Touching the past to share with the future

What I held in my hand was just a sliver of a ceramic dish.

If I had seen it in any other context than an archaeological dig I wouldn’t have given it a second thought. That it had just been excavated from the ground at San Felipe de la Austin State Historic Site, struck me with awe.

I was most likely the first person in 178 years to touch it. I could only imagine that the previous person was its owner. I could picture a very distraught woman, her heart breaking as her home and prized possessions went up in flames to keep them out of the hands of the Mexican army.

I could hear the screams, sobs and cries of the colonists as they hastily packed what they could and destroyed the rest no matter how valuable or sentimental the items may have been. The dish could have been an heirloom or an item highly prized due to its scarcity on the frontier. It may have been a necessity that could not fit with the other important items the family escaped with.

Whatever its story was, it has been nothing but a piece of trash buried in the dirt for 178 years. Now it was an artifact that will someday be displayed in a museum for millions of people to gaze over without giving it another thought.

I thought about it. It came to life. It spoke to me. It has a story to tell, even if nobody wants to listen. I’m just like any other museum visitor who hastily glances at collections of broken potsherds or rusty bits of metal in a glass case and is eager to move on to more exciting exhibits.

But these bits are not yet neatly displayed in a museum. They were freshly pulled from the earth that encrusted them during perhaps the most pivotal time in Texas history. These artifacts knew love and were cherished by someone long ago. Mostly they have known neglect and abandonment. Now a human held them again in awe and wonder.

What was it like at the moment they were smashed and burned? Scorch marks remain on them, telling a story of sacrifice and survival. I want so much to know what these pieces of ceramic cannot say, but will slowly reveal. Because the pieces are so widely scattered, it is clear they were shattered and not hidden with the hopes of being recovered.

It would have taken great pains to bring such beautifully decorated and fragile dishes to the Texas frontier in the 1830s. One would have to have been a person of significant means to possess them. That same person would have had to have great character and determination in order to crush them lest they fall into enemy hands.

Perhaps my imagination was running wild with Indiana Jones or maybe I really was sharing a vision from someone long since gone from this world. Either way, it was the first time I had felt such a connection with an object like that.

I was visiting with archaeologist Gary E. McKee and helping him sift dirt for small objects like the one in my hand. The gleam in his eyes and the enthusiasm in his voice told me that no matter now many digs he has been on, the passion remains. And he could see the same look in my eyes and hear the same passion in my voice.

We were connecting with the past. We were here and now and there and then all at once. The bug bit me. He knew it. I knew it. We touched the past and will share it with future generations. Few can cross time that way. I did and it has changed me forever.

End of school brings respect for teachers

Last Thursday was a small milestone 16 years in the making. I drove my youngest child, Colton, to school at Taylor Ray Elementary in Rosenberg.

It was the last day since my oldest child entered school in 1998 that I will have a youngster in elementary school. That’s a lot of parent-teacher meetings, Christmas programs, fundraisers, field trips and report cards.

I’m proud to say that all four of my children have done far better in school than I ever did. This is especially true for Colton, who is a straight-A student in the Gifted and Talented program and a member of student council and the safety patrol. He gets more “A”s on a single report card than I got on all of my elementary school report cards combined – and back then we went through the sixth grade, so I had an extra year on him.

As a youngster I really hated school. As an adult 31 years removed from high school, I really hate that I didn’t engage more in my studies. I love learning. I enjoy life’s lessons and immersing myself in topics of interest.

As I look back over the years, I can see what a huge difference teachers made in my life. I can see which ones were just collecting a paycheck and which ones were really devoted to their calling. Do not be mistaken – teaching is a calling and a noble one at that.

If I had to pick one single teacher who had the most profound impact on my life, I doubt I could limit it to just one. If I had to name one, it would be Randy Montgomery, my science teacher at Faith Baptist School. Not only did he teach me how to learn, he made learning fun and the subject fascinating.

My sixth grade teacher, Robert Easterday, was fun and passionate and helped his students discover their creative side. I learned from him that the only limits we have in life are the ones we place on ourselves. Unfortunately it took a couple decades for that lesson to sink in.

While many teachers encouraged reading, none was better than my fifth grade teacher, Pat Weaver. She could read stories and tell tales that lit the imagination like moonlight on a mountain lake. In high school, Lois Anderson inspired a bored typing student to become an award-winning student newspaper photographer and professional journalist.

My college advisor, Richard Joyce, managed to get the fundamentals of the profession drilled into the sleepy, near comatose head of mine. I think he had the most difficult job of all my teachers, but whatever he did worked.

With the end of school and graduation now behind us, I’m reminded of the significant role teachers play in society. Though I’ve teased them about it, I’ve never begrudged them for having summers off and long Christmas breaks.

Not everything works on a 9 to 5 schedule and to be sure the most influential and important work ever done in the world didn’t happen on a punch clock job.

While this marks the end of a long era of elementary schools for my family, it is far from the end of education. If all goes well this fall, half my family will be in college and my two youngest in the junior high/middle school years. That leaves just little ole me learning from the laboratory of life and wondering why I didn’t become a teacher. I could use a nice summer break.

Celebrating a life well lived

I remember the scene vividly. I must have been 4 or 5 years old and was talking with my mother in the back yard while she was hanging clothes on the line to dry.

