I married a man who made Barbara Bush my aunt. Since I usually saw her just once or twice a year, I ventured to call her “Aunt Bar” only in thank-you notes. But I’m going to risk it now because we ended up agreeing about some essential things:
• Her little brother, my father-in-law, is the dearest and the best.
• All humans, not just children, deserve to read and to educate themselves.
• Find people who inhabit the space between kindness and laughter.
My work at Portland Adult Education enables me to cheer for adults who earn high school credentials, train for better jobs and prepare for college. I loved chatting about this work with Aunt Bar. I also loved attending the annual celebration for the Barbara Bush Foundation for Family Literacy in Biddeford. Each year, women would speak about their difficulties going to school when they had kids and their pride in returning to school for their kids. Every year, Aunt Bar would say that her speaking gig was the worst because she had to follow these remarkable women. She meant it.
I wish I could tell Aunt Bar my big work news. This year, the student speakers at the commencement ceremonies for the University of Southern Maine and Southern Maine Community College are both alumnae of Portland Adult Education’s College Transitions program. They are two very different women, but each of them represents what is possible when you invest in adults hungry to learn.
Lucy Shulman struggled with the stigma of passing the GED rather than finishing high school, but she applied to USM. Not only did she win major scholarships to attend college and travel abroad, but she is now earning her bachelor’s degree in linguistics, and she’s been accepted to teach English in Japan. Ninettte Irabaruta lost her parents to violence in Burundi, but while seeking asylum in Maine, she completed degrees at both SMCC and St. Joseph’s College. She is now earning a master’s degree at Brandeis University.
Portland Adult Ed offered these young women just some bolstering of skills and confidence at vulnerable junctures in their lives, but we proudly claim them as our own.
A couple of weeks ago, I was with my father-in-law when he got the news that his sister had resolved to refuse additional treatment. He left the dinner table, saying quietly, “I want to read.” The next morning he called his sister. My husband reported that his father had told her, “I know you know that I love you, but I am also so proud of you.” He worried that he had not told her that before, or perhaps just not enough.
She teased him for being, as ever, her spoiled little brother. My husband laughed with his dad about this. Like his father, he is the youngest of four. So what if my husband is now a high school principal and his dad a great-grandfather? With their first families, both are always the babies. My father-in-law seemed lighter after this talk.
The day before Aunt Bar’s funeral service, we returned to Maine from visiting my in-laws. A letter from Houston awaited us beneath the bills. It was a typed note from Aunt Bar. We had written her weeks prior when her brother had told us she was in pain. She thanked us for being in touch and hoped that her “amazing” brother was recovering from his own health struggles. Beneath “Aunt Bar,” she wrote by hand, “I am so proud of you both!”
I wish I could introduce Aunt Bar to Lucy and Ninette. I’m certain they would laugh together and kind words would flow. But I know what I can do. I can tell Lucy and Ninette that I am amazed by their capacity to strive and to speak on behalf of all the adult students who work, raise or lose families, confront illness, war and poverty and still commit to learning. Or I can take a lesson from Aunt Bar and her brother and say simply, “I am so proud of you both.”
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