My Reasons Why: Thirteen Reasons Why

Posted on April 28, 2017 by renbog

Note: I am not an expert in drug or alcohol counseling. I am not a psychiatrist, psychologist, social worker, or any other kind of counselor. I do not have any expertise in assisting suicidal individuals. All I am is a parent, a teacher, a woman, and a human with more empathy than I can stand sometimes. 

There has been a lot of controversy surrounding the Netflix series 13 Reasons Why since its release at the end of March. As someone who read the book a number of years ago, I was pleased to find that this important story was being brought to life. I remember reading the book and thinking how important it was in the lessons it taught. That’s why I was glad to see it was being made into a series; I knew those messages could reach a really wide audience.

Since the controversy really reached a fever pitch with the release of the series, I guess I’ll focus in that instead of the book, although that ends up on banned/challenged lists pretty regularly.

The very things that people object to in the series are the very things that I think make the series so important and powerful. Here are the things I think the series teaches us:

  • Suicide is not a solution.
  • Suicide is not glamorous.
  • Suicide is not romantic.
  • Suicide is not beautiful.
  • Kids, especially teens, go through things that adults have no concept of at all.
  • Drugs and alcohol don’t make problems go away.
  • Sexting is a real problem and a real threat.
  • Slut shaming and victim blaming are real, and it is perpetrated by just as many females as males.
  • The concept of consent for sex is frighteningly unclear for both males and females.
  • Schools and teachers can play a key role in teaching teens about all of the above points.

These are all things that people have raised objections to with this series. My thoughts, for what they are worth:

  • This series does not do anything to show suicide in a positive light in any way, shape, or form. We know from the very first minute of episode one what Hannah is going to do. We all wish from that very first minute that it won;t end that way. Never once is there a message that Hannah did the right thing by killing herself. Always, always, the viewer wants desperately for Hannah to get help. I sometimes found myself wishing I could help her — and she’s a fictional character. Suicide is not glamorized, romanticized, or beautified at all. Instead, it is shown as sad, lonely, terrifying, and preventable. Viewers see all the places where Hannah could have gotten help if only someone had taken the time to just dig a little deeper, pry into her life a little bit.
  • The graphic nature of the rapes and Hannah’s suicide are not gratuitous. Instead, they should be seen for what they are: glossed over re-enactments of horrific things that happen in real life. To anyone who says those scenes are too graphic and horrible to watch, I say how horrible would it be to experience these things in real life? For most of us, it is unimaginable. I have never been raped, but I’m betting my imagination isn’t remotely close to how terrifying it really is. I’ve never attempted suicide or even felt suicidal, but I’m betting my imagination isn’t even close to how miserable one must feel, how alone and hopeless one must feel to make an attempt, much less a successful attempt. Look away from these scenes if you must when watching the series; just be glad you don’t have to live them personally.
  • Hannah’s suicide scene is not a how-to video. To me, it seemed to be more of a why-not-to video. If anyone actually thought there might be some beauty, glamour, or romance in it, well, I think that went right out the window after watching that scene.

Now, a couple caveats.

