REAL HEROES: DAVID HOGG AND OUR POSTMAN'S SON

A series of essays.....

PARTIAL VIEW OF OUR LIBRARY VIA THE FRONT DOOR

.....as seen through my eyes!





By: Jacqueline E. Hughes

Enjoying the opportunity to begin writing around six-thirty every weekday morning has its ups and its downs. Kissing the husband good-bye as he heads off to work, grabbing my mug filled to the brim with freshly brewed coffee, and making my way over to snuggle on the couch with i-Pad nestled on my lap.....is pure heaven for me. Now is my time to become totally immersed within the world inside my head, for better or worse.

One ‘down’ for this particular morning is having to listen to a crew ripping off a neighbor’s shingles, two houses down from us, in preparation for a new roof. They have decided to take advantage of our earlier sunrise and promote the resounding echos generated by the fruits of their labor which are bouncing around the subdivision like gigantic, rusty chains being scraped along metal grates!  Add a little sandy grit to the mix and you can imagine the detrimental effect on me in terms of unanticipated distraction! Can the disagreeable rhythm of powerful nail guns be far behind?

There’s, also, the fact that I tend to hang-out in my sleeping attire far longer than most people are able to. As long as nobody requires me to open the front door for any medical emergency....I’m set to go, feet resting on the soft, beige ottoman and time becoming irrelevant to my current state of mind. 

As with most of us who make a deliberate effort to care about the world and her people, the subjects of gun control, Dreamers, Immigrants, corruption and greed, bigotry, illicit affairs, and hate plague our thoughts on a daily basis. I believe that if we can find one ‘shining moment’ every day and concentrate on it for at least thirty minutes, this process will help to enlighten our moral outlook and keep us moving in a forward motion.

Last Thursday’s ‘shining moment’ presented itself to me in a unique manner. Not only did I keep it in my thoughts for a very long time, I decided that this enlightening moment had to be shared. It happened to be fortuitous that I’d already showered and changed into daytime clothing before it all went down!

POSTAL LETTER CARRIER
UNIFORM  ~  SUMMER BASEBALL CAP

He rang the front doorbell. You would like to think that anyone standing on your front stoop would not take advantage of looking directly into your home via the sidelight but, he did. 

Placing my i-Pad off to the side, I walked around our ‘Grandpa’s Chair’ (purchased for its larger yet cozy capacity for sitting and cuddling with Grandchildren) and into the foyer to gaze out at my unscheduled guest from my side of the sidelight before opening the front door. His broad smile along with a cap and shirtfront displaying the recognizable Seal of Delivery of the United States Postal Service gave him away. I opened the door.

“Are you Jacqueline Hughes?” he inquired in very good English but with a thick accent reminiscent of a Spanish speaking native who has lived in this the U.S. for many years. “Yes,” I replied. Next he was handing me a tiny machine and asking me to sign my Etch-a-Sketch signature before signing and printing my name on the registered letter itself. As I was signing my life away for one elongated, white envelope, he peeped through the open door and exclaimed, “Oh, I love your library!” Could he have endeared me more to him by saying anything else, I ask you?

“Thank you. You must be an avid reader,” I said.

“Oh, yes I am! I love books. I love to read. And, it’s so rare to see home libraries anymore. Your library is beautiful!” His excitement was contagious and heartwarming.

My new friend was beaming and I could sense that there was much more to this story than a huge smile and extreme fawning over our cozy library would tell me. And, there was....

“My oldest son was accepted to Harvard! He was just informed yesterday! We are so proud of him!” he blurted out in what seemed like one, long exhaled breath. “He’d been accepted at MIT, as well, but has always had his heart set on attending Harvard!” All five feet and close to five inches of him was shaking with pride and love and all of those happy, wonderful emotions that we parents feel and display so readily when it comes to the unique accomplishments of our offspring.

~~SPRINGTIME AT HARVARD~~

                                   Photo: Courtesy USA Today

“How wonderful that is for your son and for you, too!” I said while feeling myself bobbing up and down in mirrored rhythm to his ‘joy and happiness dance’ enforced by his exuberant vibes. “I am so happy for you and for your son and family. The hard work he has had to put into everything he does is paying off for him.”

“I know. I know. He has earned a partial scholarship and that is supplemented with various grants he’s applied for. It will be a long road, I understand this. But, he is strong and knows exactly what he wants in this world and that will help make a difference.”

I continued to bounce along with him as I looked into his sparkling eyes and thought about all of the kids from Parkland, Florida who have resumed their own high school studies this past week. They are the so-called ‘privileged’ white kids who, if accepted into Harvard or MIT or Northwestern University, may not have to depend on the supplemental grants to get them through their college careers. They may not have to take-on a part-time job in order to afford any little extras along the way. 

