Arnold García was the longest-serving editorial page editor in Texas when he retired in 2013.

“Opening doors” is a common theme of what has been written about former Statesman op-ed editor Arnold García, who died last week at age 73. He opened many doors for those traditionally not heard — including one for me.

After publishing many of my health care commentaries for several years, in 2009 he invited me to write a monthly commentary for the paper. He knew I was a practicing neonatal intensive care nurse and writing a monthly nursing publication for the Seton network, and he wanted his paper to reflect the perspective of a working stiff, especially one in health care. At the time, Obama was passing the Affordable Care Act, and from the debate you’d think the world were coming to an end.

He not only hired me, but he also set out to introduce me to influencers. He seemed to know everyone in town, and everyone loved Arnold. Of course some readers were nasty to him, calling or writing him to ventilate, rant even and sometimes calling him names. Arnold said sometimes he felt like a human piñata, but I knew it didn’t bother him. He knew that was part of being an opinion writer. Arnold was tough.

Arnold and Statesman editor Fred Zipp share a laugh in the newsroom.

If you work with someone for 10 years, you get to know them. Always smart and clever, he made me laugh every time we interacted. He was concise and straight-forward yet gentle with suggestions. Once I was late getting in a commentary, just couldn’t get inspired. After two weeks past deadline without communicating, I got an email from him saying, “Where you bean? Your horse came home hours ago.” (We both speak Spanish, so often we’d use Tex-Mex, hence “bean” instead of “been.”) That’s all he said, and the laugh from it cleared my head so that I quickly produced the commentary. When he started to tell a joke, which was often, you knew you were in for a great laugh.

Speaking of opening doors, when we went somewhere in a car, he’d never fail to open my door. When we walked downtown, he made sure he was the one walking next to the street. He was an old-fashioned gentleman in every way. He honored his mother and family. He always dressed well. When I would ventilate to him about someone, I could never, ever get him to say anything negative about anyone, that is except elected officials. He said they were fair game.

Arnold was an old-fashioned editor who was heavily involved in the community at large.

He was imaginative as an op-ed editor. Once I sent him something funny I’d written for Seton because I knew he’d love it. He read it and told me he wanted it for the paper. I was shocked — humor on the op-ed pages? “Why not?”, he asked, “Our readers would appreciate some humor on these pages once in a while.” Bingo! Among the humor pieces I wrote were ones on glass jars, writing Christmas letters, pecans, Christmas past, a culinary disaster with a WWII glider pilot, xeriscaping a yard in a Dallas historic district, camping disaster, Uber, the State Fair of Texas and reporting on Hillary Clinton’s clothes.

He was an old-fashioned editor, yet bold, and was heavily involved in the community at large. Unlike many op-ed editors, he was invited to make frequent appearances and speeches at important events.

Arnold and Vida celebrate their wedding in 2010.

When I visited Arnold a few days before he died, his sister and two children and sundry friends and relatives were at his house, solemn, waiting. His wonderful wife, appropriately named Vida, had died only a few months before. He looked to be a mere shadow of himself. His mother Bertha was stroking his full head of salt and pepper hair, still mostly pepper. As I held her and Arnold’s hands, she said, “What are you gonna do? It’s God’s will.”

The Austin community has lost a treasure, an old-fashioned gentleman and old-school newspaperman of the highest and best tradition. Rest in peace, Arnold, you are missed.

In 2009, as Congress was debating the Affordable Care Act (signed into law the next year,) he was interviewed by Terry Gross on NPR’s Fresh Air. She asked him about the individual mandate to purchase health insurance, an essential ingredient of universal care.

Uwe Reinhardt speaking before Congress.

He answered that Americans have a cognitive dissonance. “Cognitive dissonance,” he said, “means that you hold two different theories that are in conflict with one another, but they’re both in your brain and in your soul …. Americans say the government doesn’t have the right to tell me to buy health insurance, but the same Americans will say if I get hit by a truck and I lie bleeding in the street, society owes it to me to send an ambulance, and the emergency room doctors owe it to me to save my life. How could both be true? Even a teenager would blush at something this ridiculous. If you believe society has a duty to save your life when you get hurt, you have a duty to chip into a fund that pays for that.”

