2020 Word of the Year: Perspective

SHAPES AND SIZES: Gradation, Red-Green, 1921, Paul Klee

My grandpa was the youngest of 24 kids.

He was also a small town optometrist, a double purple heart reciepiant who was shot behind the ear in WWII, a husband, a father, and a grandfather. But nothing is more impressive to people than when I mention he was the youngest of 24. The “runt of the liter” as he used to say.

With our Mormon pioneer heritage one might assume this high number of progeny was due to polygamy. It was not. Although, to be fair there was more than one mother (and father) and a little math involved. It goes like this: My grandpa, Lincoln Whitaker (named after Abraham Lincoln as they shared a birthday. Pardon me for the elongated sidenote here but, I like to imagine they were in the hospital like, “we have to come up with another name?” when some doctor or nurse walks by and casually mentions it was Lincoln’s birthday and they were like, “Lincoln it is!”) Anyway, my grandpa was Lincoln, and his father John, was married to a woman and they had 16 children together. Then she died. John eventually remarried another widow who had 4 kids of her own. (That’s 20 so far.) And then they had 4 more together. So yes 2 different mothers and 2 different fathers for a total of 24 children. But keep in mind that one of those men–my great grandpa John Whitaker–fathered 20 of those children.

While I always knew my grandpa was the runt of 24, the longer version came in bits and pieces. I remember once hearing a family member joke that his first wife must have died in childbirth. But it was just a “joke.” Turns out she died of the typhoid fever epidemic of 1907.

My grandpa’s mother, again who was also a widow, knew death as well. She came into the marriage with 4 of her own children, but she actually had 5. (So technically, he was the youngest of 25?) When her first husband died of a sudden head injury, their oldest child had died of black diptheria just 4 months prior.

It’s easy to talk about the death of other people generations before you. Even make little jokes. But these were sizemic shifts in people’s lives. 16 children lost their mother all at once. I’m here because of the death of that woman. Because of an epidemic.

*****

The past decade or so I’ve seen a trend of people choosing a word to focus on for the coming year, rather than a litany of New Year’s resolutions. However, I’ve been fulling the pull to encapsulate the past year with a word and the word that keeps coming to mind is perspective.

2020 has been a trying, devestating, anxiety-fuled year by any measure, but if I were to point to a singular gift that 2020 has given us, I would say that gift is perspective. How long is our list of things we hope never to take for granted again? Community health, safety, concerts, movies, going to school, going to work, travel, birthday parties, weddings, graduation ceremonies, dinner parties, gatherings of any sort for any reason, toilet paper, being in public without a mask, being in public, grocery shopping without fear or worry, leaving our homes, seeing extended family, and so on.

And then there was the eye opening perspective of racism that I hope we–white people–do not close the collective door on again. Perspective of what it means to be a Black man running in a neighborhood in the middle of the day. Perspective of what it means to be a Black woman sleeping in her own bed. Perspective of what it means to be a Black man and have a run in with the police. Perspective on white priviledge, anti-racism, white silence = white violence, white supremacy, systemic racism, the weath gap and so on. We can’t go back to willful ignorance and pretending we don’t know, that we haven’t seen and participated in the system that upholds white supremacy. Well, we can go back–we’ve done it time and time again. But we can’t pretend not to know. We know.

*****

Having lived with my grandparents growing up, I heard a lot about my grandpa’s childhood as a poor farm boy, living through the great depression and fighting in Germany during WWII. I know people refer to our grandparents as “the greatest generation” and while I’m not sure how I feel about that moniker, I do believe they were uniquely shaped by the events of having lived through a world that surely felt like it was on the brink of collapse many times

In the case of my grandfather–and many of his generation–they were often too poor for a proper meal and he sometimes went to bed with a peice of bread and a glass of milk for dinner. He was the youngest of 24 which means his parents were practically elderly when they had him and they were both gone by the time he was 15.

He got drafted to fight a world war in Germany hoping to defeat a mad man, and experienced terrible things. For example (content warning: graphic inhumanity) he help to liberate a concentration camp and saw a pile of bodies stacked on top of one another. As he recounted this story to me, he told me about seeing people in that stack of bodies who were still blinking their eyes. He survived shots so close to his body that there were bullet holes left in his clothing, but he remained untouched.  That is until he was shot behind the ear trying to save a buddy who ran out of the fox hole in desperation.

PERSPECTIVE.

*****

One of the big shifts in my thinking/perspective from this past year is in what it means to become a better person. Historically I have always viewed that as a personal effort that namely affected me and by extension, those closest to me. My better, more improved self would send the positive ripples of my self-improvement through those that associated with me—my kids, husband, friends. They would feel my happier, more whole, loving self. They would feel the love that radiated from pursuing virtues such as kindness, forgiveness and love. 

Now, when I think about becoming a better person, I realize that my focus was much too small–both in scope and frequency. It’s not that I wasn’t socially minded before–I was. And it’s not that I won’t try to improve myself–I will. But there has been a shift that I’m still not quite able to articulate.

How can I become a better person if I’m routinely ignoring and/or minimizing my white supremacist footprint so-to-speak?

(And why am I speaking so much about white supremacy, anti-racism, as opposed to just disability issues you might be asking? Another huge perspective shift is the intersection of these issues, and how much white supremacy affects everything, including the disability community.) 

*****

In the disability community the one thing I’ve heard over and over again about this past year is, “HOLY $^#%. So they COULD lets us work/learn/take lessons remotely all along, but they just didn’t think we were worth it. We knew it.”