Their baggage, however, now includes taking-on the memory of hate in its purest form. By having dodged the bullets of a deranged person hell-bent on leaving a legacy of death and destruction, they carry the burden of this hatred around with them for the rest of their lives. Judging by what I’ve read and seen, this baggage has already served to strengthen their moral courage and is directing many of them to stir-up change in current political policies that will help protect them and others from haters in the future. I think many of us are waiting for the November elections this year. Undoubtedly, much needed change will happen then.

SEVENTEEN YEAR OLD DAVID HOGG HID IN A
CLOSET WHILE SHOOTER KILLED SEVENTEEN PEOPLE
IN PARKLAND, FLORIDA HIGH SCHOOL.
PARKLAND SURVIVOR HAS TURNED ACTIVIST.

And, really, are they that much different than my postman’s son in the long run? The world rests upon all of their young shoulders. It doesn’t matter what personal struggles helped to shape their lives, when their educational values kick in and they become the new leaders of this world, the fields of Arts and Science, Education, Mathematics,Trade Schools, Industry, and so much more, will blossom like fresh new flowers on a warm and sunny spring day with energy and color bursting forth for all to see, learn and profit from, and enjoy!

Before my postman, sporting his thin, dark mustache and brown, penetrating eyes, could leave my front stoop, I wanted to reach out to him one last time and said, “Please know how proud we all are of you and your son. I know for a fact that a much brighter future revolves around him and the youth of this country. We need to let them all know how much their strength and intelligence is appreciated.” I was so grateful at that moment for this fellow human being, slave to his many emotions, who was unafraid to display them all to me!

Just by the look on his face, I was certain he knew exactly whom I was in reference to in this particular case; his son, as well as the Parkland students who will always remain near and dear to us and in our daily thoughts and prayers. I knew this because he stopped, turned back towards me and said, “Yes. Yes. They are the strong ones. We must help them along their journey....” And, he issued me a standard ‘thumbs up’ on his way back to his vehicle.

To think that my book-filled shelves helped to promote this entire conversation only encourages me to constantly support the power and wisdom behind a good education. This jubilant postman opened his heart to me and related one of the most auspicious moments of his family’s life. Together we delivered an homage to this young generation who are television and Social Media savvy warriors and will serve to catapult all Americans into the kind of world we wish to live in. #Progress #Youth #Resist....!

