Fear

Fear. It is one of our most primitive emotions. It is how we discover what we truly feel as opposed to what we think we feel. This is why I find fear comforting. There is no way to alter fear. If we are afraid of something, we are afraid. Now, I know we develop ways to conquer our fears, but what I am getting at is if we are truly afraid, we can't hide it from ourselves. Fear does not lie. Fear may ruin things sometimes, but it keeps us in check. We have something to motivate us to do good. Maybe that isn't a good thing, being motivated by fear, but most people do not live only in fear. We live in love, in hope, and in all other emotions. It is just comforting to know that fear is there not to weaken us, but to keep pushing us and to help us realize who we were created to be. My thoughts for the day. God bless!

This is the blog that was "Don't Give Up On Love"

I'll keep this short. I've been going back and forth about what in the world to rename this blog. I finally decided on "In My Own Little Corner" instead of "Don't Give Up On Love". I feel like the title speaks more to what I actually write about - my life and the way I see things. I hope I still have your interest. If you have ANY suggestions for things you'd like me to blog about, please post a comment on something. I'd love to hear what you have to say! Thanks for reading!
Love,
Hannah

An Interview With My Grandparents, 2003

This is an interview from 2003. A woman from my Grandpa's neighborhood interviewed him and my Grandma about their early life in the Tremont area. I love reading this. Ignore any little grammar and typing mistakes - I didn't feel like fixing them. It gets cut off at the end, but this is as much as we have.

Cleary:
What is your name?
Gantose: James Gantose
Cleary:
How do you spell your last name?
Gantose: Gantose
Cleary:
Where were you born and in what year?
Gantose:
I was born in 1922, on the Southside.
Cleary:
Do you remember what hospital you were born in? Were you born in a hospital?
Gantose:
No, not really. I remember the address of the house I was born in. It was 2267 W14th Street.
Cleary:
Was that a single family home?
Gantose:
No, it was a multifamily home. We had borders upstairs and a separate room in the back for my aunt and uncle. We didn’t charge them any rent back in those days. That’s how it was back in those times with large homes on W14th Street and they used them as multiple homes.

Mrs. Gantose:
Wasn’t Grace Hospital on one side?
Gantose:
Grace Hospital on one side and Ukrainian National Home on the other side. The Craftsman’s Hall on the other side of us.
Cleary:
When did your parents move into the Tremont area?
Gantose: Back in 1920.
Cleary:
Did they own this home?
Gantose: Yes.
Cleary:
How big was your family? How many siblings did you have?
Gantose:
I had two sisters and a brother. A sister was deceased.
Cleary:
What nationality is your family?
Gantose:
We are Lebanese. There were all different denominations on W14th Street. That was something about W14th Street, you always knew it was Sunday because you would hear the church bells ringing. If I remember, there were 14 different denomination churches on W14th Street and the adjacent streets. That’s primarily what I remember the most.
Cleary:
What church did your family belong to?
Gantose:
That’s a complex story. St. George Syrian Orthodox Church. It was right across the street from Pilgrim Church.

Mrs. Gantose:
Can I add a little bit for him? His mother, grandmother and grandfather, who lived with him, were Catholic. His mother married his father who was Orthodox so they went to St. George. There wasn’t really a church nearby, so they also attended St. Elias Catholic Church. That will come into our history a little later.
Gantose:
That was across the Central Viaduct Bridge. My grandmother took me to church every Sunday. It was a combination of things. There was no thought if it was Catholic or Orthodox. They were primary the same.
Mrs. Gantose:
The family’s religion though was always according to the man’s side. That would be the Orthodox Church.
Cleary:
When you were growing up as a child what did you do to entertain yourself?
Gantose:
We played baseball. As a matter of fact in our backyard there was the Ukrainian National Home and then our home. We had adjoining driveways. So we had a sort of diamond in the backyard. We played ball back there and I remember breaking a few windows. Then on Fairfield St. we had several Italian families there and we played ball. We went to Lincoln Park to play ball. That was it mostly.
Cleary:
Was there a movie theater?
Gantose:
Yes. There was a theater right across the street from where we lived. We used to go to the Sunday matinee for five cents a movie. We used to sneak in. In the back there used to be an area and we used to sneak in to save the five cents. That was something. I still remember the Paper/rags man in the streets with a horse drawn cart. Yelling out “Paper rags, paper rags”. I never knew what that meant. I thought it was a foreign language of some sort.
Mrs. Gantose:
That was rubbish collection in those days.
Gantose:
They use to collect materials. If you had lead of materials that they thought was useful; they would pay you for it. We used to save lead items and things that we thought were of some value and we would exchange it. He would give us a price for it. There was a water trough for the horses, not on every corner but there was one in Lincoln Park. There was one in Fairfield.

