Terminal Strangers...

“By chance we meet,

by choice we grow…”

– anonymous

She was slender, lithe of build, possibly 5’7” (1.7m), wearing blue jeans a grayish tee shirt, sporting short dark hair, which gave her somewhat of a mannish look.  She was carrying a well worn ‘over the shoulder’ bag that hung diagonally across her body…the sandals were tan with a series of interwoven leather straps.

Off to Dubai…

The flight was a little late arriving in Los Angeles from San Diego, but there were still more than two hours before the next leg to Hong Kong...it was not a problem.

If you arrive in the domestic terminals in LA, you cannot stay in security and pass to the international gates.  That requires going outside for a short walk to the Thomas Bradley International Terminal. Once inside the 'Bradley,' you go through the entire security process again. 

Bureaucracy ‘is’…

The line was really long, snaking back and forth like the ones waiting for roller coasters at an amusement park.  You pass the same people three or four times heading to one end of the cordoned off area, only to turn back the other direction, moving two or three feet closer to those machines that x-ray your carryon bags, and peek through your clothing as you raise your hands overhead in quiet submission.

At the amusement park you wait for 20 or 30 minutes to feel 90 seconds worth of heart pounding exhilaration, dropping from great heights, twisting and turning whilst screaming your lungs out.  In this case, the time in line is in preparation for a ride, hopefully smooth, uneventful and in this case lasting about 24 hours.

Serendipity…

I caught a break when one of the security folk opened a section to let a few move over to the first class priority line which had run out of people…timing is everything.

And so it was that I found myself behind a young woman trying to decide which x-ray line to get into.  The shorter one had two families with babies and small children along with a couple of older folk.  She was in front of me and I said pleasantly, “The rule of thumb is not get in lines where there are children and older people.  They generally take a lot longer to get through.”  “Thanks,” she said with a smile and headed to the longer line with none of the aforementioned folk…well, except me in the latter category, but then again I was behind her.

As we settled in she turned and said, “You must travel a fair amount.”  I said I had some, which led to small talk about where each of us was going and what had brought us to this particular trip. 

It is surprising how much ground can be covered while waiting to put your laptop, shoes, belt, watch, phone, liquids in a separate bag, sunglasses, hat, jacket and whatever else might need to be removed and scanned separately before you and your immediate clothing slip into the ‘see through’ radiation that becomes the last security check.

Getting to know you…

The girl’s name was Kat – short for Katheryn, spelled with the additional ‘e’ she told me.  I said I was ‘Ted’ pretty much short for ‘Ted,’ which brought a chuckle. 

It turns out Kat was 27 and headed for Bali, a small Island on the Southeastern end of Indonesia.  She was “…closing a chapter in my life, and looking to open the next one…” she said, a little too wistfully.  I had the feeling the “…closing chapter…” had left her unsettled and feeling a bit vulnerable. 

I asked her what she did for a living. “I write, am a bit of an entrepreneur, and some other things,” she replied.  “I’m going to Bali for a meeting of international entrepreneurs to discuss options.”  While it was clear she was bright and articulate, she did not have the look and feel of someone who took business risks for a living.  In spite of sounding brave and adventurous, I had the sense she was looking to get away, and if so, one could not get much ‘further away’ than Bali! 

As we picked up all the stuff we had placed in bins, and put them back in our pockets and bags, we did the usual, “Nice to meet you and chat.  Have a good trip,” and off we went in different directions – she to wait two hours for her first leg to Singapore and me to Hong Kong for mine. 

Being led is a risk…

It was then I got that feeling that comes from time to time.

“Hey Kat,” I called after her. 

As she turned I continued, “Listen I belong to an airline club and if you like, I would be happy to take you in as a guest.  I mean, you wouldn’t need to hang out with me, but there is food, comfortable places to sit, internet access and it's quieter than sitting at the gate for a couple of hours.”