Copyright © 2018 by Jacqueline E. Hughes

All rights reserved

INNOCENCE....Another Word For Freedom

A series of essays.....

~~~LYDIA~~~

 














.....as seen through my eyes!



INNOCENCE.....

is simply another word for freedom. Free of guilt, sin, moral wrong, with the lack of knowledge of evil or wrong doing. Generally associated with the very young and the naive, we visualize youth as not having been tainted by the negativity of life itself and walk the earth within a shell of purity and bliss. My aching heart cries for the loss of childhood innocence in so many places around the world: Syria, Africa, India.....the mighty United States of America. 

Tears roll down my face and I ache for this blatant, selfish, unnecessary theft of pure innocence and freedom. I am ashamed of mankind. We have failed to evolve. We have ignored our gift of intelligence and placed greed upon the altar to be idolized, worshipped, and adored. We have put our children's lives at risk. And, the most grievous part is that many of us will not admit to it. A blanket of ignorance will never be good enough to cover-up for the lack of simple common sense.

There is a freshness that surrounds the truly innocent. Like a cool mountain breeze that gently skims across our skin or the delicious aroma of freshly baked bread cooling on the countertop as your Mother hums a simple tune in the kitchen, innocence is captured. With this freshness comes possibilities. With this innocence, dare we dream of hope?

"Those who are incapable of committing great crimes do not readily suspect them in others," wrote La Rochefoucauld, a French writer and moralist, in the late seventeenth century. Most of us continue to conduct our lives believing in the good of mankind, discounting the rumors of guilt-laden souls filled with cunning, guile and senseless hate for other human beings. Most of us are incapable of 'great crimes.' We, too, are the Innocents. We often hear the phrase that 'no one is perfect' and understand it epitomizes the essential characteristics of people we love and admire the most; people with kindness in their hearts, but never claim the essence of perfection within their own lives. They learn and grow because of their mistakes. They love life and fill the lives of others with joy. "If we had no faults of our own, we would not take so much pleasure in noticing those of others." ...Rochefoucauld wrote.

"Is Man kind? Are we good? Look through their windows so that you can understand their views. Set at their tables so you can share their tastes. Sleep in their beds so that you may know their dreams. Find out just how kind the he's and she's of this mankind are." .....Courtesy of airbnb. Let us travel this breathtaking world and introduce ourselves to its he's and she's and share and compare our knowledge with one another to help preserve our Earth and keep Her safe.

BREAKING NEWS:

Even the Innocents are questioning the souls of others today! As I write this essay, I am being alerted about two innocent lives that have been taken from us in Moneta, Virginia this morning. Two victims of senseless violence. BREAKING NEWS: Reporter, Photographer Shot & Killed On Air In Virginia..... What can I write or say right now? What could possibly make any sense from this heinous act of violence against two innocent beings delivered by another? May God bless and keep you, Alison Parker, twenty-four years young, and Adam Ward, twenty-seven years young.

My heart is crying.

It's funny to me that all of the pounding negativism I was feeling thirty minutes ago as I was beginning my story has not been ramped-up by this 'act of hate' against Alison and Adam. Extreme acts of sadness affect each of us differently and I am a bit bewildered by my own emotions at this moment. I am calm, focused and tied to the earth.....as if my body has become one with nature and my soul is at peace with the world. Crazy.....given the circumstances. It's as though my life is honoring the two lives that have been taken from us and for now, I am one with their spirits as they leave this world and go on to the next.

What a truly engaging experience for me.

I am sure there will be time for numbness, contemplation of reality and questioning of motives in this case.  The understanding of it will take so much longer, if ever, I fear.

Thinking back to the young innocents who began my story today, I believe that their freedom from guilt, sin and moral wrong has a timeline that continues to dwindle with each school shooting, theater massacre, and 'attention based' killing that takes place. Circumstances that are certainly not beyond our control are shortening their freedom and elongating their fears at such extremely young, vulnerable ages. As adults, it is our responsibility to protect them and allow them to be carefree longer. I understand that we can't hide them in their rooms until they're thirteen. But, we can assist in regulating the weapons used in these crimes, as well as help educate others as to how and why these weapons must be properly controlled.

I offer you a few excerpts from a book entitled 'Abstract Poetry 4Life' by Deneene A. Collins that stretches the imagination and challenges our protective abilities when it comes to our children; our lives: "If I were a bee I would sting to protect everything important to me including my sweet, thick honey..... Though a sting may hurt you temporarily, it kills the very bee that makes the choice to sting you permanently. So never think that it is something a bee wants to do but realize it is only what they feel they have to do. Humans sting each other all the time with hurtful words, foul actions, and vicious lies. If your sting would take your life wouldn't you think twice before imposing ill actions on another?"

Most importantly, we must teach our children how to love.....  Learning to love one another, in the basic sense of respect and kindness, should be the number one priority of each of us, ranging from birth to the day we finally leave our earthly home. I may sound like a broken record when it comes to this mind-set, however, I ask you, if the repetition of something so basic and simple can help to reinforce and support the freedom we all deserve, would you be tired of hearing about it? Love is the key to opening all doors. Allow it to open your heart.

In Loving Memory of Alison and Adam.



Copyright © 2015 by Jacqueline E. Hughes
All rights reserved

INNOCENCE

Brenna at Cocoa Beach

A series of short stories.....






Through My Eyes........

By: Jacqueline E. Hughes

I know, I keep saying it but, the mind truly is a wondrous thing! 

