Category: Inspiration - trish hermanson

My 96-Year-Old Personal Trainer S-t-r-e-t-c-h-e-s Me

1/16/2020

Meet Morrie, my “personal trainer,” who just turned ninety-six and stretches me in all sorts of ways.
     I got to know Morrie when I saw him stretch his leg over a handrail at the gym and realized he’s more flexible than I am. When I complimented him, he showed me his routine and laughed. “Keep at it, and in a few decades you’ll be like me.”
     That was encouraging because I sometimes feel that I’ve already lived beyond my expiration date. But at the rec center I watch Morrie move from machine to machine, waving a hello to all the folks as he smiles and hums Tommy Dorsey tunes. His sunny attitude challenges me that whether I have a short game or a long game left to play in life, it's best to embrace every day with a smile on my face and a song in my heart.
     Because every day is a gift.

My Miracle Friend Jerry

9/13/2019

If my friend Jerry had been been born with Down Syndrome a century ago, his life expectancy would have been ten, but instead, a group of us recently celebrated his fifty-second birthday by slicing into his favorite cake, chocolate-cherry.
     Instead of a sheltered life, Jerry’s a rock star wherever he goes. At the rec center, he wears his Incredible Hulk t-shirt that says “I’m Kind of a Big Deal,” and he fist bumps others as he cycles under the instruction of his personal trainer. He keeps his own apartment with the help of a personal assistant to nag him about housekeeping, and he worked for nearly a quarter century at a supermarket until he retired.
     As I observe Jerry’s full life, my heart breaks that most parents who discover prenatally that their child has Down Syndrome still choose to abort. They do so because of “misinformation of the ancient past,” says Dr. Roger Ladda of the Milton S. Hershey Medical Center. They don’t understand that “survivability and quality of life has been transfigured.”
  So at his party as I watched Jerry read aloud the well wishes in his stack of cards, I was filled with gratitude to know this super hero who really is a big deal. He’s turned his malady into “Up Syndrome,” and reminds me that often I understand the most from those considered the least in this world.

Donna's Surprising Takeaway from a 2,200-Mile Trek

8/8/2019

Donna Nedde trekked five million steps and 2,200 miles and came away with a message that surprised me.
     She and her husband Tom Kinsella took five months conquering the Appalachian Trail from Maine to Georgia, a journey through fourteen states. This is like scaling Mt. Everest sixteen times.
   Donna, whom I met at the rec center, burned through three pairs of hiking boots and lost fifteen pounds, typical for hikers who consume five thousand calories daily just to maintain their weight on this expedition. When they arrived in a town every week or so, “I could personally eat a pint of Ben & Jerry’s Cherry Garcia,” Donna says.
     And what is her amazing take away?
     “How little we need to live.”
     They carried backpacks, a tent, stove, freeze-dried food, breakfast bars, granola, a water purifier, shorts and a shirt, long pants, phones they rarely turned on, a camera, a shovel and toilet paper, Tom’s Native American flute, “and my Kindle for reading at night,” Donna says.
     That’s it.
     What a contrast from what I observe around me - houses built smaller while storage lockers spring up. Catherine Alles from the Foundation for Economic Education reports that the average American home has 300,000 items. One out of four houses with two-car garages can’t fit a car in them because of all the stuff, she says.
     So Donna’s surprising message is not how to survive, but how to truly live: simply.
     Maybe that’s what we need to survive, too.
     And maybe it’s time to clean out my closets.

My Hero Is a Loser

7/19/2019

My hero is a loser.
     Every way he tried to find happiness and purpose failed. A broken marriage. A broken career. Broken political dreams. A broken reputation. And broken health, leaving this once handsome man bent and blind.
     He thought he could create paradise on Earth, but everything let him down one way or another.
Isn't that how life is? We put our hope in a social movement; it falls short. Or in politicians; they break promises. Or a business venture; it takes more than it gives. Or in love and friendship; people hurt us. Or we knock ourselves out at work, and no one fully appreciates our sacrifice.
     Futility dogs us. Even my carefully tended landscaping sprouts weeds.
     The best in life eventually leaves us aching for more.
     Author C.S. Lewis explains this discontent: “If I find in myself a desire which no experience in this world can satisfy, the most probable explanation is that I was made for another world.” Only in that other realm, God’s paradise, will everything be whole. Perfect. Complete.
     That’s why John Milton is my hero. When this Seventeenth Century writer grasped that nothing would completely satisfy, he wrote “Paradise Lost.” It landed in the trashcan of obscurity.
     Not until after his death did critics recognize it as the greatest English epic poem ever crafted. But such praise wouldn’t have mattered to Milton anymore. He’d already graduated to the land of absolute fulfillment.
  Which leaves me wondering whether I’m searching for utopia here, or there.

How General Jackson Helps 'Conduct' My Ways

7/12/2019

Who would guess that what I’m learning in choir would help to set a course for my life?
     But that’s what occurs through my choral director, a spry woman of eighty-nine sometimes called General Jackson. Jo Ann warns that singing is boring if we punch out every word at the same volume. The gentle general says we need dynamics, variations between a whisper and a crescendo.
     Through her graciousness in teaching music, Jo Ann demonstrates that even though I can’t orchestrate life completely, I can sometimes pick up the baton and direct the music of my days. If I constantly throw myself into a frenzied forte, I exhaust myself. I need times of pianissimo - quiet.
     Just as notes are organized into measures, I can arrange my activities so I’m not overwhelmed - schedule.
     I can pay attention to the tempo and declare when I need a rest note - a break.
     And I can give myself grace notes, those unnecessary flourishes that add richness - chocolate?
     So how am I “conducting” my days and my energy? Am I creating a symphony with this God-given treasure of time?
     Every life is worth it.