How Can I Help?

How can I help? 

That’s the question that came to mind early Sunday morning. What can I, an elderly retired woman, do to make a difference in this screwed up world?

I think finding the answer, or at least an answer, to that question would go a long way toward helping me figure out my purpose in this world.

There are so many areas where help is desperately needed. I donate to our local food bank, and to Meals on Wheels, and to food drives a couple of times a year. I fund an annual scholarship so a deserving yet impoverished female student in Kenya can attend high school, and hopefully find a career that will lift her and her family out of poverty. I have adopted 15 throw-away dogs during my life, as well as a lovely Russian girl from an orphanage in Russia.

But these things, while they make me feel good, seem insufficient in light of the pressing needs of the world.

I know that I don't have the financial resources or the fame to tackle huge issues. I'm not a brilliant scientist seeking the cure to an illness. I don't have billions, or even millions, of dollars to give away in pursuit of an altruistic goal. I'm not a famous celebrity who can put out the call to donate to a certain cause.

I used to volunteer with a couple of local non-profits, but I stopped several years ago when I began to feel unappreciated and taken advantage of. Since then, I haven't found a charity that really calls to me.

So what can I do?

Are you facing this dilemma? How do you deal with these feelings?

World Gratitude Day

There is a lot in this world that is sad, disappointing, horrifying even.

There is international war. There is escalating gun violence and other violent crime in this country. There is a Congress hell-bent on either destroying this country or turning it into 'Christian', fascist state. There are millions of people around the world suffering from starvation, flooding and other natural disasters.

But today, World Gratitude Day, I want to focus on things that make me smile, that make me happy. Things for which I am grateful.

The joyfulness of my dogs, ages 1-1/2 years and 2-1/2 years, often makes me smile. They love to play, to wrestle, to chase each other.

Looking at some of my photographs can make me smile and bring back precise memories of when and where they were taken. Not just the memories and the images, but realizing that I did a good job of capturing the scene, makes me happy.

Walking outside on a crisp autumn morning, with no wind, no traffic and no noise, under a blue sky, makes me happy.

Looking at photos of some of the stunning places I have visited reminds me to be grateful for the opportunity to travel, to see places I have always wanted to see and to meet people from many other cultures.

There is beauty in this world. There is kindness. There are some good people doing their best to make this world a better place.

Let's be grateful for the good things and good people in our lives.

Note: World Gratitude Day was September 21, when I started writing this post, although I didn't get it posted until today.

The Not-So-Friendly Skies

 Air travel sucks.

Sorry to be so blunt, but it does,

What used to be a fairly reliable means of transportation is  now a disaster waiting to happen. I started writing this post on a flight from Detroit to Salt Lake City that was some 2 hours late. The culprit this time was bad weather in the New York area. But there wasn’t another airplane available to use to get my flight on its way. It's hard to believe there wasn't a single available airplane at the Detroit airport. And as bad as it was for those of us waiting for an airplane to arrive, it was even worse for the people in New York who were stuck, on the airplane, as it sat on the tarmac for 2-1/2 hours.

No one can control the weather, but American airlines have a dismal track record of responding to a variety of issues, from insufficient staffing to computer system failures to pile-ups of thousands of pieces of passenger luggage.

Depending on how far in advance I make my flight reservations, I can expect to see as many as five schedule changes. One woman's flights changed 13 times, according to the travel agent we both used to book our group's flights to Tanzania.

Trying to reach an airline representative by phone can result in a wait time of two to five hours.

In-flight service is another area in which airlines are sorely lacking. On a recent early morning business class flight, we were offered bags of potato chips in lieu of something more appropriate for breakfast.

Clearly the airlines have major problems. For the prices they charge ($11,000 for a business class ticket to southern Africa for which I have paid roughly $5,000 for several years), their level of service should be significantly higher.. Rather than spend $11,000 with a US carrier — something I would never do — my travel agent suggested I fly on Qatar Airlines at roughly half the cost. That trip will be next year, connecting in Doha.

Why are there now so many connections in what should be straightforward trips? And why should I have to fly to Los Angeles to get to Charlotte, North Carolina, on the opposite side of the country?

I had a 9-hour layover in Minneapolis on a recent trip to Iceland, and a7-hour layover (it turned out to be closer to 10 hours) on the return trip that had me going to Detroit, then to Salt Lake City, and finally to Albuquerque.

I canceled a planned trip to Portugal because getting there on time to meet my group would have required me to arrive a day early (an extra hotel night to pay for), and an overnight (another hotel stay) in London. It simply wasn't worth the hassle.

I don't know how much more international travel I will do in the future, aside from trips to Africa. The cost in money, time and stress simply isn't worth it.

Why?

Why? 

That’s the question to which I keep returning. That is the question that continues to haunt me.

A Facebook friend of several years took his own life last Friday after making a rather enigmatic post. In hindsight, we now understand what he was saying. But at the time, it just seemed a bit different than his usual upbeat and witty posts.

None of us, neither his Facebook friends nor his real life friends, knew that he was struggling. So the question becomes why? Why did he not confide in someone? Why did he not reach out for help? Why did he decide that this was the only way to escape the pain and hopelessness he was obviously feeling? I know this person had dozens of friends who would gladly have done anything they could to help him find the help he needed.  

But I suppose why is the question people always ask following a suicide.

We want to know why so we can better understand what drove this person to take his own life. We want to know why so we can hopefully be more aware of any signs of depression or hopelessness that might arise in other friends or family members. 

I suppose we will never know the why in this case. How could a person with so many friends, so beloved by so many people, a person so incredibly kind and generous, simply find a peaceful place and decide that that would be the place where he would end his life.

Why is the question that haunts us.

