If Only

Life is inherently unfair, as has been proven to me time and time again, most recently in the death of a dear friend who was only 49 years old. Tim Shannon was a most beloved and popular teacher at Fremont High School in Sunnyvale, and a most beloved colleague and friend as well. As one of Tim's former students remarked to me the other night at the candlelight vigil, "Why Tim? Why couldn't one of the sucky teachers have died?"

If only life was fair, Jeremy, if only life was fair.

tjshannon

The sun is still shining, the tulips are blooming in front of the high school, the auditorium door is open and yet, there is still no Tim Shannon. The world should have stopped and paused in honor of this gentle teacher's passing, one who touched so many people's hearts and souls, but on and on and on the earth spins, oblivious to the massive, palpable outpouring of sorrow from the hearts of all those he touched. My heart is ripped apart by your stranding us here in the wide wake you left behind. You are simply not replaceable.

Sad, Sad Day

Its a sad, sad day in Sunnyvale. Beloved high school drama teacher Tim Shannon is dead.

Bunnies

Today is Easter Sunday, a day to celebrate rebirth, resurrection, and new life. For Christians, it is a time of rememberance, a time to celebrate the Son of God resurrected; for the less religious and for children, it is a time of Easter egg hunts, Easter baskets, and new spring clothes. I remember celebrating Easter as a girl in the 1950s, back when that spring holiday meant new Easter "bonnets", white gloves, white patent leather shoes with a matching purse and a new pastel colored dress to wear on to church on Sundays. (The dress was worn over a stiff petticoat which made it stick out like a ballerina's tutu.)

No one knows exactly when or where the Easter Bunny legend began, but their are some logical suggestions. From several websites chosen from an internet search, it appears that the Bunny (or E.B.) was the logical symbolic choice for spring festivals that celebrated fertility in an era that predated Christianity; the furry little bunny rabbit is one of the most fertile creatures on earth. During the Dust Bowl years in the 1930s, when the soil of the Texas panhandle and adjacent states literally blew away, the dirt so sterile that it would not even support the growth of a single blade of grass, for some reason the rabbit population multiplied like crazy. I will spare my readers the gory details, but the cute, continuously reproducing little bunny rabbit did not exactly endear itself to the western farmers of that time and place.

My brother has a pet rabbit, a house rabbit, a mini-bunny, which he and his wife affectionately call Bun-Bun. Bun-Bun is quiet as a mouse and has very soft fur and big brown eyes. He hops around the living room waiting to be petted. He is quite cute, kind of like a small dog that doesn't bark.

I have different bunnies in my house. These are bunnies that I come after with a vengeance, similar to that of the Dust Bowl farmers in the 1930s. My bunnies are not cute with big brown eyes, just waiting to be petted. My bunnies hide under the bed, just waiting to attack me. My bunnies are Dust Bunnies and they are to be eliminated as quickly as possible with swift strokes of the dust mop.

You see, I have allergic asthma, and one of the main things I am allergic to is dust mites, little microscopic critters that live in carpets and mattresses and bedding. Dust mites live on the dead skin cells shed by humans and animals. Dust is really a disgusting combination of all kinds of gross things, including....dust mite feces. The dust mite feces contain a protein to which some people are allergic, and I happen to be one of them.

Although my step-mom tried really hard to instill a certain level of cleanliness in her children, I am sure my siblings and I do not always meet her expectations. I have never really cared much about keeping my house dust free. Actually, dust is not a problem as long as it is not disturbed and distributed into the air. But everytime you walk on a carpet, or sit on an upholstered sofa upon which any airborne dust has landed, you spew dust mite feces into the air we all breathe. And, for some of us air breathers, that's a problem.

I now have hardwood floors with no carpeting. I consciensciouly mop the floors each week with a damp mop so that no dust takes flight. I have taken down the drapes. I try to keep the cat out of my bedroom, albeit with limited success. I am on a mission, to wean myself from my seasonal asthma medication, as soon as it is medically advisable and I am not coughing my lungs out every day.

Once I became conscious of the cause of my medical issue, I began to see specks of dust everywhere - on the hardwood floor in the hallway, on the glass top of my clothes bureau, on my shiny new laptop. Our long haired cat is nature's own dust mop, dust bunnies clinging to her underbelly of sweeping hair, dragging them from one room to the other.

So now, I dust. Often. The floors, the top of my bureau, my nightstand, any place that specks of dust might land on. I vacuum the permanent carpeting on the staircase with a vengeance, using the highest suction power that our modern, upright, dust mite-filtering vacuum cleaning marvel can muster.

I have become a Dust Buster.