Gross asked him if health insurance purchase were mandated, how everyone could afford it. He responded that a simpler, more helpful question would be, “What percent of a family’s discretionary income, that is, income after food, housing and clothing, should a family be expected to pay for its own health care?”

He suggested that upper-income people such as professors at Ivy League colleges like himself should be expected to pay 15 percent. Those with lower incomes such as waitresses and waiters, would reasonably be expected to pay no more than 5 percent, with government subsidizing the rest.

Reinhardt, who died of sepsis last month at the age of 80, was a plain-spoken advisor and consultant to presidents, congressional committees, countries, the media, corporations and students of health care everywhere. He taught for nearly 50 years at Princeton University, and he explained the most complex issues in health care in brilliant, bright, easy-to-understand prose in his weekly New York Times Economix Blog.

Reinhardt’s views came from personal experience. He grew up in Germany and told Gross “how good it was that when we were paupers, my family, we had health insurance like everyone else in Germany. I’ve never forgotten that. And I would like the American people to have” that.

Living close to a hospital, he saw enough of the horrors of World War II to emigrate to Canada when he was 18 to avoid the draft and to study. There again he appreciated that everyone in the country had health insurance.

After graduation, he immigrated to the United States to earn a Ph.D. in Economics from Yale University. He became bewildered to see the extent of misery, morbidity and mortality caused by a health care “system” where so many lacked insurance and put off care.

He wondered how a country as rich, resourceful and innovative as America could have failed to develop a system to cover everyone. After all, all the other industrialized countries set up health systems where everyone was covered, their governments viewing health care as a right and a proper role and goal of government to sustain a healthy and productive society.

Without the individual mandate, Obamacare will die. As congressional Republicans contemplate the murder-suicide of getting rid of it, we remember Reinhardt’s words: “What kind of country do we want to live in? One where someone who loses their job loses their health insurance? One where kids coming out of college can’t get health insurance for the next 10 years? One where emergency rooms are packed with people who don’t have access to [primary] care? One where people who have a family member struck by cancer can become bankrupt? One where tens of millions are uninsured?”

These are questions of morality.

Dr. Mary Lou Adams

I met Professor Adams as a nursing student in the ’70s at the University of Texas at Austin School of Nursing. Being in the presence of Adams and the other wonderful faculty inspired us to be the best nurses that we could possibly be, something that stuck with us throughout our careers.

She combined rigorous academics with unwavering compassion for students and patients. Troubled by seeing low-income African-American women die needlessly of breast cancer for lack of screening, she set her sights on changing that. She and Professor Sue Grobe developed a culturally sensitive screening model and obtained funding from the state, the feds and multiple foundations to open the school of nursing’s Breast Cancer Screening Project in 1990, which served primarily women from East Austin.

In 1991, the pilot project became the Women’s Wellness Clinic. From 1990 to 2007, more than 14,000 women were screened for breast cancer. What to do for the women who tested positive? The intrepid pair signed eligible women up for Medicare or Medicaid; recruited surgeons with the help of the late Dr. Robert Askew Sr.; and enticed St. David’s and Seton to perform 10 free surgeries per year. In 2007, the clinic was renamed the Family Wellness Clinic when the nursing school expanded clinic services to family practice.

Over the years, Adams and Grobe refined the model and helped the state acquire a huge grant from the then-named Centers for Disease Control to adopt the model statewide, saving thousands of lives. Their blueprint for comprehensive cancer care, prevention and control has been disseminated to 18 communities across Texas and Kansas.

Through Adams long volunteer service on so many community boards of directors as well as national and state panels including the National Cancer Institute scientific review panels, her considerable influence on clinical practice and health policy will endure.

To funders, policymakers and community stakeholders, Adams’ no-nonsense-but-fun attitude, conspicuous goodwill and focused goals were as irresistible as the twinkle in her eye and her hearty laugh.

Succumbing to pneumonia while in the end stage of rheumatoid arthritis, Adams died this month at the age of 74. Among the 20 or so awards she received were the President’s Volunteer Service Award and induction into the prestigious American Academy of Nursing. She leaves quite a legacy, and she made us all — her patients, students and co-workers — better.

Trish Young Brown

Another most influential woman in health care is Trish Young Brown, 56, who is retiring at the end of the year after 12 years as the founding president and chief executive officer of Central Health. After compassionate Austinites voted to create a taxing authority to pay for indigent health care, its inaugural board needed a leader who could get the district up and running.

