on nurturing women

Aunt EloDean

I attended my Aunt EloDean Herzogs' funeral today.  (03-23-2011)  In the last 12 months, I have lost three important women in my upbringing.  Aunt Colleen Wildman, my mother and now Aunt Elo.  Count yourself lucky if you have been raised by good women.  

At work today I remembered a quote from Robert F. Kennedy.  He was in Indianapolis Indiana the day Martin Luther King was murdered.  He was running for president at the time.  He was urged by his friends not to go to the rally.  It was in a very rough neighborhood.  In part of his speech he quoted the following.

'My favorite poet was Aeschylus. He once wrote: 

"Even in our sleep, pain which cannot forget 

falls drop by drop upon the heart, 

until, in our own despair, against our will, comes wisdom 

through the awful grace of God." '

You may ask, what does this have to do with nurturing women?

 I am not sure. 

No one would say my Mom was a saint, but she was not a devil.

She was a girl that married too young and grew up with her children.

I remained deeply angry with my mother until a year ago this last month, when after my Aunt Collen's  funeral.   I went and had a long talk with her.  I told her as child I was deeply hurt but as a parent I understood her actions.

As I continue to mourn my mothers death, I think of the many lessons her actions helped me to learn,

Grace, Mercy, Love, Compassion,  Patience, Percipience.

For years I have hated Mother's Day.  It was not a good day to be around me or in my Home.  Listening to the hymn "Love at Home" would me screaming from the room.  a little like fingernails on the chalk board.  

Offering to carry my Mother's burden lightened my own.  Offering her Mercy granted me the Grace to grow.

My mother spent the last years of her life in a self imposed prison of diabetes and obesity.  After we spoke last year my mother's spirits lifted and she endured better the time that remained.    

Voyle Bassett

What does this have to do with Aeschylus, I am not sure other then now I am free.  Mother's day will be much happier around my house this year and I requested "Love at Home" as the closing song at my mother's funeral.

Goodbye Mom, I love you and look forward to seeing you gain

per·cip·i·ent  (pr-sp-nt)
1. adj. Having the power of perceiving, especially perceiving keenly and readily.
2. noun. One that perceives.

Robert F. Kennedy on the death Martin Luther King

Ladies and Gentlemen - I'm only going to talk to you just for a minute or so this evening. Because...

I have some very sad news for all of you, and I think sad news for all of our fellow citizens, and people who love peace all over the world, and that is that Martin Luther King was shot and was killed tonight in Memphis, Tennessee.

Martin Luther King dedicated his life to love and to justice between fellow human beings. He died in the cause of that effort. In this difficult day, in this difficult time for the United States, it's perhaps well to ask what kind of a nation we are and what direction we want to move in.

For those of you who are black - considering the evidence evidently is that there were white people who were responsible - you can be filled with bitterness, and with hatred, and a desire for revenge.

We can move in that direction as a country, in greater polarization - black people amongst blacks, and white amongst whites, filled with hatred toward one another. Or we can make an effort, as Martin Luther King did, to understand and to comprehend, and replace that violence, that stain of bloodshed that has spread across our land, with an effort to understand, compassion and love.

For those of you who are black and are tempted to be filled with hatred and mistrust of the injustice of such an act, against all white people, I would only say that I can also feel in my own heart the same kind of feeling. I had a member of my family killed, but he was killed by a white man.

But we have to make an effort in the United States, we have to make an effort to understand, to get beyond these rather difficult times.

My favorite poet was Aeschylus. He once wrote: "Even in our sleep, pain which cannot forget falls drop by drop upon the heart, until, in our own despair, against our will, comes wisdom through the awful grace of God."

What we need in the United States is not division; what we need in the United States is not hatred; what we need in the United States is not violence and lawlessness, but is love and wisdom, and compassion toward one another, and a feeling of justice toward those who still suffer within our country, whether they be white or whether they be black.
(Interrupted by applause)

So I ask you tonight to return home, to say a prayer for the family of Martin Luther King, yeah that's true, but more importantly to say a prayer for our own country, which all of us love - a prayer for understanding and that compassion of which I spoke. We can do well in this country. We will have difficult times. We've had difficult times in the past. And we will have difficult times in the future. It is not the end of violence; it is not the end of lawlessness; and it's not the end of disorder.

But the vast majority of white people and the vast majority of black people in this country want to live together, want to improve the quality of our life, and want justice for all human beings that abide in our land.
(Interrupted by applause)
Let us dedicate ourselves to what the Greeks wrote so many years ago: to tame the savageness of man and make gentle the life of this world.
Let us dedicate ourselves to that, and say a prayer for our country and for our people. Thank you very much. (Applause)
Robert F. Kennedy - April 4, 1968

http://www.historyplace.com/speeches/rfk-mlk.htm