One True Thing from Alexis Hire: Good Exists

I was fortunate to have Alexis Hire as a student in one of my 7th grade English classes three years ago. As a student who loved creative writing, who treated everyone in the school with compassion and dignity, and who always fought to understand the authenticity in situations and people, Alexis inspired many people--students and teachers alike. Now, as a sophomore, she continues her love of writing, teaching, and inspiring others. So I am very excited to share One True Thing from a past student who is a hard worker, a compassionate citizen, and a believer in the beauty of hope.

Good Exists
By Alexis Hire

Joy. Happiness. Cheer. In today’s society, where we have very real knowledge of slavery, poverty, and violence it is hard to feel these emotions sometimes. Our joy, our happiness, our cheer, it can be taken away from you in a second after receiving bad news. We become easily aggravated, upset, or mad at someone for the slightest thing. Sometimes, it isn’t even anyone’s fault; one person just becomes the tip of the iceberg for the day and you lash out at them because you are so sick and tired of everything going wrong. Admit it; we’ve all had one of those days. Face it; we’ve all had many of those days.

I have been working with children for a little over three years now. Just about every day I am doing something that revolves around children. Mondays, I teach 6^th grade religious ed, Wednesdays, I’m preparing fundraisers to raise money for children going through bone marrow transplants, Thursdays I’m mentoring my 5^th grade “little sister” for Big Brother Big Sister, and Sundays I teach 4^th grade religious ed. Any other day is up for grabs for any or all of my 10 step-nieces and nephews I gained from my mother’s marriage two years ago. 

I won’t lie; it is frustrating working with all of these children so often in my life. They don’t always listen and things almost never go as I planned them to. I get angry with them and I have even gotten to the point where I want to just walk out of the room and scream as loud as I possibly can for as long as possible. They know it, I know it. Anyone who has ever worked with or has children of their own probably knows that feeling too. The thing is that I have no greater joy than when I am with these children. I have never laughed as hard or smiled more brightly than when one of these children says or does something that only children could get away with. You know that saying, “Out of the mouths of babes”? Yeah, that’s pretty much my life.

I am a sophomore in high school. I am in a class where we talk about war and cultural groups that are being destroyed because of humanity’s selfishness. We talk about mistakes that have been made and the consequences other people have suffered. I have seen pictures of children who are suffering, watched movies that show mothers screaming, begging not for their own life to be saved, but for their children. I have studied the worst of humanity. We have talked about it and tried to make sense of it. There have been times when I’ve wanted to cry because of the hatred that I have seen/read about.  It is hard, knowing this material and then having to carry on with my life as a white, middle class American girl. I know that there are people suffering, but I know that at least for now, there’s nothing I can do. And it sucks.

Maybe that’s why I love working with kids so much. My life hasn’t been nearly as bad as some other people I know, or as many other people in the world, but it hasn’t been easy either. It sure isn’t the life I would have chosen for myself, that’s for sure.  When I see people being kind to one another, choosing the hard path to just be nice when it’s so easy to be aggravated and nasty to each other, that’s where I get my inspiration to teach, to mentor. That’s where I find my strength to keep going in this world. Because that’s the kind of person I want to be. I want my students and my “little sister”, and my step nieces and nephews to know that there are still good people in this world. I want to set the example for them that they do not have to only see bad. That there is good, too. Because there is. 

I find the good in the children I spend my time with. Sometimes with people I work with or my peers, but mostly with the children I love so much. In my life, one true thing that I have learned is to never give up hope. I know that I can’t travel around the world to help people. I know that I can’t travel around the country to help people. But I can do what I can. I can do what I’m good at. I can be an example of the good that is still in this world and show people that kindness and patience do exist. That sixteen year olds that want to spend their time with children exist. That good exists. 

Guess Who

We recently borrowed the classic game of Guess Who from the York Toy Bus, and for the past five days our house has become a veritable Guess Who Tournament Locale--which has, of course, caused me to see life through the paradigm of Guess Who. And guess what?

There are an awful lot of wonderful, kind, generous, and compassionate people all over the place--from the sidewalks here in York where Tyler and Jen and I travel (read: where we also sometimes feel kind of like aaahhh, no more sidewalks, give us something that moves fast and gets us places in less than a forty-minute walk) to the hometowns of Windsor and Sandwich where we each grew up.

In Guess Who--in case you haven't played in twenty-five years (which was my guess-whoish-gap), the object of the game is to discover your opponent's chosen person (Hans, Stephanie, Daniel, so on) by asking a series of yes or no questions. Each time you learn more information, you close the tiny little doors to cover up more people who don't fit the bill. As Tyler is still three, the game goes more like this:

Tyler: Who is the person you chose?

Daddy: I chose Hans [a perennial favorite of mine].

Tyler: Oh, okay, now let's guess who your person is! Does your person look like this? [points to Hans]

Daddy: Yes!

