Wednesday, September 23, 2020
Dan Blanchette
Support
Every time I reflected on the word support; three other words keep coming to mind. Those are family, friends, and community. As much as I tried to have a singular thought without them; those are key to my support.
When we are born, we need support to eat, bathe, and have our diapers changed. Our family provides a shelter for us. They feed us. They nurture us almost exclusively for the first five years or so. As we attend school, our teachers and friends become a part of our support. They do not replace our family, but rather are added to it. Our larger community church, town, etc. also come into it.
I grow up in a small Town in northern Maine (Aroostook County). The Town was and still is small (pop. 800+-). 99% of the Town was Roman Catholic (one family was not) and everyone literally knew everyone. My mother was a schoolteacher and my father had the local car garage. I was the fifth child out of six. We did not have much material things, but we did not need anything. Growing up it was assumed that we would go to college. Mom and dad instilled that in us, probably from birth.
Support is many things to many people. We sometimes lose sight of true support. Mom and dad made sure that all six of us had an opportunity to get an education. That took the support and commitment of the family, our friends, and the community. I was blessed with a great family. I am aware that not every child is born to a family who will nurture the person in the child. Some want a duplicate of themselves and will only support that person on such a track. Support is not conditional. True support allows a person to be themselves.
Sometimes support is not wanted or misunderstood. When I started college, I figured I had finally arrived at a point where I would not be judged based on my family (about 8000 students). Up until then in school, I was always someone’s son (mostly my mother as she taught in the elementary school) or someone’s brother in high school (mostly my sister Anne – straight A student). Image my horror my freshmen year, when I was looking my grade up on the bulletin board outside the Math Dept. and someone was looking over my shoulder. The person said “ah, Blanchette, any relation to Anne.” As I turned, I saw it was a Math professor I had seen, but never had. I debated in mind as to lie, but I did not. Thus, I did answer yes. Then he said, “I can’t wait to have you in my class.” I did not take a class from him. He was my sister’s advisor as she was working on her master’s degree in math. Later in life, I had the oppurtunity to obtain a master's degree in public administration. One of the prerequisits was a statistic course, which I did not have as that was the course that the professor taught.
Sometimes it is the meer fact of knowing that support is available if needed. The current pandemic is a prime example. Several people have contacted us to see if we needed anything done such as shopping. Phil and I went into isolation early on. Thus far we have been fine (other than nearly running out of reading books). We have not needed to be in quarantine. The thought that there is support if needed is reassuring.
In the end, I only wish that I have given a fraction of all the support that I have received.