My granddaughter, Vrinda graduated this year from the University of North Florida with a degree in Biology with a concentration in Coastal Environmental Science. My hope is that someday she will save our world from devastating climate change. One of my favorite memories of Vrinda was when I took her down to the beach when she was about two. She would love to run out to the water’s edge but was terribly frightened by seagulls and would run back up to me on my blanket. I knew she wanted to be out there with her sisters playing, so I had a talk with her and said, “You are this tall,” holding out my hand over her head. “the seagulls are only this tall,” as I moved my hand low to the ground. “All you have to do is run towards them and shout, “Go Away, go away! The seagulls are afraid of you because you are bigger.” Vrinda tried it and was delighted to be able to make the seagulls fly away. She would run up and down the beach shouting at them, “Go Away, go away! From then on, her favorite game when we'd go to the beach would be to immediately clear the area of any seagulls.
We were on a business trip when Janet went into labor with Vrinda. I had asked our accountant, Lena to come over and help watch Chandra and Tulaasi after Janet went into the hospital. Keith and I boarded the plane, thinking that when we arrived, we’d have another grandchild. When we called from the airport, we found that although Janet was in the hospital; she had not had the baby yet. We sent Lena home and took the girls over to our house to wait. It seemed like minutes after we had arrived home that Janet had Vrinda. We always thought that Vrinda waited until we got there. We were delighted with this cute and smiling baby. Vrinda was the first one that Keith and I had been around from the start, and I think that caused a special bond between us. She tore a pretty big hole our hearts. When they would bring the girls over to stay with us, Vrinda would always jump on my lap with her bottle hanging from her mouth. She’d turn my head towards her and say, “Grandma, I want to tell you about my bad dream last night.” Vrinda was special to Tulaasi. Finally, no longer the youngest, Tulaasi seemed to rise to the occasion when Vrinda came along. Tulaasi would lay on the floor and look at Vrinda and gently touch the side of Vrinda’s face. She would talk "baby talk" to Vrinda. Tulaasi was finally the bigger sister.
I grew up like the Gorgonites; the heroes of a movie called Small Soldiers. They were not brave, instead they had a knack for hiding. My brother was bigger and a bully who beat me up; both physically and emotionally. I was insecure and thought of myself as little. A friend at work one day said to me, "Sandi, you intimidate others." I was shocked! Me, thought of as intimidating? How can that be? He explained, "you're very smart and smarter than everyone else here. They find that intimidating." I had worked most of my life in the car business where having an education was not a strong point; in fact I rarely mentioned that I was a CPA and had a degree in Accounting with a minor in Computer Science. Typically the General Manager or owner had a "PHD." That doesn't meant an advanced degree, rather that meant "poppa had a dealership." He got the job because his dad, grandfather, etc. owned the dealership.
Was I an intellectual bully? I realized that I didn't like training people; I couldn't understand how they couldn't understand how things worked or aspire to a higher position. I didn't have empathy for those that were content to be at the same level, lacking the ambition to learn more and grow. My friend would lector me, "Sandi, not everyone can be the CFO like you; the world also needs file clerks." Later when I started a software company, my "bigger brain" got worse. When someone would be using our software and wanted our product to look like their old antiquated previous system, I didn't get it. Didn't they want the speed and power of better technology?
I'm not sure if I'll ever be cured of being an intellectual bully. I never thought of myself as pretty, but I knew I was smart and could figure anything out if I had a manual or an Internet connection. But I am also self-aware, so I've stepped down from running my software company and in my place are empathic professionals that work carefully with our customers, helping them use our software, regardless of their ability to learn or understand instructions. I am trying to be bigger and stop yelling at people to "go away, go away!"
Visit my website for info on my books - https://www.sandijerome.com/
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