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One of the lessons that greatly shaped my life unfolded when I was a first-year teacher in my early twenties. I loved all my students, but I loved one little African American girl a little more than the rest. She was shy and beautiful, and reflected in her magnificent bronze eyes were the shadows cast by a hard life.

Midway through that year I got a phone call from the little girl’s mother requesting a meeting. This woman was clearly irate when we spoke. I remember standing outside of the conference room door watching her as she entered the school. As she walked down that long corridor toward me, it would not have looked incongruous if she had had a silk jacket draped over her shoulders and a skinny old man running next to her squirting water over her head.

I was scared. For the life of me I couldn’t think of what I had done, how I could have wronged this little girl I so adored.

Once we settled into the conference room this woman opened fire. She berated me, using curse words I had yet only heard in rap music, for announcing to the entire class that her daughter had gotten a 44% on a math test.

In an instant my vision cleared and it all unfolded in my head. I had done exactly what this woman had accused me of doing out of inexperience and a genuine desire to motivate a child to do better.

When that formidable mouth finally closed, my first thought was to defend my actions, to mention that this child was not doing very well in math, that she wasn’t doing a lick of homework, and that I had been spending part of my lunch hour trying to help her. It’s part of my nature to be right all the time, and, quite honestly, I could probably defend a Parka to a Death Valley ditch digger in Mid-July.

For some reason I decided it was the day to grow up a little bit, and I said to this woman who had spent much of her life fighting to be treated fairly and with respect, “I’m sorry. I was wrong. I was trying to motivate your daughter to do better. I can see now that I chose the wrong way. This is my first year and I’m just learning.”

For a second I thought the skin might just melt off of her face and puddle on the ground, so unfamiliar was she with the direction our conversation had just taken. I think at the very same moment I decided to do the right thing, she realized that I had not done her daughter wrong out of prejudice, injustice, or malice. I had done her daughter wrong out of stupidity.

The meeting ended with both of us smiling sheepishly and slinking back into our respective corners of the world. Over the course of that year she and I forged an awkward friendship around what we had learned that day. I learned something that has stayed with me all these years later as a mother - that shame doesn’t motivate. More importantly, I learned to own my mistakes, and I learned the power of a genuine apology.

I’m taking Mrs. Flinger’s Election 2008 Challenge, but since I read the actual directions after I read Greeblemonkey’s version and wrote my post, I’m doing it Aimee’s way.  Just call me the peacemaker rule breaker.

It’s long, People, but I wrote it because I’m so tired of the insinuations that I’ve chosen my candidate because I’m a bleeding heart liberal, because I haven’t got a thought in my head, or because I’m just caught up in Obamamania.  (I do think he’s hot, but that doesn’t even make it to my top ten.)

1. THE WAR

I have always opposed the war in Iraq. The Bush administration manipulated 9/11 to sell their unethical war. Now I fear that McCain will stubbornly resist an exit plan, in spite of the fact that Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki has called for one, because he refuses to be proven wrong. I think he was speaking the truth when he said he’d like to see us there for the next 100 years and campaigning when he retracted the statement. McCain will take the role of ‘the decider’ on this one. I think Obama will work best with Petraeus in developing a safe exit plan in a safe period of time. I completely agree with Obama that we have taken our eyes off our real threats. We have also exhausted our military to a dangerously unsafe level. If N. Korea, Iran, China (I promise - our biggest threat), or even Russia wanted to catch us with our pants down, they will. I will avoid going off on McCain’s choice for V.P. (irresponsible) but one of my greatest concerns for our country is how we are perceived by the rest of the world. This is so important in international issues both economically and defensively, and the world is laughing at us! The world is laughing at Palin! We can’t afford that!

Recently I heard an interview with Joe the Dumber Plumber where he refers to the Iraq war as a war of liberation.  He compares it to finding Jesus.  This attitude blows my mind.  Do you kill more than 90,000 innocent civilians when you liberate them?  Wouldn’t you think if you were liberating a country they would welcome your presence?  This misguided war is about three things - oil, money, and power - and not for the people of Iraq and certainly not for Americans like me.  I agreed with Barack Obama when he stood up against this war four years ago and I am voting for his promise of a responsible exit plan.  I know Obama has the fortitude to keep this country safe.  I trust his judgment because I recognize his intellectual vigor and I agree with his record. 