Cleary:
Since we are talking about the horse and buggies, what type of transportation did your family use?
Gantose:
We always had a car back in those days. My dad was in the construction business. We had a three-car garage in the backyard where we storied our equipment.
Cleary:
Did he own his own construction business?
Gantose:
He was in it with his brother.
Cleary:
Is that how they made it through the depression?
Gantose:
Yes. They didn’t make much but they weren’t on welfare. They were making about fifty cents a day, which was quite a bit. They hired a lot of people and paid them well. They didn’t make much money but kept working. They were hand-digging ditches for water and sewer lines mainly. They did that all by hand.
Cleary:
Your mom was a homemaker then?
Gantose:
Yes, she was a homemaker.
Cleary:
What other nationalities were in your neighborhood? You had mentioned Italians.
Gantose:
There were Greeks and Polish, Ukrainians, Russians and Germans.
Cleary:
On your street there was different nationalities. Was there anywhere in the neighborhood were there was a little corner of Polish or Greek or was all the streets pretty mixed.
Gantose:
It was fairly well mixed. There was the Greek Orthodox Church and the Ukrainian Orthodox Church, and St. George and the Russian (Orthodox Church), and we would have a parade around the neighborhood every Easter. We would have a parade with three or four churches.

Cleary:
Speaking of churches, what other activities did the churches provide, like dances? This was also during the depression, did they help provide meals to families?
Gantose:
St. George didn’t have too much going on back in those days. We had a dance occasionally. St. Elias Church on Scranton Ave they would have dances every holiday. We ate ethnic foods. There was a Merrick House there.
Mrs. Gantose:
It was a community center. My class at Lincoln High School used it for meetings. It was at the edge of Lincoln Park.
Cleary:
So you would go there for certain events?
Gantose:
I remember basketball. We would stay within our own groups. We didn’t mingle too much.
Cleary:
Where did you go to school?
Gantose:
I went to Tremont elementary school. That was near St. John Cantius Church-Polish. There was a store around the corner where we would by candy for a penny. At that time a penny was quite a bit.
Cleary:
Did you go to high school?
Gantose:
Yes, I went to WestTech. My sisters went to Lincoln High School. That was in the area. I went to WestTech because of the technical courses that they had there. I wanted to get away from my sister at the time. We were in the same class at the time because I had missed a whole year of school. She sat behind me. I was sick and had missed most of the year. She was a genius and I didn’t know it at the time but I was normal. She would do her homework and I would go off with the boys and play baseball at Lincoln Park. In the center of Lincoln Park there was a round pool. It was only about a foot deep but it was always crowded with kids. There were a lot of ethnic groups in that area. I used to get in fights with the Pollocks because they had light hair and at the time I had dark hair. I used to belong to a couple of Polish gangs. They were just a bunch of boys getting together. We played baseball mostly. I used to walk to school, about three blocks. I used to cut through the backyards because we all did that. We just cut through the backyards to go to school. When the bell rang I could hear it and I would get there in time for the first class.

Cleary:
Did you go outside the city for different entertainment or for other things? Did you go to downtown Cleveland?
Gantose: I used to go to the YMCA downtown. My grandmother and I would walk across the Central Viaduct Bridge. I t was a wooden bridge and as you walked across it you could look down and see the Cuyahoga River between the boards. Occasionally you had to be careful because some of the planks were starting to rot. Around the corner there was a gas station and gas was ten cents a gallon. There were trolley cars and brick roads. There were car tracks in the center. The trolley went down W14th and branched off onto Fairfield Ave. We used to hop on the back of the trolley cars for shortcuts. I would hop on the back of the trolley and go over the Central Viaduct Bridge. We would go without paying. At the time we hadn’t felt the depression too much. I used to associate with people who were affected. I used to stand in line for the handouts just keep them company.
Mrs. Gantose:
My dad would just have us take the cheese and the milk. He didn’t want help from anybody. There was so much surplus that there was this church that we would go to once a month with our little wagons. We would pick up cheese primarily not so much milk.
Gantose:
There were wagons that sold vegetables. There were bakery trucks that would come up and down the streets. There were ice trucks too.
Cleary:
Were there grocery stores in Tremont or did you have to travel outside of Tremont?
Gantose:
On W11th St. there was a Greek store. It was a dairy type of a store. We used to go downtown to the Central Market. We were fortunate. We had a car. We wouldn’t take anymore than ten dollars. Ten dollars bought us all the food we needed. I always went shopping with my mother. I used to watch the money. If something were five cents, like a dozen oranges, I would make sure she got the correct change. We did a lot of ethnic cooking. I used to watch my mother cook the ethnic foods.
Cleary:
Did you speak a foreign language in your home?
Gantose:
We spoke Arabic but I didn’t pick it up to well. When my grandmother was living I had to speak Arabic with her.