They selected Young Brown, who between 2000 and 2005, as the indefatigable CEO of Austin’s CommUnity Care, she ran the federally qualified health centers and Medical Access Program; managed Seton’s lease of Brackenridge; established the women’s hospital within Brackenridge to continue reproductive services while conforming with Catholic directives; and helped establish the health care district.

Young Brown vastly improved health services and access to them. Importantly, she saw to it that women’s reproductive services would continue despite state funding cuts. And she established a lasting framework to better meet mental health needs.

Adams and Young Brown had similar tactics to achieve their lofty goals. Both were focused and goal-directed. Both convened stakeholders making everyone feel welcome, always respectful, yet could hold people’s feet to the fire. Both could run a meeting and work with diversity like nobody’s business.

The seeds Adams and Young Brown planted took root and blossomed. The indelible impact these influential women made on health care will be felt for many years to come.

Even worse, my fellow Americans loved him. Filling the debate venues, raucous mobs drowned out the moderators. His vote tally as of June 7 was 13.3 million according to the Wall Street Journal.

Amusement turned to shock, leaving me disgusted and investors and the rest of the world fearful. Disgust gradually slid into a gloom that turned me into a real scrooge. Just ask my husband Ian.

Then out of the blue, a Golden Retriever named Bretagne threw me a rope and pulled me out of the darkness.

Of the 300 9/11 search dogs, the last survivor known living died June 6 in the Houston suburb of Cypress.

Bretagne (pronounced “Brittany”) was just shy of her 17th birthday. Let’s take a look at this great American’s life.

Bretagne at 9 weeks

When Denise Corliss, a volunteer firefighter with the Cy-Fair Fire Department, sought a special dog to train for disaster work, she picked a precocious 8-week-old puppy who had pushed her way through the litter from the back of the kennel to greet her. At 12 months of age, she and Corliss began formal training with Texas Task Force 1 to become a canine team certified by the Federal Emergency Management Agency.

On Sept. 11, 2001, Bretagne was two years old when they were called to Ground Zero for their first deployment. Corliss told Tom Brokaw in a 2014 interview that when she first saw the massive twisted steel beams, concrete and ash where the World Trade Center once stood, it took her breath away, dashing her hopes of rescue. But young Bretagne went straight to work digging through the rubble to find human scent. With an eye always on her trainer, she worked 12-hour shifts for 10 days.

Before long, Corliss discovered something unexpected: Bretagne was sensitive to the expressions of the rescuers. She knew which one needed comfort. The grieving NYFD firefighters would hold her close and stroke her fur as they shared their personal stories describing the missing friends, loved ones and colleagues for whom they searched. Bretagne had become a therapy dog.

Nearly a dozen deployments followed to disasters including Hurricanes Katrina and Rita. At age 9, Bretagne retired from search work and became a goodwill ambassador. Each week she would visit an elementary school near her home, mingling with special needs students and serving as a reading assistance dog. Children, otherwise intimidated to read aloud, would read to her.

Bretagne (foreground) swimming in pool with sibling Aid’N

At age 13, she began experiencing so much stiffness and joint pain that she could no longer climb the stairs in her home. Corliss installed an above-ground pool in her backyard and helped Bretagne swim in it for at least 10 minutes a day. She took daily walks around a pond, where she chased squirrels and ducks. Soon she was able to climb the stairs again.

She drew worldwide media attention in August 2015 as the Big Apple threw her a Sweet 16 birthday bash, complete with an illuminated billboard in Times Square and the dedication of a cobblestone in her honor on the plaza of the 9/11 Memorial.

Lately, Bretagne’s kidneys began to fail, slowing her down. When she stopped her favorite thing — eating — for three days, Corliss knew it was time to say goodbye.

They arrived at Fairfield Animal Hospital to find dozens of uniformed search and rescue workers and volunteer firefighters lining both sides of the walkway, standing erect as they solemnly saluted. Her trainer’s husband tenderly lifted Bretagne out of their car and gently placed her on the ground. Corliss led the dog on her final walk. With head lowered, she wagged her low-slung tail slowly and paused once to look up at the sky.

After about 30 minutes, Bretagne was solemnly carried from the office in a casket draped with a folded American flag as the service men and women bid a tearful farewell, still saluting. She was transported in formal procession to Texas A&M University in College Station where she would undergo an autopsy as part of a long-running study of 9/11 search dogs.

