Over the years, I have written many essays about the moving from an average middle-class town and school system to a wealthy town, Mt. Lebanon, and the 19th best school system in America. That experience had a profoundly negative effect upon me for much of my life. However, the one single thing that I learned while at Mt. Lebanon High School was memorizing poetry and prose each semester. I have benefited from memorizing all the lines, many of which I still repeat quite close to verbatim nearly six decades ago.

For example, George Eliot whose actual name was Mary Ann Evans. Eliot wrote Silas Marner in 1861, which was exactly a century before I stood in front of Mrs. Davis one morning before school started reciting this paragraph.

Eppie was such a child for Silas. However, in my twilight years, I discovered my Eppie. Her name is Ti Ti. During winter break from teaching in 2013, I went to Myanmar hoping that I could interview Daw Aung San Suu Kyi, who often is called the Lady. What I discovered was that I met a young lady, Ti Ti. She was nine years old at the time. We played Scrabble for an hour and left her home having met my granddaughter.

Ti Ti was the bridge that united her family, her mother, father, and her two younger sisters, to my family. I returned four years later during winter break in 2017. Again, I wanted to interview Aung San Suu Kyi. However, my most important reason was to visit my family in Taunggyi, which I had met four years prior. I am still attempting to process what took place within me. A large part was the positive result of dancing with death. I am engaged in living like never before. However, much of the changes in me were the result of Ti Ti, because I understand that my clock is ticking. I don’t want to waste any of the time that I have remaining. I want to enjoy all my family…both here and in Myanmar.

The changes in my life aren’t in going in a different direction. I am still going in what I consider the correct direction. The change is in its intensity and drive.

For example, I gave Ti Ti my laptop, which I used to store photos and videos that I took on my recent trip. Since I copied them to an external hard drive, I just gave Ti Ti a laptop that I’d never use back in the States. It was my attempt to help her educationally.

In spite of that gesture, two things emerged that caused me concern. One is the Internet reception is not very good. Additionally, what about her younger sisters? They don’t have laptops nor do the students that go to school with my grandchildren? Their classmates are my extended family. Thus, my attempt to help Ti Ti resulted in expanding my dream to include 1250 laptops for the students that attend the two schools that my granddaughters attend.

Another aspect of the combination of dancing with death and Ti Ti is that in my twilight years I am driven by her dreaming. Ti Ti is like Bobby Kennedy and me. I see a young dreamer while I am a much older one. I have a limited number of years left to dream, but she has a lifetime of dreaming ahead of her.

We wrote poems to each other.

Ti Ti is learning how to ride.

We have done magic tricks together. We talk and email about dreams that she has. When I was there several months ago she cooked for me. Little did I know that cooking and baking are one of the things she does well and enjoys.

However, like her parents, Ti Ti is very caring. I recently got this email from Ti Ti after her mother told her about my essay, Deep State…Bob Woodward and Me. While I used poetic license for some of the storyline about Bob Woodward and I being captured by supporters of Donald the Dumb, I used some photos of a sleep study that I recently had done to determine why I am so tired. I have sleep apnea combined with restless leg syndrome. This email I got from Ti Ti a couple weeks ago.

Decades after standing in front of Mrs. Davis in 1961, the words of George Eliot, in my twilight years, are finally fully understood.

The hand was Ti Ti’s. In addition, her two younger sisters reached out to me also. Snow and Fatty did the same type of expression of love. That is why we are family.

Burmese independence flag

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"The Hand May Be a Little child's"

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"We Are Family"

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On Seeing the Light

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Connecting the Dots

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09/12/18