"Dear Children of the Universe" - Part Three

 

No quotes today.  There just is not one appropriate quote to explain how each one of your teachers, your parents, are feeling right now.  You have finished the MOST difficult school years in history.  AND...if you have studied history, the last pandemic we suffered through was in the early to mid 1900's.  You, my dears have made history.  Because you have made history, you need to do the following:

• Be grateful and show gratitude - Show gratitude for the education you received.  Show gratitude to your loved ones.  They may have not always been able to help you with your math homework but they want the best for you and you should honor that by passing each course.
• If you want to survive in this world, you need to work even harder now.  We are all operating at a deficit.  All of us...From this point on, you need to plan for a future that will allow you to survive on your own, fully employed and independent despite the circumstances because that is what strong people do.  They persevere.
• Wake up!  None of you should have failed one single class.  Your teachers designed the curriculum so that you would succeed. They took into consideration every single variable.  Some of you went missing in action.  Why? I will forever be haunted by the very fact that those who disappeared did not see that value of their academics.  You chose to fail instead of ask for help.  You chose to fail because you saw no way out.  The question of "Why?" will always haunt me.
• For those who succeeded during this extremely difficult time, thank yourselves and treat yourselves well.  You worked so incredibly hard.  You pushed through the negativity and the anxiety and you are very close to building a better future and a better world. Why does this matter? YOU, are all responsible for what happens next.  You need to put food on your tables.  You will have mortgages.  You will need to hold down a job and take direction from a superior.  You should view success as something very personal.  It's called "pride."

Lastly, here is a true confession.  Anxiety and fear are real emotions.  As your teacher, those emotions were felt each and every single day of this school year because I worried about each and every one of you.  Life is all about choices.  We can either choose to give up and hide or not.  The alternative however, will provide you with so much pride and so much strength you will never, ever forget this time in your life.  The day I graduated from high school was so emotional.  I knew it was the last time I would be protected by my teachers.  Your teachers protected you and I bet you did not even notice. So, "Children of the Universe,"  this year ends like no other.  It will be like no other.  Our fears and our frustrations were all legitimate and now, now we have to process where we go from here.  The summer is here.  Jump in a lake, a pool.  Get outside and be ready to come to school in the fall, ready to take responsibility for yourselves and your success.  

"My Gray Hair"

 

         The very first person I ever remember with gray was my Grandmother Maria.  Grandma Maria kept her long hair and every morning, my mother would braid it and wrap it in a bun just the way she liked it.  My mother did this for her until the day she passed at 98 years of age.  It never occurred to my Grandma to complain about her gray hair.  In fact, I never heard her complain about anything except when Mom wanted her eat and she would say quite emphatically, "Mickey, you gave me too much but I cleaned my plate!'

     Gray hair has been subtlety surfacing on my head since my forties.  I remember waking up and looking in the mirror, putting on my makeup and just stopped and looked for what seemed like an eternity.  Gray hair.  From that moment, I estimate that I have spent hundreds and hundreds of dollars covering those "hairs of wisdom."  They were as I call it,  the "change of seasons." Dark brown hair, blonde hair, red hair, highlights.  It was not until this past year that I watched so many women my age, whom I loved and respect embrace the gray.  They surely embrace the gray.  They are active.  They are healthy and the gray hair hasn't changed one single mindset that they have.  They are brilliant.  They love.  They argue.  They are social and they travel.  They are grandparents or soon to be grandparents.

  

     For myself, I fought the gray.  I was in denial that I was actually aging.  Aging was not in my plan.  I was the youngest of three and I wanted to stay "young."  I looked at my world with brand new eyes each and every day.  Life is funny though...after a few losses and heartbreaks, disappointments, gray hair did not seem like such a terrible thiing. In fact, I now see it as a true badge of honor.  Honestly, I look at this past year with the truth, the realization, that "older" means "better."  "Older" means that we have the power to make decisions that provide us peace.  Gray hairs deserve peace.  Gray hair deserves respect.  We have earned our right to say what we mean and mean what we say.

     Grandma Maria was a farmer, an amazing cook and in fact, she cooked on and with a wood burning stove.  She never learned to drive.  The things that we deem important, my grandmother could have cared less.  Her long gray hair was a sign of her natural ability to accept life as it had been given to her.  Her dried, cracked hands, the sign of hard work and of course age, were the reminders to us that life was not easy and well, never will be.  However, she found joy in us.  She celebrated my college graduation with a glass of wine and told us all of the story of how she had too much wine one time, while still in Austria and rolled down a hill!!!  I believe that was the only time she drank, until my graduation.  I loved her. 

     So here I am, embracing my culminating gray hair.  I had been dreading it and through this pandemic and everything that has had entailed, aging does not seem so bad...It is not the curse I thought it would be. I am reaching my peace.  I have nothing else to prove to anyone or anything. I want to embrace my age not be afraid of it. Take me or leave me.  My grandmother was the most upright, honest woman.  With every gray hair, I hope she's proud of  the gray hair I feel I have earned.  There's more to do.  There's more the grays want to say.  Stay tuned.....