I'll Call It Like I See It

by sheila morris

Category: The Way Life Should Be

  • an other-worldly woman of substance


    Photo by eberhard grossgasteiger on Pexels.com

    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 have suffered. You will be whole again, but you will never be the same. Nor should you be the same. Nor would you want to. — Elisabeth Kubler-Ross (1926-2004)

    Kubler-Ross devoted most of her adult life to death and dying. She was a pioneer in hospice care, palliative care, and a leading researcher in the lives of the terminally ill. “One of her greatest wishes was to build a hospice for abandoned infants and children infected with HIV to give them a lasting home where they could live until their death. Kübler-Ross attempted to set this up in the late 1980s in Virginia, but local residents feared the possibility of infection and blocked the necessary re-zoning. In October 1994, she lost her house and many possessions, including photos, journals, and notes, to an arson fire that is suspected to have been set by opponents of her AIDS work.” (Wikipedia)

    In her lifetime Kubler-Ross wrote over twenty books on death and dying, was in the National Women’s Hall of Fame, was one of Time magazine’s Top Thinkers of the Twentieth Century, Woman of the Year in 1977, and became a leader as an advocate for spiritual guides and the afterlife despite scandals from her association with a charlatan medium in the late 1970s.

    When I enrolled my mother in hospice care in 2011, I didn’t realize the connection the excellent end of life care she received through the program had been co-founded by a woman who believed in treating the dying with dignity. The team of caregivers we had for the last few months of Mom’s life were compassionate, capable, and centered on her needs. I was also amazed by their assistance throughout the first year of my grieving process following her death.

    As I approach the twelfth anniversary of my mother’s death, I want to honor Elisabeth Kubler-Ross during Women’s History Month, one of the women who had the courage to explore her passion for peace, to protest injustice, to pursue theories considered to be too controversial in an unknown frontier. Elisabeth gave us permission to grieve for losses too painful to deny.

    Yes, the reality is that we will grieve our losses forever, but it’s also true we will be whole again. Never the same, but whole again. That’s cause for celebration.

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

    For all those who grieve.

  • CELEBRATE International Women’s Day!


    “Invest in Women — Accelerate Progress“

    (theme for 2024)

    In South Carolina where Pretty and I live, 54% of the population are women, but not one woman sits on the South Carolina Supreme Court; we are the only state in the nation without a female justice. Only six state senators out of 46 are women, 20 out of 124 House members are women. These statistics indicate we rank 48th. of 50 states in women’s legislative representation according to the Center for American Women and Politics.

    Do the math: only 15% of the lawmakers making our laws in this state on reproductive rights, on health care for women and children, on domestic violence, on gun control, on climate change, on school safety, on police brutality against people of color, on issues affecting marginalized populations in the state, on banning books that promote inclusiveness and social justice – on these and all other laws in our state affecting every citizen – only 15% of those lawmakers are women.

    The voting odds are stacked against women, and history is not on our side, either. Women’s groups have been talking about underrepresentation in our state for nearly forty years. One of the true pioneers for women’s rights in South Carolina, Barbara Moxon, began a group called Advocates for Women on Boards and Commissions in 1988. I was the treasurer for that organization which developed extensive publicity on the need for more women political appointees while also providing aid and encouragement for female members to apply for appointments. We had limited successes in our efforts.

    The consequences of the 2024 election in November will have a generational effect not only on the nation but also on our state. Bravery, courage, dogged persistence, and financial support will be mandatory for any woman who puts herself forward in the political climate of these challenging times, but I am thrilled that a woman who has been my close friend for a very long time has answered the call for a change in leadership by campaigning for a Senate seat in South Carolina District 10.

    This woman has spunk, and I have always admired spunk combined with proven leadership qualities. I will have more to say about her in the days to come during her campaign, but for today as part of your celebration of International Women’s Day, please go to her website; get to know her better, and invest in a woman who will accelerate progress for all. http://www.franciekleckley.com.

    You tell it, Sister Girl.

    Onward.

  • for Pretty on our twenty-third anniversary


    (1) There once was a woman named Teresa

    Who loved a good shrimp quesadilla.

    To Cancun she did roam in two thousand one,

    And when she came home still red from the sun,

    She’d found new love with her best friend named Sheila.

    (2) There once was a woman named Sheila

    Who loved a good shot of tequila.

    To Cancun she did roam in two thousand one,

    And when she came home her journey was done,

    She’d found true love with her best friend Teresa.

    (3) An anniversary of love in twenty twenty-three

    The best of the best has been you and me.

    Wherever we’ve roamed

    We’ve always come home

    Together, believing the best was yet to be.

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

    Happy Anniversary, Pretty. To quote Tina Turner, you’re simply the best – better than anyone could ever have been for me. I am forever grateful that you were the little girl who said yes.

  • the times they are a-changin’

    the times they are a-changin’


    Queen Elizabeth II wasn’t feeling jubilant for her Silver Jubilee in the trailer for Season 3 of the Netflix series The Crown as she rode in the parade inside the royal golden carriage pulled by six white horses. Rather, the fifty-one year old Defender of the Faith was portrayed briefly as a middle-aged woman sitting alone in a coach, focused more on her failures than hope for the future as the ominous percussion of Fort Nowhere grew louder when the lyrics to the music began: Come gather ’round people wherever you roam, for the times they are a’changing...The enormity of the changes that would take place before the Queen’s death during her Platinum Jubilee year in 2022, forty-five years following the Silver Jubilee in 1977, made Bob Dylan’s classic song from 1964 more prophecy than poetry.

