Hope Yancey

I began blogging for ACA in December 2010, just a few months after my father died suddenly and unexpectedly. I want to share a story from those difficult months that followed, and how something good emerged – in a small way – even in a time of grief:

Appropriateness is an underrated quality these days. Be it speech, manner or dress, it is important to be appropriate to the occasion. But it’s the latter of these – appropriate dress – that I want to sew up now.

I come from a family of schoolteachers. My mother is a history teacher at a public high school. My sister teaches English as a Second Language to community college students. My late maternal grandmother also was a teacher. I have aunts, uncles, cousins and other relatives who were or are teachers, or work in the schools in other capacities. And education was always a major emphasis of my parents when I was growing up. I guess old habits die hard, because in some ways I still think in terms of the school calendar, even though I’m no longer in school. So it is that my mind turns to graduates and graduation ceremonies each May and June.

Happiness is a popular topic of debate in recent years: what defines it, how to measure it, whether people are born with a particular set point.

A majority of voters who went to the polls on May 8 in North Carolina voted for an amendment that would add a new section to the state constitution stating, in part, “Marriage between one man and one woman is the only domestic legal union that shall be valid or recognized in this State.” The vote pertaining to the constitutional amendment was essentially a referendum on gay marriage.