[Applause]
alright I’m 65 and I start by telling me
that because I have one slide and I want
you to stay fascinated with the slide
what does that mean okay so while I
speak in your mind that should be
supplementally playing over and over
what’s it mean don’t be thinking that I
don’t have slides because I didn’t know
how to do a PowerPoint at my age I just
couldn’t so this is what mr. Gordon Jack
Gordon and it means a lot so my name is
Christy Dawson I retired from this high
school 2014 I started my career in
education in Los Angeles Unified and I
worked down there for 25 years
Los Angeles is probably everything that
you could imagine Los Angeles is it was
pretty crazy
my students were kind of getting killed
every year so literally so I was
deciding I needed to move north so my
husband got a job at the Nasdaq and I
brought my two young sons husband we all
came up here and I started working
continuation after several years I did
Adult Ed and I came here worked as a
counselor promoted to admin and worked
running counseling and then ended my
career with about a decade in activities
which was overall my very favorite job
that I’ve ever had I’m gonna tell you a
little bit today about resilience I love
that work when I tie activities here I
said that is the word that you have to
have in your hand because resilience is
all about elasticity how you bounce back
if you think of a rubber band that you
stretch and it goes through something
you release and it returns to its form
and that I think it’s key to how
students young people adults face one
I don’t also have slides because they
wanted to just kind of
and talked about different things and
helping tied to what I had to talk about
next
the reason resilience strikes a chord
for me is because my background and as I
came to school I don’t wear a sign about
what that was I think sometimes you go
up and see somebody you can see them
visually as a person they are and you
can know some of their background you
can hear the voice you know where
they’re from you can look at clothing
and make judgments about that person I
was a kid that would have on the outside
I think presented as pretty normal and
the inside not so much so a lot of the
hardship that young people can face it
can be addiction within the family it
can be an absent parent it can be
illness poverty poverty abuse it could
be all these things so today what I want
you to kind of think about is how that
can feed you and how you can use that to
empower you to know how to fight back
and how to go after life as a young
person I grew up in a small town my
grandparents were there their parents
had been there so everybody kind of knew
who my family was again on the outside I
think we look pretty good we did pretty
well that that whole concept of picket
fences and there’s the house and all
those kids are pretty good kids overall
in life is good but inside it was
certainly not the case absent parent I
had that my father was a Pan Am pilot
it’s a very sexy career I think he flew
f-16s when I was a little kid I’d run
out in the street and my dad and
literally wouldn’t come down and and jab
and put it into afterburner and go boom
and the whole all the buildings would
shake and he’d wave and fly away he
actually couldn’t wait for anything
because he’s going
too fast but in circle around and come
back and wave and then he was off so
pretty great guy he looked just pretty
great now the truth was it wasn’t there
him because he was in Pango Pango or
Tahiti or where what the hell he’d go he
wasn’t like a regular dad he didn’t go
to work at 9:00 a.m. and he was there at
dinner he would go to work Tuesday and
you’d see what we heard so late so I
never kind of knew where he was you know
you’re a teenager you’re not tracking
your parents so I was like he’s gone one
to Kevin what’s going on the part in my
life that was problematic for me was
primarily my mother I had an older
brother who became an alcoholic I could
say about the age of 14 or 15
his wife is we’re talking now but we
know sometimes we’ve gone as long as
maybe eight years a decade without
talking he became an addict and he to
this day right now everyone said what’s
his career at he deals drugs so kind of
different path than I took here it
didn’t work in the main office to sell
weed so but he does that he still does
it so that’s that’s that’s my great my
big brother he went to Vietnam he came
back crazier than when he went so
alcoholic pretty much drug addict
he’s now kind of blown out it’s hard to
much smoke of weed and cigarettes he’s
an alcoholic the DUI is all the stuff so
he now consumes he has to eat his weed
don’t I don’t know and I like it that
way so that was my big brother he
couldn’t take care of me he would like
run away all the time and don’t do weird
stuff I was at home I was what would be
known as the parental by child and if
you’re in a family
that’s kind of nutty a lot of time