Denise Corliss and Bretagne at Ground Zero

Even in death Bretagne serves as therapy dog. She made America great again for me.

The media’s desperate attempt to uncover a cause for his suicide — say, financial or relationship problems — is astonishingly naive. What caused Williams to end his life is unknowable, no matter how exhaustive the investigation. What is knowable, from media reports, is that Williams wrestled the beast of a mood disorder — depression, and the early stages of Parkinson’s disease. And he was very open about his struggles with chemical dependency. That’s a very dangerous cocktail.

Life is full of tripwires, from the mundane to the major. If you have a mental illness, whether bipolar disorder, schizophrenia, major depression, or a variety of other disorders, any of life’s circumstances can trigger an episode. We cannot know what ignited his brain’s vulnerabilities. That’s his to know.

An Aug. 11 New York Times article tells us that Williams was the privileged son of a Detroit auto executive who grew up chubby and lonesome playing by himself with 2,000 toy soldiers in an empty room of a suburban mansion. Oh, to have been a soldier in that room!

Through his originality and lightning improvisations, the way he played his roles, his comedic routines, we know he was a creative genius. The feature article of the June Atlantic Monthly, “Secrets of the Creative Brain,” by neuroscientist Nancy Andreasen, sheds light on why mental illness so often accompanies creativity.

Andreasen’s research shows that creative geniuses like to teach themselves from an early age and are often misfits in the education system (think: Michael Dell, Bill Gates, Steve Jobs, Mark Zuckerberg, all of whom never finished college). They have many deep interests; they are highly persistent in the face of rejection; and above all, they excel at making connections.

According to research done by Johns Hopkins psychologist Kay Redfield Jamison and Harvard psychiatrist Joseph Schildkraut, mood disorders and a strong family history of mental illness tend to occur with creative genius, especially among writers and painters. Hugely successful, creative people with crushing personal histories ending in suicide include Bertrand Russell, Albert Einstein, Sylvia Plath, Ernest Hemingway, James Joyce, Kurt Vonnegut, Vincent van Gogh, Mark Rothko, and the list goes on and on. Like Williams, many were as funny and lovable as they were tormented and often end their own lives.

The link between mental illness and the creative genius that has made our world so much more livable and enjoyable is so strong that it has been suggested we withhold treatment. A more sane suggestion was made recently on the PBS NewsHour by Mark Vonnegut, a pediatrician with schizophrenia and son of Kurt Vonnegut. He suggests that we do a better job of taking care of each other, that among the homeless veterans we see on the streets may be another Van Gogh.

There’s more than the abject sadness we feel with Williams’ death. There’s also hope and inspiration. Despite his mental illness and chemical dependency, Williams worked nonstop and was known for his reliability and dependability. And, according to the Times article, he displayed none of the traits of troubled actors such as showing up late, forgetting the lines or flaring tempers. His 20 years of sobriety after his cocaine habit in the 1980s also is inspiring.

We tend to think that suicide is rare. It is not rare. Mental illness is not rare. There is help out there. Call 800-273-TALK (8255) or visit suicidepreventionlifeline.org, afsp.org or alcoholrehabhelp.org.

Inglis served on the Board of Trustees of Austin Travis County Integral Care (formerly ATC Mental Health Mental Retardation) for 13 years.

Her heart ached that infants born prematurely or sick had to be transferred to San Antonio or Houston for care. Most of the preemies simply wouldn’t make the trip.

Reminiscent of how the Austin community rallied to bring the Daughters here in 1902, Sister, with her legendary powers of persuastion, rallied the community once again to open Austin’s first neonatal intensive care unit. It opened in 1979, the year I graduated.

As a young girl I wanted to become a nurse and work in Africa with Dr. Albert Schweitzer. That didn’t happen, but I did get to work with the legendary neonatologist Dr. Jacob Kay, whose skill, attention to detail, commitment and love for the babies and their families were epic. Sr. Mary Rose and Dr. Kay made my dreams come true, and I worked in that same unit for 32 years.

McPhee left Austin for awhile, but returned in 1993. She opened the Seton Cove in 1995, saying often that she named it after Saint Elizabeth Ann Seton who saw God (grace) in all things, and that if we would open our eyes and our hearts, we could as well. She believed that each one of us is spiritual, and the Cove would a place for people of all faiths and people of no faith. It has served this community for nearly 20 years.