In my case, my thoughts can begin in Amsterdam touring the Van Gogh Museum and migrate to a golden loaf of zucchini bread made from scratch with zucchini grown in our garden, all in a few moments.  Writing for me is like securing a 'golden lasso' and rounding-up my ideas du jour and transposing them onto my iPad screen via my fingertips on the keyboard.  The strongest ideas are elicited by various triggers such as a current event, a conversation or a particular photograph I've taken with my trusty Canon EOS. 

Brenna, our oldest grandchild, spent two weeks with us in Florida last August and I vividly remember it being comfortably warm with a slight drizzle as we walked along the Atlantic shoreline at Cocoa Beach one afternoon.  Many of the pictures I took of her that day captured her beauty, her slight, six-year-old stature, the isolated feeling of being  so alone and small next to the shear vastness of the ocean.....  But, for me, the most prevalent force captured that day was totally defined by the reflection of  innocence that her healthy bloom of youth and purity spread across the glassy shoreline.  The super-sized umbrella harbored her future deep within its many folds: good with the bad, happiness mingled with the sad......but, Brenna's life, nonetheless.

In researching quotes on the subject of innocence, I happened by two that totally stood out from all the rest and enjoyed their minor 'hint of fame' based on the humor that existed within their creation.  Each quote was a direct attempt at influencing laughter and corresponded with the time and place allotted to it in history, allowing the reader to indulge a craving for feeling good and laughing a bit at the world around them.  This was often done in order to permit the audience a small diversion from sadness or grief.

The American poet, Frederic Ogden Nash, was well known for his "droll verse with its unconventional rhymes", that made him a best-known author of over five-hundred pieces of comic verse written between 1931 and 1972.  Much like the Dr. Seuss books written by Theodor Geisel in the 1950's and beloved by children all over the world, Ogden Nash had the propensity for crafting his own words whenever rhyming words failed to exist.  "A bit of talcum is always walcum" and "Parsley is gharsley!" are two examples.  However, he is probably best known for his "Reflections on Ice-Breaking" with his immortalized quote, "Candy is dandy but, liquor is quicker."

In learning several days ago that our Miss Brenna had lost her first 'baby tooth' and that it was snuggled in its own 'little pillow' safely beneath the large one that our granddaughter rests her pretty little head on each night, I recalled an obscure quote by Mr. Nash that I must have read years before.  It went, "Like the tongue that seeks the missing tooth, I yearned for my extracted youth." 

That made me think....

Was I just in time when taking those pictures on the beach?  Did I capture the innocent child within the child....not knowing then how fleeting that innocence would become, so near in the future?   I realize Mr. Nash is best known for his comic verse and I've chuckled at his quotable quotes a time or two....but, it's easy to see how losing that tiny symbol of 'babyhood' (a small, white tooth) becomes the initial vestige of what is to be!  Am I prepared for the inevitable, having been down that rocky road as a parent and already experienced first-hand how time refuses to stand still and allow us to just breathe every now and then?  Most importantly, do I have a choice?

 

 

 

 

 

 

"Innocence is like an umbrella: When once we've lost it, we must never hope to see it back again."  I am quoting a passage that was written for and printed in Punch Magazine, a publication that began in the early 1840's in the United Kingdom and derived its name from the glove-puppet, Mr. Punch, of the famous Punch and Judy Puppet Show that delighted and entertained many young children of that era.  The magazine became a staple of British drawing rooms because of its satirical and humorous intent while adopting a highly sophisticated manner with the absence of offensive material, according to Wikipedia.

 

 

 

I look at her picture and shout, "Please don't let go of that umbrella, Brenna Bean!  Hold on tight to it for now and, besides, it isn't the right time yet..."  This is truly her Age of Innocence (thank you, Edith Wharton) and to have her let go of that symbol only to have it wash away into the vast sea and be lost forever would break my heart. 

Again, I am fully aware of the inevitability of the progression of time...trust me, I look into the mirror each and every day!  The "Age of Innocence" lasts for such a minute period in our lives, a few short years that pass by us like Indy cars coming around the fourth corner and into the straightaway hitting maximum speeds!  The loss of innocence isn't about watching a few gray hairs appear on your head or coping with the advent of an AARP card sent to you for the first time in the mail.  Rather, it's realizing that along with the good in life, there will always be something bad out there, too, such as bullying.  It's dealing with a body shape or facial features that don't always meet the expectations and standards we set for ourselves.  And, it's understanding that sometimes even our BFF can be jealous or cruel but, we are able to forgive and move on.  It's being aware of the loving, giving person that resides within each and every one of us.

My guilty pleasure, as I grow into my maturity, is knowing that my daughters have learned many of life's lessons very well and are passing that knowledge on to their children, my grandchildren.  I am so proud of them. 

 

 

For now, my recommendations concerning future prudent actions, Darling Granddaughter, would be to deposit all current and future profits from 'lost baby teeth' into your savings.  Open that umbrella  most carefully and allow the features that will shape your future to be extricated slowly allowing you to make good decisions in your life.  When rash decisions are made, (and, they will be) learn to cope with their consequences.  Protect yourself as much as possible but, leave enough vulnerability to let the love inside you shine and make its way out into the world.  Always help others, whether they are aware of this need or not.  Remember that you are a precious individual who deserves to be loved as dearly as those you give your love to...

"Breathe.....don't try to be perfect."

 

 

Whether you choose to seek out youthful dreams as you begin to grow into your maturity or, after losing that umbrella into the enormous ocean,  you decide to never hope to see it back again...those decisions will always be yours to make.

For a little while longer, gaze into the vastness of the deep, blue sea and enjoy the sweet innocence of youth.

 

Always remember to Love........!