If you are having suicidal thoughts, or know someone who may be considering suicide, please reach out to a friend, your physician or to the Suicide and Crisis Lifeline. Just dial 988.

Live Like Pete

Yesterday I learned of the death by suicide of a long-time Facebook friend.

He was one of those people who always seemed upbeat. He had a great sense of humor and a wonderful sense of adventure. He loved to explore the trails and roads in the place he lived in Ohio. He was out bicycling long distances or hiking on the trails in the area where he lived, seemingly every day. He had a large group of cycling buddies. I recently wondered to myself how he found the energy to be so active. 

His death caught all of his Facebook friends and his local friends totally by surprise. He always seemed so happy and full of life. It appears that even his closest friends were unaware of the great emotional pain with which he was dealing.

I know that the isolation of the pandemic and the death of his beloved Scooter cat took a real toll on him. And I learned just yesterday that he was being forced to move out of the apartment in which he had happily lived for many years. I don’t know the story behind that, but it appears that after he lost his fight to stay in his apartment, he also lost the fight to continue living.

Pete and I shared a great love of photography and of the great outdoors. He always had something nice to say about the images I shared. I am a dog lover, and I cannot have cats because of my allergies. Pete was a great lover of cats. Scooter went with him on his out of town trips, and he frequently posted photos of her sitting in her royal bed and looking out the window of his hotel room.

He was a kind and thoughtful man, and made friends wherever he went. When one of my dogs died a few years ago, he sent me a condolence card with a photo of Bailey with her name written on it in gold ink. I still carry that small photo with me wherever I go.

Other people have said that in hindsight he didn’t seem himself lately, and he left some very subtle hints that all was not well with him. The thing I noticed was that after my beloved dog Benny died, I got condolences from Pete on Facebook, but no card or photo. I wasn’t expecting anything, but it seems strange in light of his previous kindness to me after the loss of my other dogs.

I am still struggling to come to grips with the loss of this wonderful man. But I have decided that I will try harder to live like Pete. I will find joy in exercise and in being outdoors. I will try to be kinder and more supportive as Pete was. And I hope that any of my friends, whether personal friends or Facebook friends, will reach out to me or to someone else when their emotional pain gets to be overwhelming.

Rest well, Pete, and enjoy your reunion with your beloved Scooter.

Stop Singling Out Adopted Children

 I read an online story recently about the horrendous fires, devastation and loss of life on the Hawaiian island of Maui.

Actually, I have read numerous stories about the fires on Maui. But one really hit me hard, and not in a good way. 

The article was about an almost-15year-old boy who died in his family‘s home, sitting in his bedroom and clutching his beloved dog. His name was Kenyero Fuentes. As a dog lover myself, I can’t imagine what this young boy went through, waiting for rescue and trying to save his dog.

But what bothered me most about the article was the emphasis on the fact that this teenager was adopted. Who cares if he was adopted? His family loved him, and that’s what matters. His family is grieving his loss. And that’s what matters. The fact that this boy was adopted is totally irrelevant to the story. A young life was lost in a tragic way. Whether he was the birth child of the family or the adopted child of the family doesn’t make any difference. This was blatant sensationalism in my opinion.

This is an extremely sensitive topic for me as the mother of an adopted child. When I talk about her, I don’t refer to her as my adopted daughter unless there’s a really good reason to do so. She is my daughter. I am her mother. Someone even asked her once why I didn’t adopt a child from America rather than from Russia, the country where my daughter was born.

Again I ask, what difference does it make where I adopted my daughter? She needed a home after growing up in a very dysfunctional and abusive family in Siberia. Shortly after we met in the US, we both knew that we were meant to be a family. I hadn’t even planned to adopt a child, as I was older and settled in my life in California. But fate had other ideas.

My daughter is now almost 30 years old. She has a beautiful son, my first grandchild. And frankly, I don’t care that she was born in Russia. It makes no difference.

Adopted people can be just as successful and as loved as birth children. Do people point out that Simone Biles, the worlds greatest gymnast, was adopted? How about Steve Jobs, cofounder of Apple computer? How about former President Gerald Ford? He was adopted. How about former first lady Eleanor Roosevelt, also adopted.

I just wish people would show some respect for adoptive families and their adopted children. Stop treating them as if they are some oddity or that they are less than birth children.

Wealth

 

I love this saying.

It makes me think about how we non-native Americans, or many of us, think about wealth. I believe this is particularly true today, when wealth is increasingly concentrated in the hands of a small number of extremely, some would say obscenely, wealthy individuals.

How do we define wealth? Is it having $1 million? $2 million? $100 million? Or should we define wealth not in terms of money and possessions, but in terms of other things? 

 

Compared with most of the world’s population, I am a wealthy person. I have my own house. I have a car. I have enough to eat. I have clothes to wear to keep me warm in the winter and cool during the summer. I have good shoes. I have good medical care. For a person of my age, I’m in pretty good health, with no major medical issues. I have money in the bank. I can afford to take overseas vacations. Although our democracy is under a great threat, and women in this country are still oppressed, compared with much of the world, life in the US is pretty good for most of us.

There certainly is a large proportion of people in the US that is anything but financially wealthy. Far too many people live in poverty in this country, and around the world.

But what if we took the attitude of our Native brethren and considered ourselves wealthy if we have enough to give away? Would that attitude stop the relentless drive for more money, a bigger house, a nicer car? 

I have always said that if I win the lottery, which I won't because I don't play, I would not make any major lifestyle changes. I would have some work done on my house and yard. I would buy a new car for myself and for my daughter. I would set aside funds for my toddler grandson's future. I would pay off my daughter's debts. I would save a portion of winnings for my retirement. And I would donate the overwhelming majority of my winnings to my dozen or so favorite charities, today and in the future.

I believe those actions would make me wealthy beyond measure.