2. THE ECONOMY

On the economy Obama has had his finger on the problem and the solution for a very long time. Obama recognized, long before the rest of us, that the problem which is threatening our economy is not in fact Washington’s debt but my debt and yours. He called for Wall Street regulation - ACCOUNTABILITY - not only on Main Street, but on Wall Street. (In other words, let’s stop these banks from allowing people to build so much debt that they are forced to default on it, forced to file bankruptcy, forced to put the actual banks in jeopardy of collapse. Wow. Look what’s just happened!)  Nobody listened. Obama is the candidate who will address the home mortgage loan crisis that has directly impacted you and me. Obama is the candidate who will implement regulatory reform. McCain, admittedly not an expert on economy, plans to let the problem unfold. Irresponsible, especially when his voting record shows he helped get us in this mess in the first place.  (Good thing he chose an expert on economy for his V.P.)

The choice is actually very simple:  Either choose a leader of Rich Republicans or a leader of the UNITED States of America.  Do I think Obama is a socialist?  If he is then so is Bill Clinton, so was Reagan, so was Roosevelt, and so was McCain in 2000 when he actually had a spine.  Let’s keep talking about the economy!

3. EDUCATION

This issue is very close to my heart as I have devoted my life to education in one way or another - a daughter of a public school teacher,  I’ve earned a masters in Education, taught in our public schools, married a public school teacher, write about education, and struggle to educate my own children.  If McCain is allowed to implement the voucher system (school choice) into our already failing public school system, we will get exactly what the Bush administration has been working so hard for - the rich will get richer and the poor will get poorer. We will in fact bankrupt our public school system by giving more money to the wealthy who are already choosing to educate their children privately. This is morally corrupt, what social activist and educator Jonathan Kozol calls social homicide. 

I can’t think of anything that has hurt our educational system more than NCLB which punishes the schools and the students who most need help, undermines the professionalism of teachers, forces teachers and schools to abandon creativity in order to teach to a checklist of random standards and to pander to high stakes tests instead of meeting the needs of every learner.  McCain thinks NCLB needs a little tweaking.  Obama does NOT support NCLB as it is. He plans to reform it to reduce high stakes testing, re-evaluate teacher accountability, and school accountability so we are not leaving behind the schools - more importantly - the students who need the most help. McCain doesn’t want to throw anymore money at education. He’s too busy throwing 700 billion dollars at CEO bankers.   If you would like to understand this issue better, read Jonathan Kozol’s letter to Senator Kennedy http://ed-action.org/content/KozolLettertoKennedy120507.pdf or anything by Kozol for that matter.   Obama intends to fund properly a new NCLB.  He also intends to pay teachers a more competitive salary and to look at merit pay for exceptional teaching.  I have reservations on how such exception will be assessed, but I have high hopes that Obama will find a fair and equitable way to hold schools, teachers, and students accountable.  As for funding early education - it should have been done fifty years ago.  As for higher education - I have four kids.  Enough said.

4. MY RIGHT TO CHOOSE

I won’t dwell on this one - it’s a highly personal issue and I respect everyone’s views here because it is a decision made with the heart.  I will say a few things: the opposite of pro-life is not always pro-abortion.  I believe that I am only equipped to make such a decision for myself.  I think Obama is the candidate who will go the farthest toward reducing the number of abortions in our country (the only real way to fight against abortion) by improving alternatives, empowering women, examining freedom to abandon laws, healing the fractured family, fixing our broken foster system, building spiritual, community, and social support.  I am disappointed that so many people will vote for McCain on this wedge issue alone because I firmly believe there is no chance at all that in the next four years Roe v. Wade will be overturned.  If it even gets to the courts, it will stay there for  many long years and will ultimately, I believe, be upheld.  Beyond my own position on this issue I appreciate a candidate who makes his choice on this issue based on beliefs, not on political winds.  Look into McCain’s history with this issue and you will realize that he has not made this decision with his heart or his brain.  He has made his choice on this issue with his ambition.  I also can’t stand the way he parses his words when it comes to stem-cell research.

5. HEALTH CARE   

On this issue I am voting for purely selfish reasons.  Obama says the magic words - if you are happy with your health care plan, it will stay exactly the same.  I have excellent health care for my family and I do not want to be taxed on it.  As a family of six, we will be taxed as if we made $15,000.00 more than we actually make.  How can you spin that as positive?  It just so happens that putting aside my own selfish needs, the Obama plan offers a major change worth fighting for by each and every one of us - he will end the exclusive insurance policies regarding pre-existing conditions.  McCain’s plan also requires yet more cuts to Medicare and Medicaid and ignores preventative education and research.  How can anybody spin that as a positive?

 6. CIVIL LIBERTIES

I believe same sex couples should have full marriage rights.  Period.  Obama comes the closest on this one while McCain, again, parses words and holds his finger up to check political winds.  Oh, and I’d like my Constitution back please, Mr. Cheney, thankyouverymuch.