It was one of those deals that have a constellation of mental calculations going on in a moment.  I am a stranger…an older man inviting her to an airport lounge.  What could be my motive? What risk might there be?  I was playing this in my head, working to find a rationale for the willingness to follow the leading I was feeling.  She, on the other hand would have her own calculus to contend with.

We both stood looking at one another for a few seconds, me feeling a bit silly, having no idea what she was thinking...she mentally drifting away somewhere to sort out a response. 

“Sure,” she said after a brief moment and with the kind of smile that comes with decision and trust.  

You are allowed to bring one guest with you into these places, if they have a ticket on the same airline and usually going in the same direction.  This was not the case. The woman greeter at the counter frowned and asked us to wait until she checked everyone else in.  Once that was done, she indicated she would let Kat in, but it was an exception to the rule…she did this with a gracious smile, and in we went.

How did we get here…

Let’s catch this up…my flight was late arriving…I had to change terminals…the line was long, but I was at the right place when the security gal let a small group into the open priority line…a young woman coming from a different line was in front of me, and a conversation started.  I think that about does it.

When we were inside, I took her around to show her where things were – food, restrooms, computers and the more comfortable areas.  I then told her I was going to get something to eat and she was welcome to join me or poke around the club.  She thought she would explore and off she went.

I grabbed dinner and did a little work until it was time to head to the gate.  Leaving the lounge, I saw Kat sitting behind her computer with ear buds in.  I stopped to wish her a safe trip and she got up.  “Listen Kat, I don’t have any idea where you have been or where you are going, but there are three things you need to know: - there is nobody better than you are – you are in charge of your life, NO ONE else has that responsibility – if people tell you that you cannot do something that is in your heart, thank them politely walk away and completely ignore them.”

You might imagine this was a lot to say to someone you neither knew nor had any real inkling as to their circumstance.  If fact, I was fighting a little internally as I blurted these unplanned remarks out.

Her eyes watered and she said, “Thank you for inviting me in here, and thank you for the words.  I needed to hear them in my life right now.”  I reached out my hand…she pushed it aside and gave me a hug.  It was heartfelt and I was a little surprised.  As I turned to leave I said quietly, “Our job in life is to strengthen one an other.”  It was intimate and also heartfelt and I was out the door.

Epilogue – sort of…

I have no idea what kind of journey Kat had been on or what lay ahead of her.  I know this, however, life passing between two people can happen in an instant.  A split second is enough to transmit a little assurance or faith that can make a difference ways unknown.  I know this of a certainty, for I have been on the receiving end of many such events.  The thing is, when these happen they are never on one-way streets.  The cycle of giving and receiving benefit both on the two way streets of life.  Small gestures…shared rewards. 

Whatever Kat took away from her encounter with a stranger on her way to Bali, I too carried with me to Hong Kong and now Dubai where I am putting these thoughts into words. Two strangers and a little life shared...the whole greater than the sum of the parts.

Kat…wherever you might be, thanks…

- ted

Hanna the Huntress…

“Against the iceberg of her smile,

I sailed the Titanic of my hope.”

B. Landon 

Building Great 

Sentences

Of the three, more so than even Thomas Stearns (t.s.) Eliot might have written in Old Possum’s Book of Practical Cats, Hannah dances to her own rhythm.

Yes, cats are the most unique of domesticates, or at least in my life experience.  They seem so self-absorbed as to make one wonder whether they do not sense the worlds in which they live were made expressly for them!

Hannah is a little older than me, as these things go – she 70 to my 66.  It is an odd calculus used by cat breeders, but it goes a little like this:

2 human years = 24 cat years

4 human years = 35 cat years

6 human years = 42 cat years

8 human years = 50 cat years

10 human years = 60 cat years

12 human years = 70 cat years

(http://www.calculatorcat.com/cats/cat-years.phtml)

Next year, she will have slipped further ahead, with an ever increasing rate of acceleration I will be unable to catch.

She is unpredictable in all but three things: eating, relieving herself and hunting.  When she is hungry, she is an unrelenting pest.  Little does it matter to her that her plump frame is in constant need of ‘weight management.’  When it comes to her ‘personal business,’ she is pretty personal.  In spite of the house having only two, very openly placed litter boxes, I seldom catch her ‘in the act’ as it were.  This leads to the third…her instinct for the hunt.