  • Of course this should not be watched by everyone. I have a nephew who is in 3rd grade. No way in hell should he watch this. But a middle school kid or a high school kid? I’ve got no issues with kids that age watching this series — but here’s the catch: they need to have someone to watch it with them and talk with them about it. For these powerful messages to really take root, they’ve got to be helped along. Parents can do that. What parent DOESN’T want their kids to learn that suicide is a terrible choice? What parent DOESN’T want their son or daughter to understand what real consent for sex looks like? What parent DOESN’T want to tell their teens that using drugs or alcohol to numb the pain of life’s problems isn’t a real solution?
  • Of course this shouldn’t be watched by people who are in such a mental or emotional state that they are already contemplating suicide. Once someone is seriously considering this, they are clearly not thinking clearly or rationally anymore. I’m guessing that unless you’ve been in that state, you can’t figure out how suicide makes any sense at all. Watching this series is not going to give anyone a new idea. Nobody is going to decide that suicide is a great plan after watching this. But for someone who has already started to head down that road of thought, it might not come across as the tragic story it is.
  • If parents don’t want to help their kids learn some of these tough lessons, schools can do it. There are trained professionals in schools who can help kids navigate these situations. It’s not bad for schools to let kids know that suicide is not a good choice, or that using drugs is dangerous, or that a girl who is unconscious is unable to consent to sex. I can’t understand why anyone wouldn’t want messages like this reinforced as often as possible.
  • Parents always have the right to decide what is appropriate fir their kids to see or experience. Parents who decide their 11 year old is too young to watch the series or are concerned about how watching it might impact their 16 year old daughter who was a victim of date rape last summer have legitimate concerns. But what I can’t understand is people who think the series is offensive or dirty, and that’s why they don;t want their kids to watch it. Parents who ignore the fact that some teens drink alcohol, do drugs, are bullied or otherwise victimized, or find themselves in sexual situations — consensual and non-consensual — do their kids zero favors.

The teenage years are the ones where kids start to try out their adult behaviors. What they learn carries over into their adult lives. The messages that can be found in 13 Reasons Why are powerful and impactful, but they can be found in other places, too. If you don’t want to use this series as a jumping off point to start a dialogue, then find something else. But please don’t ignore it or sweep it aside. And don’t criticize parents who do see value in sharing the lessons from this series with their kids.

Common Sense Media often has information that is worth checking out. Check out what they have to say about this series.

There is also a blog post on Education Week that is worth reading. It offers multiple perspectives on the series. It’s a long read but worth the time. I believe that a subscription to Ed Week is  not necessary to read this post.

 

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An A-Ha Moment Via Howard, Robin, and James

Posted on February 18, 2017 by renbog

I have a short drive to work so I don’t get to listen to much radio on the way there. But this week I caught a few minutes of an interview Howard Stern did with James Corden. As a side note, I absolutely ADORE listening to any interview Howard Stern does. He is a terrific interviewer, asking questions no one else would ever ask, drawing stories and emotions out of the people he interviews that are so engaging. So when I stumble upon any Howard Stern interview, regardless of how I feel about whom he;s interviewing, I listen. And in the few minutes I got of James Cordon, I got a gem, a real a-ha moment.

James Corden is probably best known for his carpool karaoke clips (not gonna lie, my favorite is the one below). So maybe it’s hard to believe that there could be any meaningful revelations gleaned from him, especially while talking to Howard Stern. But it happened.

Stern asked James Corden about his lavish wedding. Corden confirmed it cost £250,000 (which today equates to $310,300). That’s a LOT of money. And many would say it’s a grotesque amount of money to spend on a wedding — or anything else for that matter. Stern pointed that put to Corden, and that’s when he said something that made me go, “Whoa.”

Corden’s response was, “I’d rather waste money than time.” (You can see the quote and some more context of that quote in this article.)

All I could think was, “Yes! That’s so right!” People, including myself, worry so much about money and making sure we have enough of it — but how much is actually enough? Does anyone ever say, “Finally! I’ve got enough money!” Probably not.

But if anyone else is like me, you probably don’t wring your hands anywhere near as much over time. Sure, we all feel like we don’t have enough time sometimes — not enough time to get the laundry done, not enough time to get the kids from school to some after-school event, not enough time with a loved one we lose. But chances are, none of us worry about time the way we worry about money.

And just as I’m letting this revelation sink in, Robin Quivers pipes up in the background with ANOTHER gem that probably got lost in the conversation between Stern and Corden. I can’t remember exactly what she said, but it was something to the effect of, “You can always get more money, but you can’t get more time.” How right she is. People can horde money all they want, but you can’t horde time. You can save money all you want for the future, tucking it away safely in a bank or some investment to get you even more money, but you can’t bank time or earn more time in dividends. We all have the same number of minutes in a day, and we never know when those minutes might not be there anymore.