7. ENERGY

I applaud Obama for not jumping on the Drill, Baby, Drill bandwagon because I’m sure it has cost him a few votes.  The problem with this issue is it’s very complicated and many people only understand it on the surface.  It sounds good:  we need oil, we have oil, so drill.  Simple dimple easy peasy.  But when you get all the facts it’s not so simple.  Let me outline five points for why it is irresponsible to drill here, drill now:

ONE: Obama has expressed the most obvious: We possess 3 percent of the world’s oil and we consume 25 percent.  But this is not the only intelligent reason to skip the drill. 

TWO: It will take at the very least six years to access our oil, ten years more likely, and we need to be independent of oil completely in ten years.  With the proper funding we can be, so why put so much money into more oil when it may likely be an obsolete form of energy in ten years? 

THREE: We also need to remember that the oil indusry is a world market.  It’s naive to think that the oil companies will not just export the oil out of this country for the highest price.  If you don’t think this is what will happen, check out Exxon’s profit numbers released today for the previous fiscal quarter. 

FOUR: Oil companies already hold off refining oil in order to keep the price high.  It’s naive to think the same thing won’t happen just because the oil companies have drilled here.

FIVE: The most convincing argument against drilling here is that whenever you drill below 500 feet, you release HUGE amounts of methane gas into the atmosphere which is the direct cause of global warming.  Yup, those silly liberals.  It has to be “safe”.

8. A CRAPPY CAMPAIGN

We have three  important things to look at when we make our choice - policy platform, choice for Vice President, and the way a candidate runs his or her campaign.  If I stood with McCain on every one of his policies, I still couldn’t vote for him because of his irresponsible choice for Vice President, a decision he made again with his ambition, and the way he has conducted his campaign.  I’ve written about this many times, so I won’t elaborate.  I’ll just make one more point: I won’t go as far as to say if you can run the most successful, productive, positive campaigns possibly in the history of politics that you can therefore successfully run this country, but if you are responsible for the most poorly run, dirtiest campaign most of us have ever witnessed, then I think it’s a safe bet that you are not the man who can best serve America. 

9. CHOICE FOR V.P.

I believe Obama chose Biden knowing he could very well hurt him with his infamous gaffes, but that Biden was the man who would best serve to balance Obama’s weaknesses, who would complement his strengths, and who shared a common vision for the future of this country.  (It didn’t hurt that he was also from Pennsylvania!)  I have no doubt that Biden is capable of finishing out a term if Obama becomes unable to do so.  I have serious reservations for the other side.  Oh crap, let’s not understate it.  With Palin at the wheel, we’re headed straight to hell in a handbasket.  Without a paddle.  With no room to swing a cat.  At a loose cannon.  With a less than full deck.  Dullest bulb in the tool chest.  Somebody help me…

10. IT’S TIME

I could go on and on, and you know it!  I’ll wrap it up with one more reason - it’s time.  If you believe in a partisan system of government, then you must believe that the pendulum needs to swing now to the democrats.  Republicans are screaming foul because after Tuesday we may have a filibuster-proof Washington controlled by one party.  They had no complaints for six years when the control was in their hands though, did they?  If they had done a better job of it, maybe I would feel a little bit sorry for them.  My only regret is that the next administration will have to waste precious time mopping up their mess.

Those are ten reasons all made with my head.  But my heart tells me things too.  My heart tells me this man is exceptional.  He is transformative.  He is a visionary.  He is a man of integrity and character like few others who will earn and keep the faith and trust of the people.  He is a brilliant bit of light I don’t intend to turn away from, even if he loses on Tuesday.

If I might contradict T.S. Eliot, February is in fact the cruelest month.  It beats me down.  I succumb to the darkness during this time of year no matter how I brace myself against it.  In February I have to make the conscious choice, and it is a choice, to be happy.  I have to remind myself what being happy looks like.  My list of happy-people-traits starts with:

Happy people do not watch television.

Well, at least they don’t watch it for twelve hours out of twenty-four, which is exactly what my February self longs to do!  I could go on about how much time we waste on television, how poor the programming is, how much violence and sex we’re exposed to; or maybe I should list the vibrant, exciting things we can do with those wasted hours like yoga, or exotic cooking, or sky diving!  Although all that might be true, none of those things are my pet peeve.  My problem with television is that it sends me the message over and over again, all day long, that I am not good enough, and after a while I start to believe it.  Forget about the programming for a moment and just think about the commercials.  On top of all I am called upon to do as a housewife and a mother, what do commercials ask me to do?  Buy, clean, compare, clean, call now, clean, switch, clean, bake, clean, organize, clean, build, clean, decorate, clean, install, clean, replace, clean, stretch, clean, tone, clean!  No wonder I feel stressed!  No wonder I feel overwhelmed! 

