You will know your young matriculating adult sons and daughters have transitioned into adulthood when:
Your efforts as parents are acknowledged, appreciated, articulated and somewhat or approximately understood. They are aware of the commitments you made to facilitate their arrival at this juncture in their lives.
Your shortcomings as parents are not denied but are not used or held against you as weapons or as excuses for thier own shortcomings. Your sons and daughters are living without blame.
“Thank you” and “please” comes easy and both are expressed near – to you, to family, to loved ones – and far – to strangers and servers and to those who can do nothing for your young adults in return.
You are able to recognize there’s an acceptance of “the way things are” and that within the way things are there exist multiple opportunities and challenges. Some challenges are to be addressed and solved, some will not. Your budding adult is identifying what it means to “go with the flow of life” and when flow ought to be resisted.
Your young adults respond to your calls and texts because they come from you. They may “ghost” others but choose to respond, when possible, to you. They recognize that as parents, you occupy a unique place in their lives, deserving of appropriate and efficient responses.
I know competition is tough, really tough, but I think I win the International Best Sister Award. My Australian brother would win a parallel brother award but today I’m celebrating my South African sister, Durban’s own Jennifer Arthur.
As I’ve previously written Jen is the original Facebook. She remembers everyone she’s ever met, be it for 7 minutes on a train or plane somewhere in the world, and somehow gets them a birthday message. She keeps contact with people for years despite the brevity of a first encounter. There’s always a way to stay in touch and Jen finds it.
Jen’s adored by her 9 grandchildren and 1 great grandchild and by my adult sons. I’ve heard children, seen their longing, as they request she be their grandmother. My sister is widely known as Granny Goose.
This week, in fact 3 days ago, my sister landed in the USA for my son’s wedding, a journey booked without awareness that I’d be in need of assistance following my joust with salmonella. My kitchen is organized, my house has beautiful new touches, and recuperation feels 100 times easier.
Even Duke my Lab has switched allegiances and is under her feet as much as possible.
You may earn more than I do and live in a nicer house – but our loneliness is probably the same. When it rips us apart it doesn’t really matter who has the most cash or the nicest home. Loneliness doesn’t care where we live or about our financial status. Invite me in – perhaps we can be friends and ease our common pain.
You may be more educated than I am and you may have graduated from a respected university – but I know that if you regard anyone, anywhere with contempt, your education has given you little worth knowing. I may not be very bright by your standards but I do know that truly educated people never use it as a weapon. Talk to me – I might be able to teach you a thing or two.
You may be more travelled than I am and can talk about places I have not heard of or could afford to visit in my wildest dreams – but if travel has made you contemptuous of your homeland and its peoples then travel has not done its finer work in you. Citizens of the world find beauty and wonder everywhere. Come to my house – my culture is as interesting as any you will find on any distant shore.
I think my disdain for the sheer evil was discerned early on in my military basics when a breath-reeking dirty-mouthed two-striper screamed into my face from such proximity that I could smell and see his back teeth.
Mixing Afrikaans and English he proclaimed with anger that by the time he was finished and done, “finished and klaar,” with me, me specifically, I would be a real soldier, an “ordentlike soldaat.”
He said I would be able to march, not walk, march, in those shiny boots right over my mother’s dead body and feel nothing, nothing at all.
I gathered my thoughts.
He waited.
He expected the routine.
He waited for me to jump to attention and scream, “Ja, Bombardier. Bombardier is always correct, Bombardier,” in Afrikaans.
This response was expected, an individual response when addressed as an individual, or blurted in unison if addressed as a group. There were times it reminded me or 7-year-olds singing their times tables for a teacher.
“Do you know that you are stupid, and you are for nothing good?” would be said to all of us.
“Ja, Bombardier. You are correct, Bombardier. Bombardier is always correct, Bombardier,” we had to reply but in Afrikaans.
Agreement was essential no matter what insults were hurled.
This particular insult, that we were for nothing good, I found amusing. The “for nothing good” is a direct translation from Afrikaans and the bombardier would have had no idea how stupid he sounded in his desire to parade comfort in both official languages.
This time was different.
This was no routine insult.
He was screaming at me about my Mother, a woman he did not know, a woman about whom he knew nothing.
He was addressing me, a man he did not know.
A man about whom he knew nothing.
A man he had spent no time trying to know.
He was shouting so all could hear and be impressed by his evil aspirations with words tailored for me.
I waited.
I did not jump to attention and scream “Ja, Bombardier. Bombardier is always correct, Bombardier.”
I did come to attention and yelled, “Bombardier!”
Then, rather quietly, having now gained his full attention, I told the depraved man, in my faulty Afrikaans, as faulty as his English, that despite all of his efforts, I would indeed never, not ever, not in a thousand years, would I be that soldier.
I talked quietly and I was clear.
The bombardier appeared taken aback that I would dare reply with an unanticipated response.
He backed off.
In his retreat he did not send me or the whole squad running to the fence or make all of us do 30 push-ups. He moved away, stepping backwards, losing eye contact for brief seconds as his eyes darted seeking back-up from fellow bombardiers.
