Monthly Archives: September 2012

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A public thank you

Today is my birthday, and looking back, I have so much for which to be grateful.  And so, in a bit of a rambling entry, because I’m still recovering from this bug-thing, let me say thank you for the important things in my life.

My family, to start.  My parents both worked, on opposite shifts, so that they could provide the best possible life for their children.  My father has never, ever, let a setback keep him down long.  He goes over, around, throughit to get to where he needs to be.  My mother was incredibly smart, and she taught me to never stop learning, to explore everythin that interests you, no matter how obscure.  To this day, my brother hints, nudges, and will outright push me to make sure I succeed.  And my grandparents demonstrated exactly how much you could do even if you only had a little bit of money or a second-grade education.

I received an excellent education, went to Catholic grade and high schools, with an emphasis on college-preparatory courses — and the tuition was not cheap for my parents.  They covered part of my college education and sent me to Penn State’s main campus, where I studied journalism, then on to a paralegal course.  And my father supported me through four years of a law school evening program, and then another two years of a master’s program, with words of encouragement, and love, and yes, nagging when he felt I was maybe waivering a bit.

My friends, online and in the real world, are fantastic.  They are with me through sorrow, and joy, with advice, and tissues and chocolate when needed.  They never ask what I need — they know.  And the simple fact that they are there, that I can call them for help, or to talk, or just pull them out for an adventure, means the world to me.

I’ve been fortunate enough to work with very smart people and to have a wonderful mentor.  People who showed every day the right way to do things, how to make a solid plan for any situation, and how to deal when the plan falls through.  How to juggle thirty tasks in one day with the two screaming emergencies that walked through the door around noon.  And most importantly, how to face the defeat everyone inevitably experiences at some point in life with courage and class.

By this birthday, I’ve been to 37 of the United States.  Not just flying visits.  I’ve explored the Wisconsin Dells and the Grand Canyon, the entire Eastern Coast and the beautiful mountains of New England.  Wandered the streets of Chicago and Baltimore, Philadelphia and Boston, Pittsburgh, Cincinnati, Savannah, Minneapolis-St. Paul, Richmond, DC, San Diego, Los Angeles and Phoenix.  Stood in awe before phenomenal museum exhibits, like the original King Tut tour, manmade monuments like Mount Rushmore — and Thoroughbreds with names that echo in the record books.  Some of this was thanks to my parents, and their belief that a vacation was a time to see something or somewhere new and exciting (and also thanks to an almost godlike patience for driving two bickering siblings in a car eight hours at a time).  That sense of adventure now inculcated in me, I still pick a spot and go — and as a result, have seen how wonderful a country we live in.

And most of all, there are the amazing things that happened for no reason but the best of reasons.  Things that I needed that just appeared — like a new sofa when I was unemployed and mine collapsed.  My neighbor was moving overseas — and offered me her brand-new sofa.  The person who called out of the blue with an offer, somone I didn’t know, but had been directed to me by a contractor with whom I’d briefly worked years ago.  The unexpected check that just arrives in the mail — a refund on an overpayment from a closed account — at a time when I’d just gotten a large bill for a car repair.  To who, or what, makes those things happen — thank you.

So, rambling a bit, courtesy of the heavy prescription I’m on.  But I did want to take the opportunity to say a public thank you for everyone I’ve known, and everything I’ve received, throughout my life.  I’ve been blessed.

Tomorrow, when I’m told the effects should finally be wearing off, I’ll be posting this year’s tasks.  It’s — an interesting list.

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You Can’t Take Back Hate

My mother taught me an important lesson when I was a teenager.  You Can’t Take Back Hate.

On this anniversary of 9/11, we should be remembering and honoring the Americans who selflessly tried to save their fellow citizens, some of whom paid for their valor with their lives.  The firemen and policemen who went into the Towers, the soldiers at the Pentagon who tried to help their trapped comrades, the ordinary people who went to work, or got on an airplane, only to be caught up in the events of that day, and who did their best to help their coworkers survive, or were able to prevent another plane from destroying the White House or Capital Building.

And many of us are doing that.  But so many others, as has become more and more common in these past few years, are taking any opportunity to make hateful, nasty comments on otherwise respectful stories, advocating their viewpoints as to who and what is at fault for whatever is their particular cause of the day.  Just as they do every day, on blogs and news stories.

After 9/11, we were not Red or Blue, Democrat or Republican, rich or poor, north or south or western states.  We were Americans.  We stood together, ready to defend our country and do whatever it took to help our fellow citizens.  Sadly, that didn’t last long.  Cracks crept in.  Sides were taken.  Today, it seems that no matter what subject you raise — the economy, religion, sports, real estate, the weather — people can find a way to blame those on the opposite side of their narrowly-defined ideological spectrum for the perceived problems of that subject.  No one wants to have an honest discussion about ways to solve our problems.  All we want is to blame someone else.  Preferably in the most vitriolic, venomous words we can find in the dictionary.

Compromise is a word not even to be considered in these conversations.

We seem to have forgotten how our country was formed.  The men who gathered to declare our Independence, and later to write our Constitution, came from different backgrounds, religions, social brackets, ideological convictions.  They wanted different things to be incorporated into those fundamental documents.  But they compromised — they yielded on things important to them so that they could achieve that over-riding, important goal of declaring us a new country, independent of Great Britain, and establishing us as a country and government of, by and for the people.

We couldn’t do that today.  Not when all we seem to want to do is spew hateful words about anyone who doesn’t match our particular set of beliefs and expectations.  And all that happens when you do that, ultimately, is that you hurt yourself, and the ones you love.

When I was 17, I had an argument with my mother.  I don’t even remember exactly about what we were fighting — but I remember snapping at her, in my superior, know-it-all voice, that it was her fault we were so poor that I couldn’t buy a dress but had to wear what she made for me.

And then I watched my mother start to cry.

I tried to apologize. I did.  She just looked at me and told me that once you say something hateful, you can’t take it back.  Then she walked out of the room.

We never spoke about that day again.  I wasn’t brave enough to ask her if she forgave me for what I said.  And now, years after she died, I can’t.  All I can remember is what I said, and the look on her face.  I can’t take back those hateful words, and they festered between us, unresolved, for years.

To anyone who reads this entry, I ask you to do one thing.  The next time you want to make a snippy, arrogant, nasty comment about anything, before you press the send button, before you open your mouth to yell at someone, whether it’s something political or religious or just the merits of your college football team  — Please. Stop.  Think.

Would you say those words to your mother?  Your husband?  Your son?

Would you want someone to say it to you?

I’m not saying that you shouldn’t express your opinion.  I’m asking that we find a way to have a civilized, respectful dialogue.  In the spirit of those who gave their lives for this country, on 9/11 and in every war we’ve ever fought.