The hunting ground…

A surrounding wooden fence neatly marks the backyard of our little home in Southern California, like all of the houses in our neighborhood.  While varying in height, depending on the neighbors surrounding us on three sides, they are of sufficient to keep all of the cats contained.  They DO NOT, however, keep away the dozens of birds that daily find their way to the bird feeder hanging from the tree on the northwest corner of this little patch of land, nor do they keep a broad variety of lizards from climbing on the fences and small concrete boarder built as a barrier on a little hill behind the house.   Occasionally, a stray cat has wandered into the yard, but if Hannah is in the area, it seldom makes the mistake of returning.

Over the years we have lived here, one of my favorite small entertainments has been to watch Hannah try to catch these backyard visitors.  She strikes the pose: frozen position, laser like focus, and then slowly she moves “…step by step, inch by inch…” with the most amazing deliberateness, she reaches into some prehistoric instinct and stalks the creatures, quietly gliding across the lawn like a canoe slipping through the water of a lake on a quiet summer’s morning.  In fact, the primal survival display is exciting to watch.  

As she approaches her prey, I find that I cannot keep from holding my breath or keep my heart from racing.  Finally, she reaches calculated position, freezes once more, giving the appearance for all the world that she has stilled her breath and stopped her heart from beating – locked…unmoving…ready.  Then comes the ‘tell,’ as her tail begins a slow twitch at its very end, signaling she is ready.  IT’S TIME  - SHE POUNCES!!

In almost every case the result is nothing, nada, an empty net, her paradise lost yet once again.  The birds fly off, the lizard slips into a crack in the wall or over the top of the fence and she finds herself empty handed – better said ‘…nothing in her paw…’

The thing is, it doesn’t seem to bother her one bit.  As soon as it is clear her grasp has found nothing but air, she pauses for a moment with a bit of a confused look on her face – yes she does have facial expressions after a manner – seeming almost to shrug her shoulders and saunters back to where she began the hunt.  Failure for her is nothing more than a small way station on the road to success.  The next time the opportunity arises she goes at it with the same enthusiasm and focus. 

Entertainment alone…

The reason I enjoy this ‘dance’ so much is that she is really not a very good hunter.  While she has good agility for her age, she is not as quick as she was in her earlier years.  Had we lived in this environment during her youth, I have little doubt our back door would have been littered with feathers and lizard carcasses brought to us as presents, after having played unmercifully with them.  Now?  She goes at it, but with the rare exception of a small lizard (we hasten to release unharmed), these events are simply good theater. 

That would be until this past week.  

When we first came here, we would not let the cats out without supervision.  As time passed, and it was clear they could not escape and not successfully hunt, we began letting them out on their own to play, or lie in the sun – something they seem to really enjoy – and try to hunt.  In fact, by now the birds, which used to fly away when Hannah got within 10 feet, simply ignore her until the last minute, before taking flight.

By 4 O’clock in the afternoon, I have typically been up in the neighborhood of 11 hours, maybe a little more.  It is not uncommon for me to take a break to sit on the couch, extending that break into a comfortable 20 to 30 minute nap.  You know, to prepare me for a totally non-productive evening to follow. 

Hannah was out, I was ‘resting,’ only to be startled awake to the sound of her banging away at the base of the TV stand on the other side of the room.  She was walking around the cabinet, focused at the small gap between its bottom and the floor.  In the haze of returning to consciousness, I thought she knocked one of her toys out of reach and was trying to get to it.

More than met the eye…

Molly came in the room, saw Hannah’s behavior, smiled and then…and then saw the feathers on the floor!!  Apparently what was under the TV cabinet was NOT a toy, but a bird.  Had it been hurt?  Was it dead?  When Hannah’s name was called, she briefly looked my way with an expression I can only describe as, “HEY YOU, stay out of this!  I brought this thing in the house and it’s mine!”

