Midweek Missive
#646 (XIV-45)
>>>>> The Betty
Geer Davison Centennial Edition
July 16, 2021
My Beloved Ryan---
May this Betty Geer Davison Centennial
Edition of the Midweek Missive find you in fine fetter as you conclude your
week back in Tucson at Krikawa.
I hope that your trip back to NYC is
smooth and that you land with anticipation of another interesting phase as you further explore your Bedford Stuyvesant/Brooklyn
environs.
……………………………………………………………………………………………
I have thought much about Na this
week, and have for quite a few moons
pondered and celebrated the impact that she in particular but also others have
had on my life. While I have for many
decades had an elevated awareness of the determinative role of experience, life
circumstance, and the people that fill one’s life, at this juncture I find
myself to have a certain mountaintop perspective that has enhanced my
appreciation for the unique individuals who have graced my life: Marvin Lockwood Davison, Etta Marguerite Mayhew
Geer, Dennis Alan Weltman, Jerry McAfee, Barbara Edith Reed, Ryan Courtney
Davison-Reed, Betty Geer Davison.
In the same way that some people are
particularly blessed at birth and the formative years of life in terms of
intellectual capacity, talents, skills, and economic wherewithal, so are some
given the enormous advantage of having been enveloped by loving, supportive,
wise, spirited, joyful people.
Mom bequeathed to me so many
gifts >>>>>
Mom told me that she loved me every
day of my life. Expressing my love to others comes easily to me; physical and verbal expressions of love come
as naturally to me as eating or drinking.
I got this from Mom and Dad.
Mom laughed easily, From
my earliest memories to my last physical interaction with Mom in August
2017, just before she died, humor was a defining element of our conversation,
gesture, context for our daily activity.
When I told her once as we discussed ballroom dancing that she should do
a little jig, a twinkle came to her eye and she raised her right foot as she
moved forth on her walker. She tapped
into an energy that powered her own life, created by Great, Great’s friends
Inez Strother Wilson and Verna Strother Akin, the singular Marvin Lockwood
Davison. As I reflect what seemed
seamless in the way that Dennis Alan Weltman and I connected and the sense of
humor that Barbara inherited from Frances Nabors Reed and Marie Nabors Alvey,
this becomes for me quite an inheritance of wit and a sustaining jocularity about
Life that helps maintain perspective and keeps spirits high even when so much
across the globe seems silly, stupid, cruel, senseless.
Mom gave to me a sense of proper diet,
respectful tasting of food, and a love for preparation of nutritious and
aesthetically appealing food. Such a
foundational appreciation has allowed me to grow in my understanding of the
importance of food in sustaining a healthy body. As I move further along the continuum toward
a vegetarian diet, I am so very grateful for having early understood the
importance of fruits and vegetables, manifested in the serving of meals
deemphasizing meat to one Ryan Davison-Reed.
Mom gave to me a compassion for my
fellow human beings. I remember vividly
many episodes such as those such as her chasing down a Lighthouse for the Blind
door-to-door salesperson after, not really needing any more brooms or brushes,
originally declining to make a purchase.
Gestures such as these register with a child, who then may go forth to
express such empathy in different and more universalistic ways.
Mom absolutely loved children, as did
Dad. Seeing them express that love,
easily, reflexively, as a major part of who they were as human beings, I now
realize is something that I internalized.
I treasure every moment that I am with students of all ages and get the
biggest kick out being with and bringing smiles to the faces of very young
children: “Go-go-go, don’t be slow,
that’ll make me crazy doncha know”;
“Don’t be lazy, it’ll make me crazy, then my brain’ll get all
hazy”; “Focus-focus’focus, and don’t say
hocus pocus.”
Mom and Dad always particularized this
love of children by conveying to Jan and me that nothing was more important in
their lives than the two of us.
Nothing. Nada. Anything else would always be put aside if we
needed love or help or attention. This
sort of attitude moves through the generations.
When at 37 years of age Barbara and I were graced with amazing you, we had
already garnered enough blessed experiences to fill most lifetimes. We had much that we still wanted to
experience and to achieve professionally---
but nothing--- nothing--- was
more important than you.
…………………………………………………………………………………
Love, laughter, nutrition, compassion,
love for children, particular love for one’s own children: Amazingly, such values express just about all
that is important in the world. Betty
Geer Davison enveloped me with such values so effortlessly that I inhaled these
along with the oxygen I breathed.
I did nothing to create this
remarkable environment of love and transcendent values.
They were gifts of Mom and the other
amazing elders in my life.
And thus my responsibility in the
world is of great magnitude.
…………………………………………………………………………………
I‘ll be looking forward to our next
conversation, whether tomorrow (Saturday, 17 July) or at some other juncture as
you make the transition from Tucson back to New York City---
I love you
so very much, My Dear Son---
Gary
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