Mom had been telling me how Jesus was going to return someday and call all those who believe in him up to Heaven. Being the clever little fellow I was, I figured out that all I had to do was stay close to her and then I could grab her leg and I would be lifted up with her when the time came.

“I’m afraid it doesn’t work like that,” she said. “You have to believe in Jesus for yourself. No one can do it for you.”

That memory played over and over in my mind on the morning of May 27. I could see my mother, young and pretty with that reassuring smile on her face. Before my eyes, my mother lay in her hospital bed; disconnected from life support and gasping for the last few breaths her 74-year-old body would ever take.

I gently stroked her leg. Dad held her hand. My brothers, sister-in-law, daughter, niece and a pastor from her church prayed for her and encouraged her to move on and find peace in the arms of Jesus. With all of us gathered around, she drew her final breath and her heart made its final beats.

The whole experience was surreal. Just 12 hours earlier, I got a call from my dad saying that my mother’s time was near. A short time later my brother called with flight information. A few hours later I was flying out of Houston for Denver.

Mom had surgery three weeks earlier to remove scar tissue from a surgery that had nearly killed her 14 years ago. Her frail body was not strong enough to recover from the operation. Her lungs were too weak for her to come off the ventilator. Other complications arose. The last four days she had been mostly comatose under sedation as her body slowly failed her.

The morning I arrived, however, she was bright and alert. Though she couldn’t speak, her face lit up when she saw me enter her room. One at a time we all said our goodbyes to her. We thanked her. We loved her. We each let her go. When she was removed from the ventilator, her eyes wondered from person to person, her own way of saying goodbye.

As she began to drift, her gaze turned upward to the back of the room. I looked but didn’t see anything. She saw something, and it brought her peace. You could see it in her face. There was peace and there was love and then she was gone.

At her funeral, stories were shared of a selfless woman who gave everything she had to her family and her friends. Our home had been one of refuge for several in hard times. It was a place where there were no strangers. Mom was always looking out for everyone else, always placing her needs behind theirs.

One thing that surprised me, but shouldn’t have, was the number of people who came out for the visitation and funeral. There were so many people from so many walks of her life. I made the comment that it was like Facebook, but real. Scores of people that I had only seen online or not at all for 14 years or more were suddenly surrounding us, laughing, crying, and celebrating a life well lived.

It was beautiful. Where I had expected pain, hurt and loss I instead found joy and peace. Sure, we grieve and miss her, but more than anything there was contentment that she left on her own terms, surrounded by her family and shrouded in love.

I knew as I held her leg when she left to be with Jesus that this parting is temporary and someday we will share with her in paradise.

God bless you Donna Jean Southern! May you rest in peace until we meet again.

Facebook has changed the way we live

Facebook has undeniably become one of the biggest game changers of this young century.

Even if you do not have an account, ever visited the website or even know what “like” and “share” are all about, your life has still been impacted by the social media. Here at The Sealy News, we use it to tease stories on our website and to share breaking news. It’s also a tool for communicating directly with readers.

As someone who has lived in five different regions of the country and who has family coast to coast, it is a great way to stay connected to those who are important in my life. It has also been a way to make friends with similar interests.

Those who do not understand Facebook call it a time waster and a deterrent to productivity. The paradox is that as much as it connects us with people, it takes time away from those around us. It can be a huge distraction from the here and now.

On the flip side, news and information travels faster and has a broader reach on Facebook than any other media. At the same time, rumors, misinformation and flat-out lies spread just as fast. So do jokes, pictures, words of inspiration, praises and prayers, and so on. Learning how to manage content and discern information can be tricky.

I’ve been able to use Facebook to find and contact sources for stories. Just recently I had breakfast with a friend from high school whom I haven’t seen in nearly 30 years. That reunion would never have happened without Facebook. My daughter, Heather, recently returned from a semester studying abroad in Italy. She kept a diary on Facebook for family and friends to follow. As a parent, it helped tremendously to bridge the time and distance.

One thing you have to keep in mind about Facebook, however, is that you are not the consumer, but the product. Without the pictures and information we share on Facebook, it has nothing. No matter how tight you clamp down on your privacy, Facebook still makes its money by selling information to advertisers. That way they can target their ads to your specific interests.

Of course Facebook isn’t the only one to do this. Most major websites do. Facebook is just the most obvious. While having your information shared like that may seem ominous and disconcerting, it is nothing new. Advertisers and businesses have been doing this long before the Internet came along, you just didn’t know it.

Even if you’re not on the Internet, you need to know and understand that your information is bought and sold every day without your knowledge or consent. It’s been that way all of your life. It will be that way long after you are gone.

Getting back to Facebook, I find that I have a real love-hate relationship with it. I am clearly and willingly addicted to it. I spend much more time on it than I should. It’s a great source of connectedness, information and entertainment. On the other hand, at times I just get tired of all the garbage on it that you have to sort through to get what you want. I don’t like spending so much time there when there is so much more to life to get out and enjoy.

During those times I do get out and experience real life, I find an urge to rush back to my computer and share those events with all my family and friends on Facebook. That is the new norm in today’s world. Whether on Facebook, Twitter, or any other social media website, it is the way we connect and communicate with the widest range of people.

For better or for worse, we are wed to social media ’til death do us part or the next big social game-changer comes along.