I'll Call It Like I See It

by sheila morris

Category: family life

  • when sorrows come, they come not single spies


    “When sorrows come, they come not single spies, but in battalions.”  (William Shakespeare – Hamlet)

    While we mourned the passing of Congressman John Lewis last week with the rest of the world via amazing coverage in the media, Pretty and I felt the loss of two other folks closer to home.

    Martha Faye Ketchum,  eldest daughter of Willie M. Flora, passed on July 27, 2020 in Rosenberg, Texas.  She was 73 years old. Our niece Carmen Woods said of her, “Faye was one of a kind. She definitely kept you on point.” What a wonderful way to be remembered – oh, that more of us could stay on point.

    Monroe Scott, our neighbor at Casa de Canterbury for more than nine years, also passed away last Monday, July 27th. He was 84 years old. Monroe was one of the kindest people I’ve ever known – I enjoyed visiting with him early in the mornings while he stood on his front porch with his beautiful flowers he planted every year. He would laugh at my pathetic attempts to grow flowers in our back yard. He even came over one day to give me a few tips, but it was a lost cause. After we moved across the river in 2017, we still kept in contact with Monroe and his son Anthony who called us last week about his father.

    Martha Faye, an African American woman I called family, and Monroe Scott, an African American man I called friend both died during our mourning for another African American man that became a national hero but was also part of a large extended family who knew him as Uncle Robert and an even larger group of friends scattered across the world. As Shakespeare said, sorrows come not as single spies, but in battalions. This past week I felt the battalions circling.

    The coronavirus pandemic which continues to rage in our midst amplifies our sorrows, makes our hibernating selves more susceptible to fears about our own safety along with concerns for the well being of our families and friends. Grief becomes a constant companion for many of us who have lost loved ones and additionally lost an even more fundamental faith in our institutions.

    Elisabeth Kubler-Ross had this to say about grief: “The reality is that you will grieve forever. You will not get over the loss of a loved one; you will learn to live with it. You will heal and you will rebuild yourself around the loss you suffered. You will be whole again, but you will never be the same. Nor should you be the same, nor would you want to.”

    We shall never be the same.

    Stay safe, stay sane and stay tuned.

     

     

  • nero fiddled while Rome burned, but who set the fire?


    Summer of our Discontent

    There once was an emperor named Nero

    Who fiddled and called himself  Hero,

    His people complained,

    They held Nero to blame,

    But Nero set fire to their peepholes.

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    As paratrump (who knows who they really were) forces stormed into Portland, Oregon this month, I have been horrified by the pictures of peaceful protesters being picked up on the city streets by unidentified individuals dressed in camouflage carrying automatic weapons, whisked away in unmarked cars by these individuals, taken to unknown destinations in these unmarked cars. An invasion of an American city perpetrated by an American president who devotes himself to distinctly “unamerican” activities.

    As we collectively mourned the loss of civil rights icon John Lewis this past week, we were reminded the struggle for justice and fair treatment continues. As I watched Portland ignite in flames last week, I thought of the emperor Nero’s alleged response to the fires that burned in ancient Rome. Fiddling away. Actually fiddling.

    But for the rest of the story, I discovered that perhaps Nero did more than fiddle. Some theories emerged afterwards that Nero was responsible for the fires. Sound familiar? I wonder if Portland would be in flames if paratrump troops hadn’t been sent to that city.

    While fires burn in some of our nation’s cities, the Covid-19 pandemic rages with a greater vengeance in many of the places we call home across the entire country.

    This is without question another summer of our discontent.

    Stay safe, stay sane and please stay tuned.

     

     

     

  • second chances anyone?


    Back in the days when I played more golf than I should have, I learned about mulligans.    Mulligans are a variation of  second chances. If you hit a shot with your driver off the tee on any one hole in a round and the little white golf ball vanishes mysteriously in deep woods closer to the fairway for another hole –  you know for sure you’ll never be able to find your little white ball, but you can say mulligan before you throw your driver in the direction of the same woods. Mulligan means you will have a second shot off that tee before you set off to try to find the driver you threw in the woods. You may hit a beautiful shot for your mulligan or you may not, but the important thing is you have a new opportunity.

