2001-03-16 - 19:17 MST

March 16, 2001

Pretend

I dowanna rave and rant tonight. Its about like John Bailey says, there are things too bad and too sad to speak of right now.

I think of the wonderful things in my life that are miracles I believe, I have gone on at great length about my personal stuff.

But there are people making miraculous recoveries from all sorts of ailments every day, people who through expert medical care who are not doomed to a wheel chair and can walk.

There are Social Workers who do care and try their best to do what is right for their charges. Nurses and doctors and the people who do enough behind the scenes work so that doctors and nurses can do their job efficiently.

I remember a nun who wore street clothes that I encountered when I had my arm in a cast, but still in hospital. I was roaming the halls after finally being declared decontaminated from staph and saw coming toward me a slight, frail looking woman who was obviously in her 60's who had her arm in a cast too. I didn't know who she was, but just as we were about to do the ships in the night activity I said something to the effect: "You wanna arm wrestle ?" She looked at my right arm in a cast and looked down at her right arm in a cast and said, "Should it be right arm or left?" I grinned and said, "Its your choice." Then I introduced myself and she did likewise, "I am Sister Monique, I work here," we continued to talk pleasant generalities as I walked with her in her direction. She left to take care of her duties.

Every day after that she would stop in my room and chat with me and briefly ask the Lords Blessing on me and then go on her job. What a gentle and kind lady she was.

One day I ate lunch with her in the cafeteria. I found out that she had a broken arm from a fall off her bicycle. She told me another time some of her history. She was half Javanese and half Dutch living in Java during World War Two. She didn't go into great detail but let me know that she had been severely abused and forced to work long hours by the invaders, food, clothing and shelter were miserable too.

She was interested in me too and got the gory details of my cat bite surgery. Never could we sit down and talk for long periods of time, she of course was on duty. There were times when she would come in to visit looking distraught and careworn, but wouldn't say anything about her difficulties.

My stay in the hospital came to an end and I was able to go to coffee with her that last morning and tell her how much I appreciated her friendship and care and she said that I had helped her over a rough spot or two and thanked me as well.

When I would go back to the hospital to visit some one there, I would ask around for Sister Monique and would find out that she was still perking along. One time I ran into the nurse who took care of me when I was in the dirty room and asked her what Sister Monique did there. Nurse told me that the wonderful lady was a grief counselor. Then I understood that she also suffered when one of the patients expired. She knew everybody and every body knew her, was friends to the whole world.

Once I visited the hospital and asked after her and was told that she had been put in retirement and was no longer able to ride her precious bike. The next time there I was told that she too was mortal and had gone to her reward.

I am sure there are millions, maybe billions of Mothers who have raised their children well and civilized and Fathers in about the same number who have done outstanding jobs as fathers and wage earners. . . . . but they don't give medals for those things at a fancy award ceremony. They fade away without fanfare, missed by their family and friends.

The teachers who truly liked kids and were interested in them were among the top humans in my book. They would have a child for a semester, become attached and watch them move on to the next teacher. Doing the same thing over and over. I had a teacher in Junior High, an English teacher who did her level best to help me overcome the gap in my knowledge caused by missing a year of school and being passed on with my schoolmates because I was a, "Bright little boy." She didn't teach art but she was an artist. In our after school sessions, before I left to go home, she would show me some of her charcoal drawings. About that time in Art class we made real books, small ones but with good paper and proper bindings. Most of us used them for autograph books. I was proud of mine and showed it to her and asked her if she would be the first to sign it. She gravely took the book from me and said, "I will sign it and give it to you tomorrow."

She saw me in the hall the next morning, took my book from her purse and said thanks to me for trusting her with it. At lunch I opened my book and she had made an exquisite drawing in pen and ink of a gorgeous peacock and signed below it in very small script. I was so proud.

Toward the end of the semester she increased her tutoring of me as much as she could, but I just didn't know the rules of grammar and was too far behind to catch up. The day of the report cards she passed them out to the kids, every one except me. She dismissed the kids early and they SPLIT. She called me up to her desk and kindly let me know that I was getting a D, she cried and I cried because she was unhappy.

I bumbled through that class in summer school and managed to get a C. When I went back to school in September she had gone to another state.

I'm sure that I am not the only person who ever had a teacher interested enough to sweat and strive to help a student who was behind. There are probably millions upon millions of teachers like her -- I am sure. If they give medals to outstanding teachers, ones who brought meaning into a pupils life I haven't heard of it.

All through my life I saw acts above and beyond the call of duty, performed for the sheer love of another, or another group.

Tonight in my dreams I will inherit a billion dollars and hire the very best newspaper men and printers. The comics will be truly funny. It will be small and tabloid, no gory pictures, no sob stories, no scare mongering. My reporters will seek out the good people, people who do their good to others because they are who they are and couldn't think of doing different. I know that the probability of making a profit would be nil, so each morning on each doorstep would be a copy of my, "So You May Know," paper on the front steps of each residence, pro bono.

Just for tonight, lets Pretend . . . .

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