So I don’t think people should spend money frivolously or spend without regard. But surely we should stop giving up something that is going to make a wonderful experience or memory because money is more important. When it’s all said and done, and you’re in the last moments of your life, what is going to bring a smile to your face — the beautiful memories of the life you lived or the knowledge that you’re leaving loads of money behind you that you can’t have anymore?

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2017: Make it So

Posted on January 2, 2017 by renbog

Making new year resolutions is a common practice. Normally, I don’t make resolutions because I really hate setting myself up for failure! But this year, I decided to try something different: I’m going to make my resolutions and I’m going to write them down and share them — hence this post! My hope is that by writing them down and making them public, I stand a better chance of keeping them. So here goes — the ambitious and the mundane.

1.) Take my running to a new level by training for and completing the Chicago Marathon. I find that I am better about taking care of myself when I am training for an event, and I’ve had a hankering to run the marathon ever since I ran the Chicago Half Marathon in 2015. I missed the deadline to get my name in the lottery, so I need to run for a charity, which I really don’t mind — so I chose Leukemia and Lymphoma Society. I’ve done fundraising for them in the past; they’re a great charity. So now I’ve got to find myself a good training plan and get to it! By the way, here’s a link to my fundraising page if you care to donate.

2.) Eat better. At one of my Weight Watchers meetings, the leader told us that we should ask ourselves this question before we eat anything: Is this food worthy of me? I am going to start asking that all the time. I am amazed at how easily I was able to slip back into my atrocious eating habits over the holidays. I am eating so many things that just aren’t worthy of me. Time to respect my body by making sure it is nourished with things that are going to be of value to me.

3.) Lose weight. See 1 and 2 above. By focusing less on losing weight and more on moving and being active and eating the right way, I’m hoping I lose the weight I want to so desperately lose.

4.) Clean up my mouth. No, I don;t mean I’m going to stop swearing — that’s way too big an order for me 🙂 Two years ago, I broke one of my top front teeth. I was horrified. I had this ugly, gaping hole right in the front of my mouth. The tooth that broke was actually one that had a crown on it, and apparently the crown had cracked so the tooth under the crown had slowly decayed until it broke right off. Had I been going to the dentist regularly, that would have been discovered before I lost the tooth. I vowed after getting the tooth fixed that I would get over my fear of going to the dentist and take care of my teeth. I did that until this past fall, when I had to cancel and appointment to get my teeth cleaned. I haven’t rescheduled it yet, I’m not using my SonicCare toothbrush, I’m not flossing — and if I keep that up, I’m headed for something bad, I just know it. So, back to taking good care of my chompers!

5.) Work on my novel. I tried to work on it in November, but just was too busy to get much done. I’m going to try to carve time out every month to write.

6.) Declutter. I’ve got way too much stuff and it makes me anxious — I want to get myself down to just the things I need and have a real love for. Again, I’ll try to carve time out every week to do this — even if it’s just clean out one drawer.

Here’s to 2017 — may all my resolutions be resolved!

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My Year in Review — 2016

Posted on December 25, 2016 by renbog

It’s that time of year again where I indulge my self-absorbed side and review the year that has just passed, and I drag you along for the ride. As I was reflecting on what I would write about, I was pleased to realize that 2017 was a pretty good year. Not too many negative things happened, so this post should be a pleasure to write! So here are 10 things that are meaningful to me from this past year, in no particular order, except I’m gonna get the yucky things done first!

1.) Jim got hit by a car. While this is something we can all kind of joke about now, when it happened, it was not so funny. It was actually quite fortunate that the driver was not going too fast so Jim was not seriously hurt. But that does not mean that moving on past this has been a piece of cake. This happened in August, and Jim needed shoulder surgery and he is still in physical therapy from the surgery. The medical bills are impressive, I must say. And like I said, he wasn’t really hurt too seriously. I can only imagine what the bills would be had he been hurt badly. As a result of the accident and the resulting surgery, Jim was unable to run the Chicago Half Marathon, for which he had completed 9 out of 12 weeks of training. I guess this just gives him something to aim for next year, right?