Now think about the people who are asking me to do these things: perfect women standing in their perfect kitchens or their perfect bathrooms in their perfect 200 dollar freaking shoes!  Those women are always perfectly dressed, their hair is perfect, their nails are perfect, they’re perfectly skinny, even the insides of their refrigerators are perfect!  And have you ever noticed that the housewives with the backyard teeming with teenagers always look like they’re about twenty eight years old?
 
The commercials where they attempt to depict reality irritate me too. What about the diaper commercial in which she says that some days she’s lucky if she even gets a shower?  Why couldn’t they have cut the commercial on one of those days?  How about the one where the realtor calls from the front door with a perspective buyer and the homeowner’s bathing her daughter?  So maybe there’s laundry on the bed, but do you see the way she scrubs that kid?  I just let my four soak in the dirty water!  And one more thing: Why are all these perfectly beautiful housewives who are living in these perfectly clean and Pottery Barn decorated houses all married to perfectly bald, chubby men?  Is that supposed to make me feel better about myself?

Television perpetuates a woman’s belief that she has to be perfect.  Commercials especially send a subliminal message that we are just not good enough, quick enough, clean enough, thin enough, efficient enough.  (Although I’ve long since known that my teeth aren’t white enough, I’ve recently found out that the skin in my armpits isn’t smooth enough and needs a special cream!  Up until now I thought it was just stinky!)

So, for sanity’s sake, through the month of February my television must stay off.  No Kelly Ripa, no Who Wants to be a Millionaire (I do), no Trading Spaces, and no Oprah.  If I’m lucky, when the clouds part and the darkness fades in a few weeks, my desire to blend into the den couch will also slip away and I might just still like myself a little.   
 

I noticed an expression on Keira’s face on Christmas day that took me by surprise: disappointment.  We don’t have a decadent Christmas when it comes to presents under the tree, but Santa is very kind to our children.  They each unwrapped five special packages from Santa, a stocking full of small treasures, and a book and handmade hat from Mom and Dad.  By the end of the day, after celebrating with scores of generous friends and family, their morning piles of loot had tripled.  Still, throughout the holiday, I saw Keira battling with her feelings of disappointment (although she never uttered a word).

At first I felt angry by this.  I chided Keira in my head for being spoiled and ungrateful.  That was followed by feelings of failure.  It stung my heart that I hadn’t made Christmas everything she hoped it would be.  What could I have gotten her, done for her that would have prevented her from feeling unfulfilled?  And then it hit me - absolutely nothing, shy of a train ride to the North Pole to meet the Man himself, would have lived up to all the expectations that had been building for months at the hands of our media-driven culture.

And then my anger melted away carrying with it my feelings of failure in its current.  In retrospect I remember having the very same reactions as a kid, and not just at Christmas.  I recall a long list of early disappointments, not because my childhood was difficult, just because I kept finding myself face to face with reality.

Some time in my teens or early twenties I read a poem by Alice Walker that had a profound effect on me and shaped the way I have viewed life ever since.  The critical words were:  Expect nothing.  Live frugally on surprise.  (Don’t misunderstand me by confusing the word expect with strive for or want.  There’s the rub.)

How do I teach my children this lesson?  How do I teach them that everything will fall short if they place too much weight upon it - everything that they don’t toil for or find within themselves?  How do I show them that happiness is not owed to them by anything or anyone other than themselves, but when they stumble upon it unexpectedly it is glorious?  How do I show them that expecting nothing leads to enchantment with life, not bitterness, without destroying their childhood illusions and dreams? 

I start by letting Keira feel the disappointment;  I don’t try to take it away with a trip to Toys-R-Us. I start by sharing with her my own enchantment and gratitude, and eventually I give her a copy of the poem.

One of the worst things we can do as parents is to always sweep away the pain.

So, about the old people, as the girls have nicknamed them:  My mother is presently recovering in a rehabilitation facility from shingles/urinary tract infection/sepsis/renal failure/heart failure and an attitude problem.  It’s been interesting.  Meanwhile my dear Aunt Barbara is very sick with cancer and is in for quite a battle.  She is a complete pleasure to help.  Until recently she has been single-handedly caring for her brother and sister, Janet and Joe, who suffer from advanced Alzheimer’s and live together in a house smelling of moth balls, Spam, and Sunday school.  While Barbara has been ill, Jodi and I have been caring for and feeding these two precious souls.