Good Friday

Today is Good Friday. Christians memorialize the crucifixion and death of Jesus Christ on Good Friday. When I was a child in the 1950s, on the East Coast, Good Friday was a holiday, and a holy day for Catholics. My family went to church in the afternoon, at 3 pm sharp for Good Friday services. (3 pm has been memorialized as the time of Christ's death.) Women and girls wore black lace veils on their heads. The service always seemed quite long to me, as the priestly procession paraded around the interior of the church, burning incense (I can smell the sharp, sweet vapors of the incense right now), and reciting the Stations of the Cross. After services, we went home and had a simple fish dinner (no meat on Fridays) and went to bed. After services, we did not go out to the movies or have a fancy dinner. We were memorializing the day our Saviour had been put to death. It was a solemn occasion. I have not been to church services in 30 years or more, except for funerals and weddings. I am sure many things have changed, but I also sure that Good Friday is still celebrated by reading the "Passion" of Christ and reciting the Stations of the Cross and is still considered the most solemn holy day in the Catholic Church. Holy Saturday always seemed to me to be a waiting day, a non-holiday stuck smack between solemn Good Friday and glorious Easter Sunday. For anyone unfamiliar with Easter, in Christian religions, Easter celebrates the rise of Jesus Christ from the dead, and supports the basis of Christianity, as the resurrection is the ulitmate proof for believers that Jesus Christ was indeed the Son of God. Personally, I have always been more impressed by the lessons taught by Jesus than by his death and ressurection. Lessions such as "Love they neighbor as thyself" and "'Whatever you do to the least of my brethren, you do unto me". His turn-the-other-cheek philosophy replaced the old eye-for-an-eye philosophy. His mandate to feed the hungry and clothe the naked resonates with me still, especially in today's society where many who want to repeal our newly passed health insurance law still manage to call themselves Christians. I do not read the Bible, but I remember Christ's willingness to cure lepers, the outcasts of society, and stand up to the wealthy. "It is more difficult for the wealthy to enter heaven than it is for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle". He taught forgiveness and compassion and cared little for material goods. Even though I no longer consider myself a practicing Catholic, I learned valuable lessons from the teachings of Jesus Christ. When my son died, almost 10 years ago, we remembered him, we mourned him, but we also set up a scholarship fund for other students, in a tribute to a young man who did not have a chance to leave a legacy of his own. A pay-it-forward kind of thing. So, I am wondering, why do we not do something similar on Good Friday, in order to pay tribute to this man who taught us how to live and love our fellow man? Of course, Christians should remember what happened to Jesus on Good Friday. But what about remembering all who have been persecuted, for their faith, for the color of their skin, for their sexual orientation? What about doing something for others instead of giving up candy for Lent? Instead of kneeling in church for three hours, why not donate money to a charity, do some volunteer work you would not ordinarily do, participate in a Sierra Club activity to help save the Earth from global warming, or visit a lonely elder in a senior center? If we were to attend Jesus' memorial service today, I think that he would be expecting much more from us than wailing over his death. I think he would want us to remember the lessons he taught, and, as his disciples, expect us to act on them. Help those less fortunate than yourself. Protect the earth. Love thy neighbor as thyself. Perform one small act of kindness, on this day, a Good Friday, in 2010.

Health Care Reform

I have two Republican friends, three if you count my dad. One of these friends ,who is just several years away from being eligible for Medicare, is vehemently opposed to the new health care reform bill. The other friend just votes the same way her husband does, something not as uncommon in this country as you might think. And my dad is simply my dear old dad, so he is forgiven for anything, including his political views.

The health care reform bill has been in effect for less than a week, and already the news is reporting "Nation still divided on health care" whereupon Obama replied "Its been a week folks. So before we find out if people like health care reform, we should wait to see what happens when we actually put it into place. Just a thought."

My friend who is opposed to health care reform thinks it will bankrupt the country and that the poor in this country will abuse it. What is it costing all of us to take care of those poor people who cannot afford preventive care, and instead end up staying weeks in the hospital to treat an illness that could have been prevented or mitigated if treated sooner? What about a friend of mine who has his own consulting business, who has paid his "dues" for years, whose twenty-seven year old son has a serious but non-life-threatening disease but who would not be able to get health insurance without a job that provided it?

What about me, a 56 year old female, who is not employed at the moment, but who, previous to this recession, has always been employed since graduation from college? If not for Cobra, I would not be able to find a company that would insure me due to...asthma. Yes, asthma, a generally controllable and treatable condition that thousands of people have. I have never had cancer, don't smoke or drink, no longer have an appendix (this is a plus because I can no longer get appendicitis), have low blood pressure and cholesterol, am not overweight or a couch potato, certainly won't be getting pregnant, what's not to like about me?

Oh, yeah, I have seasonal allergy induced asthma. How could insurers possibly be expected to insure me?

Blooming Out All Over

Yes, spring has sprung, at least in California, and things are blooming out all over. I am talking about the flowers, no doubt.

The other day I dropped by the high school that my son used to attend. In the drama teacher's office was a young woman who I had known several years ago when she was in high school. Last May, she graduated from college. She was a girl in high school, and four years later, she came back a young woman. Yes, I know this is what happens in life, kids grow up. But when you do not see these young people for four whole years, it is a dramatic change when you see them again. I've seen it time and again when these young people come back to visit Tim, their high school drama teacher, and I am always pleasantly surprised. The boys change too, of course, but it is the young women who surprise me the most.

Maybe its the tomboy-type girls who are attracted to Tim's stagecraft classes. Often their all consuming passion in high school is mastering power tools or working the light board. They come to crew calls faces scrubbed, dressed in jeans and tee shirts, hair pulled back, with non-existent hips. They come back to visit four years later wearing make-up, hair casually styled, hips rounding out their jeans. I am always stunned that the high school girls I knew come back to visit four years later as young women. Because in my mind, it was just yesterday that they were girls and today...voila!....young women.

But it is not only the physical change I see when they return. I also see something else, something that is in a way, even more dramatic. They return, no longer girls asking their high school teacher for advice, but young women confidently expressing ideas and opinions of their own. Of course, this is to be expected, as the college years are the last phase in becoming an adult, but, it surprises me still.

I notice something similar when I watch the winter Olympic games -- slim hipped young teens execute demanding jumps without much style, and come back four years later confident young women with full figures and incredible poise on the ice.

Yes, things are blooming out all over..