About a week ago I received a Facebook message from Crystal. She wanted to meet me on campus and just talk. About what I didn't know. But, I was giddy at the prospect of reconnecting with her in person even I was following her on Facebook. Let me tell you a few sentences about this remarkable young woman. I have known Crystal since the mid-1990s. I had taken only a few steps after my epiphany had set me on my long, unending journey. My first meeting with her was in her freshman year, about which I have written, at the classroom door on the first day of the Fall Quarter, smile on her face, gleam in her eye, cheer in her voice. And though it has been too long a time since we last talked, about a decade, if not more, I have never forgotten her. She has stood as a shining beacon for me. Today she showed that I had passed my "twenty year test." She reminded me of something that involved her, me, and her classmates, about which I had forgotten, but which remains to this day emblazoned in her soul as a seminal, guiding memory for her teaching and living. Now a wife, a mother, and an Associate Professor of Communications in South Georgia State College's entry program on the campus of VSU , Crystal was born with MD and has been in a wheel chair since she was eleven. And though the disease may have weakened her body, it hasn't dulled her mind or weighted down her spirit. To the contrary, it has strengthened her soul. Many would say Crystal is wheel bound. I would say Crystal bounds around knowing no bounds. She doesn't know what limitation means. In fact, I remember her once saying to me that she lives by her her redefinition of "impossible" to mean "I'm possible." And she sure is. Rolling around as she does in her motorized wheelchair, she is a "roll model," ripping apart boxed-in labels, demonstrating that people like her are not runts of the litter, that a "disabled" student can be enabled to become able. We had heart-warming conversation talking about both personal and professional stuff that lasted two hours. I wrote this to her a few hours ago:
Crystal, thank you for giving of yourself to me for those precious few hours yesterday. I truly hope there will be more. I want you to know that I have never forgotten you since that first moment we met on that first day of the Quarter outside the classroom. I also want you to know that you hit me with the force of the best sort of reconfirming and reaffirming epiphany, especially when you reminded me of the time you had sent me a message that you were downstairs, that because the elevators were not working you couldn't get to class, and how I and a few hefty students I had enlisted came down the stairs to carry you, in your wheelchair, up to class I had forgotten that moment. You haven't. I need you. We all need you. We shouldn't turn away. We shouldn't shrink from you. We shouldn't avoid you. We shouldn't despair. We shouldn't be saddened. Physically hampered you are to be sure. In need of help by others, sure. But, simultaneously, where it really counts, inside, intellectually and emotionally and spiritually, unhampered and independent. No wallowing in "why me" self-pity. No self-denigration. No sense of inferiority. No weakened self-esteem. No flagging self-confidence. No regrets. Unaccepting of any imposed second class status. Ripping off of constricting and restricting labels. No need of such forced and inadequate intellectual strait jackets as: divine plan, blessing, curse, suffering, unfairness, limitation, wheel-bound, afflicted, disability. Giving yourself the power and courage to exercise the right to succeed. Life is so filled with so many things that don't make much sense. Life is ladened with a host unanswerable "whys," with so many wondering "what ifs." So much of the inexplicable is mixed with equally mysterious happenstance, grandeur, whim, and beauty. You reminded me that "happiness" is not the end game; it's not even a means; it's not getting what we want. Sure, happiness involves peacefulness, contentment, well-being, and all that stuff. But, it doesn't mean cloaking and suppressing real feelings. Remember I told you how I was angry that I felt forced to retire because of subtle age discrimination, that I had to constantly, each day, fight with my anger--and fear of what was to come after retirement. As I had these seismic bouts of going down and up like the proverbial yoyo, I came to realize that it was okay to have these negative feelings. Sure I had lost my way that last semester, but I also had laid down crumbs earlier to find my way back. I could bring into play a recovering resiliency I had practiced to learn and use, a resiliency that drew me back into a positive place which rested on a thankfulness that I had woven into my inner self. That is, even if I retired, I