UNDERSTAND?
/UNDERSTANDING. That’s a big concept isn’t it? And, this essay could go off in numerous directions. For example, we could consider the difference between seeking to understand and seeking to be understood.
Take seventh grade algebra. Why couldn’t I understand this stuff? How hard could it be? I wasn’t stupid. I could conjugate verbs all day. I never doubled my negatives or dangled my participles. I could diagram any sentence; so why couldn’t I get how to graph an equation? Logic is logic right?
My folks hired a tutor, a nice man who parted his hair near the middle, had dirty glasses and dandruff.
Mr. Tutor: “Do you understand this,” pointing to a paper where he had written something like: If the nth root of 1,296 is 6, then what is the value of n?
Me: “No. Do you understand me?”
Then there’s the question of understanding that seems to have a warning built in to it: “Capisce?!”
ca·pisce | \ kə-ˈpēsh
—used to ask if a message, warning, etc., has been understood
“If you fail Alegbra One it will be an irreversible blemish in your permanenet file, capisce?”
Recently we visited a couple of very busy, public places—four adults, seven kids, ranging in age from 12 to 1.5. I liked our odds. Two of us four adults though are not as fast as we used to be and all seven of the kid group are quick, curious, and confident. Two of the adult group are parents to four. They had theirs managed. The other three were the responsibility of the two us who are less agile and whose warnings seem to carry less weight.
The older two were fine and a big help. The youngest (just turned 7) is quick as lightening, can disappear like a vapor, turn your back and she’ll be up a tree, in a tunnel, scaling a boulder or off to see the next attraction. Her own parents write their cell phone number on her arm when in a large group so someone will know whom to call if they find her.
I suggested to her that we do that and she sought to help me understand that that wasn’t necessary. Then I had an idea: I made her a little leather bracelet and stamped her Mimi’s phone number into the leather. Her dad rehearsed with her how to find a grandmotherly looking lady, how to show her the bracelet and ask if she would call her Mimi. “Capisce?!”
She wore her bracelet the whole trip: swimming, sleeping, climbing, running and all. Here is her photo at a river parks playground. Notice her little snowcone stained bracelet.
It probably won’t be too many years before I’ll need a bracelet with somebody’s number on it. I understand this. It will be good when they put out the “silver alert” for an old man wearing a bracelet with a loved one’s number. Hopefully when someone calls the number the loved one will answer and come and get me.
Sometimes Nora misunderstood me. She saw our concern to know where she was every moment as unnecessary and inhibiting. I could emphathize with her. When she would say to me: run over there with me, or let’s climb up those rocks, I too felt shackled. I tried to help her understand that I’m too old. She would say, “Oh, Pops.” I love the confidence she has that I can still do the stuff best done in our youth.
For now, she doesn’t understand. One of these days though… It will be like my algebra tutor said, “one of these days it will just make sense.” He was right. At least enough of it made sense that my permanent record shows a pass on Algebra One.
I want to thank those seven grandkids, their parents and their Mimi for understanding, for including me. I like to think I’m self-sufficient, that I can meet all my own needs, but the fact is I need all of these people.
There is a line I like from the story, “A River Runs Through It”. In fact there are many lines from that movie that I like. This one is near the end. A pastor is talking about people that are sometimes difficult to understand and to love.
“Each one of us here today will at one time in our lives look upon a loved one who is in need and ask the same question: We are willing to help, Lord, but what, if anything, is needed? For it is true we can seldom help those closest to us. Either we don't know what part of ourselves to give or, more often than not, the part we have to give is not wanted. And so it is those we live with and should know who elude us. But we can still love them - we can love completely without complete understanding.”