Cleary:
Did your grandmother speak English?
Gantose:
Yes, she picked it up. My mother and father concentrated so much on English that she forgot about the Arabic. My sister spoke Arabic. I spoke it a little. Now, I can understand it but I can’t speak it.
Cleary:
Were your parents immigrants or were they born here?
Gantose:
Yes, they were immigrants. My mother came over here when she was 14 and my dad was 25. My mother’s sister homesteaded her land in Canada and that was how she acquired her land in Canada. We are planning a family reunion with the four sisters and their offspring’s. My wife is the secretary for that. My mother and her sister our 20 years apart in their ages, which is unusual now days.
Mrs. Gantose:
The Greek coffee shops are where the Greek men would meet to talk. Mr. Gantose’s uncle was Greek. There were several funeral homes on W14th Street and each one would take care of a certain ethnic group. There was a funeral home almost right next door to St. George’s Church. So all the Lebanese people, who died, the families would have the wake right next door. So even, funeral homes would attract certain ethnic groups to that particular funeral home. I think around the churches there was a group of that ethnic group that lived in that neighborhood. A lot of them came in quite a ways. Most of the people that lived in Tremont worked in steel mills, which were right down in the Industrial Valley.
Cleary:
So you went to Lincoln High School?
Mrs. Gantose:
I went to school at Lincoln, which was on the fringe of Tremont. It was on Scranton Rd and Clark. Clark and W25th Street were the major shopping areas and the area that I lived in. I got to know Tremont because all my friends lived in Tremont. At the time at school there was a great deal of bonding with all the ethnic students that you were in school with. My class was comprised of mostly Tremont people. We had a group that met at the Merrick House, which was a community center. It was for our meetings. People got together in their churches not in a big way but as families for their social life. Pilgrim Church has a main sanctuary with a door that opens up when they were doing things. It had a room with a balcony above it that would open up to the sanctuary itself. There were classrooms around it where they would teach Sunday school. It had a theater, a bowling alley and a gymnasium. That whole building consisted of everything that they would need for religion, recreation, and athletic and theatrical stuff. Even though they may have not lived right there and many of them did not, they came in from the outer Cleveland area to go there. Most of the churches had a way of providing religion, recreation and other things for their own groups. For social purposes, the ethnic groups pretty much stayed within their own group. When I was going to school I was part of a National Heart to Students group. I went to Tremont school as a teacher’s aide. This was a part of my schooling for a business education in high school. I was paid six dollars a month by the U.S Government.

There was a bathhouse on the corner of Starkweather Ave. right behind St. George’s Church. It overlooked Lincoln Park. There was a church too on the edge of the park, Our Lady of Mercy. The churches were all over. The bells would ring and everyone would be summoned to their own church.
Cleary:
Was there a lot of crime in the neighborhood at that time?
Gantose:
There were gangs but it was petty stuff. Not like the gangs now. I belonged to a couple of gangs.
Mrs. Gantose:
I believe there was gambling but there wasn’t crime though.
Cleary:
Were there a lot of bars?
Gantose:
I remember about three bars. There was Dempsey’s right on Starkweather. There was Holt’s (Hotz’s) Place.
Cleary:
Did your father frequent these bars?
Gantose:
Oh no! He would stay within his own group. They would have their massa. They would sit down to eat and drink arahk.
Mrs. Gantose:
Massa was a word for appetizers and arahk was a clear liquid that you would add water to it and it would have an anise taste to it. It was very powerful.
Cleary:
What did your mother do? Did she get together with friends?