knew I would still keep on being a young-minded "experienced teenager;" that as I grew older, I would not get old. I would keep on my daily regiment of physical exercise--and find a sense of worth and better myself in this way; I still could exercise my heart and mind, keeping myself in mental and emotional shape, with my daily regiment of meditation and mindfulness, and thereby find a sense of worth and better myself in this way; I could still reflect, write, and share, and thereby find a sense of worth and better myself in this way; I still could find a sense of worth, satisfaction and pleasure, inspiration, hope, and love in relationships--and better myself in this way; I still could be thankful for my health, financial security, all the students I have served and may have inspired, my sons, their wives, my grandchildren, my dear personal and professional friends, and, above all, Susie--and better myself in this way. It was like I was activating in a new way, Martin Seligman's acronym for living positively: Positive emotions; Engagement; Relationships, Meaning, Accomplishment. And, adding a few specific subsets of my own: Attitude, Gratitude, Exercise, Interest, "New-trition," Growth. You see, Crystal, happiness, and which our conversation reinforced, I had discovered over the years since my epiphany, surviving cancer, and coming through a severe cerebral hemorrhage unscathed, and which our conversation reinforced, has become too "pop-culturish." It's not a place or a possession. It never is. The second you say, "I've got it," you've lost it;" the second you say, "I've gotten there, you're nowhere and lost." It's really a never-ending story, an endless journey. It's really a sense of constant, every day, authentic being; it's joyously--and probably unthinkingly--engaging and being lost every day in that which leads us to a more authentic, more serene life, a more purposeful life, a more meaningful life, working towards something that is higher and beyond than ourselves, and both serving and helping someone else You reminded me, as we talked, that true happiness is not just experiencing, Its really overcoming and going on. It's not suppressing our sins and arrows of outrageous fortune; it's not wishing away difficulties; it's not avoiding barriers; it's not evading challenges; it's not merely pasting a false smile on our face,. All that merely creates an unhappy and tense inauthenticity, a fearful putting on of airs, an anxious building and maintaining a false facade, a fear of being uncovered and discovered. No, it's knowing that you are going to have those down times. But, it's also knowing that you have learned how to have a bounce in your step, to have a practiced resilience that enables you to get up after you've tripped and been down, and go on. So, we need people like you, jumping with life, testifying to the human condition with an unswerving acceptance and faith derived from lived experiences, whose life doesn't regretfully dwell on the shriveling "why," but lives in the unending, serving and loving, resilient blooming questions of "so what" and "now what." Yours is a life that dares, that demands, we ask such core questions as: what is the meaning of my life, what is my journey born of, how do I discover who I am, how do I discover who I am capable of being, how do I become who I am capable of becoming, what is my guiding vision, what do I want to give to myself, what do I want to give to others. Yours is a positive life that proclaims: mysteries in life there may be, trials and tribulations there surely are, shaky and scary life can be, disappointments exist, but be in a positive place, come to terms with, get up and go on, be grateful, accomplish, engage, flourish, keep smiling through your tears, keep loving through your pains, keep giving of yourself to others, be determined, sit up straight proudly in your wheel chair. You may always be sitting in your wheelchair, but I will always look up to you. You are a living celebration of life for all to see how to truly live. And, as they do see, they will find a new course into a new life where "impossible" will become "I'm possible." Love you. Make it a good day -Louis- Louis Schmier http://www.therandomthoughts.edublogs.org 203 E. Brookwood Pl http://www.therandomthoughts.com Valdosta, Ga 31602 (C) 229-630-0821 /\ /\ /\ /\ /\ /^\\/ \/ \ /\/\__ / \ / \ / \/ \_ \/ / \/ /\/ / \ /\ \ //\/\/ /\ \__/__/_/\_\/ \_/__\ \ /\"If you want to climb mountains,\ /\ _ / \ don't practice on mole hills" - / \_ --- You are currently subscribed to tips as: [email protected]. To unsubscribe click here: http://fsulist.frostburg.edu/u?id=13090.68da6e6e5325aa33287ff385b70df5d5&n=T&l=tips&o=46803 or send a blank email to leave-46803-13090.68da6e6e5325aa33287ff385b70df...@fsulist.frostburg.edu