By the time she returned to Austin, I was writing Seton NursingNews and commentaries for newspapers. She left Austin in 2004, and I would send her my work. She and the other Sisters knew I was a non-believer, but religion was not something we ever talked about. They could see that through my political and community work and writing that I was like them — working for the sick and the poor. After a commentary I wrote in 2007 encouraging legislators to make it easier for parents to insure their children, she wrote me an email saying, “Thank you for your persistent concern for the Poor — a true ‘Vincentian Spirit.'”

A master’s-prepared psychiatric nurse, McPhee would look deep into your soul with love and kindness. Even chance encounters with her could change your life, as it did for David C. Smith, founder of the Hill Country Ride for AIDS.

In 1995, he was executive director of Interact (now Care Communities), which cared for people with AIDS and cancer, and McPhee was a founding board member. The agency had a long waiting list and David asked her for more funding to expand the number of care teams. She told him to wait a year, to get to know the poor, to not see them as something separate.

“For a year I volunteered for people who had depleted their resources and had no family. I helped clean their houses, made sure they took their meds, drove them to doctor appointments,” he said. “It radically changed the way I saw service on a practical and personal level. I felt a much deeper connection and saw that we are all the same. I went back to her a year later to asked for more funding. This time she told me to ask for triple the amount, and she secured the funding.”

Sr. Mary Rose inspired and elevated everyone whose lives she touched. And through her grace and magic, she has saved the lives of many thousands of sick and premature infants in Central Texas who otherwise would have died. Rest in peace, Sr. Mary Rose.

Sister Philomena Feltz, seen here on a home visit circa 1957, fed the hungry in Austin for 60 years.

When Saints Vincent de Paul and Louise de Marillac founded the Daughters of Charity in 1633 in France, the mission was for the Sisters to go out into the real world to meet real needs (rather than be cloistered). And when they accomplish their mission, they move on to others in need.

Ordained religious women arrived in what’s now the United States in 1727. From that first mission in New Orleans, they have cut a remarkably adventurous and entrepreneurial path, serving as de facto social service agencies for America’s great waves of immigrants and the poor. These deeply spiritual and intellectual pioneering women built and ran schools, hospitals, orphanages and more. Sisters professionalized teaching, nursing and social service in this country.

From the early 1800s through the late 1960s, American women were systematically excluded from leadership roles, couldn’t even vote until 1920. If you were a Catholic woman, you had far more opportunity for education and meaningful work within church structures. The number of women to take vows of poverty, chastity and obedience peaked at more than 181,000 in 1966, when the women’s movement and the Second Vatican Council opened the church to lay leadership. Today, there are around 51,000 women religious. With an average age in the mid-70s, they are all but extinct in hospitals.

“After much discernment and prayer, the Province of St. Louise decided to withdraw Sisters from nine U.S. Catholic dioceses and one archdiocese,” said Belinda Davis, a national spokeswoman for the Daughters. “Seven of these districts include Ascension Health facilities where the Daughters have judged the laity is prepared to ensure the continuation of the mission. This is especially true at Seton where the Daughters themselves have prepared the succeeding laity for many years in the Vincentian spirit.”

When the Daughters came to our town to open a hospital in 1900, it was an outback wilderness area on the shores of the Colorado River with a population of about 22,000. With tremendous community support, but not much else, in 1902 the Daughters opened the Seton Infirmary and the Seton School of Nursing. During the grand opening celebration, the hospital’s first patient was carried up the front steps of the hospital — prophetically, a charity patient. The hospital was staffed by the Sisters and student nurses. The old red-brick infirmary at Rio Grande and W. 26th streets has evolved into Central Texas’ largest health care system with a stable economic base. Their will be done.

For generations, the Sisters quietly ministered to the sick and dying, often with nothing more to offer than their presence. They cared for patients during the smallpox, Spanish flu, typhus and polio epidemics. They trained nurses for World War II.

Austin was hard-hit by the Depression, and Sr. Philomena was ever-present to feed the hungry, meeting the long bread lines that formed every day outside the infirmary. Former administrator Sr. Mary Rose McPhee, born in 1918 and now close to the end of her journey, worked with Dr. Jacob Kay and community support to bring neonatology to Central Texas, the setting where I had the privilege to work for 32 years.

