Living History

My mother has come for a visit.  She normally lives with my sister, but my sister is away for a few days so my mother is visiting.

As I sat on the couch next to her I am always reminded of how odd it is.  Here is a woman who has the most incredible history, and here she sits.  She is 83 years old, and it is truly amazing that she is here at all.  As I grew up I never fully grasped what she had gone through. 

Here is a woman who was orphaned at a very early age and separated from her siblings.  Here is a woman who was drafted into the German Army at 14.  This was in 1940.  Not a good time to be in any army but she is the definition of a survivor.  She was in Dresden when it was bombed.  She has told me about running through the city as incendiary bombs were being dropped.  She told me about seeing babies ripped from the arms of their mothers because they were pulled into the firestorm.  A firestorm creates its own winds and the "violent, erratic wind drafts suck movables into the fire, while people and animals caught close or under the fire die for lack of available oxygen."  She told me about seeing the animals from the zoo running around and a tiger eating someone.  She spoke about a detached head rolling to her feet.  She said she had to take the clothes and shoes off of dead bodies as her clothes had been burned away.  She talked about going to the river and seeing the water on fire.  People on fire jumping into the water only to continue burning.

I've read Slaughterhouse 5 and realize that what Vonnegut experienced was mild when compared to those in the midst of it.  My mother didn't speak of this often.  When I was really young I just knew that my mother got a little odd around February 13th.  I knew that she couldn't sleep with her door closed and always needed a nightlight.  How can people survive that intact? 

She returned to her army job soon after the bombing.  Her job was as a telephone operator for Hitler.  She often saw him.  She said he was crazy.  Everyone knew he was crazy.  They also knew they had to keep quiet or they would be dead.  It's easy to say what one would do in that situation - especially when not actually ever facing the situation.  Humans have a great will to survive. 

My mother was captured by the Americans and was in a POW camp.  She escaped from the camp and was captured by the Russians only a few months later.  When I was young we would go swimming and I always wondered about the scars on her thighs.  They were an odd shape and there were a number of them.  Eventually she told me what they were.  Bayonet wounds.  When she was captured by the Russians she was pinned to the ground by a particularly sadistic soldier, by his bayonet through her thigh.  

I cannot fathom going through even one of these events.  I cannot imagine the nightmares.  I've heard them as I grew up but I cannot ever really understand.  When I was 12 my mother and I went to Germany.  She had mentioned a couple of times that she had a sister, but that she had died in the War.  While we were in Hamburg my mother had the idea of looking in the phone book.  She remembered the name of a young SS officer that my Aunt had been dating.  She looked up that last name, called the number and that one phone call brought about a reunion I will never forget.  On the other end of the phone was my Aunt.  Each sister thought the other had died in the war.  Their meeting, 40 years later, was unforgettable.  Because of one phone call, I had an Aunt and my mother found her sister.  I will always remember the tearful embraces of long lost sisters. 

These are just a few snippets of her life.  In the last 10 years she has survived a stroke that did take its toll on her health - but hasn't dimmed her spirit or will to survive.  

I work as a college biology professor.  Each day I am faced with students complaining how hard their life is because they have to work 20 hours a week.  How they cannot afford the latest gadget.  There are some that don't understand why they cannot do as they want.  As I watch them on campus, as I listen to their stories, I cannot help but think of my mother and all she has witnessed and experienced in her life.  For me it puts everything in perspective.

This is why I sit on the couch next to my mother and I am just amazed that here is a person that is part of history.  The bad and the good.  If I've learned nothing else in life, I've learned that i can easily handle whatever life has in store for me.  I come from a survivor.

Time

It's been quite a while since I wrote anything in print - on paper - whatever.  It's not that I've not been thinking about things, I guess it's a matter of writing the words as the act of writing things makes them more of a reality. 

I've been thinking a lot this past year about mortality.  It's such a frightening thought to me because I love living.   No matter what the day brings, I would much rather be experiencing things.  Everyday I am so thankful for having a family (albeit small), an amazing son, friends, a roof over my head, a job, food, and health.  I've really been blessed.  Everything else that happens is whipped cream and a cherry on top.  The reason I've been thinking so much about mortality is because so many friends have passed recently.  Each one hits a bit harder - a bit closer to home. This last one was the hardest in a long time. I see so many people abusing the life they have been given that to lose a person that understood it all was hard.  It sickens me that many people don't understand the gift and opportunity they have been given.  They don't get that you make your own history and future.  I suppose teaching human biology and human anatomy doesn't help. 