Well that and the fact that so many people have talked about COVID-19 “only” being a death sentance for the disabled and the elderly. As if we don’t make it clear enough that we don’t value disabled bodies, we just come right out and say it in the year of COVID-19. And if you’re thinking, they’re taking it the wrong way, or they’re being too sensitive. They’re not and they’re not.

If you listen to disabled voices you might gain a new perspective.

*****

One of the big questions that remains for us all in the months and years to come is, “Will the perspective we have gained from this past year propel us to lasting change?”

Will we remember a policeman kneeling on George Floyd’s neck for 9 minutes, murdering him in broad daylight? Will we remember a president who didn’t wear a mask, told us the virus would “dissappear like a miracle” and continue to downplay the dangerous nature of the virus while Black and Brown communities suffered disproportionally? Will we remember an innocent black woman killed in her own bed and no one being held accountable? Will we remember the dented and bruised faces of our frontline workers who wore masks for up to 16 hours a day in hospital units too full of too many COVID-19 patients? Will we remember the 340,00+ deaths (so far) from COVID-19 and the very real losses and devestation each of those deaths left behind? Will we remember the disbility community being the sacrifical lambs of COVID-19 as their lives were deemed less important to save? Will we remember our pledges to anti-racism and how we can engage in and create a more equitable future for all US citizens? Will we think about accessibility and remember that we can be flexible and find ways for disabled and other members of society to more fully participate in society? Will we remember the wildfires in California that left many people dead and many more homeless or scrambling to collect their family and a few belongings before they evacuted for weeks? Will we remember marching in the streets and people demanding a better, more equitable future? Will we remember watching our children learn from a laptop at home 7 hours a day? Will we remember the teachers who rose to the challege again and again and again despite still being underpaid and underapprecaited? Will we remember the anxiety fueled nights we laid in bed wondering how much further we could spin out of control?

Will we be forever changed by the global shift of perspective that everything in the world can change overnight by a tiny, invisible yet powerful force?

Will we remember?

*****

By the time I was a kid my grandpa was a well respected optometrist and businessman in his community. I was Doc Whitakers’ grandkid. Stories of his past sometimes conflicted with the grandpa I knew and loved–he wasn’t a poor farm boy, he was a successful optometrist and a fun-loving husband, father and grandfather. And it often hurt to hear those stories about someone I loved going through so much.

But there were also consistent reminders of who he was, where he’d been and what he’d experienced.

For example, he used to routinely hold out his hands and shake them around, like he was trying to loosen his wrists. I didn’t know it until I was much older, but apparantly that gesture was due to the fact the he had broken both of his wrists when he was a kid. However, since it happened during a fight with his cousin, and he didn’t want to get in trouble, he never told anyone and never had them checked out by a doctor or treated in anyway. He even figured out a work around for his farm chores with two broken wrists. He might have never known he had actually broken them except for a physical he had during WWII when a doctor asked how he had broken both his wrists?

His wrists had healed, but he was also forever altered. He carried the scars of those days in his bones, for the rest of his life.
Apparantly he also carried shrapnel in his neck and face for the rest of his life as well.

Other things were also ingrained in him and likewise flowed into the rest of us, like his patriotism. He had shed blood and served his country. Of course he felt a deep love and pride for his homeland. I felt it too.

This past year as I have been relearning a new America, one from the perspective of Black people, I have learned about patriotism from a whole new light. To think that Black people and other people of color have been actual property, kicked off their land, reduced to less than fully human, had to fight for their civil rights just a generation back and on going still… to go through all of that and to still believe in the American promise? What is that kind of loyalty and belief? And in fact to understand that our BIPOC (Black, Indiginous, People of Color) have been the ones to actually be the ones to bring the promise that “all men are created equal” to the fruition is patriotism on another level entirely.

******

My grandpa was the son of a widowed father who remarried after losing his first wife to an epidemic. He was poor as a child and lived through some of the most difficult times in our country’s history. He fought in a World War and saw and experienced horrible things. He came home and re-married (I didn’t even touch on the fact that his first wife left him during the war), raised a family, had a career and a business and was in many ways the father figure of my life.

He was 100% shaped by the perspective one can only gain through lean years and gritty circumstances that either slough off your rough edges like sandpaper, or chip away at your light and humanity. Thankfully he chose refinement, even if he still occassionally felt the pain physically and mentally.

(And even through all of this I am reminded that he was white, able-bodied and cis-gender. I am white, able-bodied and cis-gender.)

******

Perspective. 

I hope the collective we can carry the perspective of this past year with us the rest of our lives.

I want us to be happy and joyful. My grandpa was. I want us to play and have fun. My grandpa did. In fact, I believe his past also contributed to his desire for joy and light. It must have. I believe a lot of us are feeling this desire too.

But I also hope we feel something in our bones the rest of our lives that we can never quite shake.
My grandpa had a hard time in the war, but he lived. I hope we feel the saddness and desperation of those who have been the most adversly affected around us and let it move us toward compassion, humanity and ultimately working toward a more equitable future.

The tragedies of this past year, that are still playing out, are very, very real.
And so is the perspective.

I hope we can move past the former, while never, ever, ever letting go of the latter.

Forgive me for my clumsy analogies and the general lack of polish. This is one of those pieces I have spent hours writing over several days and it still feels inadequate. But I hope that some of my ideas around perspective, particularly of this past year, have been captured and communicated. I’d love to hear your thoughts, and even corrections, if you have any. 

Thanks, 
Miggy