2.) Family friends experience a trauma and devastating loss. My oldest and very dear friend, Jennifer, called me on a beautiful spring morning to tell me that her eldest daughter had been seriously burned in a fire at her apartment and her grandson, a mere toddler, had died in the fire. It was news that sent my dear friends reeling and me feeling at a loss as to how to help. When the agony is palpable, transmits itself in the air between you and the person you are friends with, you desperately want to help and ease that pain, but you feel helpless because it’s so hard to do, if it even can be done. It pains me to see my friends, who are really more like family, go through this kind of hell, but I will continue to try to be supportive of them because, like I said, Jennifer and her family are really my family, too.

3.) Donald Trump elected President. Sorry to all my friends and family who supported Trump because you really thought he was the best/a good candidate — I’m gonna say some not-so-nice things about him. That being said, I will temper what I say because he IS the President-elect and I have great respect for the office and job, if not always the person holding that office. This Presidential election was the most gut-wrenching I have ever experienced. I have never seen our society so bitterly and viciously divided, and if I’m being honest, I have felt and experienced that divisiveness on a personal level with some family and friends. I have found myself feeling hostile and being hostile toward people I care deeply about — all because of politics. I think Trump is a poor choice to lead our country because he lacks character, in the simplest terms, and so many people in society find horrible behavior from themselves and others to be acceptable because of the example and tone that has been set by Trump’s election. I thought the vitriol would diminish after the election, but I’m wrong about that. It’s still as bad as ever, and I pretty much keep my opinions to myself because I don’t want to deal with the hateful, mean things said to me if I share my opinion anyway. It’s really quite sad.

4.) I turned 50. Actually, this wasn’t as bad as anticipated. I got way less grief this birthday that I did when I turned 40. But there’s something about that number that sounds so old. I don’t feel old. Other people I know who are 50 or in their 50’s don’t seem old to me. But I still have a hard time processing that number in my brain.

5.) Dad comes home from India. After working in Mumbai, India, for almost 5 years, my father has finally returned home to the United States. Part of me is a little sad about this. It was cool to hear the stories my father shared of life in Mumbai. I felt sad for the people who live there that had become staples in my father’s life, that the relationships they all had were changing so drastically — not ending, but becoming truly long distance friendships. But a big part of me rejoices that he is here, where I can call him without having to do a bunch of math in my head to calculate the time difference, where he’s not living alone, where either of us could jump on a plane and get to the other if the need arises (like his cardiac arrest last year).When it’s all said and done, he’s back in the States where he belongs, and I am very glad for that.

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Dinner with my dad and my family for Christmas.

6.) Becky graduates from college. In May, my beautiful, smart, kind, caring daughter graduated from college. It was a momentous occasion — one I dreamed about from the time she was a baby. I have never been more proud to be her mom as I was that day. She overcame a lot of obstacles and fears and insecurities to get to that day. Her graduation was so impactful, I wrote about it.

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My beautiful daughter the day she graduated form college.

7.) My job got exponentially fun. I transitioned back to being the full time Instructional Technology Resource Teacher this school year, and I hate to break this news to all the teachers I work with — but I have THE BEST JOB in the whole school district! Things really started to turn when our new superintendent came on board last school year — he had a really inspiring vision for our district that really gelled with what I had been dreaming about as a dream workplace. This year we hired a Director of 21st Century Learning who is so inspiring professionally. I have learned so much from him in such a short amount of time. We have made so many changes in our district over the past year and a half, and the teachers I work with are simply amazing. They roll with the changes so well — and they could be really crabby about the changes and be totally justified, but they’re not! They are adventurous and taking risks and creative and innovative. They are the reason I have the best job in the district — I get the honor of working with them on so many fabulous lessons, they let me come into their classrooms and teach their kids, and they make me have fun while I work. I am so incredibly fortunate to be a person who loves going to work every day.

