Guest Columnist
Margaret Ellen Barrett of Saxapahaw and Chapel Hill died two years ago after a long and arduous battle against breast cancer. As a close friend and colleague, I was invited to a dedication ceremony in her honor at Cummings High School in Alamance County last week.
Margaret did not teach English-as-a-Second Language at Cummings, but rather at the adjoining middle school, Broadview. Why, then, a dedication ceremony at Cummings High?
Well, Cummings is where Margaret's last students are now studying and her family thought that targeting the funds for a special ESL selection of high-interest books would not only underscore Margaret's lifelong passion for the written word but also would inspire her Hispanic students to complete their high school education. If that doesn't disprove the silly notion that logic and altruism are mutually exclusive, I don't know what does.
I walked into the Cummings Media Center with members of Margaret's immediate family: her stalwart husband Bobby Barrett, her vivacious daughter Sophie Barrett, her salubrious sister Ruth Bowers, and her elegant mother Maryellen Bowers. Of course, Carlos Oliveira, the lead ESL teacher at Cummings, was there to greet us. Carlos had taught at Broadview with Margaret and myself so it was only fitting that he chair the event.
I expected to see a handful of students but soon learned why Carlos had brought in some 50-odd chairs. Inside of 15 minutes the place was mobbed. To my astonishment, I recognized every face in the room for all had spent their first year with Margaret before coming to me, their low-intermediate ESL teacher.
Space prohibits me from detailing the many ways in which Margaret's life and work were lionized. Still, I would like to mention one voice, for his words seem to capture the feelings of everyone in attendance. Jose Martinez suffers from congenital spinal disease that has left him wheelchair-bound for life. At just the right moment he put his machine into first gear, scooted to the front of the room, and said: "Miss Barrett encouraged me to write poetry in the sixth grade and, thanks to her, I now write and write and write."
On the long and lonely drive home to Carrboro, I felt oddly uplifted, more at peace with the world. How could this be? How could a woman two years departed boost my spirits and make me so buoyant? How could a woman from an at-risk school with indigent students affect people's hearts so deeply and profoundly? The answer to those questions is as clear as a cloudless sky: Margaret was loved and continues to be loved.
Like any answer in life, however, this one raised broader, thornier questions. Why can't we love one another in America? Alas, why can't we even love one another at the local level, right here in Chapel Hill/Carrboro? Why do we continue to bicker and squabble amongst ourselves over tax dollars that might appear tangible but in reality are mere abstractions? Why do we elevate the rich and the powerful at the cost of the poor and the meek?
Do we really think that this will make for a better world and endear us with our young? Or will it doom us to the hell of the lost and the forgotten?
Jack London once wrote: "Satiety and possession are Death's horses; they run in span."
Do they ever.
Not just while we are here on Earth but long after we have gone.
That was a truth that Margaret Ellen Barrett sensed not deep in her bones but in the marrow of her mind.
Gerry Christmas is a retired resident of Carrboro, a former Peace Corps volunteer, a teacher in several Asian countries and North Carolina and a member of the Friends of the Carrboro Library.
