I'll Call It Like I See It

by sheila morris

Category: The Way Life Is

  • gold, frankincense and myrrh with a 21st century twist

    gold, frankincense and myrrh with a 21st century twist


    I’m a basic Bah, Humbug Christmas person and have been for years. I’m not clinically depressed during the holiday season, but neither am I joyful. I resist the pressure to shop ‘til I drop, but that isn’t limited to a particular time of the year, either. I’m considering the possibility I may suffer from borderline Scrooge disorder or at a minimum, Holiday Harrumphs.

     I miss my family at Christmas, the family that defined Christmas for me as a child. That family is gone as that time and place are gone, but the child inside me mourns their loss every time I hear “Silent Night” and other carols sung during this time of the year. We were musical people and much of our holiday revolved around music in our Southern Baptist churches where my mother was always responsible for the Christmas Cantata. Sometimes she played the piano for it so my dad could lead the church choir and sometimes she drafted another pianist so she could lead the choir herself. Regardless, music was the reason for the season for us and we celebrated the season in church.

    Coming home to Texas to live in 2010 has connected me once again with my DNA family, and that’s been an incredible experience that became part of the magic of Christmas for me the last two years. First cousins, second cousins, third cousins once removed and the people they’ve married and their children are good, and a few questionable, surprises for me. Gathering for a cousins’ Christmas potluck luncheon, going with cousins to the Montgomery Annual Cookie Walk, having cousins come to our home or visiting in their homes rekindled good memories of the times when our hair wasn’t white, our figures were slimmer and the great-grandparents at the table weren’t us. I see these relatives and I am a part of them; I feel good to belong to them at Christmas. Our conversations honor and celebrate our heritage and the ones who are no longer with us. We laughed and cried together because we were moved by our memories. This family was a Christmas gift.

    But just as the traditional story goes of the Wise Men who followed a bright light to Bethlehem bringing gifts of gold, frankincense and myrrh to the baby boy in the manger, Wise Women in my life  brought gifts that rocked my Christmas complacency. My wife surprised me with an early gift at Thanksgiving when I went home to her in South Carolina. It was worth its weight in gold to me: a western saddle made of leather that now rides a wooden quilt holder a Worsham Street neighbor gave me when she saw the saddle. Whenever I look at the saddle, I think of two of my favorite things, my wife who knew me well enough to buy this treasure for me and my days of riding horses as a child. I feel the love of the giver of this perfect gift.

    Frankincense was used in ancient times for medicinal and calming purposes including treatment for depression. Burning frankincense was also thought to carry prayers to heaven by people in those days.  One of the Wise Women in my life gave me my own version of frankincense last week when she bought a plane ticket to South Carolina for me to be with my wife for Christmas. I marvel at this generosity from a friend who surely loved me, a friend who chased away the potential Christmas blues. This gift came from prayers to heaven that were unasked but answered on the wings of a snow white dove called US Airways and the spirit that is the magic of Christmas in the heart of my friend.

    Myrrh is an Arabic word for bitter and it is the resin that comes from a tree that grows in the semi-desert regions of Africa and the Red Sea.  The Chinese used it for centuries to treat wounds and bruises and bleeding. The Egyptians used myrrh as an embalming oil for their mummies. Yesterday I received another gift that reminded me of myrrh – not the bitterness nor the embalming properties – but the unexpected present was a live blooming cactus plant that arrived at my house via a congenial UPS driver who I believe thought he was Santa Claus. When I opened the box and removed the moss packing per the enclosed instructions, I was stunned by the beauty of the pink blooms and the deep rich green of the plant. The gift came from another Wise Woman who is married to my cousin in Rosenberg, Texas and was an additional reminder of the magic that lives in Christmas. Every day I’ll see these blooms and think of my cousins who sent them with the healing power beauty affords us when we take a moment to consider it. I’ve always loved a Christmas cactus.

