THE 339TH
Kathleen Vanbeekom
Kathleen Vanbeekom's Bio:
I attended Catholic school until the end of 6th grade, right before I turned 12 years old. Then I started going to public school, and I really did NOT like it! It's difficult going to a new school, especially when the school is much bigger and all the other kids have known each other for years, and they were not all of Catholic background. I also had knee surgery that summer, so starting a new school and having to change into shorts for gym class with a 6-inch fresh horrible purple stitchy scar on my knee wasn't helpful either.
I really liked going to Catholic school, no matter about all the funny and stressful stories people tell, it's a lifestyle. Catholic school isn't just school, it's an extension of a life belief that's also part of the parents' home, in the way they raisetheir children. We went to church every Sunday as a family, and the school also had mass every Tuesday for Novena, and the
First Friday of every month, so Catholic school kids attend church at least 9 times per month, maybe more if the nuns suddenly decided to take us to church during school time for some unexpected reason.
The years of praying before lunchtime at school were part of who I was, and suddenly then in public school in 7th grade, not praying before eating was a strange feeling for me, because if I did, it would have brought on more harassment, not only from being new, but from being different, from having a rock-solid ingrained belief system that I couldn't display in public, a belief system that the other students didn't have instilled in them for years, didn't understand, and didn't want to know about.
Kids shouldn't have to have nerves of steel, at school or at home, childrens lives shouldn't be a constant barrage of difficulties or comparisons. How many times have you seen a disabled person in public? How many times have you wondered if they have sisters or brothers? You probably never wondered that. What is it like? To get straight A's in school, to be well-mannered, and still not be appreciated for it at home, because of being able-bodied, and supposedly everything is just so easy, and no matter what you do, if it's not done with physical disability, then it's not the pinnacle of achievement?
I know what it's like, and 2 of my sisters and my 2 brothers know what it's like, to take a constant back-burner to a disabled sister. Now you may be thinking I sound like a jerk for saying that, but how often do you get the honest opinion of a sibling of a disabled person? Never? Why not? We'd be called jerks, that's why! It's the same reason I didn't pray at lunchtime in public school, but I'm not 12 years old now, so I'm telling you what I think, how I feel, and what's ingrained in my lifetime.
When my sister Bonnie died last October, I felt an immense relief, as if the boulder of a lifetime had been lifted from my chest, and it was also lifted from her in the passing of her human life, and lifted from our entire family. There were times during the day of the funeral when I was probably too joyful, and my nephew asked me about that, he didn't grow up in our house with a disabled sister, he also didn't attend Catholic school, so how could I explain the feeling of "rock removal from my chest" (and from my parents and brothers and sisters also!) or the belief in shedding our human burden to him?
Some people may wonder about my non-religious opinions and writings. Women have been raised to not say what we think or how often we think about sex, or in how much detail. Without the details of women, the world wouldn't be so interesting, or comfortable, or
dependable. What if all women suddenly, today, just said whatever we want to say, about any subject, without worrying about the opinions of anyone else? Sometimes the disagreeing opinions of other women are louder than the opinions of men.
Before we get back to being advertising-peanuts in the big pile of look-alike online nuts, or saying how much we miss each other's photos when we're not logged in here...someone who works very hard online and offline told me he's working on becoming wealthy. I have a question about that: If we suddenly went blind, how would we be sure if we had monetary wealth anyway? You wouldn't be able to see your expensive house or furniture the car your chauffer drives you around in, maybe it's just a neighbor driving you in his own car! The expensive food probably wouldn't taste as good as something cooked by your Grandma. If wealth depends on vision to be fully appreciated, then is it truly wealth? All the hard work and money may not be able to fix blindness, look at Stevie Wonder, (because we CAN look at him even though he can't look at us!) don't you think he'd trade everything he has
just to see his child? If relaxing in wealth is better than relaxing in poverty, but both are most recognizable by looking at our surroundings, then just DON'T LOOK at what you don't like about your current lack of wealth.
