I love listening to NPR. It's the only station programmed in my car other than one easy listening station to which I tune when I need a little pick me up after a particularly sad story. On All Things Considered they've recently asked people to write essays on personal beliefs called "This I Believe." No, I didn't write one. I feel like my blog is a continual "this I believe" statement. But the other night they read one that really connected with me, and surprisingly (or not) it was written by a fellow Southerner, a community college teacher from Selma, Alabama. It could have been written by me. It's not exactly positive or uplifting. There is no flowery language or sugar coating. I want to find this woman and thank her, especially for the words about her father raging against the dying of the light, because that's what my grandfather did as well. And my grandfather taught me steeliness too, which helps me get through the tough days. 

I'm going to post the whole text here, as well as link to it, because I want to know that I have this somewhere saved so I can read it again even if NPR takes it down and the link is broken. So here it is:

By Kendra Jones, How to Survive Life's Tests: This I Believe

"I believe in toughness, steeliness and even meanness.

I learned these traits from my father. Toughness came first. I am the first-born and the son he never had. I'm the one he took to the gym, the one who could run faster than the boys, the one who played all day with a broken collarbone. I'm the one who thought my daddy was the toughest man around — and I wanted to be just like him. He never missed a day of school, worked as a dishwasher to pay his college tuition, and toiled as an accountant by day and attended law school at night.

My dad also taught me steeliness, an unwillingness to surrender. Steeliness kept me from being raped once. I fought my attacker. I left an imprint of my phone on his face. I memorized details of his face and clothing. Determined to keep other women from being violated, I identified him, testified against him and made sure he went to jail.

Sometimes even toughness and steeliness aren't enough. I also believe in meanness.

I am not a large woman; petite, in fact. I cannot command respect with my presence and stature. As a community college English instructor in a tough town, I teach people who aren't always eager to learn. I'm the mean teacher. I like to push students harder than they want to be pushed. Some of them don't like me at the time, but they usually end up appreciating me later on. "Hate me now, love me later" is my motto.

I'm even mean with myself. Sometimes it's meanness that gets me out of bed in the morning, like after a night of drinking too much. I'm not nice to myself — I don't give myself permission to stay home. Some of my best teaching days have been the result of my refusal to make others suffer for my poor self-discipline. Meanness with myself keeps me accountable.

That tough and steely will my father gave me helps me bear the loss of him. I watched him die of cancer, but he never gave up on wanting to live. Perhaps it would have been easier on both him and the family had he given in to death, had he not fought to the absolute last breath. Although I do not have him in my life anymore, I got to see him as himself to the very end of his. I understand the poet Dylan Thomas, who pleads with his own father to "rage, rage against the dying of the light."

Women are usually encouraged to be gentle. But when life has tested me the most, I believe it's my toughness, my steeliness and even my meanness that get me through."

Independently produced for All Things Considered by Jay Allison and Dan Gediman with John Gregory and Viki Merrick.