    Gold, frankincense and myrrh with a 21st century twist. The Christmas story of Mary and Joseph’s plight in the manger in Bethlehem has been told and re-told for thousands of years. Regardless of your belief, it is a tender tale of a family who welcomed a baby boy into a world of conflict and hardship but hoped he would somehow change it for the better. The same conflicts continue two thousand years later with hardships of every shape and description that continue to plague our families today, but we move on.  Sometimes forward, sometimes backward. But onward we go. And in this spirit of hope for a better world where peace becomes the norm and hardships are made more bearable, I abandon my Bah, Humbug for a trip to the Cookie Walk.

    picking just the right cookies at the Christmas Cookie Walk

                                                                       ******************

    I published this piece for the first time in December, 2011. Today is December 07th which became a significant one in American history with the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor in 1941 that prompted America’s participation in WWII. My dad and his brother believed their bombs would fulfill the promise of a world where peace became the norm, but 78 years later the bombs continue. Hanukkah – Chanukah begins tonight at a particularly significant time during the Israel-Hamas War, a 21st. century tragedy of our inhumanity to each other as we still look for Wise Men and Women to lead us to peace.

    these little Texas boys served in Europe during WWII –

    their older sister waited for them to come home

  • the truth tellers

    the truth tellers


    At a press conference following her loss in the finals at Wimbledon in 2019, Serena Williams was questioned about why she lost. Although she tried to say her opponent played a brilliant match, the members of the press wouldn’t let it go. They asked her if she thought her lack of match play during the year had hurt her, whether her role as a mother took too much time away from her tennis, and finally someone said they wondered if she spent too much time supporting equal rights or other political issues. Serena’s quick response to that question was “The day I stop supporting equality is the day I die.”

    I can identify with her answer because I believe my actions to support equality and social justice are two of the dominant forces of my life, but alas, I lack the tennis skills that give Serena Williams a universally recognized platform. Writing has been my platform for supporting equal rights during the past seventeen years; it has been the curtain call for the third act of my life – my love affair with words: collecting, rearranging, caressing them to make sense of an ever-changing world. Flannery O’Connor said I write because I don’t know what I think until I read what I write. I get that because I can start with a feeling, but sometimes my thoughts trail along behind my words that come from a mysterious place yet to be revealed.

    This poster given to me by my friend Linda many years ago hangs in my office today with words from author Anne Lamott to writers about why they write. “It is as if the right words, the true words, are already inside of them, and they just want to help them get out.” The true words I release, however, are not necessarily everyone’s truth. I have learned over the years that truth is not an absolute for every person but rather a fluid concept capable of manipulating minds at odds with what I believe truth to be. For example, remember Kelly Anne Conway’s remarkable explanation of “alternative facts.” Those two words took America on a roller coast ride of a reality show called Believe It or Not DC Style for the past eight years, and unbelievably created a deep wedge that pit family members, friends, co-workers, even institutions against each other with no sign of relief in next year’s political environment.

    Truth telling may be a lost art, truth tellers may bend with the winds, but fundamental values of equality and social justice must not be either lost or warped. As Serena said, the day I stop supporting equality is the day I die.

    And I ain’t ready to go yet. Onward.

    ********************

    For the children.

  • the man in the moon

    the man in the moon


    One of my paternal grandmother’s favorite euphemisms when she became exasperated by the ignorance of someone who had trampled on her last nerve was “he didn’t have any more sense than the man in the moon.” Ma’s euphemisms were more like proclamations that I took to be absolute truth, which meant I had little regard for the man in the moon of my childhood. Yesterday I saw him through different eyes.

    Nana and I took care of our two young granddaughters, four year old Ella and twenty-two month old Molly, while their parents enjoyed a day of food, friends and college football. Activities had been fast and furious for the girls – Nana and I had struggled to keep pace, but late in the afternoon they settled outside playing together in the sandbox where unfortunately an argument over a pink shovel caused a meltdown by Molly which sent Ella scrambling to a small hammock swing nearby. The next thing I knew Molly had climbed in the hammock with Ella (Nana gave her a leg up), and both of them were laughing while Nana pushed them, twirling them around like a ride at the state fair.

    As twilight came too soon for the girls who cried Nana, go higher, go higher I had a Thanksgiving moment for these three: my wife who shared the past twenty-two years with me and the two little girls whose lives added another dimension for our family.

    Finally, Nana stopped swinging the small hammock, and Ella jumped out of the swing. Hey, everybody, I see the moon, she exclaimed with delight. Naynay, come see the moon, she insisted. I left my chair on the deck to do as she told me because that’s how I roll with this four year old. Nana picked up Molly to stand next to Ella who pointed to the moon for her younger sister. Molly said moon, moon while her face beamed brighter than the moonlight.

