Lasting Words

This week began without much fanfare, but before Monday ended, it was marked by two losses that brought great grief to my soul. The first was the death of a young Salvation Army leader, as a heart attack robbed his body of breath, leaving his wife a widow in her thirties, and an infant son without his doting father. 

 

The second loss was that of a heart-breaking milestone, as America’s death toll from COVID-19 reached – and surpassed – the five hundred thousand mark. Half a million people, gone. The whole of Ashland county, times ten. To pause at this significant number, the doors of the south portico of the White House were draped with black bunting, and five hundred candles flickered in the night air as our president and vice president honored those lost and those grieving. 

 

With his comforting presence at Sandy Hook and his mournful singing of Amazing Grace in Charlotte following the murders in the sanctuary there, some called President Obama the ‘consoler-in-chief.’ Now, President Biden has accepted that mantle, speaking to the nation: “As we acknowledge the scale of this mass death in America, we remember each person and the life they lived. . . We have to resist becoming numb to the sorrow.” To a shaken nation, he repeated, “We must remember.”

 

One way we remember those who have died is by their last words. Nostradamus, known for his forecasts of the future, predicted his own death: “Tomorrow, at sunrise, I shall no longer be here.” By morning, he had died. As poet Emily Dickinson was dying, she said, “I must go in, for the fog is rising.” Pure Dickinson. And one of my favorite “last words” comes from Harriet Tubman, who longingly said, “Swing low, sweet chariot.” 

 

A tragic aspect of death by COVID-19 is that many of its victims die alone. Intubated and unable to speak, family is often forbidden from being present. Even if they could speak, there is no beloved son or daughter to receive a final word. Or, as with my young friend Damon, death comes so quickly that there is no time to call the family, no words to speak as the body passes from life to death.

 

In the long-ago age of letter-writing, grief-stricken families could read over a last letter, or more recently, listen to a final voicemail. Now, in the age of social media, many turn to a Facebook page or a Twitter thread to listen for one last word. 

 

Here’s what I heard on Monday. Damon and his wife Allison were preparing a meal at The Salvation Army to take out to the streets when a man wandered into the kitchen. Not sure how he got into the locked building, Damon described his own reaction to his Facebook friends. “I told him we were closed right then, but since he made it this far, how could I not help him? He asked for something to eat because he was hungry.” Within minutes, the man was eating a hot meal, perhaps the first in many days.

 

Damon continued: “After he left, one of the teens [who was preparing the meal with them] asked me if I was scared. I said, ‘Naw, just surprised how he got up in here. In my experience, nobody comes to rob The Salvation Army. People come when they need help, so we help them.’” Last words from the heart of a servant.

 

And last words for this column? Dr. Paul Chilcote, a former Ashland Theological Seminary professor, repeated these ancient words on his Facebook page on that same Monday. First, from the New Testament book of Romans: “We do not know what we ought to pray for, but the Spirit intercedes for us with sighs too deep for words.” He also offered a song by Jake Runestad: “Angels where you soar up to God’s own light, Take my own lost bird on your hearts tonight. And as grief once more mounts to heaven and sings, let my love be heard.” Indeed, for all who have passed, for all who grieve, let our love, with or without words, be heard.  

 

A Deep and Mysterious Language

I grew up in the City of Tonawanda, a suburb of Buffalo, NY that hugged the shore of the Niagara River. In those days, Tonawanda was similar to its gritty big sister city in many ways: it had an industrial base in Spaulding Fiber, it was populated with mostly working class people , and had pockets of immigrant families, especially German and Polish. What it did not share with Buffalo was racial diversity. The nearest we came to having people of color in our elementary classroom was a Native American boy in third grade. As a young child, it was all that I knew.

 

By my teen years, the world as I knew it had expanded, if not in the neighborhoods of Tonawanda, at least in the corridors of my mind. A voracious reader, I’d begun to pay attention to the Civil Rights movement as reported on the pages of the newspaper, and my thirteen-year-old self was broken-hearted when Dr. King was assassinated. Yet while I knew there was a world outside my white, blue collar suburban bubble, I had not yet been in relationship with a neighbor, co-worker, fellow worshipper, or classmate of African-American heritage. I may have known more, but I still had no interracial experience. 

 

In the nearly fifty years since my graduation, life has changed in many ways, both in the world around me and in my own story. Our family has lived in multi-racial neighborhoods, we’ve served both African-American and multi-racial congregations, and were I to analyze the racial composition of my Facebook friends list, it would likely resemble the demographics of our country. Yeah for me, right? 

