Month: July 2010

The Fragile

/ Elizabeth Gaucher / 3 Comments

Two years ago today my only child was born.  The earth definitely moved, and has been moving since, all for the very best.

Though I woke up with memories of wonder and amazement at her life, I also woke up to read this: 

The poverty rate in America is 13.2 percent, according to the US Census Bureau. In West Virginia, the rate is 17.2 percent, and recent figures indicate that 23.9 percent of West Virginia’s children live in poverty.  — Sustained Outrage

I am aware of this figure.  The one-in-four statistic is like a nightmare from which you desperately want to wake, but can’t.  I thought this reality was the worst, but then I read something else this morning that may overtake the pain of the one-in-four. 

As you hear elected officials talk about cutting programs that care for children as “tough decisions” chew on this, if you will, in the context of politics and child poverty:

“These days, we take pride in being tough enough to inflict pain on others. If an older usage were still in force, whereby being tough consisted of enduring pain rather than imposing it on others, we should perhaps think twice before so callously valuing efficiency over compassion.” The Goat Rope

When I brought home a fragile 7 pound life two years ago, I was overcome with the reality of our responsibility to children.  I am frankly unconcerned with what the adults in the equation “have earned” or “deserve” or whether or not they are living up to their “personal responsibility.”  Would it be nice I didn’t have to take care of other people’s kids?  Um, yes.  Yes it would.  I’ve got my hands full over here.

But here’s the rub — these kids in poverty aren’t “other people’s kids”, not really.  They are my kids.  They are your kids.  First and foremost they are God’s children.  One day they will inherit the earth, and it matters a whole hell of a lot how well they are cared for now and how well they grow up.  It is absolutely imperative that we separate what these children so desperately need from our feelings about their parents.

If you have children it should scare you to death that if you couldn’t find a job, or got sick, or developed a raging substance abuse problem, that the greater community would tsk tsk it away and your child would be left to slowly disappear off of the social radar through no fault of his or her own.  This is completely unacceptable and is the behavior of a species that wants to go extinct.

We need to be in the business of strengthening the fragile.  That’s our job as adults when it comes to kids.  There are some things that don’t deserve “sustained outrage,” they deserve to get fixed permanently.  Will there always be poverty?  Probably.  But there doesn’t have to always be confusion about our moral obligation to children.

And So the Obsession Begins

/ Elizabeth Gaucher / 1 Comment

That’s right, I am now the proud owner of the FestivALL 2010 “T” by Jim Probst!  Last year I convinced Mark Wolfe to sell me his “T” and I like to think that initiative had a little something to do with this year’s E-bay auction to benefit all of the artists and FestivALL itself.

So that’s all good….but now I have 2 sequential years of “T”s in the house.  What do they say, do it 3 times and it’s a habit? 

I can just see it 50 years from now.  My grandchildren come to help clean out the house after my death (for the record, I plan to be found with a smile on my face in bed with a one pound bag of peanut M & M’s, but that’s another story).  They bring some friends from college with them because it’s a big job, and when they open the front door the kids just stand wide-eyed in amazement…….the house is full of almost nothing but sculptures of the letter T.

To a T...and a T, and a T

I will have had to move everything else out over the years.  T’s will be on the walls, but also used as chairs, stools, and tables.  Out back they will be stools around the firepit, stepping stones through the garden, and propped as ladders against trees.  When they find me with my M & M’s my body will be resting on an extra-large T, commissioned one year in my honor of course, to serve as my bed.  Many artists will have competed for this amazing honor, and eventually this particular piece will be donated to the Smithsonian.

Finally one of the kids will find his breath and ask my grandaughter, “What….what was up with your grandma?”

She will smile that little heart-shaped smile she inherited from my daughter and say something mysterious like, “It’s a family secret, but let’s just say when she liked something, she went all the way.”