    I told the girls a story about a man in the moon, but the man I saw with them through their eyes was a kind man – very smart – who simply stayed in the sky to watch over us. Why? Ella asked. Good question, I replied.

    *******************

    “The oak trees were alive with color in the midst of the evergreens. Bright red and yellow leaves catching the sunlight as Daddy and I walked through the brush early that Thanksgiving morning. The smell of the pines was fresh and all around us. We didn’t speak, but this was when I felt most connected to my father. Nature was a bond that united us and the gift that he gave me. And not just in those East Texas woods. He envisioned the whole earth as my territory and set me on my path to discovery. In 1958, this was remarkable for a girl’s father…Perhaps, though, it is the love and closeness of those family ties that leave the sights and sounds that last a lifetime.” (from Deep in the Heart: A Memoir of Love and Longing)

    Thanksgiving blessings to you and your family from ours in South Carolina

  • Happy Birthday to the oldest Huss Brother!

    Happy Birthday to the oldest Huss Brother!


    Oscar was almost three years old when he signed this card for me at Halloween in 2011

    These pictures of Oscar and his younger brother Dwight who would be one year old the following January made me smile when I first saw them twelve years ago, and they continue to add smiles for me when I see them today. I named the little boys The Fabulous Huss Brothers when we lived three houses down from the Huss family during the time Pretty and I had a second home in Texas from 2010 – 2014. They were my first introduction to being a grandmother; their biological grandparents lived great distances from the boys so I shared some fun times with them as well as the closeness of family life that helped make my time away from Pretty and South Carolina a memorable experience.

    Every year their mother Becky sends me a Mother’s Day card from the boys (now three brothers with the birth of George in 2012):

    the Fabulous Huss Brothers in 2023

    Happy Fifteenth Birthday, Oscar! I hope you have your best year ever at school, with your extracurricular activities, with friends new and old – and especially at home with your family. Be kind to your mom, dad and those two brothers, too. You are loved. The whole earth is your territory. Explore.

  • Lessons from a Butterfly Concerning Casualties

    Lessons from a Butterfly Concerning Casualties


    Five years ago in August of 2018 I published this article I found when I determined to look for inspiration among more than 900 past posts over a dozen years of blogging. More specifically I looked for anything I’d written about “casualties” because it’s a common term the media glibly tosses around in reports about loss of human life in war, natural disasters, mass shootings, epidemics – which seem to multiply with each news cycle. This morning the focus was on the Israel – Hamas War that has already resulted in staggering numbers of death with estimates of more than 1,400 Israelis and more than 10,000 Gaza citizens. What I found when I listened today was how easy it is to be swept up in the totals and to forget that each casualty also represents one person: one man or one woman or one child. A butterfly reminded me on a hot summer day that the cost of individual grief is immeasurable.

    One week ago today I was doing my pool exercises when I saw something so very extraordinary I took a calculated risk to retrieve my cell phone from the buggy it rests in without disturbing the amazing sight.

    butterfly on caterpillar body – gently folding and unfolding wings

    as it moved its legs across the still corpse

    The carcasses of two recently deceased caterpillars lay next to the steps where I entered the pool every day. I scarcely paid any attention to them when I moved down the steps and into the water. After all, the bodies of caterpillars that were casualties of the chlorine were common and a dime a dozen, weren’t they.

    I also paid very little attention to the small dark colored butterfly that flew around me in wide circles for about 15 minutes until it came to rest on one of the caterpillar bodies lying on the cement next to the pool steps.

    I was so startled at the sight that I stopped my pacing to watch as the butterfly established a kind of rhythm – opening and closing its wings while it moved its legs back and forth across the dead caterpillar. I felt like I was an intruder in a private ritual of grief reserved for these tiny creatures that made our human tears a poor substitute. And then I began to think the butterfly didn’t fly away from me because it sensed my shared sorrow.

    Today, exactly one week later, I was on the last leg of my routine early morning walk around the pool when I saw this remarkable sight.

    a beautiful large blue black butterfly landed right in front of me

    This gorgeous creature flew next to the pool steps, landed, and began to open and close its wings just as the one had last week. I sat down in my buggy seat to better observe what I believe was…what?…the same butterfly from last week…another butterfly…what does that matter really…

    What I learned was a powerful lesson about the importance of all creatures great and small, the individuality of grief, the exquisite beauty in hope embraced by a spirit willing to take flight following great loss.

    ********************

    For all children everywhere.