Tyler: Oh, cool! Now let's try to guess all the other people!

In transferring the wisdom of Guess Who to the bigger game of life, there are days when gratitude is so immense for the people who wait with gaping smiles behind so many doors.

People like Joan, an 82-year-old woman who lives one street away from us, whom Tyler and I see almost every day as we walk to the swings. Joan is often accompanied by her fraction of a dog, and she greets Tyler and I smiling. We stop and talk for five or ten minutes about the weather, about what York used to look like forty years ago--when she and her husband first moved her--and about how she doing since her husband died five months ago. Joan is a warm person who loves watching Tyler be, well, Tyler, and it's hard to fight for joy since her husband passed, but Joan wakes up every day and tries.

People like Ian, a 55-year old man who works at the Co-Op across the street and whose white-gray beard hangs almost low enough to act as a secondary broom. Ian smiles wide and talks like talking is what matters in life--asking how Tyler likes pre-school, sharing wisdom from his own years parenting two daughters, and describing the lovely places of York he recommends we visit.

People like Tom (who, when he first told me his name, I mistook for "Tub" and called him that for far longer than I should have), a man who own a small plot of land near the River Ouse and keeps hens, grows raspberries, and keeps bees to make divine honey. Tom isn't much of a talker, but he'll let Tyler bring home a fresh egg or two, taste some perfectly-ripened raspberries, and show Jen and I and Tyler his bee-keeping getup with a wide smile. Tom's wife, Maureen, once gave us two sunflowers and they grew taller than Tyler.

These people--and many more like them--I find on the good days, when the writing is going well and Tyler is behaving and sleeping at night, and it isn't raining cats, dogs, and alligators. And that's cool. But when I find these people in my path on the hard days--when Tyler has been up coughing or with nightmares, and the umpteenth rejection of a certain manuscript becomes an excruciatingly heavy load to bear, or when finances just seem too tight if we can't go for that cup of coffee I was craving...then seeing these people matters even more.

Because in the moments when little makes sense, and little feels secure, or when little things just feel, well, BIG--then seeing people like Joan, Ian, Tom (Tub), and Maureen--it becomes the difference between hope and despair.

And when--in those quiet, contemplative moments--I zoom out on life a little, and look across it rather than into only the turf I'm standing on, I see that these kinds of people have always been there. Always are there.

People like my mom and dad, Kathy and Harry Reynolds, who had their fair share of pain and obstacles raising five boys (all of us bearing our own set of problems and challenges) and the struggle to survive working jobs they might not have loved, waking up at night for hospital visits, nightmares, asthma attacks, allergy explosions, and whatever else we threw at them: they kept fighting. They worked hard to love us with all the strength they had, and they kept fighting for their marriage, too. I watch them now--taking trips, holding hands, catching a movie--and they seem to me metaphorical for going forward, even when Life knocks you down. And their mantra to me and to my brothers is inspiring: there's a place for you; keep dreaming; keep believing.

People like my in-laws, Susan and Wendell Anderson, who are some of the most generous people I know. They open up their home and make people who come by for a party, a meal, or an overnight (or a few) feel as though they're home. This past visit to America, eating Susan's divine cooking and watching all the organic, healthy stuff that goes into it, and watching Wendell teach Tyler how to be a dentist, it's beautiful to see how they give, and give, and give.

People like librarians, who chat to you when you're taking out a book, letting you know they loved it, too, and you're in for a treat.

People like fifth-grade teachers you see after a guess-whoish-length gap, who remember your name and you remember theirs, and you're suddenly over the moon about all the stuff that they taught you which you didn't always remember or realize all along.

People who simply remind us that even though life dishes out it's fair share of pain, rejection, and foiled plans, along the way there are all these doors, too. Doors behind which smiling faces--akin to Hans--are waiting to connect with you. Perhaps with a small conversation about the weather, perhaps with a raspberry or two, perhaps with a smile that sometimes helps provide the smallest crack in the veneer of despair.

I'm grateful, grateful, grateful for the presence of these people in my life, and I hope that Jen, Tyler, and myself can be a part of somebody else's game of Guess Who. I hope that the doors we open to see despair broken in our own lives help us be the kind of blessing that hides with giddy, kid-like glee behind the doors of somebody else's turn.

Maybe, after all, Philo said it best: "Be kind, for everyone you meet is engaged in a battle." And maybe Jesus said it even better than that, "Love your neighbor as yourself." I don;t know if Philo or Jesus ever played guess who, but I'll venture my own guess and say if not, they'd love it.

Because guess what? Love matters, and it matters in the tiniest ways we can't even begins to imagine. Big acts of great love, yes, but also the tiny acts of love that might otherwise seem inconsequential. They never are: every microscopic act of love strikes a blow to the hard ground of despair. And it isn't long before the frozen soil cracks, and we find that we can now plant where we once wept.