Trying to teach students how amazing we are anatomically, physiologically, and any other "-ically" you want to throw in is sometimes a daunting task.  I know I can reach them - it's a matter of finding a new way.  Perhaps if I tried "texting" everyone my lectures......  Yesterday I had a student ask me if he was losing points by showing up late.  I tired to explain that  no, he wasn't losing physical points but he was losing information.  He didn't get it.  It was all about the points.  He looked at me and said "so it's no big deal."  All I could say is that it was a big deal because it was rude to throw away opportunities.  I don't think he got it.  The sad reality is that I don't think he will ever get it.

Some of my colleagues and I joke about having to dance in front of the class to get students attention.  We joke and laugh, but it is pretty close to being a reality.  When did it change? Why did it change? 

There is so much I still want to do with my life. I'm still trying to decide what I want to be when I grow up.  I pray that I have at least 50 more years to decide.  I know that I want to be that the longest living human.  I also know that I want make a mark to let people know I existed.  Jack London had it correct.

Scotland and It's People

Just three weeks ago we were walking through a field, ankle deep in sheep droppings in some places, so see some standing stones.  These stones are ancient.  More ancient than one can comprehend for someone that was born in a country that is barely over 200 years old.  In Kilmartin there are more than 350 ancient monuments within a six mile radius of the village, with 150 of them being prehistoric. These stones were put in place in 3,000BC. 

Within Kilmartin Parish Church graveyard there are the Kilmartin crosses, one 9th-10th century, the other late medieval in date.  The 9th CENTURY!!!  I find this amazing.  I got goosebumps just touching the carvings.  Many are marked by figures of warriors in contemporary dress with spears and swords, along with foliage,  figures of animals, and interlacing patterns.

I walked through Carnasserie Castle (built in the 16th century), thinking about all the history those stones witnessed.  The coat of arms of the 5th Earl of Argyll is still visible above the front entrance, with the motto DIA LE UA NDUIBHNE, "God be with O'Duine." The castle is 5 storeys.  I climbed the stairwell to the top.  What an amazing view.  I thought about the people that stood where I did - only 500 years earlier.  No one is there any longer.  No caretakers.  The moss and lichens are claiming their place amongst the stones.

What I noticed most is that lack of true understanding of the history these people have in their backyards.  Many I spoke to didn't care and didn't understand why I did.  To them it's just another pile of rocks.  Perhaps if they were born in a country without a long history they may understand. 

Getting ready

I'm desperately trying to get up the energy to get everything accomplished (written) that needs to be done before the new semester begins.  It's getting more and more difficult with each passing term.  It's getting more difficult to find ways to excite students - to show them the beauty in science - to teach them. 

Students have changed over the years.  When I started teaching (long ago), students were respectful when in lecture.  Students worked at the material presented in the laboratory.  Students didn't ask "will this be on the exam?" "Why do I have to learn this?" "Why do i need to learn all of this if I'm, joust going to be a nurse?" "Can't you just give us your lecture notes so we don't have to take notes?" "What??? You don't do PowerPoint's and give out copies of the PowerPoint's?"

No longer are many students able to loo and see things at the same time.  They cannot distinguish the minutia between one tissue and another.  They will not learn to identify changes.  They want it all handed to them and feel that education is now like any other business.  They paid their tuition therefore it is the instructors job to make sure they learn - preferably without their help.  Until this last year, never before have I had to admonish so many to stop using their phone during lecture as it is distracting to others.  Until this last year i had never actually had students have their mobile phone ring during lecture, get up, leave the room to talk, and come back in to lecture then get upset that I will not repeat what they missed. 

What is happening?  Where did things go so bassakwards?  I am thankful that I received the education that I did.  I am thankful that I learned how to look and see.  I am thankful that I was able to pass those skills on to my son.  My hope is that he will pass it on to his children (no rush there by the way) and that they will delight in learning for the sake of increasing one's knowledge and understanding of how things work and why they work as they do. 

I will always remember my college mycology professor telling me that I shouldn't go into teaching.  He told me this one week before he committed suicide.  While I do not agree with his decision - I do understand.

Welcome

Hello all - I've thought about this for a long time and finally decided to do a blog.  Perhaps no one will read it - perhaps they will - either way it doesn't matter.  It's for me.