The Smile In Her Eyes

The Bible says, “From dust we came and to dust we shall return.” I don’t remember it saying anything about completely losing your mind first. Why can’t we all just die? In the sunset of our lives--when days seem like minutes and minutes like seconds--why must we spend our last waking moments scraping every crevice of our mind for a thought or projection to remind us of a more meaningful existence?

I watch my mama’s brow furrow in confusion. She searches for meaning in the same blue eyes she fell in love with the day she brought me home. I can’t help but study her gaze for any traces of recollection, perhaps not necessarily looking for the memory itself, but rather for that familiar loving expression.

Everything about Dogwood seems ready to expunge what vestigial memories of me she has left. The pastel laminate visitor badges they give you on the way in. The hand-sanitizer stations every twenty-five feet. The slimy Jello for desert. The care-givers dressed in all white, roaming the halls with empty faces; more like prison guards than nurses.

But then I sit here, spoon-feeding her some undercooked peas, trying to spur conversation. “How are the peas, mama?” Nothing. I persist. “That’s a pretty shirt, mama. Did Betsy give that to you?” Still nothing.

I can’t help but hope that, at some point, my face will mean something to her. But it doesn’t; and I lose hope. She sits and nervously strokes the wrinkles of her brown corduroy pants. It seems as if she anticipates my departure. It’s the first time I have seen her in several years, and it very well could be the last.

I wheel her back to her room, arduously pull her up and onto her bed. The confused and pained expression on her face doesn’t change. I look up at my husband and my son, preparing mentally to say goodbye, when I hear a word spoken that my ears cannot believe. I heard my name in my mother’s familiar tone. I look over at her, and she’s looking at me with a rare smile in her eyes. I recognize it from when I was a little girl. And try as I might, I cannot find the strength to hold back the tears.

For one brief moment, I had that connection with her that I’d traveled so far to have. For one brief moment, I think I saw my mama again. I could almost smell her homemade whole wheat waffles! The moment soon passed, though, and my sobs became sniffles. But I wiped away the tears and snot, and smiled. Because I knew at that moment, that I loved her for who she was to me. And no disease could ever take that away.

To Go Out Ugly

I will write in my journal ‘til the ink runs dry

and I'm left scratching an empty quill against paper

an abhorrent ellipsis mocking my thinning hair.

I wear my skin like a sweater

One sopping wet

after being shoved into the pool in my front yard.

All I wanna do is peel it off

jump back in the pool

and go deeper.

Deeper.

Deeper ‘til the woes of reality are muffled

cloaked by submerged tranquility

and the sting of chlorine in my eyes

fixated on the faces above

who would trap me.

Truthfully, there is no pool.

Only a hole

a ten-foot hole.

Leaden by my sweater

I sit at its bottom

burrowing my painted toes into the dirt.

I look up at the stars wishing.

Wishing for a cure

while the pages in my journal, ellipsis and all

are cooked under the smolder of a slow death.

Departmental Efficiency

We are all too familiar with the frustration of scurrying to the Payroll office on Friday to pick up our check before they close at noon, only to find the door closed, locked, and “not a creature stirring”, while our watches suspiciously display 11:51...AM. Like a balloon losing air as it flutters around the room, so our deflated excitement and anticipation at getting paid causes us to want to kick open the doors of the Administration Building and scream at the top of our lungs. And as we walk back to our dorm room - face to the ground - we can almost feel that providential slip of paper clutched in our hand. We lust over that vestigial feeling of financial security as we wonder to ourselves, “What would Suze Orman do?”

What can be done to prevent such a necessitous situation? What we need to do is pinpoint what the problem really is. Though, we are not pinning the tail on the donkey, here part of the problem is obvious: a true lack of customer service. Many times, when students and staff workers are expected to meet halfway to solve issues, financial, records, etc., the student is left standing at a fork in the road with no signs of direction.

We shouldn’t rule out other possible factors that are contributing to the issue at hand. First, we students are not immune from irresponsibility. We are expected to do our part so that our administrative staff can adequately assist us. Students not caring enough to show up to appointments with financial advisors reasonably prepared with pertinent questions/concerns or necessary documentation no doubt adds to the confusion.

Secondly, a question that we should contemplate is whether Administration is sufficiently staffed to meet the growing needs of the student body? A circulating joke on campus is that if all the student workers quit for a day, the school would shut down. A simplified dialogue between one of our students and a financial advisor is evidence of a possible shortage of trained professionals available to help us: “I filled out all the paper work I need for CalGrants; why am I not getting the money that I was told I would get?” “I don’t know. Why don’t you call them?” “Um, my job is to be a student right now. What’s yours?”

