The extraordinary life of an ordinary woman

The good Samaritans

 

 

February 2

 

I was driving on the highway earlier today when I noticed a car with two young men broken down on the side of the road.

They had their blinkers on and it was quite evident that they had no clue what to do. I instinctually pulled over after having spent 15 years as a police officer, to see if I could be of assistance.

(I don't recommend women do this routinely as your safety might be at stake! Play it smart!)

As I got closer I noticed that it was two teenagers and that they had a flat tire. I also noticed that they were a little shocked to see a woman pull over and ask them if they needed help.

There was a sight of total mayhem around the car as various parts of the jack were spewed all over the side of the road.

I had to stifle a chuckle as they explained to me that they had a flat and had no clue how to change it.

I couldn't resist. I quickly knelt down in my high heeled boots and skirt and expertly changed their tire in no time flat!

(No pun intended, okay maybe it was intended!)

The look of disbelief on their young faces was priceless!

"Wow, dude, you just had a chick change your tire man. You should be ashamed of yourself!"

"What? You didn't know how to change it either!" His friend replied.

"Yeah but it's your car, dude!" I raised my eyebrow and again resisted the temptation to laugh out loud.

"A chick?" I asked. They both turned towards me and turned beet red.

"Sorry Ma'am!" The kid mumbled.

"You just saved my butt! My dad told me that if I was late one more time he would ground me until I was old enough to collect social security!"

"No problem." I replied, "But just remember one thing," I said as I walked back to my car," Never underestimate the power of a chick!" I got in my car and started to drive back out onto the highway. As I drove by the two young men I slowed down and yelled out the window to them,

"Now don't forget to return the favor someday!" The two boys smiled and waved back.

"Sure thing dude, eh, Ma'am!" I heard one of them say as I drove away.

I peeked in my rearview mirror and saw them jump into their car with big smiles on their faces. I hope they do remember to return the favor someday I thought.

It reminded me of the first time someone had said that to me. A long time ago, when I lived in Malden, Massachusetts, I was returning from church in my 1984 Ford escort with my 4 young boys in tow. It was a bitter, cold winter day. The temperature hovered somewhere in the low's ones. With the wind blowing strongly the chill factor was around 15 below zero. I was about 2 miles from my house when I suddenly got a flat tire. I tried to drive on it slowly to see it I could make it all the way home but it was evident that I wasn't going to make it.

My oldest son Derek, who was only 9 years old at the time, tried to be brave and act the part of the man of the family.

His dad was still home in bed nursing a hangover from the night before (That's another story for another day!)

"I'll take care of it mom!" He said to me as he reached over and popped the trunk open. Tears welled up in my eyes to see his desire to help his family in our time of need.

I got out of the car to walk back to the trunk. He was already looking for the jack when an older gentleman pulled up behind us.

"Got a flat huh?" he asked.

"Yup!" answered Derek without even stopping long enough to look in his direction. I reached down and touched Derek gently on the shoulder.

"Why don't you get back in the car, Hon, I'll take care of this." I told him.

"Naw, that's okay, Mom. I know what to do. We learned this in boys scouts!"

The older gentleman looked at me and smiled. I smiled back.

"Let's see what you got there!" He asked my son.

"Why don't you get back in the car Ma'am I think your son and I have it under control?"

The cop in me didn't want to trust this stranger or be a helpless woman. But the mom in me won out and I went back to the car. I could hear the gentlemen telling my son that it was too cold to change the tire on the spot. Instead the gentlemen took a can of "fix-a-flat" out of his car and put it into our tire. Suddenly our tire started to re-inflate itself.

"This should hold you until you get home!" He told Derek. I got out of my car and walked back to him.

"How much do I owe you?" I asked him.

"Nothing," He said as he smiled at us. "Just remember to return the favor someday, if you get the chance!" Without another word he turned around, got into his car and drove off past us with a wave and a smile. Derek and I ran back to our car. We blasted the heat to warm up as we drove home. We talked about how nice it was for that man to have stopped. We also offered a small prayer that Heavenly Father would bless him for his kindness to strangers. My boys to this day will pull over if they see someone that needs help. I wonder if they remember that it came from the value lesson they learned from a total stranger, that day a long time ago.

