Posted by
Michael Avari on Saturday, July 04, 2009 6:16:40 PM
Somewhere just south of the Erie Canal, in a small suburb of Buffalo, where a Starbucks can hardly be found, the American pioneer spirit is alive and thriving. I am not referring to the rugged individualism of exploration and development, nor to the blind risk taking and abiding optimism that we associate with economic gain, although these do exist in small clusters overshadowed by a city where shuttered steel mills and rusting plants fill block after block.
Rather, meet Mother Jacquie. She’s is not a religious Mother, like Mother Theresa, although her faith-based work might justifiably be compared to hers. She is a mother with eight children who makes her living in an habilitation center for young adults with special needs. Between her family and her job, one might think that Jacquie’s days are filled with about as much emotionally taxing endeavors as one person can handle. Not so. You see, Jacquie’s home becomes home to children who, by fate or the errors of their parents, are being dragged on a tumbril toward a slow decapitation of their hope and joy. These are kids of drug addicts, or who are abandoned, or who were condemned by the state to a foster “care” that ends up betraying the loving and nurturing home it was intended to be. When these kids have nowhere else to turn, when the foster system has failed them, when despair and the streets overwhelm them, their custodial agencies turn to Jacquie. She takes them in and loves them, feeds and clothes them, educates and teaches them how to pray, and offers them hope and happiness. They call her mother, she calls them children; and her natural children embrace them, too, as immediately as brothers and sisters embrace a newborn into the family.
When they turn 18, Jacquie sends each child to college. They don’t question her. They just accept her motherly directive: if you want a good life, you must get an education. Infused with boundless optimism and self-confidence, they find a school of their liking, a course of study, and a way to pay for their education. Yes, each of Jacquie’s eight children and the 15 to 20 she estimates were given her by other parents over the years completely pay their way through college. With joy and gratitude they study hard, work hard, and eventually make their way into the world of business, medicine, and law. And they never forget their roots. Jacquie’s son, Dan, is somewhat of a daredevil. He earns well into six figures dangling from and maintaining powerplants and communications towers. Yet, each year he gives one month of his time without pay to help build housing for the poor. “Mom,” he declares to Jacquie, “this is how you taught me.” Her daughter, Mandi, a social worker, shares custody of babies of unwed teenage mothers to ensure that both grow on the right path.
This Independence Day, when we are tempted to think our inalienable rights are exclusively personal, and some believe it is government’s responsibility to assure our happiness, there is a another view. It is Jacquie’s view. It is the view that each of us can contribute to the life, liberty, and pursuit of happiness of our neighbor, especially those who by the mere accident of life are less fortunate. This is the original American spirit. It is founded in the belief that by sharing ourselves we not only make them more fortunate than those who take too egocentric a view of freedom, we also fulfill our founders’ vision of a country where self-reliance becomes by free choice alone the shared duty of each family and each community.