feel the affection of someone whose identity is unknown enlarges our souls, tenderizes our hearts, and binds us to a not-all-bad human race.
March 2
I have lived, by my account, a charmed life—definitely not in the eyes of the rich and famous, and probably not to those up close and personal who know my deficiencies and heartbreaks. But as one who for three decades saw some of the worst things that befall individuals and families, I have become something of an expert at putting things in perspective.
My charmed life? I grew up a much-loved son. I won that lottery. It could have been different.
In 1969 I became a husband. I know now I could not have done better. I won that lottery. It could have been very different.
In 1972 I became a father. Our three sons have grown up to be responsible, interesting, respectable human beings. I could not be prouder. I won that lottery. It could have been very, very different.
Thanks to our sons and their wives, I acquired a fourth title-for-life in 2008. Six grandchildren for as long as they live will refer to me as Popple.
On the birth of our first grandchild on February 24, 2006, a picture and a quotation came to me. I am sure they will never leave my mind. The picture came from the 1977 television miniseries Roots. It is the scene where Omoro, Kunta Kinte’s father, took his eight-day-old baby boy into the jungle. On a beautiful, starlit night he reverently lifted his eyes and his newborn to the heavens and solemnly proclaimed: “Behold, the only thing greater than yourself.”
That blessing brings to mind words from Wordsworth: “A child, more than all other gifts that earth can offer to declining man, brings hope with it, and forward-looking thoughts.”
This is the story of my charmed life and I am sticking with it: the world should go on.
March 3
Two professions vie for top spot on my most-respected list. One is teaching.
Yes, I know that some teachers are flat-out incompetent. I had a few doofuses. All of our children, unfortunately, also had a few.
For decades now I have lived with a woman who is both a career teacher and my wife. I have seen her donate everything but her spleen to motivate students. I have witnessed nights up until 4:00 a.m. grading papers, weekends spent preparing for the next week, and out-of-pocket small fortunes spent on supplies, gifts, decorations, and rewards.
Good teachers get satisfaction from knowing they gave it their best. Their “hallelujah” payoff, however, is when a former student surfaces years later to say something like: “You were simply the best—thanks forever.”
In his autobiography, world-class journalist David Brinkley tells of the profound disappointment he was to his mother from the day he was born. When he first showed her some of his fledgling attempts to write, she wadded them up and threw them in the trash and told him not to waste his time on “such foolishness.” But one day in English class, Mrs. Barrows Smith pronounced: “David, I think you ought to be a journalist.” Brinkley writes that at that moment “a world turned for me.”59
Educator Horace Mann wrote: “If you attempt to teach without inspiring, you’re hammering a cold iron.”
Is there a teacher living who significantly inspired and encouraged you or nudged you at a critical moment in your life in the right direction? It might mean the world to put that into words and pass it along to your Mrs. Smith. Someday it will be too late.
March 4
Physicians see their hospitalized patients for five to ten minutes a day. Nurses assume life-and-death responsibility for those same patients for eight or ten or twelve hours straight.
Many times I have visited in the homes of parents whose child died. As I heard them relive that awful loss, they often singled out a competent and compassionate nurse as their only positive memory on the worst day of their lives:
“I saw the nurse wipe a tear from her eye.”
“The nurse mopped our child’s brow and held his hand until he took his last breath.”
“The nurses taped messages above our child’s bed like, ‘I prefer to be called Cookie’ and ‘Yes, I would love a foot massage’ and ‘Please wind my music box.’”
“The nurses stayed with us long after their shift was over.”
“Except for the way the nurses took care of our emotional needs, I don’t know how we would have made it through.”
“Six of those nurses took a day off without pay and drove all the way down here for the funeral.”
One woman whose grandbaby was born premature and spent three months in the neonatal intensive care unit addressed this poem to the nurses of the unit and tacked it on their bulletin board: “To My Nurses. Tiny / Fragile / Born too soon / Surrounded by machines / Invaded by tubes / You—you saw underneath it all—Me! / And because you / Worked and hoped / Worked and cried / Worked and prayed / And worked / I am!”
Good nurses do much more than tend to physical needs. They dispense tender, loving care to patients and their families. That alone sometimes keeps hope alive.
March 5
I grew up in a church that did not recognize Christmas and Easter as special religious days. Every Easter we heard a paragraph at the beginning of the sermon if not an entire sermon on “Why We Do Not Keep Easter.”
As an adult, I have come to appreciate some of the pageantry and symbolism of Holy Week. My favorite day is the Saturday between Good Friday and Easter.
Some early Christians believed that on “Holy Saturday” Jesus went throughout the hadean realm and announced to all souls residing there, beginning with Abel, the good news of what God was getting ready to do on Easter.
My personal reason for appreciating Saturday is far less esoteric—I can identify more readily and more often with the disciples of Jesus on that day than I can on the Friday before or the Sunday after.
On Friday the disciples were totally disillusioned and dejected, their leader having died a shameful death. I have known very few times of despair in my life. I am fortunate every year to have only a few situational depressions that last a couple of days at most. Some people I know live much of their lives in a deep, dark, Good-Friday funk of depression.
On Sunday, by contrast, the disciples were euphoric, ecstatic—running and jumping and shouting for joy. I am grateful to have about a dozen of those as-good-as-it-gets resurrection days every year, days on which I yell “Yippee!” or croon a few bars of “What a Wonderful World.”
But the other 350 days of my year are more like Saturday of Holy Week. I plod along, old griefs and losses still percolating on the back burner of my memory. But also in the mix is hope for one more mountaintop experience, one more new beginning, one more Easter morning. I believe that yearning will carry me all the way home.
March 6
During an ice storm, I found myself observing trees; more precisely, three neighborhood trees. My next door neighbor has a row