I took another peek in my rearview mirror and smiled. Even though I had returned the favor I felt like I had gotten more out of it then what I had given. I wondered if those two young men will ever tell anyone they got their tire change by a chick in a skirt and high-heeled boots!

Crossing cultural bridges

 

 

 

 

          "The past does not equal the future!"

                             Anthony Robbins

 

 

 

February 1

 

Happy Chinese New year!

Yeah, I know, I am not Chinese but I look at it this way, if you're one of those people that love to make New Year's resolutions, but have a hard time following up on them, then you can start over again today!

When I was a young girl we used to go to this Chinese restaurant in Central Square, Cambridge. It was owned by these two Chinese brothers. My adopted sister had the annoying habit of always making fun of people. She was talking in Spanish to my adoptive mother about the fact that one of the brothers wasn't very good looking. I on the other hand thought that for an old guy in his thirties, (yeah I know I was only ten, what did I know!) he looked kind of good. Anyway imagine my sister's horror and my amusement, when he spoke to her in perfect Spanish. That will teach her! Needless to say because he heard me speak kindly about him, we became friends, in the "restaurant regulars" category.

I always got extra cherries in my coke and extra fortune cookies at the end of our meals! I never realized that he had been watching me all along trying, very awkwardly I might add, to learn how to use the chopsticks that came with our order. One day he came over and asked my mother if it was all right to teach me. My mother the supportive parent she was told him to go ahead but that he was wasting his time because there was no way I was going to learn how to use them! Gee, thanks for the vote of confidence mother!

Anyway he very patiently spent half an hour showing me how to use them. Before long I had gotten the hang of it, much to my mother's chagrin, and would always use the chopsticks instead of the fork.

They were really nice people and in my mind became like the uncles I never have.

Funny thing is years later my ability to use chopsticks, as insignificant as it might see, became a valuable networking tool.

I was working as a community organizer with the city of Lowell and I was working with the growing Southeast Asian population in the city. They are a gentle, loving and kind culture. The particular segment of the population I was working with were older and most of them did not speak English; and I obviously did not speak Khmer or Laos.

At one event I was attending when the dinner came I started to eat with the chopsticks.  One of the older ladies who had survived the Khmer rouge slaughter of her whole family reached over and hugged me, smiling.

I was taken back and she softly said in her hard earned broken English, "You eat like me, so sweet!"

This lady was instrumental in introducing me to a large section of the Southeast Asian community and was very helpful in making sure that her people had the services and information they needed to better their lives.

Once again it all started with something small that was passed down from a long ago friend. The lesson I learned was that we need to be willing to learn from each other. I have made some wonderful friends from so many different countries. I have shared their cultures, their food and their stories.

Had I not made the effort to reach out to them, it would have been me who was missing out!

I was mesmerized as I watched the dragon dance I saw once at a Chinese New year's celebration! The colors, the music! It was so invigorating!

Just like the awesome celebrations of the Chinese New year and the Southeast Asian New Year in April, we need to live each and every day just like that! Full of passion, energy and giving it all we have!

Always learning, expanding our horizons and points of views.

Any day we don't dance is a sad day! I read somewhere "life is short, dance naked!"(Just not in public!) Not that I will ever be caught dancing naked any time soon. My kids have already been traumatized enough thank you, but I do dance by myself when no one is home! I am Ginger Rogers to my broom partner who is my twiggy Fred Astaire, you get the idea!

So today celebrate the gift that life is! Rejoice and remake resolutions and this time give it your all to make them a reality!

Now on to the serious business can someone pass the spring rolls, please?

The Power of Conversation!

 

January 31

 

Today we were driving to our son Jose's basketball game with Jess and Chris in the car.