I did not drop my gaze.
I gave him all the eye-contact he ever could want.
Somehow, waiting to reply had knocked him off balance, stopped him in his tracks.
His peers made no moves of support.
He was alone in this and he knew it.
Perhaps it made him think of his mother but I will never know.
A violation had occurred and I refused to cooperate with pure evil.
He kept his distance.
He limited his involvement with our particular squad and seemed to forever regard me with suspicion mixed with a dose of fear and healthy respect.
That’s all I wanted; a lot of respect for my Mother and a little respect for me.
And, I wanted not to be that soldier.
Not ever.
So, I told him.
I wanted him to know I would never be that soldier.
Most USA schools are back in full swing…… at least around here they are:
Hats off……
Hats off to teachers and coaches who love the world and its peoples and whose zeal for both results in empoweing students of all ages.
Hats off to teachers and coaches who love their subjects and sports and whose passion for their work opens vast vistas of opportunities for their students.
Hats off to teachers and coaches who are as tough as nails over matters of integrity but are easy sells when it comes to listening and attempting to understand students and their home-lives, peer, and social struggles.
Hats off to teachers and coaches who know their students well enough to be able to anticipate and address problems before unnecessary escalation.
Hats off to school administrators who have the courage to support teachers and coaches in the face of often difficult parents and who have the courage to listen to all parties before they act.
Hats off to school administrators who aspire to serve rather than be served, who understand the power of humility, and who see their essential role as empowering coaches and teachers and students to get the very best from each other.
Hats off to parents of students who seek to respect and learn from their children’s school teachers and coaches and administrators rather than demand rights or seek to chastise or correct.
Hats off to Librarians, Musicians, Counselors, School Security Teams….. and all who work daily to keep our students motivated, kind, and safe.
Andrea Neal, Jay Sherrill and so many others who regarded Thulani and Nate as their own.
Israelite-Nathanael gets an invitation to meet Nazarene-Jesus and responds rather snarkily:
Can anything good come out of Nazareth?
This exchange, recorded early in the Gospel of John, intrigues me and, as a result, I’ve always loved the person and name Nathanael.
He questioned, appeared playful and unintimidated.
On meeting, Jesus greets Nathanael by name, interprets his name, tells Nathanael He had seen him before Nathanael was aware of being seen by Jesus.
In modern parlance Jesus saw through the Israelite, welcomed everything about him, called him into a life-changing journey and Nathanael readily responded
Nothing takes the Son of Man by surprise: Jesus saw Nathanael coming and New Testament Nate more than met his match.
Jesus saw my Indianapolis-born son coming, too.
I didn’t. I had to decide blind.
Privacy laws permitted limited information – African American Male, Date of Birth, Full Term – was all I could know.
Pondering names for my son, whom I was yet to meet, the no guile or nothing false in Jesus’ description of Israelite-Nathanael wrapped it up for me.
Enroute from the courthouse to the hospital, custody papers in hand, with a stop at the K-Mart on Lafayette Road to pick up a few baby-essentials, I named a baby and formed a living link with a favorite character from the New Testament.
“Thula, Thula” I’d sing, following the maid around the house as she sang the prayerful lullabye. I could be on her back, tied with a blanket, listening to the Thula Thula song. The song was about a child urged not cry because the father will soon return from work on the gold mine. The song soothed and reached deeply into me, especially while tied to a maid’s back. There was not safer realm. Theres was no place warmer or more comfortable.
At 10 or 11 years old I learned from teenage boys and men named Thulani who came regularly into our dad’s tea-room the name means peace and stillness, to be quiet and comforted.
Temba means hope.
It is the name my adult Zulu friends called me once I reached adulthood and tried to unlearn so many things of childhood.
Although no one said it or taught it, I learned not to reveal excessive interest in the lives of the young men who came daily to the shop but rather to proffer indifference. I knew I was not to walk to the street corner too often in the evenings where they played lively music on guitars, hand made from wood attached to emptied cooking oil containers. No-one had to tell me of the barriers that came with my whiteness. I knew I was not to enjoy watching the young men dance and smoke the loose cigarettes – purchased from me at the tea-room, 2 cents each for unfiltered Lexingtons and 3 cents for filters – and laugh and rough-house bare foot on white suburban corners. The kitchen-boys’ or garden boys’ uniforms, white coarse red or blue trim v-neck shirts marked them legitimate workers in white suburbs even until late at night or at least until dad’s shop closed at 9.
They’d drift off to a concrete block room at the farthest corner of the yard of the property where they worked. The young men washed their master’s car and weeded the master’s yard, helped The Girl in the kitchen. I learned, although no one taught it or said it, to hide my interest. I wanted to join in and enjoy the lively music and playful antics and raucous laughter and the loud conversations which I could not understand.
But, I learned, although no one said it, to turn my desire to belong into a supervisory stance or glare which carried censure of the noise made by African young men in our white neighborhood where they were fortunate we allowed such antics.
