauma. I am actually adding to this. It is now Friday night and after a trip to my nutritionist today, I am feeling like perhaps I have a way to handle the latest of health dilemmas. It is not a new dilemma, and in fact goes back into the 90s, but it does seems to be a more pertinent issue now.
Yesterday was a long day because I know what I am doing when I worked on grades and responses to people in a program I am deciding things about their lives. I take this seriously and I really take it to heart. I was that first generation college student who once squandered the opportunity to be in college and had to figure things out. I say regularly that my parents wanted me to go to college, but they had little idea what it meant to prepare me either academically or financially. This is not to speak poorly of them, but there was no point of reference. College and the idea that people needed to prepare and go was outside of their scope of knowledge. It was something about which they had little or no preparation themselves. I saw college as something rich people were able to do for their children and I was not that person. My father was 44 when he adopted a 4 year old and his 3 year old sister. When I graduated from high school he was wondering about retirement and had a wife with a multitude of health issues. It was for me to figure out and while I know now that I was not an incapable high school student, I was a lazy student, doing things well when I was interested, but I did not follow through long enough or well enough. No school was knocking on my door to ask me to come there and I had little idea of what I hoped to do or why. I am not that much different from the summer students I have just spent that last six weeks teaching and mentoring (and it is both). While there are certainly some students who squander the six weeks they are here, there are others who try to understand what is being asked of them and also try to manage it, in spite of their lack of preparation. When I consider the students from the summer, I had everything from seniors to 15 year olds. In the group of students, one earned an A and two managed to fail their summer class. The rest were in the B and C ranges and covering everything in that range. Some took a bit of time to figure out what was happening. One student has things figured out as a 17 year old in ways I do not think I have even yet. She took three classes and worked 20 hours a week. Because of her own writing, I know her background and she is doing most of this on her own. She has figured it out on her own. Remarkable is the epitome of understatement.
Today is the anniversary of Lydia’s birthday. She would be 92 today. She still permeates everything I do and imagine. Honestly I still have tears when I realize how much I miss her and how much I loved her. She is the one person in the past 16 or 17 years that found her way into my heart and from whom I did not want to run away. How did that happen? I still remember the day I first met her and looked at the little house. She was so sweet and adorable. I did not realize at the time that she was as lonely as she was because she was so self-assured. She was stylish and refined, and that Austrian accent,something I never had a problem understanding, was merely another endearing quality of the little two-digit-midget. I have told some that I put my life on hold for her, but now I am not sure that was true. We lived our lives as a little family that was gifted to us in the most unexpected way. In the twilight years of her life I became the son she was never able to have and she became more of a mother to me, and the best one of the three I have had. I can remember the sound of her voice out her third floor window when I came home late from school or somewhere else. “Michael, is that you?” “Yes, Lydia,” I would respond. She would then tell me she just happened to look out. What I knew is she had been watching because she wanted to know she was not alone. That is not what I expected when I first came to the circle. I did not know that I would be the person charged with taking care of her in ways I could not have imagined. She hated (her words) when people paid attention to her for a birthday or a holiday, but I think she secretly liked that people fussed over her. She had been alone for so long and it was important for her to not be lonely, even in her solitude. What I have come to understand is that she had an incredible heart and actually enjoyed giving to others. She and I are similar in that way, but she wanted to be in charge of how that happened. I think I am a mirror image of her in this also. As I have been working on things in my yard and around the house this spring and summer I have found myself with a broom and dustpan. She would be so proud of me. I find myself picking weeds and plucking up the random twig or branch. I guess she has rubbed off on me more than I expected. As I think of you on the anniversary of your birth Lydia, I miss you. I still love you more than I have words.
Es ist schwierig für mich zu glauben, dass du so lange weg sind. Es ist schwieriger für mich zu sagen, dass ich immer noch Dinge für Sie zu tun haben. Ich werde es in der nächsten Woche zu erledigen oder so. Ich wünschte, mein Leben würde verlangsamen. Ich bewundere noch, wie Sie alle geschafft, Sie getan haben. Ich habe das Glück, dass ich in der Lage war, mit Ihnen ein Jahrzehnt zu teilen. Ich bin auch jetzt durch Ihre Liebe gesegnet. Wie Sie wissen, zieren Sie Ihre Bilder mein Haus ihr und ich sehe dich jeden Tag. Ich liebe dich, meine Leihmutter.
As I consider our temporary place in this world, I am reminded of my favorite Rock n Roll band and one of its most well- known songs.
To everyone else, thank you for reading.
Michael
thewritingprofessor55 