there’s the kid that gets kind of trying
to be the parent I have a younger sister
and my younger sister I kind of parented
her and we kind of duked it out
somewhere I don’t know in our late 20s
or 30s she’s like why are you so pissed
and are being airings what’s wrong with
you and I remember she wasn’t angry
because I’m gonna put her to bed and I
deal with stuff so I want you to
understand my mom’s dream you there are
movies that make drinking kind of cute
you know Arthur I thinking that that’s a
old time movie where he’s a big drunk
and he’s funny and scary goods and you
just laugh all the way through the movie
and a lot of times time you think of the
stoner and clueless Sean Penn just like
drug addiction isn’t funny and you’re
watching it and it’s tough it’s humorous
in my case it wasn’t funny at all
so my on I have told this story at camp
and I took kids to camp two times a year
sometimes for about a decade but the
story that kind of capsule aids my mom
pretty well and kind of shows me is I
found her now she would drink a lot and
on a couple of beers and then that call
it a day my dad tells the story that he
marked her bourbon bottle with a mark
kind of to see how much she drank and
then the next day he went to looked and
he goes well where’s the mark not
realizing that it’s a new bottle so
that’s like I would come home from
school and open the refrigerator to get
some food because we lived like a block
from school and her drink was already
going so she would just start at dawn
and it went all day long so this
particular night I remember so well and
sitting in this leather chair she’s a
smoker she’s I mean adding a dick daddy
so big-time Boozer and smoker since
she’s really like 16 17 you know during
the world war two they glamorize look at
those old black and whites you guys have
seen in there all their smoking
everything’s cloudy they’re puffing away
and my mom grew up with that and smoked
so this particular night she’s sitting
in her leather chair and she’s kind of
crime my patience with her was not there
you know I want you to picture me I
guess I would probably be maybe eighth
grade or something in in ninth grade we
did a human pyramid in the gym during
halftime at basketball and the kid that
went to the top of this pyramid of light
denim 20 kids that girls was me because
I weighed like 10 pounds so I was dick
and I was trying to take care of this
woman and if you drink that much the
caloric intake is hard to imagine it’s
tough my mom got very very large so
she’s whimpering in a booth come on come
on the next really rude thing my parents
did was have a two-story house a
one-story house I could have waddled her
down
greenie and against the walls and put
her to bed but of course her bed leads
upstairs so it was like a cartoon trying
to give her upstairs and when I got
upstairs and started to get her disrobed
I thought why she had been kind of
whimpering she couldn’t speak because
she’s too drunk but what she had done is
dropped her cigarette and she’s in a
leather chair and I am I swear to you I
saw this leather chair I don’t know why
it’s telling my family when everybody’s
dead all burning but
and the cigarette laid between her flesh
and the chair and burned now try to
imagine being that drunk that you don’t
know oh I should move
that’s like chewing through my flesh you
know she just kept it there burned a big
ol hole about that long and then in the
chair which as I say I recently saw and
then she had of course this
gnarly hole in her flesh that stayed
with her forever I think that because
that was my wife and it was horrible and
Here I am an eighth grader with a dad
who’s gone also there’s a whole bunch of
other stuff this is so much more about
me than a boy at the zoo but I didn’t
even know that this was constant this
was hard I didn’t know where to go there
was no such thing as an Allen teen or
you go tell people if you’re training
and addicted at home or a sick home a
lot of times there’s called codependency
in a blink I think I’m sure some of you
know of this and the truth is keep your
mouth shut and act like everything’s
okay so you do get kind of crazy because
you know everything sucks but you’re
pretending everything’s okay and the
reality is like where is it and so if
you live in that kind of distorted thing
like Twilight Zone why for a long time
it’s not good I’m talking about this
specific night I need you to know lovers
were caught in bed with my mother my dad
had girlfriends there were a lot of
things that were pretty horrible so my
mom eventually quit drinking not for me
not for us
she quit drinking because the doctor
said if you keep drinking like this
you’ll be dead so addicts are very
selfish she thought
so she quit she moved on to pills so she
stayed kind of in orbit most of the time
I tell you this because I am gonna say
that living with that kind of adversity
I used to think I could only come from
