Seussian Graduation Speech

Some dreams are quite big and others quite small
Still others are medium-sized if at all
Some dreams can be easy, some dreams can be tough
And windfalls do happen, strangely enough.

Some dream to be doctors or teachers or vets
To captain a boat or pilot big jets
Some dream to be famous and work on the stage
Some even happy to make minimum wage

Some dreams may be fleeting, a whim if you will
And others take whole lives long to fulfill
Some dreams start in childhood for “when we grow up”
Some are never fulfilled by the time we’re “toe up”

Today is for dreamers – nineteen dreamers in all
From different backgrounds, and ages, some short and some tall
Their paths all so different, at school became one
The journey to be LMTS had begun

Now to learn what you have to, New York State has a rule
1000 hours in an approved school
In courses like Myology, Path, A&P
They’ve learned muscle and bone and diseases you see

They’ve learned lots of massage too, like Swedish and such
And treatments, shiatsu, and all kinds of touch
They’ve done hours in clinic and out at events
In schools and the airport, outside under tents

They’ve bonded with teachers and staff and each other
As sister to sister and brother to brother
In between classes –on breaks and at lunch
Laughter flows through the school – they’re a jovial bunch

Sharing shoulders to cry on – celebrating good grades
Listening to stories, and pranks that were played
Complaining at times – and studying hard
Lots of hugs, and hanging out in the courtyard

Though now family and friends, were strangers that first day
Not believing that they’d be so close in this way
So they cross the finish line as one – side by side
Receiving diplomas – beaming with pride

Without further ado – on the school’s behalf
From faculty, former students and staff
Remember in all your massage therapy plans
Use good body mechanics- save your back and hands!

Some fun Limericks

Schrödinger
My Schrödinger’s cat can’t be dead
There’s no truth to that – not a shred
I’m sure I heard purring
In the box there was stirring
Guess I’ll go buy a small dog instead

BF Skinner
Skinner’s box – bad idea from the first
Raising kids in a crate was the worst
Though his daughter’s all right
She hates places too tight
But with corners is rather well-versed

Perfection?
If I had a brain like Al Einstein
If Rockefeller’s riches could be mine
And had Marilyn’s beauty
And J-Lo’s booty
Why…I’d have one hell of a time!

Lost? Lenore...hmmm
Lenore wasn’t lost...no, she fled
With Poe? She was better off dead
His sick twisted mind
Was too grim for her kind
So she quit him while she was ahead

Childhood Dreams

Little girls dream of getting married. Big white dresses. Tiaras. Bridesmaids. Flowers. We see it as our chance to be a princess, if only for a day.

Of course, when you’re a little girl, you imagine that day will come when you’re in your early 20’s, fresh out of college. You imagine a darling little house with a white picket fence. You see two children playing in the yard. Flowers and a tire swing. A dog named Rover and a cat named Fluffy. In this dream, you know the recipe for every delicious cookie and cake. You have the magic words to make boo-boos go away, and can calm hurt feelings with a brush of your hand through your child’s hair. Basically, you’re Donna Reed, Doris Day and Florence Nightingale all rolled into one. Oh, and you look like Marilyn Monroe.

But life happens, and it’s rarely just like your childhood dreams. Sometimes it’s better.

As a child you cannot imagine that joy can follow tragedy. You cannot fathom that from great sorrow, can come great joy. It is beyond comprehension that when life beats you down, you will ever soar at great heights again. Yet, that is exactly what happens. The soul is a resilient thing. We are multi-faceted. We have the ability to learn from the past, and even hold onto it, while we move forward to new and exciting things. We can smile again, laugh again, even love again.

As Psalm 30 says, “For his anger lasts only a moment, but his favor lasts a lifetime; weeping may remain for a night, but rejoicing comes in the morning.”

As children we cannot see that our “perfect” dream is actually flawed. That without having been through tough times, we can never truly be grateful for the good ones. That without loss, we sometimes do not learn to appreciate what we have. We have been through tough times. We have been through excruciating times. We have been through times that we thought we could not survive. We are still here. We are smiling, laughing, loving again. The people and circumstances of our past are not forgotten, for they have formed us to be who we are today. They are part of the fabric of our being.