Before I go any farther, let me say that Alzheimer’s is NOT FUNNY.  It is a brutal, horrible disease that destroys lives.  That said, I can’t help but laugh when Janet answers the door with no pants on or when I find the two of them staring at a blank television screen because they can’t remember how to turn it on.  If I didn’t laugh I would pull my hair out strand by strand. 

Soon after Jodi and I realized the magnitude of this situation, we tried to find ways to shirk our responsibility simplify the work load.  We figured if one of us fed them breakfast and one of us brought them dinner, we could leave them a prepared lunch in the morning.  An excellent plan if we could figure out a way for them to remember that their lunch is in the refrigerator, that they need to eat it, that they’re hungry, that you just take that plastic wrap off, that light switches are inside every doorway, and that the kitchen is right off the den.  We’ve left notes on counters and tables and in their hands saying lunch in fridge.  We’ve called on the phone to tell them to GET THE LUNCH NOW.  Jodi even ran in from work, popped lunch in the microwave, and sat Janet in front of it to wait for the beep.  When I arrived later, lunch was still in the microwave.

A new stage of my life, the stage where I help the people who have raised me and made me what I am today return to dust, is suddenly upon me.  It has thrust me into thoughts of my own old age.  It has forced me to look at the implications of the medical advances we make every day and to think about the ethics and the art of aging.  It has carried me back to my own childhood, to memories where these people were sharp and spry and full of life.  I can hear their laughter around our table, I can see the red and white pinochle cards in their hands, and I can see the beads of sweat on their Budweiser cans. 

Mostly, like nothing else, this has reminded me to memorize every second of every minute of this beautiful life I’m living right now, to stop worrying about the piles of laundry and the bright red marker all over the couch, and to think about maybe buying some of those index cards - just for practice.      

Kelly wrote a great post recently about her desire to teach her children how to give back to the community.  She wrote:

I want to start introducing Hannah to the world of philanthropy. I want her to start to learn that not only is she terrifically lucky, but that she, too, has a part to play in making the world a better place. An act need not be grandiose to make an impact.

This is something that is important to our family as well, but finding an appropriate way for young children to give back is difficult.  After all, what  are they really capable of doing for society?  And then one day the perfect opportunity simply jumped out at me - literally, right in front of my car.  In fact, I nearly ran him over! 

I was driving with the girls, late for something as usual, when I noticed this very elderly gentleman on the edge of the road.  Suddenly he sort of threw out his hands and stepped almost into my front wheel.  I slammed on my break and rolled down my window ready to blast the old dude with a few choice, kid-unfriendly expletives.  I was stopped short by his kind, watery eyes and warm smile. 

In broken English he explained that his bus had not arrived and he needed to catch a train in order to attend his worship service over an hour away.  Could we take him to the train station?

(Note: It was the first morning of Day Light Savings and he knew nothing of it.)

As we drove to the station about 15 minutes away, I learned that this tidy little gentleman was alone in this country, spoke only broken English,  that he traveled everywhere by bus (not a very efficient system around our neck of the woods), and that he was very, very lonely.  (If you had an hour I would tell you the unbelievable story of how this gentleman and his wife tried to move to this country to be near their daughter who married an American, how his wife’s visa was delayed for what should have been a short time but has turned into six years, and how this daughter subsequently abandoned this father completely for who knows what or why.)   

Samir couldn’t stop smiling at the girls.  He seemed to want to memorize them.  He asked their names and how they were spelled and he wrote them into a little bound book with a wabbling hand.  He must have thanked us fifty times before we arrived at the train station.

Before I helped him out of the car, I gave him our number.  I told him to call us if he needed anything.  The next day he called just to thank me and to tell me how happy meeting us had made him.  Two weeks later he called for a ride to the dentist and then I took him to the vegetable market and then to the foot doctor and soon this little old man just slipped into our family.  Now he comes to our house for dinner, for holidays, for his birthday.  He walks to the local dollar store and buys the girls gifts.  He carries a picture of our family in his wallet.  He calls me to tell me he misses us if we don’t see him for a few weeks and we miss him too.  When the girls see him, they run into his arms even though they really can’t understand a word he says.  They love him for his need of them and because loving still comes so easy. 

My children are learning that they have a part to play in making this world a better place just by doing what they do best - being themselves, loving unconditionally, and bringing joy. 

We aren’t changing the world, but the girls know that they have made a difference in one lonely old man’s life and they feel the power of giving in their lives.

You can’t put a price on the value of that lesson.

I am thankful for:  Samir for what he has brought to our family and for what our girls have given willingly to him.