Mrs. Gantose:
Mom’s favorite past time was shopping downtown at the May Co. and Higbee’s with her friend Devy. They would over buy and after a few days, return some of the things. They would go downtown on the trolley.
Gantose:
She mostly did social family gatherings. She would get together with her sisters. She was quite a shopper. She would occasionally go to the movies.
Cleary:
When did you go into the war?
Gantose:
In 1943 I was drafted. I stayed three years. I got out in April of 1946. When I got out they had sold the home on W14th Street and they moved to the Old Brooklyn area.
Cleary:
Why did they move out of the Tremont area?
Gantose:
It was an old house and my dad was always repairing one thing or another. He had had enough and he was just on the verge of retiring. He still did odd jobs but it was an old beat up house. It was 100 years old at that time. It was an old mansion. There were a lot of large homes on W14th Street.
Mrs. Gantose:
The streets in Tremont had names that were college connected. At one time, they were
going to build a college in that area. There is College Ave., University Street, Literary, and Professor.
Cleary: So your parents moved out because of the home and retirement. It was a convenience factor for them and not the neighborhood.
Gantose:
The Ukrainian National Home wanted to buy it. We sold it to them because they were such good neighbors. We had that common drive and they would take care of the drive and the backyard.
Mrs. Gantose:
Grace Hospital was right on W14th Street. People had medical help close by. It was a big plus to the neighborhood.
Cleary:
Were there dentists and doctors offices near by?

Gantose:
I went to the doctor’s when I burned my leg Good thing Grace Hospital was near by. I sort of jumped into a bon fire. I was eight years old. That’s why I missed school.
Mrs. Gantose:
In Jim’s case they actually went to a Lebanese doctor. So people use to go to a doctor that was of their own ethnic background.
Cleary:
Was the office in the neighborhood or did you have to travel.
Gantose:
We had to travel. It was a language barrier. My wife’s family always went to an Italian doctor and we always went to a Lebanese doctor or an Arabic doctor.
Mrs. Gantose:
The main place where people went to the doctors was on the corner of Clark and W25th Street. There was a bank on the first floor. The building had several floors to it. We went to the dentist or eye doctor. It was right outside the Tremont area. Clark was the next major street where this office building was located. 

Remembering My Incredible Grandpa 7.23.1922 - 8.4.2013

Hello, all. I know my posts have been few and far between, but I will attempt to rectify that ASAP.

I have been on the fence about writing this post, and unfortunately it is not a happy one. But I feel that not posting it would be an insult to my loved ones. This is a documentation of my Grandfather's hospitalization and passing. It was a week full of adjustments and of sorrow, but it is nevertheless something I feel I should post.

I realize this is EXTREMELY detailed. But this is also for my benefit. So I can remember my last few days with my incredible Grandpa. I miss him so much every day, but I know he is watching out for me. If you read this whole post, you should win something. I know reading something like this before going through it would have actually eased my mind - knowing that what I was feeling was semi-normal, and that's part of why I wrote this. It's really ramble-y, but I can't take the time to make it perfect...

*The thing you have to understand is, my Grandpa never told us how bad he was feeling. He didn't call us or any of his friends.

Friday July 26, 2013: I went to work and had made plans to go to an Indian's game later that day. John picked me up from work and took me to his house. When we walked in, John's mom said I should call my mom because she had been trying to get ahold of me. My mom never calls John's house, so I knew something was wrong. I called my mom and she told me my Grandpa had a heart attack. He had apparently driven himself to the emergency room while having a heart attack and was in the hospital with kidney failure and congestive heart failure, along with horrible cellulitis. He also lost his wallet sometime between driving in and getting to the 9th floor. She told me not to worry about rushing to the hospital that night, and to go to the game. So I went. I was going to see him the next morning.
Well, we found out my Grandpa had felt absolutely awful for about a week. He said that the last good meal he had was on July 23 (his 91st birthday) when he took himself to Bob Evans. We weren't able to reach him on his birthday, and he never called us. It is really hard for my family not to "blame" ourselves for not knowing.

Saturday July 27, 2013: I went to Parma General where my Grandpa was being kept on the 9th floor cardiac area. He recognized me and smiled, and was still able to talk (something that wouldn't last long). He had a few visitors and was able to eat a little. He hated being in the hospital. He was always quiet and sweet, never asked for anything. We had to force him to ask to be fed and taken to the bathroom. (Let's just say the people at Parma General - not the brightest). My mom was worn out and I was worried and uncomfortable. But my great aunt who I love dearly was there and helped out a lot.

