REFLECTIONS ON LIFE –DECEMBER 2019
ABSOLUTELY EVERYTHING IS CONNECTED
Since my last
Reflections were sent out in November, many of you have contacted me asking
whom I am supporting to fill the vacancy in Congress since Elijah’s death. I have not yet decided. I will send out another special message when
I do.
I have two major
criteria for my decision. I believe it
is very important that our next representative in Congress lives in Baltimore City
One of the
candidates who is campaigning to fill this seat is my neighbor, State Delegate
Terri Hill. I made my decision to leave
public office in March of 2014 after the death of my grandson, Zach, in March
of 2014, I then invited Terri to visit
me in my home just down the street from hers.
Over the years, I had known Terri’s mom and her sister Donna who did
such excellent work on behalf of social, economic, and environmental justice in
the Maryland Attorney General’s office.
I got to know Terri when she offered to help in my last campaign for
office in 2010. I had not yet told
anyone but my family and a few very close friends that I was leaving. I did tell Terri and told her I thought she
would make a good member of the Maryland House of Delegates and that if she
decided to run, I would help her and give her access to all of my files, lists
and info I had gathered in my 30 years in public office, an offer I had never
made to anyone else. After thinking it over for a few weeks, she got back in
touch with me and said “yes”. I have
been very pleased with Terri’s priorities in office and believe she has served
us who live in District 12 quite well.
In addition to my
strong belief that Elijah’s successor should be from Baltimore City
here in Howard County
and Maryland Columbia
REFLECTIONS ON HOME IN COLUMBIA
My husband,
Lloyd, who serves as the proofreader and science/finance fact checker for these
monthly Reflections, requested that he be the author of the opening paragraph
this month. I said “yes”. His work
follows:
"Now that
winter is here, the view of the sky thru the windows above our bed’s headboard
is much different than it is the rest of the year. The leaves are gone from the trees, giving us
a panoramic view of the heavens and all in between. From six in the morning, when the wind is flowing
from the northwest, the parade of airplanes taking off from BWI adds a bit of
travel lust to our still-sleepy brains.
When we see/hear the planes, we know that the morning hours will be
clear and, probably cold. It’s a welcome
weather predictor. (In bad weather,
planes generally take off to the southeast.)
In fair weather, hundreds of planes a day fly directly over our house
heading almost due west from BWI’s two-mile-long main runway. To reach us, 12 miles from the airport, a
plane takes an average of three minutes travelling about 250 MPH and climbing
to 7-8K feet in altitude as it passes over.
We enjoy their transit although many living much closer to the airport
are disturbed by the noise." (It’s
not too difficult to detect that I didn’t write that technical paragraph, is
it?)
Today is the last
day of 2019. I can’t help but wonder
whether the cardinals, feeding from the birdfeeder on our back deck outside the
window by the kitchen table where we are having our breakfast of cereal, milk,
and fruit, are aware of that. Clearly
their lives are not guided by the Gregorian calendar as are ours. Although I would not be at all surprised to
learn that they are aware at some level that my birthday, December 21, is the
shortest day of the year according to the that calendar.
* * *
Shortly before Christmas we had very big and very happy family
news. Zach’s sister, Julia, is engaged
to be married. Chris and John love Julia’s future husband, Chad
The director of
the Howard County Historical Society, Shawn Gladden, has asked me, as the first
woman county executive in Maryland
Please join us: January 10, at 3pm, the Old Post Office at the
top of Main Street Ellicott City . It is fitting that
this is the building where Elijah Cummings, a champion of women’s rights, had
his Congressional district office.
I would love to
see you there.
REFLECTIONS ON ZACH
The Christmas
stockings, which I cut out and stitched by hand over the years, continue to
hang from our dining room sideboard today, five days after Christmas. They are made of flannel fabric – white, red,
and green – and decorated with ribbons and colorful stitching, including our
family members individuals names. This year there are thirteen of them – some
of our immediate family members not been present with us this year. Zach’s red stocking continues to hang each
year alongside his sister Julia’s and his Mom, Chris and Dad, John.
REFLECTIONS ON BALTIMORE , MY HOME TOWN
Two old city
landmarks are set for renovation and a new life in Baltimore Edmondson Village
in West Baltimore, I spent a lot of time with my mom in the two landmarks
covered in the Baltimore
The Baltimore
$700K renovation
planned for neighborhood workhorse”
by Jacques Kelly
Born near the Baltimore harbor in 1904, my mom, Helen Marie Monnett,
grew up in Patterson
Park
The Baltimore
“A rebuild of Baltimore
In several prior
“Reflections” I have written of weekly streetcar rides to Lexington Market from
the Edmondson Village
neighborhood where I lived with my parents and my two sisters until they moved
- one to enter the convent in Pennsylvania and
the other to attend nursing school at St. Agnes Hospital in Baltimore Ellicott City family) stall
and scrumptious fresh baked cookies at Berger’s bakery. Fast forward to the late 70’s. I am married and the mother of two, Chris and
Cliff, both attending Howard
County Baltimore
REFLECTIONS ON PUBLIC POLICY
The Washington
The image of this
brave and principled man exuded love of freedom as he led the civil rights march
participants across the bridge in Selma
May that same
strength aid him now. His is an
irreplaceable voice for justice in our nation’s government.
Several
years ago our son-in-law, Smitty, husband of Lloyd’s daughter, Carolyn,
asked me if I could arrange a meeting for him with John Lewis whose
work he was studying in an academic class. I went to Elijah for
assistance and Smitty had a long informative time alone with Congressman
Lewis. Earlier this month, before news was out about Lewis’ serious health
condition which will keep him away from Congressional meetings for a bit.
Carolyn and Smitty visited us from their home in Virginia
Two amazingly
incongruent sources caught my eye as quotes for today:
“If destruction
be our lot, we must ourselves be its author.”
Abraham Lincoln
The Atlantic 12/19
“If necessary,
we’re going to have to shut the government down. And that’s not radical. What is radical is not doing anything.”
Jane Fonda
REFLECTIONS ON OUR PLANET BEYOND THE UNITED STATES
The Washington
“At
least 554 journalists killed in past decade by Siobhan O’Grady
So many brave
women and men around the world are willing to risk their lives for truth. If they can do that for us, we surely can
support democracy in our own nation. Can
we not? (Subscribe to your newspaper of
choice today!)
The Washington
The United
Nations releases a deeply troubling report on climate change”
We the people
still have a chance to turn this “bleak future” around. We need the intestinal fortitude to do
so. The opportunity won’t last many more
years.
The Washington
A situation we
cannot ignore, yet we do.
The Washington
by Katie Mettler
This is one of
those articles that fills me with awe and simply makes my head spin. The name
given by the group of Chinese-led international scientists to this newly
discovered black hole inside our own galaxy – the largest ever seen by anyone
anywhere? “LB-1” After all, it WAS discovered in the month of
my 71st birthday, and my initials ARE “LB”. Just sayin.
“Pools of sorrow,
waves of joy
Are drifting through my
open mind
Possessing and
caressing me
Across the Universe
~Lennon and McCartney
Be well and love life.
~ Liz
PS - My monthly Reflections episodes, the Dragon radio show I record at HCC, can be found at http://dragondigitalradio.podbean.com/category/reflections-on-life/.
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