8.) A changing relationship with my brother. My brother Joe and I have always gotten along, but if I’m being honest, we haven’t been terribly close. I always wanted a brother who was a friend, but I had no idea how to do that. I was envious of other brother-sister relationships I would see, like my cousins Robyn and Peter or my friends Jenny and Jeff. But somehow, this year, I have felt a shift in our relationship. It’s like suddenly we realize we like each other and we have things in common that can bind us as friends. It makes me feel all warm and fuzzy inside, and I really am enjoying being friends with my brother.

9.) Robyn: cousin and co-worker. My cousin Robyn got a job working as a building-level technology specialist at one of the schools in my district. I love that we get to see each other and talk to each other more often and that she gets to be part of my work world, which I love (see #7 above). It gives us a whole new set of things that we have in common! It is such fun being able to work with her!

10.) Chicago Cubs win the World Series. For as long as I’ve known my husband, he has wanted me to like baseball and hockey. I finally got caught up in hockey probably 4 or 5 years ago, but baseball has always been a yawner of a sport for me. Until this year. I got caught up in the fun and excitement of the wild ride that was the 2016 Chicago Cubs. It kicked in near the end of the regular season, crescendoed during the playoffs, and bubbled over during the World Series. Yes, I am a bandwagon fan, and I’m not ashamed to admit it (as a quick side note: the established Cubs fans were much more welcoming to the band wagoners like me than the established Blackhawks fans were to the people who jumped on that bandwagon — thanks, Cubs fans, for accepting me so readily into the fold). So now I’m learning to like baseball, and my husband is not happy about it. The problem is he always said he wanted me to like baseball; he never said he wanted me to like his baseball team, which is the Chicago White Sox. Be careful what you wish for, Jim, because you just might get it. #GoCubsGo

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My Christmas gift from my dad — he’s the lone Cubs fan in my family!

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Trick or Treat

Posted on September 21, 2016 by renbog

Updated October 13, 2025

It’s that time of year — pumpkin spice lattes are available everywhere and people are planning their Halloween costumes for trick or treating and parties. What do you want to be this year? A princess? Cheerleader? Ghost? Witch? Or maybe you’re going to simply wear a Trump mask or a Hillary mask? Or maybe you can come up with something clever like my co-worker’s teen son did — he wrapped a big box in wrapping paper and put a big bow on it, cut arm and head holes in it, and wore it. The tag on the gift box said, “To: women, From: God.”

Maybe you’ve decided to go with one of those pre-packaged costumes that you can buy at stores all over the place. No shame in that — many of my daughter’s costumes were like that because I’m just not a crafty kind of mom. There are all sorts of great pre-packaged costumes. Maybe you’re going to go out and get one that’s really funny, like a straight jacket-looking kind of costume! What better time of year than Halloween to really play on the hilarity of crazy people, right? But maybe making fun of people with mental illness is not your cup of tea. Maybe you can find one of these costumes:

  • Cancer patient — comes with a hospital gown, bald head wig, an emesis basin, and rubber vomit — HILARIOUS!
  • Polio victim — nothing but a couple of leg braces to wear and some crutches to carry — cheap AND funny!
  • Dead cop: a simple police man costume, except the shirt is riddled with fake blood-stained bullet holes — guaranteed to bring a smile to everyone’s face!
  • Rape victim — a cute dress (available in a variety of colors to match YOUR college or university’s colors!) that comes out of the package rumpled and dirt stained, along with a messy wig that has twigs and leaves in in, including a makeup kit for you to create your own scratches and bruises wherever you want — face, neck, arms, inner thighs! — SO clever and timely!
  • Holocaust victim — striped pajamas and a fake tattoo of a number for you to put on your arm — historical AND hilarious!
  • Maybe you could steal an idea from the people who thought the Twin Towers burning with people jumping from them was complete hilarity. (The link I used to have here to this article was from 2016 so it’s no longer available, but there are still references to this “hilarity” if you do a Google search.)

