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Sisterhood
I thought that I would post this in case you haven't read it yet. It's a great reminder of ZTA sisterhood.
Themis Fall 20002 Profile Follow-up -- The following is the address that was presented by Convention Initiate Lisa Earle McLeod in Tampa this summer:
When I was in college, I didn’t join a sorority because I didn’t think I had time to pal around with a bunch of girls. You see, I was going to be somebody important, somebody that really mattered in the world. I was going to have a big fancy career and my plans didn’t leave a lot of time for women’s friendships.
When I looked at all those sorority girls I thought that they just want to hang out with their friends, do a little charity work, and have fun. I didn’t have time for stuff like that; I had more important things to do.
Well, I was wrong, I was really wrong. And I’m going to tell you when I started to realize just how wrong I was.
I went down the path for that big fancy career. I got recruited out of college by a big company and spent most of my twenties busily working my way up the corporate ladder. I did make time to get married, and by the time I was 29 I was pregnant with my first child. I was on my way to becoming one of those have it all women I’d always dreamed about.
But then my mother got sick. And then she got even sicker, and then she died. My mother, ZTA alumna Frances Bell Earle, died of breast cancer at the age of 53.
And there I was at 29-years-old, the have it all woman, sitting at her funeral, listening to what people had to say about a teacher, mother, and friend. First, one of her students talked about how she inspired his love for science and he had gone on to make a career of it. Then, our neighbors spoke about how she had rallied them against the developers of a big highway and forced them to put in nature trails as part of the project.
My parents took in two foster children and the woman who later adopted them spoke about the time they had spent with my parents. It was a “turning point in their lives,” she said.
As I sat there listening to all of these people talk about what a difference my mother made to them, I thought, “this couldn’t be my mother they were talking about.” Was this the same woman who cut up Spam on top of baked beans and called it a casserole? The poor housekeeper who lost it with her kids on a daily basis?
That woman who made such a difference to all those people was my mother. And I was seeing her in a whole new light.
When you’re a child, you have a very one-dimensional view of your parents, especially of your mother. We look at all that day-to-day stuff and miss the scope of what someone life is really all about.
That day at my mom’s funeral I started thinking about how my own life would measure up. Who would come to my funeral and what where they going to say? My customers from my big fancy sales job? I sold training programs, not polio vaccines. My neighbors? Were they going to come talk about how my beautiful lawn had affected the course of their lives? Who was going to talk about how I helped them at a turning point in their lives?
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That was when I realized -- I wasn’t on my way to having it all; I was on my way to having nothing at all … nothing that mattered, anyway, because we’re not the sum of our accomplishments. We’re the sum of our relationships -- the people with whom we connect with and make a difference. That’s what really matters at the end of the day.
My mother was a ZTA at George Washington back in the late 50s and she had a lot of really great friends there. I have pictures of her and her sisters at their dances with their crinolines and corsages. They’re just beaming. Yet despite all the wonderful things she did with her life, my mother made one big mistake: She let those great friendships get away from her.
Jobs, kids, moves, and the rest of the things that fill up a busy life got in the way of those wonderful friendships. Those things took priority over spending time with her friends. The way they do for a lot of women.
My mom forgot how special women’s friendships really are and how much they can add to your life. I sometimes thing you’re your best self when you’re with your friends. And your true friends can help you find your best self if you ever forget it.
My friend Jayne Hungate, a member of the ZTA Housing Corporation, said to me the other day, “I could end up in Timbuktu, but wherever ever I go I have my ZTA.” I wish that my mom had had that. She could have, but she let it get away from her. She ended up facing a lot of her life’s problems including cancer without out the support of those true friends she really needed.
People meant all those wonderful things they said about her at her funeral, but those people weren’t close enough to her to help her when she needed it most. Because you can’t create close friendships when life hands you a problem.
When you’re in college, you can’t ever imagine being without your friends. You see them every day, you talk about everything, sometimes you even share a room together. But once you get out of college and you don’t have parallel lives anymore, things change and it takes more effort to keep those relationships alive.
But it’s worth it, because as important as your family, your career and your community and all those other things you do with your life are, your friends are the ones who can make it all more fun for you. And your friends are also the ones who can be there for you when those other aspects of your life aren’t going too well.
One thing I’ve learned is you better make sure you have those friends in place before you need them. Because you are going to need them … it’s only a question of when.
When you loose a parent young -- and my mom was very young at 53, an age that seem younger every day -- when you loose someone that young, you always wonder what they would think about the way you turned out.
When I got an email from (then National President) Alice McCann Mathews asking me to become a ZTA, I thought, this is a sign, a sign from my mother that she’s pleased with the way I turned out, with what I’m doing with myself. But as I thought about what I wanted to say to you all, I realized maybe she’s giving me a reminder too
It took me along time to realize how important friends were in a woman’s life, and with the path I’m on now and some of the opportunities coming my way, it would be easy to lose sight of that, to forget that, the way my mom forgot it when she got busy with the rest of her life. So maybe more than just telling me she’s proud of what I’ve done with myself, maybe she’s reminding me not to let my friends get away from me the way they got away from her.
I’m honored that you all asked me to become a ZTA. So I’d like to close by saying THANK YOU. When I missed my chance in college I never dreamed I would be asked to become a member of this organization 20 years later & I’m flattered that I was. And so I say thank you. Thank you from me, and thank you on behalf of my mother, because this is an honor for her too.
Maybe my mom’s doing more than just sending me a reminder of how important friends are. Maybe she’s reminding you too. You have something very special with your ZTA friendships. Don’t ever let them get away from you!
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But anyway if any of you see the book make sure you get it I haven't read it but I really really want to!!!!!!!!
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