Thulani and Temba were embedded into me by women who were our maids and who most certainly but unknowingly provided complete comfort, peace, solace for the living load tightly strapped to her body, riding her back and, everything I ever wanted for my infant son was provided unintentionally for me some 40-something years earlier when they sang his name.
“Choose something easier. Something American,” said a friend, “no one will remember it.”
Dad owned the tearoom near the top of Blackburn Road next to the Dutch Reformed Church up the road from Park Hill Soccer Club.
You may or not have known him by name but you may have been a woman in need of milk for her baby. He would have given it to you “under the counter” as if defying the boss which, of course, was himself. When you tried to pay he may have whispered “take the milk, my dear. No baby should go without food. Keep your money for something else the baby needs.”
Or, you may have wandered into the shop and said you had no place to stay for a while and he may have said “we have plenty of room here” and given you a bed for a week, a month, even longer.
Perhaps you knew him because you faced addiction to alcohol and he was your Alcoholics Anonymous sponsor and he said “just for today” to you and told you he’d decided he’d no longer drink “just for today” until his pledge spanned decades of sobriety.
Did you know my dad?
You may not have known him by name but perhaps you went to his tearoom where he served bread, milk, kindness and good humor and wrapped the goods with the feeling that you were known, you belonged, you were important.
I saw Santa at the Children’s Museum with a feather of a child pleading her case. They were locked in discussion, a confessional of sorts, as she entered into detail of her every Christmas wish. Hands, eyes, and all of her face enticed Santa closer lest he miss a detail living so clearly in her head.
“Oh, you want, oh, I see it. Why yes, of course. Perfectly,” Santa said, his voice tapering off into her ear, “I will see what I can do about that.”
Then she nestled into his side, her shoulders comfortably enveloped by his plush red suit as if to declare her mission accomplished. He was a perfect depiction of everything I imagined him to be and the sight easily immersed me in the voices and music of my own Christmases past.
Santa came all year round to our home. I’d look through the window in April or mid-August and Santa would be strolling up the driveway on his return from visits to every home on the street. He’d be wearing dad’s shoes and one of his ties underneath the tatty red coat, but I knew better than to expose his identity. I wanted to believe in Santa and he in turn needed me to believe. Such faith had rewards. I knew better than to dash my own hopes. I wasn’t ready to lose my trust in Santa for anyone and certainly not by my own hand.
He couldn’t resist visits to the whole neighborhood and would drop in from time to time and inspire children toward good behavior, perfect obedience at school, and remind them to count their blessings one by one. At every appearance in our home we’d sing “The Little Boy that Santa Clause Forgot” and we’d all have to cry. He insisted on it.
The lines “he didn’t have a daddy” and “went home to play with last year’s broken toys” really got us going.
It was clear he sang to all the children of the world who’d had to skip childhood and who had known poverty; children who’s fathers had gone to war or whose fathers or mothers had fled their families.
Donning the suit, surprising the children, was our Santa’s way of making the world right.
His visits created intrigue in the neighborhood, and to every child he repeated the promise that this Christmas, no child on this street would be forgotten. As far as I could tell none ever was.
The last Christmas we had together was in August of 1994. We were riding in a car and in the curves of Bluff Road when spontaneously he began to sing, “Christmas comes but once a year.”
The car became a holy place as I heard once more of the boy who “wrote a note to Santa for some soldiers and a drum and it broke his little heart to find Santa hadn’t come.”
The tears we both shed required no encouragement for we both somehow knew this would be the last time he’d sing this nostalgic hymn.
Now this old song is top of my list of Christmas songs.
The melody emerges randomly in my awareness, most particularly when faced with children who are in need. I have had to silence it at all times of the year.
It was the little girl’s confidence, Santa’s grace, and the loving parents looking from the side that caught my attention last week. She touched his flowing beard and told him her every Christmas dream and I found myself listing my own requests with childlike zeal.
It gave me renewed hope that you and I, the real Santas of the world, could deliver a more hopeful tomorrow for “those little girls and boys that Santa Claus forgot.”
(First published, December 9, 2000, Indianapolis Star) ———— Our home this evening….
Considering others, delivering acts of kindness, will likely be of much benefit to people on the receiving end.
But, as a direct result of acts of consideration and kindness, possibilities for more such acts will kick into gear.
How could I use my power, as limited as it may be, to open opportunities for people?
I’m in no particular hurry and so I can move to the end of the line, or at least suggest those who are rushed for time go ahead of me.
I have more than I ever need or use so I will find creative ways to share and spread the favor that’s been mine.
This kind of thinking is good for our minds, hearts, wills, souls, spirits, as elusive as these “places” are that work together within us and define and shape who we are.
Looking for ways to consider others puts our selfishness and entitlement (at least temporarily) on hold while such thinking engages self awareness and service.
It’s healthy thinking.
It’s win-win thinking that even while we are thinking the thinking it realigns our attitudes and restores hope.
Considering others broadens, sharpens personal vision, does its part in renewing the mind. This can only have positive results, except for committed cynics, of whom, sadly, there are many.
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