You see, for some reason, people who are mentally ill are funny — so funny that companies make costumes so we can pretend to be them or haunted houses are “haunted asylums”. But here’s the thing — mental illness is not any more funny or joke-worthy than people with cancer or polio, or dead police officers, or rape victims, or Holocaust victims, or the people who died on 9/11. Somehow most of us find all of those other costume ideas to be in bad taste, even offensive, but the straight jacket is okay and funny? Or a haunted house with mentally ill “patients” is funny or entertaining somehow? I don’t get it.

I’ve learned over the past few years to be a little more aware and a little more sensitive to this topic as my friend Laura so graciously and generously shared her son Zac with all of us. Zac had schizophrenia, and Laura was brutally honest about what life was like for Zac, and what life was like for her caring for and loving a child who was mentally ill. And, yes, I’ve been using past tense because Laura lost her son in 2015.

Zac was mentally ill. But his illness was just as real as any other illness — it just didn’t show itself as obviously physically as other illnesses do, like cancer. It also doesn’t garner the sympathy and understanding other “invisible” illnesses do, like diabetes. Nobody is doing fundraisers at schools to help cure brain illnesses. No one is sponsoring 5K’s for mental illnesses. But mental illness affects real people. It’s not a funny illness, and those who have it are not funny people because of it. They don’t deserve ridicule. They deserve to be treated with respect and dignity and a healthy dose of understanding — just like any person does.

Before people start getting at me with the, “Oh quit being so sensitive/people are too easily offended these days/get over it,” rebuttals, let me say that I’m not saying that people — you included — can’t wear a straight jacket costume or a dead cop costume or a burning Twin Towers costume. By all means, go right ahead. But don’t YOU get all butthurt when other people are offended and have the audacity to call you out on your insensitivity. You are free to express yourself, but so is everyone else. Wearing costumes like these says a whole lot more about you than it does about the people you are poking fun at.

Posted in Rants, Social Issues, Uncategorized | 6 Comments

Plane Talk

Posted on June 7, 2016 by renbog

I am writing this hoping that someone in the know can address it and set me straight.

There was a piece on the news last week about an uptick in complaints about jet noise from people who live near O’Hare airport. One of the explanations for the increase was that there is an increase in use of the airport’s newest southern runway based on changing wind directions.

Maybe I am an idiot (all right, not maybe, I admit it, I am just an idiot), but how can you complain about jet noise when you live near an airport? It would seem to me that the people who have a right to complain are the ones who lived near O’Hare before it was built, but if you moved into a community near O’Hare after it was built, how could you think that you wouldn’t have jet noise living near what is sometimes the world’s busiest airport?

But even more confounding than complaining about the jet noise is what people want to be done about it. I imagine a call going like this:

Complainer: There is way too much jet noise over my house which is apparently in an approach path for O’Hare!

Complaint Taker: Okay, we will talk to the pilots about that.

OR

We will work on getting mufflers on the planes.

OR

Okay, we will make the planes stop flying over your house.

OR

We will just close the airport.

What exactly is the end game in complaining about the jet noise? What do people want done about it? Or do they just want to complain? I imagine that it is that they just want to complain. People will complain about the dumbest things. One woman I know who lives kind of out in the country is friends with someone who lives near her who has cows. She told me that her friend actually fields complaints from people who get upset about the cows mooing too much. How does one complain about that with a straight face? “Listen, I was up before 6 this morning because your cows woke me up. They’re just mooing so much. They really shouldn’t be mooing that early in the morning. Can’t you get them to stop mooing? Or at least stop mooing so loudly?”

Planes. Cows. Complainers. The world is full of them.

