When you reach my age (79 and counting), bad news comes not just in threes, but in fours and fives and more. A former college roommate lost one of his daughters to a drug addiction. One local friend’s heart attack necessitated an angioplasty and another friend’s heart required a pacemaker. Still another friend told the sad story of a woman who just died of cancer, leaving behind a husband who has dementia.
Sometimes, though, a speck of gold can be found in the cinders of bad news. One of my classmates at Mount Pleasant High School in Wilmington, Delaware died. I didn’t know her well, but I knew she was very smart, a National Merit Scholar kind of smart. Our classmate who sent the news also included an email that our deceased classmate’s son wrote about his mom.
“It is with an extremely heavy heart that I have to let everyone know that our Mom, Nancy Hall, passed away on Sunday after a relatively short, but valiant fight with cancer. As far back as I can remember, other than being with friends and family and listening to and playing live music, the thing that made our Mom the happiest was when she was able to help people. It didn’t matter if she knew them or not. It didn’t matter if it was helping solve a unique problem for a customer in our store or helping one of her students understand calculus or scouring yard sales for perfect items to help a family in need or running a band candy sale or spearheading an elementary school Secret Santa Workshop or giving her opinion on what any of us should do with any of the challenges we were facing — she just wanted to help.
“I can even remember as a kid, as I headed out to friends’ houses, frequently the last thing she would say as I was going out the door was, ‘Be a help.’ In that spirit, if you are interested in honoring our Mom, perhaps you could help someone over the next few days — maybe a friend, or a relative or a neighbor or even a stranger. Be a help.”
That email reminded me of my mom (“Moo”) who never failed to “be a help,” whenever she possibly could. She would always lend an ear and a hand to the marginalized and downtrodden, whatever their situation or cause of misfortune. She had pen pal relationships with several of my cousins who weren’t exactly the leading lights in their families. She “adopted” a Hmong family as her personal responsibility. When she was in her late 80s and living in a retirement home, she was serving as an English tutor for a woman from China. She always stood up for the little guys and gals. They, in turn, adored her.
About the very wealthy she would say, “Oh shucks, do they really need that much money?” I’m guessing she wouldn’t be impressed with today’s yacht-building billionaires or a certain trash-talking former president who adorned his bathroom with gold-plated fixtures.
Many’s the time my mother would take along my brother or sister or me on one of her visits to one of what she called her ‘little old ladies.” She wanted to show us off, I’m sure, but what she really wanted was to show us the importance of being nice to everyone, especially those who are often overlooked or ignored.
I will never “be a help” as much as my classmate was or my mother was. But their example serves as a guiding light, a gentle nudge in the right direction.
David Treadwell, a Brunswick writer, welcomes commentary and suggestions for future “Just a Little Old” columns. dtreadw575@aol.com.