*I went to the hospital every day, but I didn't document everything so a few days are skipped*

Thursday August 1, 2013: My Grandpa was in a lot of pain. His shoulder was bone-on-bone arthritic, his legs were twice their normal size because of the cellulitis, he was nauseated, and he couldn't move his left arm without his shoulder killing him. On top of all of that, he was losing his ability to communicate - which was the hardest thing for me. My Grandpa and I had always been so close. I once said "Grandpa is the only one who understands me" and now I was one of the few who could understand him. He asked everyone to move him different ways and he started to get a little freaked out - like he didn't know where he was. He had apparently been hallucinating for about a week and a half and didn't tell anyone. He kept saying "Push down on my arm. Move my back. Shift me here." and it was not clear at all where he wanted to go. But we tried. A lot of my extended family came to visit and there was a doctor and a nurse in our family so they were able to really help my Grandpa get in the position he wanted to be in. It was hard for everyone to see him like that because he had always been so strong. That was a hard night. (Thankfully, though, we found his wallet)
I was told that night by a priest friend of ours that he thought God always made up for my Uncle Jay's death at age 17 by putting me into my Grandparents' lives. I nearly cried. Simple words can mean so much.

Friday, August 2, 2013: I didn't go into the hospital today, but my mom did. She said that my Grandpa wasn't speaking clearly. He was extremely nauseated and threw up once. Throughout the week he kept asking my mom "Am I dying?" which absolutely broke my heart. The doctors at the hospital said there was nothing more they could do, and our best bet would be to transfer him to hospice and "make him comfortable" - three words everyone hates to hear. We had met with a social worker earlier in the process and we decided on Seasons of Life Hospice in Parma. He was transferred on Friday night.

Saturday August 3, 2013: My Grandpa wasn't talking at all. He couldn't eat, he slept almost all the time. The hospice facility was BEAUTIFUL and the people were amazing. My mom, dad, great aunt, and I stayed for most of the day. We made phone calls to tell people where he was, etc. I couldn't say anything to him because I would get too choked up. Thinking about how little I said to him kills me every time I think about it. It was one of those "I never told him how much he meant to me" kinds of things, and it's really hard to forgive yourself for that. Anyway, we spent our day there. As we left, my mom told him what a wonderful father he was to her, and all I could say was "I love you, Grandpa. I'll be here tomorrow with John." Those were the last words I spoke to him.

Sunday, August 4, 2013: My Grandpa passed away at around 5:00 this morning. My mom woke me up to tell me, and she left with my dad to go see him. I chose to stay behind because I knew I couldn't take seeing him like that. I cried for a while, then just reflected on what he meant to me.  It was one of the hardest days I can remember. Going to Mass was close to impossible just because I felt "cheated" out of time with  my Grandpa. I know that sounds awful, but it's a pretty understandable response, I think.

Wednesday/Thursday August 7/8, 2013: Wednesday afternoon was my Grandpa's wake. I got through that with relative ease. Family really lifts your spirits. Close to 300 people came to honor my Grandpa that day. Thursday was the funeral. We met at the funeral home to say our last goodbyes to his body - and that was the hardest thing to do. All I could bring myself to say was "I love you, Grandpa." We drove to the church, which my Grandpa LOVED and served in for many years, and the service was lovely. I got through that just fine. We then drove to the cemetery. That's where it got even harder. There were three military servicemen there to play taps and present our flag, and the Joint Veterans Honor Guard was there to offer a 21-gun salute. As each went about their duty, it became more and more difficult to keep it together. My Grandpa was a WWII vet. There aren't many of those left. To see the pride on the servicemen's faces and the solemnity with which they folded the flag, the care they took, made me more proud than ever to be Jim Gantose's granddaughter. Honestly, there is nothing more moving than the folding and presentation of the flag. It was beautiful. There was a mercy meal after the burial, and that was that.