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A Dream Realized

Posted on May 5, 2016 by renbog

I didn’t love my daughter right away. I was in labor with her for 24 hours and then ended up with a C-section. I remember the first time I laid eyes on her. I thought, “What a cute baby!” And when I held her the first time, I thought, “What a cute baby!” But that’s all she was — a cute baby. But I do know the exact moment I fell in love with her. She was born on a Friday morning. She was a little jaundiced. She needed to spend some time under the bili-lights. She needed heel sticks to test her blood. Actually pretty routine stuff. Saturday evening, as my husband was helping me walk around, we walked to the nursery window. I saw Becky in the little bed she was in, kind of tucked away in the back of the nursery. A nurse was by her, writing things down. I saw the nurse unwrap Becky’s blanket and proceed to do a heel stick to draw some blood. I could see Becky was crying and I could her crying faintly through the glass of the nursery. I was suddenly gripped with a feeling that included panic, terror, anger, rage, and desperation. It was that moment I was seized with this all-encompassing, powerful love for my daughter. I looked at my husband with tears falling down my face and said in a panicked voice, “They’re hurting my baby. Get me back to my room and get my baby for me.” He helped me shuffle as fast as I could back to my room and I sat there desperately waiting for the nurse to bring in my baby. The sense of calm and peace that washed over me when she was put in my arms was like no other feeling I have ever had. I inspected every single one of her fingers and toes, touched every inch of her skin, kissed every part of her face, and held her tightly to me chest. My God, how I loved that little baby.

As I spent time taking care of my new little girl, I started to spin dreams out of my head. I began to think about all the things she would do in life. And each time one of my little fantasies actually materialized, it felt like there was a little piece of magic happening in my front of my eyes. Getting a first tooth, and losing a first tooth. Walking and talking. Saying “mommy.” Riding a bike. Starting preschool. Starting kindergarten. Going to prom. Graduating from junior high. Graduating from high school. All dreams I had for my child. All dreams I have been fortunate enough to see come to fruition. Because I know how unbelievably fortunate I am to have those experiences. There are too many moms I know who won’t ever have them.

But I still have dreams. Her first job. What will it be? Where will it be? Her wedding. Who will she marry? What kind of dress will she get? Who will she have in her wedding? Will she ever have kids? Where will she live? What kind of house will she live in? Will she be happy? Will she be content? Will she be comfortable? I dream about those things. I see them in my mind’s eye, but not with clarity. Because the future is ever-changing and not certain.

But there’s one dream I’ve had for many years that is finally coming into clarity. This weekend, my beautiful, smart, sensitive, kind, generous, thoughtful, funny baby girl will graduate from college. Maybe some people don’t think that’s anything to gush like this about. After all, a college degree isn’t anything all that special anymore, right? I’ve seen enough comments in the media about how having a college degree is cheapened by the fact that so many people have them. But that’s not how I see a college degree. What I see is will and determination and fear and excitement and stress and effort and sweat and tears and dedication and perseverance — years of it — finally getting a payoff. I see a goal achieved — a goal that I know Becky did not think she would get to even attempt much less achieve. I still remember when she heard from one of the two colleges she applied to. An admissions officer from Lewis University called her and told her she had been accepted there. I have never seen such a look of shock and ecstasy on her face before — she believed she wasn’t smart enough or good enough to go to college. And she just got into a good one. And then when she was accepted into Southern Illinois University in Edwardsville, she had that look again. Because now she had been accepted to another college — both colleges she applied to, and her first choice school.

Less than 48 hours from now, I get to see my daughter walk across a stage and get her bachelor’s degree. That walk across the stage is emblematic of the journey my precious baby girl has taken to get to that moment in her life. She has walked through life with so many people’s eyes on her, watching what she is doing and going to do. And Saturday, she is going to graduate.

A dream realized.