Somehow the conversation of creation came up and Chris wanted to know how God could have created all the earth in just 6 days.

I thought about this for a moment and I told him that I thought the way God's time ran was a lot different from the way our time ran.

Mel, my hubby told him that maybe for God one day is really more like a thousand years in our time frame.

Of course Chris, the Einstein of the family, pointed out that from the time the earth was created to the time man first appeared here millions of years had passed, not thousands!

True, I said, but remember the Bible said that he did it in 6 days I didn't think they meant six concurrent days. Did they?

Again Einstein, I meant Chris, replied, "Then how come he had to rest after the sixth day? Wouldn't that mean he had been working straight through?"

"Not necessarily," my hubby replied, "I think that symbolized that he was all done with his labors."

The conversation continued a bit more as we discussed theology and how the different books that made up the Bible had been put together by man not God and that the Bible was a collection of different books written by various authors; not chapters of one single book as a lot of people thought. We discussed the fact that a lot of the books that were available at the time were not included in the final Bible version compiled by King James.

Suddenly Jess who had just been listening quietly piped up. "Don't you guys find this weird?" She asked us.

"What?'" I asked her.

"What we're talking about", she replied laughing, "Most families discuss sports, and the weather, if they talk at all, but we are sitting here discussing evolution, creation and the meaning of the Bible! Isn't that funny?" We all laughed a bit and then realized that it was strange to be discussing such deep topics with our young teens. The thing that got me most was that this young man and young woman had such a deep understanding of the subjects being discussed, that they were able to make valid points. As a matter of fact before Jess brought it up I had totally forgotten how young they were because of the maturity of their conversation. The conversation turned to other subjects and continued just as stimulating as before. Suddenly it dawned on me that our children were able to have such in-depth conversations with us because we were treating them as equals while we talked. Had we talked down to them or ridiculed their views, I don't think they would have been as willing to share their views with us. They discussed not only religion but other topics, such as drugs, peer pressure, sex and how they viewed the world in general.

I felt so blessed that out of all the things my hubby and I had messed up raising our children, the lines of communications wasn't one of them. We would have missed so much if we had not let them express themselves freely.

It saddened me to realize that we sometimes pay more attention to people we don't even like than we do to our own family. That's such a shame!

The other thing I learned was that children will do as we expect them to do.

I made the awful mistake of listening to the wrong people when it came to my two older boys Derek and Eric. They were in a lot of emotional pain over the divorce between their dad and me. As a result of this they started acting out. Instead of seeing it as the cry for help it was, I took it personal.

I turned from being their loving mom into a suspicious militant "cop". This was the last thing my boys needed!

All I managed to do was drive them even further away. They got caught up in gangs, in trouble at school and with the police.

Not once did I step back to see the hurt they were going through. I learned a really important lesson with them. Never to listen to people more messed up than I was.

Sadly it took three years of my boys going through hell before I finally realized that they were only doing what I was expecting from them.

Miraculously once I started expecting them to succeed and do well, they did. It killed me when I thought of all the unnecessary pain we all went through because I was taking advice from people that had no clue.

Because of this experience I decided to never put my kids down or expect anything but the best.

If we treated them as mature teens they, for the most part, conducted themselves that way.

Not once, since then, have we ever had to discuss their conduct or attitude toward adults or authority figures with them. As a matter of fact everyone always commented on how polite and smart they are.

No, they aren't perfect! They burp the alphabet and have farting contests! They leave their dirty socks on the floor and try to give each other wedgies! They fail math and have to go to summer school occasionally; the older ones sometimes disagree with the way we do things, but if they didn't, they wouldn't be normal! The point is that because we allowed them to grow intellectually as individuals and respected their knowledge, they have in turn taught us about life from their view.

My husband Mel always tells them that it's their responsibility and right to be smarter, wealthier and happier than us. To have better professions, houses, families and lives. We have given them the go ahead to surpass us.