That didn’t last long as I chased her into the bedroom, shut the door and returned to the living room.  By now, Molly was on the floor with a flashlight probing the darkness under the TV, when she saw the reflection of two quivering eyes of a small bird.  She gave me the flashlight, and sure enough Hannah had actually caught a small bird, brought it in the house to show us the fruit of her labor and let it get away from her.

Not knowing its condition, and because I could not reach it, I took a broomstick and gently touched it from behind.  At once, it slipped out from under the cabinet, flew across the room and hid behind a chair.  Good!  It was not badly injured.  Next, we opened the sliding door to the back of the house and I slipped around behind the little creature.  She took one look at me and was airborne again, but this time out the door into the California sunshine, and what appeared to be points west!

The afterglow…

A little later, when Hannah was released from her confinement, she returned to the cabinet and spent the next 20 minutes or so peeking under the piece of furniture.  Eventually she gave up, wandered over to her food bowl and began asking for her dinner.

In the end the little bird escaped, and we were grateful it did so without apparent harm.  But Hanna?  For the next few days, she seemed to have a little more bounce in her step, a little sharper flick of her tail, a bit of a brighter sparkle in her eye.  She seemed to say, in her own way, “Look pal, I may be in my seventies and am not always successful, but let there be no mistake mister, I STILL HAVE IT!”

And so she does…

- ted

Laissez les bons temps rouler (Let the good times roll)…

And he looked up, and saw the rich men casting their gifts into the treasury.

And he saw also a certain poor widow casting in thither two mites.

And he said, Of a truth I say unto you, that this 

poor widow hath cast in more than they all:

For all these have of their abundance 

cast in unto the offerings of God: but 

she of her penury hath cast in 

all the living that she had.

Luke 21: 1-4, Bible

New Orleans…the big easy…beignets…chicory coffee…Bourbon Street and the French Quarter full of convention people…a sight the city father’s are grateful for in the devastating wake of hurricane Katrina – seven years in the past and from whose effect the city is still recovering.  The city was warm and humid for October...moreso than I expected.

A different time…

It was 1969 when I came here the first time, while training as an air traffic controller in the military.  It was Mardi Gras and three of us hitchhiked from Biloxi, Mississippi to see this, ah…phenomenon I had heard so much about. 

I had $10.00 in my pocket, and upon arrival, the three of us went straight to the bus station to purchase tickets home on the 11PM bus back to the military base in time for morning formation – it was six bucks.  We put those tickets in a locker, the key in my pocket and headed for Bourbon Street with four dollars in cash next to that locker key.  That night was most interesting and enlightening in the early life of a young fellow who had grown up in the Midwest.  Culture shock would not adequately describe what I saw in the raucous streets of the famous French Quarter.  Whatever I had expected or the pictures I had seen were not preparation enough for that day and evening!

Years later, I would give the first scientific presentation of my career at the Marriott Hotel on Canal Street in that same city, and see for the first time in my life homeless people sleeping on the streets.  It was surreal to be staying in an expensive hotel within a block of folk lying full length next to buildings on the sidewalks.  It is an image that passes through my mind with clarity even as I write this piece.  Over the years, I have come back maybe 10 to 15 times.  New Orleans, with little doubt, has provided me with unique and very memorable experiences. 

The present…

This isn’t the first time I’ve come here this year.  I do a little work for a company based in Orlando, Florida that has put a spine center into one of the larger hospital systems in the city.  I’ve been in a couple of times in the last 12 months, but had no time to ‘taste’ the French Quarter… The convention I attended this week afforded me the opportunity to wander a little once again through Les rues du Quartier Français (streets of the French quarter).

I have been a part of this organization since 1989, which to the present has met north of the border from Vancouver to Toronto and Quebec City.  In this country on the East Coast from Boston to New York and Orlando – to the Western shores of Seattle, San Francisco, and San Diego…stopping annually in between to include Chicago, Colorado Mountain resorts, Austin and Dallas just to name a few.  One might think conference organizers can’t make up their minds, but this is the way many scientific and professional societies have their annual affairs…variety helping to attract attendees.