 

I wish it was that easy. I’m struggling to write this column because race remains a difficult topic to address. I write from my own privileged position, influenced by my own bias. There’s also a nagging worry that my comments may trigger a letter to the editor, labeling me a radical woman or worse. My reputation! 

 

Yet I also write from my own story, which runs through Hough. Cleveland’s Hough neighborhood was a fashionable residential area, predominantly white with a 5% non-white population in 1950. By 1960, its population was 74% non-white. In 1966, racial unrest boiled over and Hough burned. Hough’s story was complicated, repeated in many urban neighborhoods across the across the country. 

 

We arrived in Hough in 1990, and halfway through our second year of ministry there, rioting erupted in Los Angeles. Four police officers, who had beaten Rodney King, a Black man stopped after a car chase, were tried and acquitted, and L.A. exploded. As we watched and waited, wondering what might become of our neighborhood, the beaten man pleaded for peace. “People, I just want to say, can’t we all get along?”

 

Rodney King’s words echoed as time marched on, through Ferguson, MO, in the aftermath of the death of Tamir Rice in a westside Cleveland neighborhood, to the Black Lives Matters protests of the summer and fall of 2020. Can’t we all get along? But what my older and hopefully wiser self understands is that “getting along” isn’t as simple as it sounds. “Getting along” can be accomplished by walking on eggshells day after day, or pretending that all is well. Yet there is another way, one that embraces the hard work of reckoning with history, recognizing our own deficits, and reaching out to build relationships with those we see as “other.” 

 

I’m encouraged by a small group of Ashlanders who realize that it isn’t enough to wishfully hope that, Abracadabra!, all racial tension will evaporate and we’ll all live happily ever after. Instead, they’ve joined together in “Colorful Ashland,” with a mission to understand and share the way race impacts life in Ashland County, in education, religion, criminal justice, health, mental health, housing, employment and business. In doing so, they advocate for “liberty and justice for all,” not just as words recited in the Pledge of Allegiance, but as deeply held values.  

 

Artist Paul Gauguin recognized a simple truth: “Color! What a deep and mysterious language.” Indeed, the fulness of color speaks into us deeply, as who we knew to be is transformed to who we can become.    

 

The Days of Our Lives

January 6, 2021 was a difficult day for our country, and since the start of the impeachment trial on February 9, we’ve been reminded of the trauma of that day in vivid ways. Some have hopes of finding a sense of closure from the events of that frightening day, while others are seeking to blame or punish, or perhaps simply desiring an understanding of how such a thing could happen. Little more than a month after the Capital was invaded, the videos from the impeachment trial are searing our recently-formed memories into our national consciousness. 

 

But for my favorite five-year-old, the happenings in the senate were barely a blip on her radar, for February 9 had a more personal significance, marking the one hundredth day since the delightful and determined Elizabeth Holiday began kindergarten. Pop-Pop’s little peanut is one of the youngest in her class, and is probably the tiniest, small but mighty! I recently asked her what her favorite part of school was, and she told me “math.” When I asked about when she’s sad at school, she told me, “when math is over.” Keep it up, Lizzie Einstein!

 

To celebrate the passage of the hundredth day, the kindergarteners dressed up like they were one hundred years old. Lizzie’s glasses, bun and little old lady dress looked both ancient and adorable, and then her beloved teacher used an aging photo app to add wrinkles and other elderly signs to her picture. With a bit of Facebook sleuthing, Lizzie’s mother found a picture of great-grandmother Myrtle Shade and the resemblance between the two, born a century apart, is uncanny. 

 

If only the process of aging was as painless as downloading a photo app. Was it coincidental that Elizabeth’s old age transformation came on the same day this grandmother was celebrating the birthday that comes after sixty-five? As the years progress, I do struggle to say the new age out loud, and this year was no exception. 

 

The corona virus kept me from blowing out candles on my cake, but my day was enriched by the wonder of a social media birthday. The greetings came from far and wide, many representing friendships first made in the classroom or on the playground. Others were grounded in our Salvation Army work in New Jersey, Pennsylvania and Ohio. Some are acquaintances from my writing life, while family also chimed in with birthday wishes. Adding to  the reminders of my advancing age was the realization that a number of messages were received from people who were children when we first met, and now have children of their own.

 

As I scrolled through the many wishes for birthday happiness, my mind drifted down memory lane. While I’ve never ascended the heights of Mount Everest or snorkeled amid coral reefs, the memories awakened through the birthday greetings were sweet, and reminded me of the richness of life, the privilege of being a part of the lives of so many. I wanted to take the time to connect again as each name popped up on my screen, but alas, good intentions didn’t translate into action, at least not yet.