My adopted mother, when I was growing up and even as an adult, refused to let me grow as an individual. Instead she would do anything in her power to sabotage me! She never rejoiced in my accomplishments or even comprehended my way of thinking. She would put me down to anyone that would listen and totally tried to destroy my spirit and self-esteem. The reality of it was that I had outgrown my mother intellectually, spiritually, emotionally and financially by the time I was in my early twenties. Looking back I always thought it was I who had missed out because she didn't approve of me. But now I knew that it wasn't my loss at all, it was hers.

She would never be able to share in my successes because her own inadequacies wouldn't let her. I had received VIP treatment to a lot of black tie affairs. I was able to shake hands with various U.S. presidents, the Prince of Wales and other dignitaries. I had been keynote speaker and guest of honor at various functions as well. My mother could have shared in that. But because she refused to let her own insecurities go, she choose to miss out.

As a matter of fact because of her negative attitude and her habit of always talking down to our kids, I had to confront her on it; because of this her biological daughter, who I loved like a mother, decided to cut my family out of their lives. It broke my heart to lose my sister and niece out of our lives but there was no way I was going to stand by and let her harm my kids' self-esteem the way she had tried to destroy mine.

As a result they have missed out on my kids' accomplishments as well as mine.

I still love them and I am grateful for what they had done for my children and me.

I have prayed that someday her heart will be soften towards me as much as I missed them I just couldn't allow that type of poison to destroy my children's dreams. I sometimes would get sad that I didn't have a mom I could have a good relationship with. But now that I am a mom, I 'm grateful that I was able to get rid of the things I didn't like about her and build on the great things she did teach me.

I am also grateful that I learned to do the things I wish had been done for me for my own kids. I always tell my kids whatever we, as parents, do right, add to it. Whatever we do wrong throw it out and learn how to do it better.

In life we always get what we expect. So if we expect bad things, why are we so surprised when we get them?

I am so glad that I have learned to only expect the best from my children and from life in general; am I Suzy Sunshine all the time? Not even close! But for the most part I haven't been disappointed so far!

Had I not learned to throw away the lies my mother and others had sold me as a child, I would never had allowed my kids the space they needed to grow into such articulated young teens.

I was snapped out of my thoughts when Chris brought up the crisis in the economy to which Jessie dove into a deep theory of how to improve the situation.

Gee, I think we have a future President and Secretary of Commerce among us!

I could barely get through pre-algebra in middle school! Whose brains do they have anyway?

The art of true dog-gone happiness

January 29

 

Sadie our dog discovered snow for the first time today! Even though she had seen snow before she was never really interested in playing with it because it was unknown; and therefore scary to her.

Before, she would just sniff at it momentarily when it felt different she would just go do her duty and proceed to try to run like a bullet back into the house.

But today Chris and our youngest son Alexi decided to throw snowballs for her to catch.

She would jump up to catch them and they would disappear into snow dust as she tried to grab them between her teeth! She would go nuts after wards sniffing around trying to find the "ball"!

It was so funny to watch her searching for it!

The interesting thing was she wasn't upset or angry because she couldn't find exactly what she was looking for. Instead she would roll around in the snow totally enjoying the new experience.

She would sniff it, taste it, paw at it and totally take it all in!

If only we humans could totally give in and enjoy the things we have, instead of being angry at the things we don't have!

See Sadie could have been so upset because she didn't catch the "Ball" that she could have refused to enjoy all the other things that were going on around her.

But instead, she decided that if she couldn't catch the "ball" she could still enjoy the snow!

I wonder how many wonderful experiences I had missed because I was too busy lamenting what I didn't have? Sometimes when we are wishing for our boat to come in we are at the airport wondering where our boat is!

We need to embrace the moment to fully appreciate everything life has to offer!

It is do funny how some people say dogs are just dumb animals, yeah, right! There was absolutely nothing dumb about our big goofy dog as she was having the time of her life rolling in the snow!

We humans were the ones that could learn a thing or two from the way they take every little bit nature has to offer in!    

Hey guys can I play too?

