Lloyd Den Boer

Search your life and you will find a handful of people who touched it in exceptional ways . Early in my administrative career , Mrs . B . touched mine . Truth be told , if the choice had been mine , I would not have selected Mrs . B . for such a role . With her greying hair pinned back in a bun , her lengthy , shapeless skirts , her worn granny shoes , and her wooden cane , she hardly looked the part . Nor , for that matter , did Mrs . B . have any intention of being my advisor . She merely showed up in my office once a month over a period of eight years to talk to me . Nevertheless , the wisdom Mrs . B . shared — or , possibly better , the wisdom she modelled — enriched the way I approached my work .

Wisdom , we usually say , is a product of experience . Yet each of us has met people who have grown no wiser over many years despite their experiences . Shakespeare ’ s King Lear is such a character . Insulated from the consequences of his actions by the power of his position , Lear approached the end of his life with his pride , self-absorption , and delusions intact . Once his power is gone , Lear ’ s advantages are stripped from him , one after another , until he is left a destitute madman , howling hopelessly in the dark at the ravages of a storm . Only after he has experienced himself for what he is , and for no more than what he is , does Lear discover a kind of wisdom which values the truly valuable . The play ends tragically but with some of the tenderest expressions of love between a father and a daughter in all of Shakespeare .

In his self-centredness , self-delusion , and mistaken regard for such things as power , King Lear is a portrait of the lifelong foolishness that we sometimes recognize in others . Lifelong wisdom may be a harder quality to capture . In Mrs . B .’ s case , her wisdom grew from living a long , difficult life well . Mrs . B . and her husband were immigrants to Canada . Widowed young , Mrs . B . raised a family on her own . Her grief incapacitated her until she realized that her husband would want her to face the responsibilities ahead with determination . Years later , the fruits of her determination were all around her — her children with thriving families of their own

and a crowd of individuals whose lives she had touched and enriched . People like me . Mrs . B .’ s wisdom had many sides . She appraised every person and situation she met with keen insight . Mrs . B . was likely to know you for what you were , not for what you appeared to be . On the other hand , Mrs . B . approached everyone and everything with a patient spirit . She took the long view . Whether a situation was a crisis or a triumph to me , with a chuckle and twinkling eyes , Mrs . B . would remind me that life is long and filled with time for things to end differently than they began . Neither Mrs . B .’ s keen insight nor her patient spirit would have touched so many lives , though , if they were not joined to her generous love for the people around her , to her mission to influence others so that they could thrive . Decades have come and gone since the last time Mrs . B .’ s chuckles helped me refocus my perspective on a problem . As those years have passed , you and I have been on a journey from being a young person reaching out to the elders who can touch our lives , to becoming elders who can reach out to touch the lives of others . When we do so , we can remember what made Mrs . B . influential : her generous desire to help others thrive .

Lloyd Den Boer is a retired educator . His career spanned every level from elementary school to university level teacher preparation .

news & views SPRING 2021 | 19