I promise my next post will be more cheerful. Thanks for reading, sorry if I depressed you! :/

Not For Comfort, But For Greatness

Hello there! Happy spring!! The weather (for the most part) is gorgeous here and I hope all of you are soaking up the beauty and newness of the season. I have something that's been bugging me a lot lately. I will warn you now, this post will most likely turn into a rant about how irritated I get by people, but bear with me.
     Love. That's what I chose to create a blog about. Whether it was God's love, the love of others, my love for things, or what have you, this blog was to be written about love. I'm going to speak today of a particular kind of love. This love is romantic love. The love a dating couple feels for one another or that one spouse feels for another. However you choose to look at it, that is the type of love I want to focus on.
     What I have been noticing more and more is the tendancy to "date" someone for, oh, say a week and then end it. Or for a long, seemingly healthy relationship to end simply because the couple wasn't willing to strive to make it work. As a society, we are completely losing touch with the true meaning of love. Love is not supposed to be easy. It's something you're supposed to have to work for. That's what makes it so beautiful. When you've worked hard for something, it becomes that much more important to you. So if we continue to stop loving simply because it is inconvenient for us, what will our world turn into?
     I have friends who will be in a relationship just so they can say they're in one. There is no desire to make the other person into a BETTER person. There is no hope that the other person will get to Heaven. Relationships today are so focused on sex or personal gain that they crumble when they hit the slightest snag. It's so disheartening. My children will grow up thinking that love is something we can take and throw away whenever we please. Our world is so far from what it was created to be. We were created to love. But we were not created to define love ourselves then live out the love we created. "You were not made for comfort. You were made for greatness." Pope Benedict hit the nail on the head when he said this. All our society focuses on is what's good for us or profitable for us. No. We were commanded by God to love one another as Christ loves us. And Christ does not love us only when it is "convenient" for Him. No! He loves us at all times.
     I find it so upsetting that couples will end their relationships because of some stupid, petty disagreement. Without disagreement, there would be no interest. You can't simply agree on everything. It's cliche, but opposites do attract. I'm not saying you should date someone you don't share values with, but you shouldn't date a "carbon copy" of yourself. What fun is that? But honestly. A strong relationship only gets stronger when obstacles are overcome. We don't give relationships a chance to grow strong. I hope people realize and come to understand how beautiful a gift love truly is. It's a gift worth fighting for.
   

Come To Me, You Who Are Apart

O, Lord,
I have no idea where You want me to turn. I do not know what I want or, more importantly, what I need. I feel so distant from You and from the path You wish me to take. Please guide my feet as I walk the road of life. Work through me. Touch my mouth, that I may not speak ill of anyone or anything You have created. Touch my heart so that I may love as You do. Guide my hands to help those in need of it. Touch my ears, so that I may hear Your message of Love. Cleanse my mind, so that I may only think on what is pleasing to You.
Blessed Virgin,
Implore your Son to hear my plea. Guide me as a woman of God, teach me to be like you, O Beautiful Mother.

Divine Filiation

Hello, hello. :) So sorry I've been gone for so long - my schedule has been slightly overwhelming for the last few months. But here I am - haha.

Anyway. The idea for this blog post came to me in the car today as my dad and I were driving home from delivering food to a hunger center. I also have to credit God's timing here, because we have been discussing the gift of Piety in Theology recently, so this couldn't have come at a better time.

So here's my story. My dad and I were taking food down to E. 140 St. and Union (for those of you not from here, it's a pretty bad neighborhood). We had about seven boxes of food from Heinen's in our backseat and trunk, and it was just the two of us. So we got to the hunger center and it didn't look like there was anyone else around to help us bring them in. All of the sudden a young-ish gentleman with a shopping cart and slightly oversized clothes came by. Since I'm young, weak, and easily intimidated, I was a little cautious about being separated from my dad. I feel that was a natural response, but I realized that I didn't really trust this man even though I had absolutely no reason to conclude anything about him. As I was walking out of the building to grab another box I thought "Lord, help me to see him as he is and not what the stereotype of his situation says." He helped us carry some boxes in, and then my dad and I left. In the car on the way home my dad commented about how he thought the man was going to ask him for money. I thought for a second and realized that we both lumped him into a stereotype of what people say about the homeless, or the people in the "ghetto".

Blessed Mother Teresa spent her life helping the poor, sick, dying, and helpless in Calcutta, never once lumping anyone into a stereotype. Was she always completely solid in her faith and her trust? No, but she didn't give up. Mother Teresa is the person we should all strive to be. We have to see all our neighbors as our brothers and sisters with God as our Father.

We always say that people shouldn't stereotype. I know I say it a lot. But that is exactly what I did today. We don't want people to stereotype us. We don't think about our actions.

Just a thought. :) Have a great week!