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It
was never quiet at our house. There was a kind of peace
about the place, but it surely didn't have anything to do
with the absence of sound. I grew up in the heady atmosphere
of a joyful fascination with learning, rambunctious playfulness
with words and ideas, and excited anticipation of the next
new discovery. I remember well our family’s blazing
and clear-eyed challenges of too-long held views and too-little-examined
concepts, of staleness in any form. And then there was always
the belly-laughing, head-thrown-back glee at a game well
played, a phrase well said, a mountain well climbed.
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I
was born to a college professor father whose love of the Classics
was third only to his adoration of us and his absorption in
students; and a mother who was dauntless in her guileless,
overflowing love of God, her family, people in general, parties,
chocolate in any form, late nights, casseroles, hot coffee,
mystery stories and red shoes. And students. Always the students.
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My
dad's love for his students was so obvious to them that they
accepted his fearless and dogged insistence that they give every
day and every class everything they had. No one escaped either
his compassion when appropriate nor his fury at mediocre performance;
and his praise for worthy effort was legendary. His classes
were always jammed to overflowing with students of all descriptions
and mindsets. His teaching load exceeded that of any other faculty
member even though his subject was neither particularly popular
nor "easy."
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And
when they were not in his classrooms they were at our house.
Constantly. From the time my mother poured the orange juice
in the morning until way past my bedtime at night, they were
there. His students. Their friends. Talking and laughing in
the house, playing badminton and croquet in our yard, cooking
hamburgers on our backyard grill, sharing – hesitantly
and shyly at first, but then with the growing confidence that
comes with warmth, acceptance and respect – their dreams,
their plans for the future, their growing awareness of who they
were, what they had to offer and how they planned to pursue
all of it.
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It
was a lively way to grow up. A taken-for-granted lifestyle in
which my sister
and I assumed that everyone had what we had: a living, breathing
world of ideas, of philosophy, of fun and frolic and words and
questions and books and music and vigorous debate, of vehement
dedication to truth and growth and fresh air.
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The
students were ALWAYS there. And they left their marks everywhere.
On the
tree trunks where croquet scores were kept, in the flowers they
planted in our yard, in the rooms full of constant chatter,
in joyful play and – quite often – in the tears that
are also a necessary part of seeking for the self. Even the
refrigerator was full of the evidence of the students –
my sister and I could not pour a glass of milk without first
moving out of the way all of the stacked-up boxes of corsages
that waited there for the weekend dances.
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What
a way to grow up! How wealthy we were with intangible riches,
unbankable luxury, and thrilling investments in students who
never forgot. Whose love for a teacher deepened, just as he
wanted, into a love of the classics.
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And
there, happily whirling in circles in the center of all of it,
was my mother. My dad fed them in the classrooms for over forty
years, and my mother fed them around our table with her own
brand of love in a biscuit, of bountiful Southern cooking. In
addition to being a fabulous cook, she was also the most adventurous
one I ever knew. Her spirited creativity in the kitchen inspired
multitudes of delighted "Ah-h-h-hhhs" as well as dishes
memorable for their shock value alone.
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My
mother had a keen sense of when to be spartan and when to spill
lavishness out on others from her own alabaster jar. We didn't
have much money…teachers do not pursue excellence for financial
rewards…and so my mother had carefully saved all the unspoken-for
coins and crumpled bills she could stash away. One day, when
I was about 7, we counted them all and drove to Raleigh to buy
her dreamed-about, carefully saved-for tablecloth. It took all
day and much comparing of fabric and texture and design. I can
still picture her rubbing the material of all those worthy of
her consideration between her fingers until she found just the
right one. It was white. It was beautiful. It was pure linen.
She proudly paid cash for it and we took it home.
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From
that day forward and for 35 years, THE TABLECLOTH was always
on our big dining-room table. At the end of every day, with
good smells filling our home, my mother would make her way through
our house and yard, gathering up students and inviting them
to join our family around the table. Oh, the laughter and the
teasing and the talking and the examining and the resolves made
and the fun poked and the goals set around that table and over
that precious tablecloth!
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At
the end of the meal, when mother would pass out dessert and
coffee, she would also hand each student a pencil with a very
dull point, and she would say, "Sign your name to our tablecloth,
and sometime tomorrow I will take my white linen thread, and
I will embroider your name on our cloth."
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And
then my dad, in his always boisterous way, looked each student
directly in the eye and proclaimed, "We want YOUR NAME
on the cloth…because the day is going to come when we will
be able to say that YOU ate dinner with us…when you were
just a student."
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Every
time I look at the tablecloth that is now mine, that is covered
with embroidered names, some of which you would recognize –
many in government; others who have made a strong mark on our
world in other fields, particularly medicine, the ministry,
law (and golf!) – I wonder all over again how many of those
students became what they became and accomplished what they
accomplished simply because an old professor and his shining-eyed
wife thought they had it in them.
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If
they could do it, so can you.
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[And
so, dear reader, if you want to take one thing from this story
about leadership and love that will make a measurable and ongoing
difference in your life, pause and make a vow wherever you are
right now to get out there and give away the gift of encouragement.
In your own way, with your own heart and intelligence and imagination.
You have no idea how starved people are for it…you have
no idea the ripple effect that it will bring right back into
your own life.]
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The
gift of love: the gift of encouragement. I thought my parents
were doing it for the students. And they were.
But more than anything else, they did it for me.
– Emory Austin
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