While each society is unique, most scientific spine meetings are similar with lots of people presenting lots of research papers, while lots of other people listen to them.  In these annual events, one rekindles old friendships, makes new ones in environments that begin early with research papers, focused symposia, and sessions conducive to open discussion, ending with evening events and dinners that often go late.

This year’s meeting was held at the Ernest N. Morial Convention Center, named for the first African American Mayor of the city, and made famous during the Hurricane by the hordes of people using it to take shelter. It contains approximately 11 million square feet (1.2 million sq. meters) of meeting/exhibit space and covers a length of six tenths of a mile (1km).  The Southeast end of this mammoth building sits near the hotel in which I stayed, and by the time one walked to the other end, they wandered past several restaurants, hotels and slipped under a freeway interchange.  The building is BIG.

After a long day of professional immersion, evenings are filled with society events, dinners and fellowship with colleagues.

A thematic event kicked off the week…

Often there is a rather interesting welcoming reception.  This year, the organizers rented Mardi Gras World, a large warehouse offering a ‘behind the scenes’ look at many floats used in the Mardi Gras Parades.  The place was huge, and after passing a live New Orleans Funeral brass band, one walked down a long corridor packed with larger than life figures of action, fantasy and cartoon characters of every kind.  There were eight-foot tall (2.4m) football players, princesses, kings, monsters, lizards…the amount mind-boggling. 

In the next building there was what appeared to be an outdoor patio with a couple of hundred people sampling food and drink from tables and bars strategically placed around its edges.  Scattered amongst the trees in this area were a lot of small circular, four chair, tables filled with people eating, drinking, laughing and chatting.  The thing, however, is that this garden patio was actually indoors with a very high ceiling.  Its size and structure was so real, it was hard to imagine it was actually inside a building.

After spending a little time with friends, a couple of them sorted out the rest of their evening and headed for a jazz establishment, I had eaten enough, and while the evening was young headed out of the building and back to the hotel…except…except for the distraction out of the corner of my eye that changed the course of my evening.

The unexpected – the singers…

As I exited the building, there was an open sided tent where folk from the society could also sit and chat next to the river.  It was a bit quieter for conversation and it had live entertainment – a live community based gospel choir.

At first I did not know what kind of music this group was performing, so I wandered over just to see.  For the next hour I was captured by 20 or so old south, Jesus praising, God loving, spirit filled, mixed gender/race folk singing their hearts out accompanied only be a small key board, mesmerizing the smallish audience in the open air of that Louisiana ‘clothes clinging humidity’ filled October evening.

I looked at their shoes as they rocked back in forth in song.  On balance, they were old and well worn.  I looked at their trousers which were also well worn and baggy.  I looked at their ages and shapes.  They were older and overweight, suggesting there might be current or impending health issues facing them.  And then I looked at their faces.  To the person they shined as brightly as the morning sun, and as they sang both they and I were transported and transformed by the life they were sharing.  Sometimes I watched as I listened, catching an eye or two leading to a little extra energetic sparkle; sometimes I simply closed my eyes to let the sound of their harmonic voices penetrate my heart and bathe my soul.

At this scientific meeting attended by those most privileged by the trifecta of intellect, education and circumstance, I had NOT expected this.  While I learned much at this meeting, there was nothing more edifying nor enlightening as that group of senior citizen gospel singers filling the night air with a sensibility of meaning that find no words in the paltry vocabulary with which I have to communicate…it was, well…it was simply wonderful.

When they were finished, I went to thank them, and was surrounded by a small group hugging me and thanking me for coming and listening to them.  They were thanking me!!

Wednesday night, on the bank of the Mississippi river in New Orleans, Louisiana; little doubt there was an open display of wealth.  As it turns out, however, it was NOT in the hands of my professional colleagues, but rather in the voices of 20 men and women sharing without reservation the gift of music God had so richly blessed them with.