In Ecclesiastes we learn that…
There is a time for everything,
and a season for every activity under heaven:
a time to be born and a time to die,
a time to plant and a time to uproot,
a time to kill and a time to heal,
a time to tear down and a time to build,
a time to weep and a time to laugh,
a time to mourn and a time to dance,
a time to scatter stones and a time to gather them,
a time to embrace and a time to refrain,
a time to search and a time to give up,
a time to keep and a time to throw away,
a time to tear and a time to mend,
a time to be silent and a time to speak,
a time to love and a time to hate,
a time for war and a time for peace.

God made everything to have balance, an opposite side. Through this we learn to recognize the value of all that we are given, all that we earn, and all that is done. We learn to be grateful for reality.

As a little girl, dreams may have been other than reality, but in reality there are dreams we could never have imagined. And sometimes our childhood dreams enmesh with our reality, allowing for big white dresses, tiaras, flowers, bridesmaids, and feeling like a princess. And in those intertwined dreams are happiness, laughter, and love.

Fireflies in a Jar

I was walking to my car after class last night, and there were thousands of fireflies on campus.

I got to thinking about them.

Remember when you were a kid, and it was so exciting to catch a firefly? We put them in mayonnaise jars with holes punched through the lids. We'd lay in bed and watch them in there as we fell asleep. There's something about fireflies that inspires dreaming.

Then I got to thinking about the flip side. Remember in the morning when you woke up and you had a jar full of black bugs? Somehow, overnight, the magic escaped through those nail-punched holes. Could these creepy crawly things TRULY be those magical floating lights from the night before?

Somehow little girls who cry "get it off me, get it off me" about gnats and houseflies and such don't mind catching fireflies at night. There's something magical about the idea of the floating glow. The yellow glow of now-it's-there-now-it's-gone. Trying to capture that little bit of wonder. The amazement of a living being emitting light.

We, as children, are sure that lightning bugs are created just for us - for our fascination. We are willing to hold an insect in order to imagine fairies and mystical, magical things.

Sometimes, as grown-ups, we forget the magic of that little insect. Just like hijacked mayonnaise jars, we let the magic escape through the little holes we punch in our lives.

But, just for a moment or two last evening, I was an enchanted little girl again.

Transplantation

Every organ transplant has a donor and a recipient. In some cases, the donor only sacrifices an organ, or part of one. In others, they are donors because they have lost everything, and a family has made a decision. In both cases, an organ is harvested, then transplanted into the recipient. Then the work begins.

With organ transplant, there are a team of doctors, nurses, and other medical professions that are there around the clock to insure that the transplanted organ survives – that the recipient survives. With family transplant, there’s mom.

When a family gets transplanted there are no anti-rejection drugs. There are no teams of professionals standing by to help at the earliest sign of failure or distress. There are no text books to follow, no IVs, no articles written in the Journal of American Medicine. When a family gets transplanted, a mom gets to administer the anti-rejection kisses. She gets to give hugs at the earliest sign of distress. She gets to wish that there were text books to follow or articles in Ladies’ Home Journal that would explain the best practices for a successful transplant. But she’s left to her own devices – to survive by her own wit and wisdom.

Our family? We were transplanted often. There were always new schools, new houses, new friends, new fears. There were always the wonderings of what this new place would be like. Would we fit in? Would our pets be OK with the move? How long would we be here? Was it OK to lay down roots? If we did, would they take hold?

We moved because of dad’s work. A work that I didn’t really understand until I was an adult. Dad’s work took us from Indiana to Massachusetts to Missouri back to Massachusetts and finally to New York. All by the time I was ten years old. Small wonder that one of us would ask how long we would be staying in a new house, or ask after a year if it was time to move again.

It’s hard for kids to move. They build their whole world around a relatively small universe: the classroom, the house, the neighborhood (but only as far as you could ride your bike). If it wasn’t a part of those three things, it didn’t matter much to us. If it was a part of those three things, then it was everything. Basically every few years we lost our lives – the everyday living that we had come to know. To a child – total devastation. To a mom – work beyond imagination.

Our mom was always there for us during those moves. Not only did she pack and reassure that “Yes, Cathy Quick Curl can come, too,” and “no, there are no ghosts in the new house,” and “yes, I promise you’ll make friends there,” and “Santa always knows where you are on Christmas Eve,” but she also dealt with all those fears that no one even really knew how to or were able to voice. No, we might never see certain friends again. No, we might never come back to this town. Yes, that existence was over – now a memory. Yes, it was scary. No, there was no real need to fear. Yes, mommy would be there with us every step of the way.

