Tears and a gift

Several years ago, Jeff and I initiated scholarships in our names at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, where we both received our BA’s in the 1970’s. Later, each of us would make our way to seminary, Jeff to Garrett Evangelical Seminary in Evanston, Illinois, and me, to Pacific School of Religion in Berkeley. How our journeys connected to form the journey of our bonding is another story, for another time.

I graduated from UW-M in the winter of 1973 and was hired almost immediately to train as a Claims Representative for the Social Security Administration. In a way, that’s when my life as an adult began, when my world began to open, to grow, and finally, to flourish. I left government service to enter seminary at the end of 1981, which marked my move from the Midwest to California. Sometimes even now, I have to stop to remind myself that I am in another place, that most of my life has been lived at a distance from my personal roots. And in my case, that is fitting.

As Jeff and I look to our past and our future, we both have held the value to serve – and to give back. I listen when I hear someone else use that expression: “I want to give back to the community where I came from…” And so, after I retired, I endowed a scholarship in my name, to be given annually to a student who is the first generation of their family – a student of color – to go to university.

The Office of Planned Giving at UW-M connects with the two of us at least once every year. Through our connections, we think of the University representative as our friends. Often, when we return to Wisconsin to visit family or to return to the places we still hold in our hearts, we have a visit. In the course of COVID-times, of course, we’ve had to meet online, to continue the connection.

This spring, Jeff and I met the new woman who is assigned to the Office of Planned Giving. Over the internet, we introduced ourselves. When it came time for me to talk about my scholarship, to explain what it meant to me, I had a surprise: tears. (Maybe the tears surprised her, also)!

I’m not a crier. I don’t think of myself that way, although I have, over the course of a lifetime, cried many tears. And I suppose there is something deeper that is touched in me, that I have this privilege, that I’m able to give back, that I want to give back, that I want to offer to open the door for another young person, whose times and life will be very different from mine, to be able to walk through that door.

As always, as I am often am these days, I am grateful.

Like my life, our spring garden has flourished! photo by Mary Elyn Bahlert, 6/2023