 

Memory is fickle, flirting with us in our dreams and triggered in our consciousness by all kinds of random experiences. For Elizabeth, memories are just beginning, being reinforced by the stories we repeat and the photos we scroll through on my phone. For this grandmother, memory is in the rear-view mirror, prompted by a scent of perfume, a taste of ice cream, or a Facebook greetings. And for a community, whether as small as a family or as large as a nation, a collective memory protects us, binds us together and guides us forward.

 

Alysha Speer challenges us: “And always remember, even when the memories pinch your heart.” Indeed, some memories may pinch, but there’s likely to be a fair amount of joy as we recall the adventures of life as framed by the kindnesses of others. Sometimes we just have to dig a little deeper in our remembering to reach the sweeter water. 

 

 

Not-So-Speedy Delivery

As a young mother, my sons and I seldom watched Mr. Rogers’ Neighborhood, as we were on our way to day care, school and work when the program aired. But the more I learn about Fred Rogers, the more I appreciate what he did as he gently greeted children for thirty-one years. There was always a rhythm to his day, as he interacted with friends, including Mr. McFeely (David Newell), who delivered packages and mail to the neighborhood. Mr. McFeely sometimes sang, “That’s what you’ll get, that’s what you’ll get . . . a speedy speedy speedy speedy delivery.” While not the most creative of lyrics, it fit his company, Speedy Delivery Service. 

 

For many years, the United States Postal Service has had an unofficial theme song of its own: “Neither snow nor rain nor heat nor gloom of night stays these couriers from the swift completion of their appointed rounds.” I had no idea that these words are from The Persian Warsby Herodotus (500-449 B.C.), and are chiseled in stone above the entrance to the New York City Post Office, describing postal carriers who make sure that cards of celebration and sympathy, legal notices, advertisements and even the dreaded bills arrive in our mail boxes “no matter what.” 

 

As an unofficial motto, it has served the United States Postal Service well. The USPS website notes, “In the more than two centuries since Benjamin Franklin was appointed our first Postmaster General in 1775, the Postal Service has grown and changed with America, boldly embracing new technologies to better serve a growing population.” But in 2020, the COVID-19 pandemic has taken a toll on the USPS, just as it has on just about everything else in our world. The pandemic’s effect was compounded by some in government who seemingly wanted to see the venerable Postal Service fail. “The post office is a joke” was one derisive comment heard back in April.

 

By June 2020, a new Postmaster General (Louis DeJoy) began work, quickly introducing cost-cutting measures such as banning overtime and removing high-speed mail sorting machines from post offices, even banishing selected mail boxes from streets across the US. In August, DeJoy announced that twenty-three senior employees of the USPS had been reassigned or displaced (might that mean fired?). So much for institutional knowledge. Soon, mail began to be backlogged, and that backlog was exacerbated by millions of ballots cast through the mail, employee absences caused by COVID-19 infections, and an avalanche of packages ordered by the internet fingers of stir-crazy Americans, all wanting delivery in time for Christmas. 

 

So how is it going now? Our Mr. McFeely shows up every day, snow, rain, heat and even gloom of night, and delivers our mail. But somewhere beyond his mail truck (and pay grade), there are problems. For example, we received a bill on February 1 for an essential service. The bill was printed and mailed on December 2 and due before Christmas. Oops. An inconvenience, yes, and I suppose I could set up on-line payments. However, I still receive bills where on-line payment isn’t an option, and I’m always afraid I’ll delete something important – such an easy thing to do. 

 

Because I can make these choices, I am privileged. But I have neighbors who depend on the mail for bill-paying, among the 27% of adults age sixty-five and older who don’t use the internet, or the 15% of rural Americans who are off-line (Pew Research Center, 2019). Others don’t have a checking account, and purchase money orders to pay their bills by mail. Many people get their medication through the mail as well, sometimes required to do so by their insurance company, and need the USPS to deliver on time. 

 

Months ago, history professor Phillip Rubio suggested that those pushing for radical changes at USPS were “playing a costly game of chicken.” If they succeed, he cautioned, “we’ll all be the poorer for it.” The year 2020 created a perfect storm to challenge the Postal Service. We’re hoping it gets sorted out sooner rather than later, so our nation’s postal workers can once again sing along with Mr. McFeely: “Speedy delivery . . . that’s what you’ll get!”