Our mom knew the art of the transplant. She knew how to keep a family a family, no matter where they next planted their roots. She was the queen at keeping us connected – to each other, yes, but also to our family at large – the many aunts, uncles, cousins, grandparents. Our mom was the transplant queen.

I don’t think I ever really thought about all mom sacrificed in those moves. With dad gone all the time for work, she was alone – a lot – with three small kids, and a German Shepherd. And this was before cable TV. Or cell phones. Or email. Or microwaves. Our mom made three meals a day. Our mom cleaned the whole house. She kissed the boo boos, hugged the stuffin’ out of us, and tucked us in every night. She taught us to pray. She taught us to stand up for ourselves. She taught us humility.

My mom taught me when to be silent – and when to sing.

My mom taught me that it’s OK to love – even when you’ve been hurt.

My mom taught me that no matter where you live – you’re loved.

My mom still teaches me – all time. Patience. Perseverance. Truth. Caution. Heroism.

My mom’s the best transplant team a kid could ever need.

Show Tunes and Car Trips

It wasn’t until I was much older that I realized our family was different. We sang. Not only did we sing, but we sang Broadway.

I was eight years old and knew all the words to “Sixteen Going on Seventeen” from The Sound of Music. I knew that “Grant Avenue” was in San Francisco. I knew that Maria and Tony were in love, and would always be in love “Somewhere.”

I remember learning from dad that there must be something “the matter with kids today.” And that Hugo and Kim were pinned.

I learned that “Somewhere over the Rainbow” you could actually see the bluebirds that, to this day, I’ve only seen on greeting cards.

I knew that you could “Climb Every Mountain” and that whenever I felt afraid I could “whistle a happy tune” to calm the fears. Why do you think I learned to whistle when I was five? To keep the ghosts and spiders at bay!

I knew what all the “favorite things” were – even if I didn’t know what schnitzel was. And I knew how to sing the solfeggio system before I knew it was one. Do-re-mi!

I figured that men were always late to everything. After all they couldn’t even get to the “church on time!”

I could dream of an island called “Bali H’ai.” I could hope that the next time I was sick a “spoonful of sugar” might help the medicine go down. I didn’t know what “Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious” was – but I knew how to sing it!

I knew that life could be a Cabaret and that it was good if you lived “In America.”

I knew all the words to Jesus Christ Superstar.

Yes, our car was alive with the sound of music. Who could ask for anything more?

Dr. Who and TV Dinners

Remember those TV dinners of yesteryear? The ones that were actually in foil containers with foil covers? They came in a box that you would tear open. Next you would carefully peel back a portion of the foil covering – usually over the dessert part. Then you had to wait for what seemed like HOURS while it baked in an actual convection oven – not a microwave.

Mom would pull it out of the oven and take the rest of the foil off while you peered over the edge of the counter to make sure that none of the peas or corn got into the mini apple cake in the middle top compartment.

Remember eying that cake while mom made you eat the Salisbury steak and potatoes? Or the meatloaf? Or the fried chicken? There were no more than two or three bites of cake, but man, you downed that steak and potatoes to be able to have it.

Our mom set up TV trays in the living room. She would carry each TV dinner into the living room and place them in front of us on the trays.

Now, it always seemed to be the 6:00 hour when we’d be eating, so we’d either have to watch the news (which we thought was a TOTAL snooze) or PBS. If we ate early enough, before the news hour, we might get to watch ZOOM or the Electric Company. Most nights, though, it was Dr. Who.

Dr. Who with the big nose and crazy curly hair. Dr. Who with the long coat and striped scarf. With a British accent. With all the answers.

I never could figure out how he could fit an entire ship inside a phone booth.

I never understood how they could cook all those different foods at the same temperature for the same amount of time and have a tasty little meal.

It never occurred to me how we could fit so much fun into TV dinners and Dr. Who.

Thanks, Mom.

A Waspy Thing

I stepped on a wasp
In my own bedroom door
It stung my right foot – made me daft
Because then, for good measure,
And without meaning to
I stomped it again with my left

Now arches, I’m told
Should not arch out
But arch up with a graceful high peak
But my feet weren’t so grand
They arched out all the same
The pain really making me weak

Now my shoes wouldn’t fit
And I was crying all right
Looks like we’d not make it to church
So we iced both my feet
Carried me down the stairs
On the living room sofa to perch

A hearty thing is a wasp
To be able to sting
Not one foot, but both feet – that’s two
But he’ll not sting again
Those two were his last
For the last stomp quite turned him to goo.