normal people and he had that kind of
solid Ozzie and Harriet happy life I
would be kind of not as crazy as I am
and life would have been so much easier
for me but what’s really true is having
some of that adversity what I realized
later in my life is I was a much better
assistant principal when I’m talking to
kids who were saying you don’t
understand my life’s hard well I didn’t
tell them what I just told you but of
course I could be apathetic now the
worst period of time and might have a
belief is the age you are right now
there’s some of you people that will say
I remember people telling me teenage
years all if I could go back it’s the
best I just disagreed like crazy I think
when you’re young there’s a period of
time you think your parents are
unbelievable life is good you kind of
are not aware it’s a good time I’m gonna
get a sip if this is it looks like
alcohol but during the this talk I don’t
want you to be scared it’s iced tea
see if I’m looking I’m walking a
straight lines you’re not already okay
so when you’re your age
I’ve worked with so many kids over the
years and when you’re there it’s really
the time in your life you can’t leave if
I used to say you can’t tell – I’d say
15 I’d say okay it’s in a few more years
to go to college once you get out on
your own there was that wonderful
campaign for gay kids half a dozen years
ago where they said be patient OB okay
later because their truth is the stuff
you have to endure during the the high
school years it’s hard and you can’t get
out and it’s like during a little rat
cage every day because if you hit this
person or just that guy just broke your
heart dumped you last week and it’s now
over there with that girlfriend of yours
and you having to deal with that you
still have to walk into that stupid
class and sit across from them every day
come College come career come marriage
if you need to bail you can’t but most
kids when they’re home they’re home and
that’s how it’s gonna be so I want you
to stay strong with that stuff I want
you to know now let’s get to the meaning
of this I want to tell you one other
story about a kid – and it matters
because she reached out I have her card
here she wrote to me last week she was a
student here she was in my ASB class and
when I think of adversity her mother was
in Asia all the time not here dad raised
her she was crazy for her dad so that
was good and she had her older sister he
dropped him off for school she did a
full day went out front and it friendly
blows out those high where his pops no
time goes by he never shows she finally
went home she finds her dad dead
shower he had gone home after dropping
her off that morning had a heart attack
had been laying in that shower for the
day she found him now she’s at the top
of the kids I would say I’ve worked with
who really fought through it I went to
her wedding this summer and Santa Cruz
she walked herself down the aisle its
first time I’ve ever seen that she
didn’t want anybody else it was about
her and she just wrote me and then what
she said to me was and I’m telling you
in this that I’m so fabulous but that I
was her resource so when she went
through this unbelievable nightmare she
knew she had to reach out and that is
what today is about for you too that
when you face these things because you
will face them I went to my drive to
your classroom you people were still
puffed up by 20 years
everybody had tragedy you will have
things in your life you have to face you
need to find resources people you can
talk to people where you can share your
heart with and people who will support
you as you move through these times that
are in front of you that it seem
insurmountable and it’s 65 I’m here to
tell you you can do it so you want to be
that go fish you got it
that’s what this means my life which is
the theme of my story swim alone be who
you are but you know you’re going to
have to fight develop that the strongest
thing that helps people that that asset
is determination be a problem-solver
just work out wherever you are
how can I make the best of this and know
that you literally on the other side and
you’ll be better for it so I know those
resources be a resource for others and
getting network that surrounds you
accept fill as your soul that gives you
harm and I’m so fortunate that I
I now have a husband a couple of sons
bringing kids and I have created the
family that I wanted and you can see the
result is two different paths my brother
took the path of the Attic and I took
the path away from my way away from that
and we both were in the same environment
so if you guys are going to make those
choices I want you to be strong I
promised them I could make it this whole
time they give me three extra minutes I
have 13 seconds left so please know you
can do it okay that finish with that
shirt step on top no they did without
whatever you need in spite of okay bless
you
[Applause] [Music]