That evening I experienced the “…widow’s mite...” and while they sang with all their hearts – in the end, they lifted mine.

- ted

Things are seldom what they seem...

“Love worketh no ill to his neighbor: therefore

love is the fulfilling of the law.”

Romans 10:13 - Bible

It’s never about what you see in the moment is it? 

It’s always the ‘back stories’…the characters and events responsible for creating the ‘what’ and the ‘who’ we are.  They usually remain anonymous and occur from a mixture of time and unpredicted circumstance that frequently defy explanation.

The grind was catching up…

It was 1974, I was in the first year of a doctoral program, four years and two university degrees away from the jungles of Vietnam – it had been a dead run since leaving the military; I was tired, out of breath, out of sorts, overwhelmed by the speed of the treadmill upon which I had been running…needing a place to take solace from life’s maddening storm…it would come, but would take another year.

He was already in play…

Somewhere in the 1960s, an itinerate preacher was sent by his church to set up a satellite congregation in the rural town of Moberly, Missouri.  He looked around for a place to set up shop and found what had been an old tavern, outside the city limits, that had seen better days.  It might not have been perfect, but the acre (.4 hectares) of land had a decent parking lot and a trailer or two where people could live…yes, it would work just fine. 

The ministry from which he came was not formally prepared.  As happens in many evangelical churches in this country, his elders began their religious education under some charismatic preacher who ‘schooled them up’ in the manner to which he felt called.  Consequently, there were no paid clergy, leading young and upcoming assistant pastors to work day jobs providing for themselves and their families.  Eddie had been brought up as an assistant minister in this manner.

He was not a big man, standing somewhere in the neighborhood of five feet nine inches tall (1.75m).  He was gentle and sported dirt blondish hair with piercing blue, sparkling eyes suggesting a ‘life lived’ intelligence that comes from birth and not formal education.   He listened carefully when spoken to, with unflinching attention, as if he wanted to make sure he understood not just what was being said, but what it meant.  He was agile of body, clever of mind, and when you shook his hand, it was clear from its touch…he was a common sense workingman.

He had no family, was a carpenter by trade and when he wasn’t building things, preaching or caring for the sheep, he spent his time studying the scripture.  Nothing seemed to matter to him as much as the richness of the King James Bible, seducing his mind in youth and holding it in maturity as surely as the excitement of a gently enticing glance turns to a deep and fulfilling love.  He could not get enough, a compulsion that led him to study, study and then study even more.  By the time he came to that old roadside tavern on Route 24 West, his reputation for scriptural knowledge exceeded even the elders from whom he had been sent.

She entered the game…

The early going was meager.  He led a small a small congregation of faithful women and a rotating door of folks coming and going.

One of those women, tough and hardened by a life whose survival required a quick wit and violence if necessary, had a conversion experience the likes of which Eddie had never seen.  She was about his height…nondescript…slender – the kind that suggested toughness, not frailty – stringy brownish hair, and a gap between her two front upper teeth.  Her rich, dark chocolate eyes reflected a life that had seen, if not all, certainly more than enough.  Those eyes proclaimed that if you thought you might pull something over on her, don’t bother…it would NEVER happen.  Her voice was mostly matter of fact, yet there were moments when it came as soothing as water moving along a gently sloping mountain stream on a warm and lazy summer’s day.  She was not someone you would notice in a crowd or even in a small group of people, but when her spirit came alive there was little space it did not fill.  Her name was Theora (thee-OR-a: meaning ‘watcher’ in Greek), and in the end, she would influence and change my life.

The dance began…

In the fall of 1975, on a whim (or at least appeared so at the time) I visited this little church and found that I enjoyed both its spirit-filled enthusiasm, and the amazing knowledge of the scripture these rural, uneducated people, had.  It is hard to express how impressive it was to sit in a church service and hear random people stand and speak extemporaneously for 10, 20, 30 minutes or more about the scripture – quoting dozens of scriptures as they wove parables or Biblical stories into clear and understandable narratives.

