Dear Daughters,

As you know, your grandmother (my mom) was a nurse. When I was growing up, she worked for the Public Health Department of Fairfax County, Virginia. She mainly worked with poor, young, pregnant women and new mothers, providing free (to them) services that enabled them to take care of themselves and their babies.

She also did TB tests and gave shots to people who needed them, working to prevent the spread of diseases that would otherwise sicken and kill people across our community.

She taught me from early on that germs don’t care who you are or where you came from, and that the people fighting them can’t really worry about that stuff, either.

When she wasn’t nursing, Mom was often playing the piano at our church–working with the choir to prepare for worship each week, and providing appropriate musical accompaniment for everything from christenings to marriages to funerals.

Mom was all of the following at once: a devout Christian, a nurse who believed firmly in science, and a person with zero tolerance for cruelty. She sought to walk humbly, serve faithfully, and find the best in others. 

She had grown up in West Virginia and then worked in inner-city Washington in the 1960s. She knew what poverty looked like and what it did to people. She felt called to serve those who suffered from its effects, without regard to race, creed, etc. 

As for those who perpetuated poverty to further their own ends? Mom taught me to see cruelty for what it is. And she told me it had no place in morality or public policy, and that anyone claiming otherwise was a fool or a liar.

Mom’s faith ran deeper than mine. But on this point, she convinced me absolutely: Cruelty is, and must always remain, intolerable.

To tolerate cruelty is to surrender your humanity. And everyone who has even a modicum of the latter knows this.

We live in a world where we are frequently told that we should surrender parts of our humanity–for the sake of “efficiency,” for profitability, or of some form of supposed “progress.”

We should all reject this nonsense loudly and repeatedly.

We absolutely should not surrender our humanity. We absolutely should not condition ourselves to cruelty.

On the contrary, we should absolutely recommit ourselves, as often as it takes, to being and becoming better humans. 

Mom’s underlying insight was right: Our higher purpose is to care for one another. Those who only care for themselves have lost the way. 

Mom would counsel me to forgive them their trespasses. She would also tell me never to follow them. 

She would tell her granddaughters the same. Then she would make sure you knew that she loved you. Just like I do.

Love,

Dad