    In our personal lives second chances are sometimes painfully obvious and at other times so subtle we may miss them. Lesson Number One: Be open, available, alert and don’t think you won’t ever need a second chance.  You will.  Lesson Number Two:  When you get a second chance, try not to think of it as an opportunity to repeat mistakes.  Mistakes are hard to take back so don’t blow the mulligan.

    Lesson Number Three:  Be sure to tell your friends about your second chance. It may give them hope and inspire them to offer one or accept one. Honestly, can there be too many second chances going around? Lesson Number Four:  Your second chance may be your last chance.   Really?   Really.

    Lesson Number Five: Never be afraid to take a second chance when you have one. As Franklin Roosevelt famously said when the Hounds of the Baskervilles were closing in around him, We have nothing to fear but fear itself.

    I am a survivor of second chances in my 74 years – I have at various times blown them, made mistakes, wished I had been a better person. I also have taken second chances that have brought me much joy and happiness. The point is I have had more than my share of opportunities to make choices.

    I have to believe in second chances not only for us as individuals but also for us as communities and as a country.  We have collectively failed to fulfill our promises of equal opportunity for all through our systemic racism toward people of color in their pursuit of good health care during the current Covid-19 pandemic and beyond, in their pursuit of a good public educational system, in their need of reliable shelter through affordable housing, in their need of a living wage – in their ongoing fear of police brutality. One of our second chances to do better comes in November when we have a say in our democracy through our  votes. We must do better – we must elect new leadership that gives us second chances to become a better people.

    Stay safe, stay sane and stay tuned.

     

  • who has a secret?


    I have a secret to tell you about the power of the vote, 

    but all you care about is pulling my hair. Oh, well. Maybe later.

    Pretty and I were talking about our nine months old granddaughter Ella James yesterday afternoon not just because she was playing in her playpen on our screened porch but also because Pretty said she had been thinking we needed to start making videos of our time with Ella for later on when we might not be here to talk to her in person.

    I said I agreed with her – that neither of us was getting any younger and what a great idea it was to make the videos. Actually, I said, I’d also been thinking about the same inspiration, but Pretty has always been the ideas part of our marriage so I happily gave her credit.

    However, Pretty and I are much better at thinking about good plans than we are at plan execution so let’s not any of us hold our breaths for those videos.

    But Pretty is fabulous with her digital phone camera and takes a ton of pictures like the one above she took yesterday afternoon. I loved the picture. Maybe one day Ella James will see this picture and try to remember what she loved about grabbing my glasses, throwing them on the floor, then pulling my hair. I’m fairly confident she won’t remember my lesson on the importance of voting.

    Stay safe, stay sane and stay tuned.

     

  • the horse you draw is the one you’ll ride


    I originally published this post on December 28, 2013. While I had this conversation with one of my first cousins in Texas after Christmas six years ago, I found his words strangely spoke to me today as a spike in South Carolina coronavirus cases brought the pandemic closer and closer to Pretty and me.

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    A year can fly past in a hurry and yet the passage of time, regardless of our perception of its speed, never leaves us unchanged. I was talking to a cousin who called me on Christmas Day to wish me a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year.  I appreciated the call and the visit we had. The thousand miles that separated us couldn’t break the ties that bind us through our DNA.

    We were talking about the vicissitudes of life, as my daddy used to call them, and Gaylen who has spent over forty years hanging out with cowboys at rodeos in and around the Houston area told me one of their favorite quotes:  “The horse you draw is the one you’ll ride.”

    I like it.  No apologies.  No excuses.  No whining about why did I get this horse.  No wondering about whether this rodeo was one I should’ve signed up for.  No mulling over how I ever got to be a cowboy in the first place.  It’s now or it’s never – so you ride.

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    Stay safe, stay sane and please stay tuned.