I didn’t know what those folks had been drinking, but whatever it was, I wanted some of it.  I spent a little time with Eddie, asking him how these folk were so knowledgeable.  He said they studied the scripture in the school at the church, and indicated Theora would be happy to explain more to me.  After chatting with her, and getting a sense of how they studied, I asked whether I might take some classes while finishing up the last couple of years of school.  She said, sure no problem, no charge, no judgments about the way I lived my life and no expectation that I believe anything they taught – Really?  This had certainly NOT been my religious experience in the past – and there had been many religious experiences!

This was a deal that was hard for me to turn down.

Fast forward…

Over the next couple of years, I found spiritual nourishment from my newly found church family.  These people taught me things about personal discipline and work that neither the military nor the rigors of academic life had provided.  They showed me that wonders could be performed if a person dedicated themselves to a principle rather than simply accepting it.  They worked hard, studied hard and played hard, simply because they loved it!

It’s about real love…

Graduation was year or so away; it was time to prepare for both oral and written exams, the barrier to pass before I could do the dissertation.  It was a stressful time, because the exams covered three years of training.  There were preparation guidelines, but they were vague enough to cause free-floating anxiety regarding what they might ask.  Would I study enough of the right things?  What might be missed?  Would there be tricks?  All of the written exams would be essay in form – no faking it or hiding possible weak spots through multiple-choice questions.

Two months or so prior to the exams, I mentioned to Theora I was feeling pretty nervous about what was coming.  The next day she came to me and said, “Get all your materials together and we will start preparing Monday morning at eight o’clock.”  I’m sorry, we???

My academic work was exercise physiology. As such, I needed to be well prepared in physiology, metabolic, biochemical and cardiovascular content areas.  The mountain seemed pretty steep.  How could this woman, who by the way had no formal education, help me prepare for the exams?  The first thoughts crossing my mind suggested I now had an even bigger mountain to climb…the material, AND this woman who would slow me down.  

Monday morning I dutifully brought my notes and notebooks full of an overwhelming amount of material.  Theora asked me to separate the them into individual content areas and talk her through the areas I needed to review.  This took the first morning…yep, already slowing me down – I said nothing.

As it turned out, this woman who didn’t know one muscle from another, had no idea what a biochemical pathway was, could not have spelled physiology had her life depended on it, and knew nothing more about the heart than that she had one beating in her chest…this woman, for the next two months, day in and day out met and quizzed me on the material until I had practically memorized everything in my notes and notebooks.

She didn’t care that she knew nothing about the material, she cared that she loved and supported me.  While she didn’t know much about the muscle beating in her chest, she taught me more about heart than I could possibly have learned in a lifetime.  This woman gave herself TOTALLY, and without reservation to preparing me for my oral and written examinations.  In fact, the working rhythm she cultivated with me was one of the most profound professional learning experiences of my life.

Life rewards action…

I passed those exams with flying colors, finished the dissertation and successfully defended the research to my doctoral advisory committee.  At the end of the process, my advisor reached out his hand and said, “Congratulations Dr. Dreisinger.  Well done!”  Each committee member greeted me in kind.

As I received the handshake and congratulatory comments there was someone else I was thinking about.  There was a woman, someone none of them would ever know…Theora, the "Watcher,” who had cared for, protected and loved me enough to sacrifice time and energy for things she did not even understand so that I could stand before these men.  Actually, that is not correct…she understood things these men would never know…she had seen things these men could never imagined…she loved in ways they would never comprehend…

Her life and sacrifices – not just for my doctoral work – in many circumstances for the sake of so many others, deeply influenced my life going forward.  Her ‘walk’ NOT her ‘talk,’ helped me understand the real power of love, obedience and sacrifice.  Her example taught me that in the giving…and I mean the ‘no strings attached’ giving…there is a reward beyond measure.

She has been gone now for decades, but there are moments when I hear her voice in the quietness of my mind.  Not the frank ‘matter of fact,’ one, but the gentle, soothing, encouraging healing sounds that taught me so much.

I have little doubt she continues to watch….

- ted