    Meanwhile, on another popular Netflix series a Canadian woman in her twenties who was sometimes known as the Miracle Girl from Hudson, Alberta because of her unique relationship with horses was suddenly forced to confront unimaginable loss by tragic circumstances that left Amy the Miracle Girl with similar feelings of hopelessness and dread of the future in Heartland‘s 14th. season as Queen Elizabeth II had faced in the third season of The Crown. Episode 7 (Courage) of that season ended with Fort Nowhere again framing the background music while Amy began her lengthy journey from despair to hope: Come gather ’round people wherever you roam and admit that the waters around you have grown. And accept it that soon you’ll be drenched to the bone if your time to you is worth saving. And you better start swimming or you’ll sink like a stone, for the times they are a-changing…As the present now will later be past, the order is rapidly fading. And the first one now will later be last, for the times they are a-changing.

    Now you may be thinking I watch too much Netflix when I can connect random dots from Queen Elizabeth II to a Miracle Girl from Alberta, Canada; but it is the music of Bob Dylan through the voices of Fort Nowhere, a person (group?) I didn’t know, that inspired me to reconsider the lyrics to the times, they are a-changing. When I did look at Dylan’s words, I found a powerful personal message which is, after all, the secret to his musical legacy.

    Come writers and critics
    Who prophesize with your pen
    And keep your eyes wide
    The chance won’t come again
    And don’t speak too soon
    For the wheel’s still in spin
    And there’s no tellin’ who
    That it’s namin’
    For the loser now
    Will be later to win
    For the times they are a-changin’

    The older I get, the faster the wheel spins.

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

    Slava Ukraini. For the Ukrainian tennis players in the 2024 Australian Open.

  • say it ain’t so, Rafa

    say it ain’t so, Rafa


    Rafael Nadal announced yesterday he will become the tennis ambassador to Saudi Arabia in an effort to promote the visibility of tennis in the kingdom which will open a Rafa Nadal Academy there for the purpose of developing young talent in the country.

    “Everywhere you look in Saudi Arabia, you can see growth and progress and I’m excited to be part of that,” Nadal wrote in a statement. “I continue to play tennis as I love the game. But beyond playing I want to help the sport grow far and wide across the world and in Saudi there is real potential.” (Josh Fiallo, The Daily Beast, January 16, 2024)

    Okay, cyberspace friends. Hopefully your jaw found a soft landing on that news. My jaw felt like the ground hit by the ball dropped in Times Square in New York City at midnight on New Year’s Eve. I felt gobsmacked, somehow personally betrayed by a close friend. Obviously Rafa and I aren’t close personally, but I have loved him throughout his career since he began playing professional tennis in 2001 as a sleeveless young fourteen year old boy with more guts than glory back then. It was the same year Pretty and I got together, and we will have our twenty-third anniversary next month.

    My feelings for Rafa were that he was not only one of the greatest tennis players of all time but also a humble, good guy who had respect for the game of tennis and everyone who played it. Say it ain’t so, Rafa. Where in the world did you look in Saudi Arabia to see “growth and progress everywhere?” Did you look at their treatment of homosexuals, for example?

    The Wahabbi interpretation of Sharia law in Saudi Arabia maintains that acts of homosexuality should be disciplined in the same way as adultery – with death by stoning. Homosexuality or nonconformant gender expression can also be punished by corporal punishment, flogging, imprisonment or forced ‘conversion’ therapy. In 2019, the Saudi Arabian government orchestrated a mass-execution of 37 men who were accused of espionage or terrorism, five of whom were also convicted of same-sex intercourse after one was tortured into confessing. (Fair Planet May 27, 2023)

    Rafa, the following tidbit from the Human Dignity Trust hits closer to home for me – did you see it?

    In April (2020) a Yemeni blogger living in Saudi Arabia was arrested for advocating for equality for LGBT people. In July he was sentenced to ten months’ imprisonment and a fine, followed by deportation, under ‘public indecency’ laws. While in detention he was subjected to solitary confinement, beatings, and torture.

    While the Saudi Tourism Authority has apparently updated its website according to CNN Travel in May, 2023 to say gay travelers are welcome in the kingdom in an effort to attract more overall revenue from international tourists, no governmental assurances have been made to make LGBTQ+ individuals feel safe.

    And Rafa, did you read this post on the status of women in Saudi Arabia by Tracey Shelton in January, 2023 on abc.net.au?

    Rei na Wehbi, MENA regional campaigner for Amnesty International, said while Saudi Arabia is “rebranding its image” as a progressive state, the underlying reality is very different. “‘Positive’ changes have mostly been social reforms and are very far from genuine human rights reforms in Saudi Arabia,” she said.

    “They are meant to deflect attention from the continued brutal crackdown on activists and human rights defenders and other flagrant human rights violations.”

    She said most human rights defenders, independent journalists, writers and activists have been arbitrarily detained. In 2019, just as the kingdom announced that women could drive, the women who had campaigned tirelessly and publicly for precisely this right were arrested and locked away. More recently, Salma al-Shehab, a PhD student and activist who posted support for women’s rights activists on Twitter, was re-sentenced to 27 years in prison in January, 2023.

    Money talks, right, Rafa? But will you sell your soul for twenty pieces of silver…or twenty gazillion? Will you sacrifice your personal integrity for an alliance with a country recognized around the globe as a repeated offender of human rights – not to mention terrorist organizations connected to the events of 9-11 in New York City? I cringe at the thought.

    I am a seventy-seven year old woman who has loved you like a family member for more than two decades, but you have broken my heart over your alliance with a country that in my opinion is aligned with evil.

    Say it ain’t so, Rafa.

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

    And don’t even get me started on the Women’s Tennis Association going to Saudi Arabia for its season-ending finale this year. OMG. What are they thinking?