I don’t want my words or the overall mood of this article to be misunderstood. There are numerous staff working within our Administration that have been unbelievably helpful in guiding me throughout my college career here at La Sierra and I am profoundly grateful for their support and dedication to student success. However, what is alarming to me, even as I write this, is that this financial advisor in the aforementioned scenario - unless he/she was having an exceptionally bad day - had the mentality that this tender-aged student possessed the time, knowledge and experience to figure out for themselves problems that an advisor like themselves in this position is paid to solve.

This collection of reasons feeding into the problems we now face does not negate the importance of the daily common courtesy that needs to be shown when interacting with others, both as professionals and as students. The staff cannot be expected to do all of the grunt work. While I encourage students to exude a certain degree of patience and understanding when dealing with a likely swamped administrator, I also urge them prepare for themselves as much as they can to ease the process. But, I also encourage the staff working within Administration to take pride in their work. A smile or an open ear can go a long way to calm the nerves of a stressed out student who may not be certain how they will pay for their education. Finally, I push for administrators to be accommodating to the students not only as paying customers, but also as members of the same LSU family.

Precious: Based on the Novel 'Push' by Sapphire

The story of "Precious" Jones (Gabourey Sidibe) is set in 1987 Harlem, New York, as it portrays the turbulent life of a 16-year-old girl stuck in junior high school, pregnant with her second child and living in a home as abusive in every way as can be imagined.

It is clear at the beginning of the film that Precious is undertandably disatisfied with her current situation, so we can see that the film will take us on a journey of self-discovery that will hopefully see this young character liberated to a healthier environment.

We can see throughout this film how the emotional and verbal abuse delivered so effectively by Precious' mother, Mary (Mo'Nique), can work towards the detriment of one's psyche. We see Precious' (perhaps forced) positive attitude at the beginning of the film transform into a form of self-loathing that is purely gut-wrenching. The audience witnesses a tearful Precious, with pencil in hand, break down when she is asked by her teacher, Ms. Rain (Paula Patton), to write in her journal about her seemingly crumbling life.

Patton, reminiscent of a young Whitney Houston in The Preacher's Wife, exudes such a sweet, yet determined demeanor with her students. Among her students, Ms. Rain pays special focus to Precious and her progress, both academically and emotionally.

In a climactic scene, in which Precious and her new born baby boy named Abdul return home, audience members sit back in their seats as they anticipate what Mary, portrayed here sitting calmly in a chair while smoking a cigarrette, will do to this "precious" new life. In the process of throwing a glass cup at the back of Precious' head, Mary drops baby Abdul carelessly on the floor. Precious, in a determined rage, physically overcomes her mother, takes her baby, and leaves for good.

After Precious begins to get her life on track, Mary agrees to sit down with Precious and a social worker, Mrs. Weiss (portrayed by Mariah Carrey in a surprisingly fulnerable role), to work out the future of their welfare. In this emotionally loaded scene, Mo'Nique shocks the audience with a brilliant portrayal of an emotionally broken mother, desperate to keep her daughter, but more importantly, her welfare checks. It is at this juncture in the film that we get to finally see into the character of Mary and why she hates Precious so much.  

I was satisfied with the ending, as Precious not only freed herself of the environment that was bringing her down, but found a true appreciation for herself. This self-discovery, however, was something that was evidenced at the beginning of the film; she just lacked the tools to really apply these feelings to her own life--to allow herself to live her life out from under the thumb of her mother's condescention and abuse.

Way Out

"We may insist as much as we like that the human intellect is weak in comparison with human instincts, and be right in doing so. But nevertheless there is something peculiar about this weakness. The voice of the intellect is a soft one, but it does not rest until it has gained a hearing. Ultimately, after endlessly repeated rebuffs, it succeeds. This is one of the few points in which one may be optimistic about the future of mankind."

-Sigmund Freud, The Future of an Illusion

Ethics Without the Moral Code

"That girls are raped, that two boys knife a third,
Were axioms to him, who'd never heard
Of any world where promises were kept,
Or one could weep because another wept."

-W. H. Auden

Play Your Cards Right

Life is a game of whist. From unknown sources
The cards are shuffled and the hands are dealt.
Blind are our efforts to control the forces
That though unseen are no less strongly felt.
I do not like the way the cards are shuffled,
But still I like the game and want to play
And through the long, long night, I play unruffled
The cards I get until the break of day.