That's truly how I have nerves of steel, just ignore the crap, like our parents told us, and if that doesn't work, then face the crap and change it. I would sometimes ask one of my brothers to deal with bullies for me, and he would always refuse, saying he had enough of his own situations to defend, he said I was capable enough to defend myself with my words against anyone else, because I could always out-talk him and my parents about any situation, and luckily my father didn't clobber me on those occasions either. I've never hit another person, but I was picked on a lot in school, sometimes by several people at the same time, but none of the school bullies ever hit me, none of them wanted to get in trouble, words are not trouble, words can be walked away from. That brother also joined the Air Force, he chose to defend our country and our allies for 8 years, even after not helping his little sister with school bullies, he was right, I didn't need his help.
I've been married to an ex-Marine for 25 years, and my father was also a military veteran, he served in the Air Force during the Korean War, so I guess a lifetime of nuns and rules and school bullies and military men have kept me from being intimidated by most people. The absolute truth is, bullies are only a few people out of multi-billions of people on earth, so there's no reason to allow a few to change the things you want to do, especially online, we don't need to read people, we can't be forced to read someone's post, it's that simple, just don't read stuff if you think you won't like it. Turn a "blind eye" to it. Nobody is forcing you to log into forums and read something typed by someone when you already see their photo and have some idea you may not like what they wrote, why read it?
If wealth and poverty are more highly recognized by our sight, and both need to be worked on, poverty needs to be maintained, sowe don't earn too much money and have to pay for those pesky public school lunches without prayers included ;) ...online friends and bullies are also only recognized by our sight, if you don't read them, if you don't maintain the animosity, is it really there?
If we shouldn't allow one or a few bullies to intimidate us, then should we allow one or a few people to help us? Is it the other side of the same coin? I realized my brother was right in not helping me, outside help can be a detriment, it will weaken us or cause us to never become strong. My father never drove us anywhere except to church, we had to take public transportation or walk everywhere else, and the east-coast bus drivers are not trained in politeness either. At my sister's funeral, one of her friends told a story about a woman who was hassling my sister about taking her companion-dog on the bus, and my tiny 4-foot-10 sister verbally socked that woman, and of course she took her dog on the bus!
I've been told I think too much, and my thoughts go against a lot of what I was taught, but I know the nuns would never back down from these conversations...How do we KNOW we're people? Because we were raised by people? If we were raised by monkeys or wolves, we'd "think" we're a monkey or a wolf, right? So ARE we people or do we just "think" we're people? If animals are not allowed in Heaven, and if we're mammals, are we really getting into Heaven? If we were created in the image of God, why did He create us last? Animals don't have an ego, people have an ego, and God must have an ego to have created multi-billions of us in His own image, and if that's true, about God having an ego, then it would hold true that He'd create His own image FIRST, why didn't He create us FIRST? Unless, our ego does not come from God, but then where DOES it come from? We're supposed to believe in the creation of Adam & Eve because if we believed in evolution instead, we'd have to ask, WHEN did we stop being animals and start being people? Where was the line drawn between our animal ancestors who could NOT get into the eternal Heaven because they were more animal than people, and when did the generation of more people than animal begin? We truly are animals when we're babies and when we get very old, we need to be taken care of at the start and finish of our lives, so are we only "people" in the center of our life? Does reverting to near-animal status at the end not prevent our entry into Heaven? So it would make sense that animals CAN enter Heaven. I only wonder about all this because my sister's dog had to put up with living with her for 11 years, and he certainly deserves Heaven status for THAT.
Thanks everyone for the interesting year of 2009, I hope all of you who won last year had the week of your life, trophy cup under your photo to show all who would be impressed by it, and your photo in the lower left, altough not always as immediately as you'd hoped, now Barry gets to tolerate your demands of immediate photo-change and trophy cup placement. Thanks also to anyone who publicly attacked me and later privately asked me to join a business. "Are we really people or do we just THINK we're people because we're raised by people?" Monkeys or wolves might have more patience and tolerance.
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Thank you
Kathleen Vanbeekom