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The Meaning of a Life

Posted on April 25, 2016 by renbog

Since Prince’s death last week, I’ve seen many, many posts on social media lamenting his loss. I’m right there with everyone doing that; I fell in love with Prince and his music from the first time I encountered him. But since the day he died, I’ve also seen some posts diminishing the impact of his death. Posts about nobody publicly mourning the loss of lives in the Middle East, to murder, to suicide, to cancer, implying that we humans don’t know which lives lost are really worth mourning. I can’t help but wonder why anyone thinks that mourning Prince means the lives of other people don’t have meaning. Sadly, ordinary people who lived extraordinary lives die every day without receiving the recognition they deserved. They are heroes to people that we don’t even know. The world is a little less beautiful with those people gone. But the fact that people publicly mourn the loss of a celebrity doesn’t mean all those other people don’t matter. Many say that Prince did nothing but record songs, promote unhealthy sexual images, and live a life of excess because of all the money he made. They forget that Prince was an artist. He broke boundaries. He encouraged individuality. He modeled what it was like to follow your heart and do what you loved. He was a writer, an dancer, and a musician. He sought out new talent to promote. He inspired artists that we probably don’t even know about. Just because his music or the way he promoted himself doesn’t appeal to you doesn’t mean he was meaningless. Just because he was rich and famous also doesn’t mean other people’s lives were meaningless, either. It is unnecessary and just disgusting to have to diminish one human’s life to make another “have meaning”. Mourn the people you will miss. Mourn the people who made your life rich but are now gone. But don’t try to imply that I don’t know the right people to mourn for.

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Blogging A to Z — Nebraska

Posted on April 25, 2016 by renbog

NI used to live in Nebraska. That sounds about as exciting as living in Iowa or Kansas, In know. But it’s not as bad as you might think. Most people think of Nebraska as flat and only full of corn. And that’s not far off. There are for sure a lot of corn fields. But where I lived — Omaha — isn’t flat at all. It’s actually quite hilly and has some nice features. For instance, the Henry Doorly Zoo is fabulous. It’s really quite pretty to walk through. There is also Offut Air Force Base near Omaha. Visiting there caused me to dream of flying jets in the military! Another thing that, for me, was notable about Omaha/Nebraska was tornadoes. There sure seemed to be a lot of them there! The most memorable for me was the one that hit Omaha on May 6, 1975. I’m not sure I’d like to live in Omaha ever again, but it might be nice to go back to visit and see all the things I remember from my childhood.

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Blogging A to Z — Mumbai

Posted on April 19, 2016 by renbog

MBoy, do I feel some pressure writing this post! A friend I made on my first trip to Dubai (that’s you, Jean!) is a blogger and a writer and adores Mumbai! So I offer a disclaimer right now that I don’t write like Jean ❤

My dad has been living and working in Mumbai, India, for the past few years, and I have been ever so fortunate to get to visit him there twice, most recently last summer. I’m not going to lie — I really love Mumbai!

I love the alive feel of it. There are so many people and there is always so much activity — the city is alive at all times of the day and night. I love waking up in the middle of the night and hearing the car horns. I even got to where I loved the traffic — because sitting in traffic affords the opportunity to look around at everything, and there is just so much to see!

There is beauty and sadness in Mumbai. You can look at the city and see all the stray dogs and all the poverty and all the poor people on the streets and all the dirt and garbage and think there can’t be beauty. But you would be so wrong. Because there are colors, colors everywhere! The buildings, the trucks, the clothes, the faces of the people.

Being in Mumbai made me feel alive and vibrant. Maybe that is what it is like to live in a big city. I loved being surrounded by people and activity and life all the time. I thought visiting Mumbai would be a once in a lifetime opportunity, but I was lucky enough to be able to be there twice.

Enjoy some of the pictures I took!

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Dhobi Ghat

The craziness of how these guys are riding notwithstanding, I was struck by the colors of their clothes. In the US, neither men nor women would wear such bright combinations of colors, but it is a common sight in India, which I loved!

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Cows are everywhere!

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Gateway of India

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An all too common sight in Mumbai — a homeless dog.

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