The gift of forgiveness

 

January 27

 

I went to a woman's conference at my church today. I don't think I was in the right spiritual frame of mind because I felt like killing one of the presenters!

Yeah, I know that's not the reaction were supposed to have when we go to a church sponsored event!

This woman had the nerve to go on and on about how anything bad that has ever happened to us was for a good reason. (This was the part where I wanted to go Hare-Kari on her!)

As an adult I often times questioned the reasons why I had to go through so much pain and hurt as a child. After counseling sessions I was able to put a lot of the pain behind me and move on.

But now to hear that woman say those things kind of brought some of the pain back. As far as I could see, no good had ever come out of it in my life.

When I got home I was madder than a wet hen!

My poor husband once again served the place of the messenger and got shot!

I walked back and forth waving my arms like a turkey trying to take flight. I vented about how nuts this woman was to not only think that way but to have the gall to present it in a motivational talk?

Who did she think she was anyway? My husband just stared at me intently. After I was all vented out from my turkey dance I flopped down on the couch in our bedroom and just looked back at him.

"Why are you looking at me that way?" I asked, feeling another episode of frenzied turkey flight attempts coming on.

"Aside from the fact that you look ready to fly south for the winter?" he chuckled "Hon, whether you realize it or not a lot of good has come from what you have gone through," he answered.

I started to stand up to start my turkey hop bit again when he gently put his hand on my shoulder and sat me back down again.

"Hear me out!" He said. When he was sure I wouldn't flutter again, he continued," Honey, you are the most compassionate person I have ever met. We go to the stores and total strangers will tell you their life stories out of the blue. Do you think they do that with everyone?

Most of these people don't even give me the time of day! As a matter of fact some of the old ladies hide their bags when they see me coming! Any time I go somewhere all I hear is how nice my wife is. How sweet she is and kind and loving! No one ever says that about me! Do you know why they say that about you?" I shook my head at him still not buying what the woman had said.

"It's because you care and the reason you care is because you have gone through so much hurt and pain. You can really relate to them. When someone tells you they are in pain you know exactly what they are feeling, therefore you know the right thing to say and do or at least you know enough to just be quiet and listen to let them vent!

Do you think you would understand them if you hadn't gone through all that crap? Would you understand when a young girl tells you she was abused? Or when a person feels unwanted or abandoned?

I don't understand it. I may be able to try     and offer advice, but I have no clue as to how deep the hurt is, not too many people would.

But you do. Do you think if you had grown up with two loving caring parents, a nice home and all the things you needed, you would understand these people in need?

Would you even care about them? I don't think so! It's because of all the suffering that you went through that made you the wonderful, caring person that you are today!"

As I sat there listening to Mel I realized that maybe he was right; at least a little. I guess a lot of good had come out of all the bad experiences in my life.

As a result of it I had tried to be a more compassionate medical assistant, police officer and teacher. I had done all I could to ensure that the victims and their families were treated with respect and dignity. I always went out of my way to listen to people when they talked to me. No matter how weird or unconventional they might seem.

I also tried to remember things they told me, so that when I ran into them again I would be able to ask them how it was going, if their aunt was better, they were better, whatever it was they had shared with me. I was beginning to realize that had I not gone through that, there would be no way I could relate or care about them as much as I now did.

Dang, I guess that lady was right!

In my life I had tried to help a lot of people out without even realizing it. I had finally figured out it was because I had never had anyone there for me. So I had decided to be there for anyone who might need me.

Once again it all came down to how we looked at the experiences life dealt us. I had chosen subconsciously to use what I had learned to help others along life's path.

Suddenly I wasn't angry anymore! As a matter of fact I felt pretty good about myself and life in general! I just wish I had been able to thank that lady for her wonderful lesson she taught. But I will make a point of thanking her the next time I run into her. Good thing I didn't try to kill her like I wanted to, boy that would have been so embarrassing!

Man I'm so hungry! Why do I feel like having a turkey club sandwich?

Ha! Ha! Yeah, yeah, I know, I am weird! Don't you love it?