Since arriving, the Daughters have been preparing the laity to continue the mission after they’re gone, for example, growing their own nurses at the Seton nursing school — and pushing for a school to educate doctors. Their mission is what attracted and keeps us in Seton’s 12,600-strong workforce.

With more than a century of enculturation, their spirit remains hard-wired into the work that we do every day and the planning for the medical school. Although they will no longer live in Austin, Daughters will remain active in Seton governance.

The Sisters are called to move on to serve where there is greater need, and we must let them go. Will the lay leadership succeed in continuing the mission? The Sisters are fully confident that they are. And that’s good enough for me.

I first met her in the ’70s when my son, Burton, was enrolled in Extend-a-Care at Mathews Elementary. That’s when, for me, she went from being Ms. Lancaster to Rose. She was the original executive director of the after-school program for children with working parents, and she made quite an impression.

It was around the time of women’s liberation, and here was this tall, strong executive with a twinkle in her blue eyes who was as nurturing as she was competent. She staffed the program with “counselors” — UT students — who, like Rose, were full of energy and loads of fun for the children. During her 15 years with the program, Extend-a-Care spread to 35 schools and now is located on 68 campuses.

Rose served as program director of the Presbyterian Children’s Home and director of Manos de Cristo at El Buen Pastor Church before retiring from full-time work.

But it was Rose’s hours off the clock (when she wasn’t swimming or playing tennis) that may have made the biggest difference. She awoke every day of her adult life to fight for a just and fair community. She championed access to quality health and dental care, appropriate care for children, shelter and services for the homeless, women’s empowerment, border issues and other causes.

Our paths crossed again in the ’90s when we both served on the Indigent Care Work Team, charged with making recommendations to improve health care delivery at the Federally Qualified Health Centers. One day, Rose opened her paper planner to set a time for us to have lunch. Every single weekday morning and afternoon of the month had an advocacy activity planned. She laughed when I gasped.

Rose briefly hired my 13-year-old son, John, to teach her to use her computer in 1997. We visited at the limestone home on West 10th Street that she and her husband, Jim, bought in 1965. It was located across the alley from the iconic castle after which the Castle Hill Local Historic District is named. Her home was built before the turn of the century, and with its wraparound porch with great view, it was a marvelous place for Rose to live and raise their four children.

Her humor and gentle, respectful demeanor brought out the best in people. Her dedication and ability to find ways to further the mission of a worthy organization made her the ideal board member. She actively served on the boards of organizations such as the Trull Foundation, the local and state League of Women Voters, the Federally Qualified Health Centers, Samaritan Counseling Center, Presbyterian Border Corporation, the Austin Human Services Association, Presbytery Border Ministries, the Pan American Round Table, Capital Area Homeless Alliance, Foundation for the Homeless, Front Steps, Religious Coalition for Assisting the Homeless, Central Health … and more. A grateful community bestowed many awards on her.

Also in the 1990s, we were both active in the Austin-Travis County Citizens Health-care Network, a coalition of providers that held monthly forums to discuss community health care issues. Venola Schmidt, Helen Hill and Carl Siegenthaler (all deceased) formed the group. Meetings were attended by representatives of more than 40 organizations as well as city health care staff and Austin City Council members.

An ambitious and inspiring young doctor, Eduardo Sánchez, attended the forums when he served at chief medical officer and health authority for the City of Austin Public Health Department. “Rose — along with Venola, Helen and Carl — truly influenced the way I think about work and what I do,” he said. “They were committed, unwavering and expected government to do right by people. At times they were the conscience of the city.”

Sánchez went on to become Texas commissioner of health, chief medical officer for Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Texas and now the deputy chief medical officer for the American Heart Association National Service Center. “In my subsequent roles,” he said, “I find myself asking, ‘What would Rose do?’”

Like Sánchez and me, thousands of Austinites have stories to tell about their relationship with Rose Lancaster. She was always ready to listen or mentor and encourage you. All of us will remember the twinkle in her eye.

One neighbor was Jack Lambrecht. Retired from the military and a construction business, he watched out over all of us, whether we were at home or at work. Before we awoke on trash days, our cans were standing at the street, and they were returned before we got home. A giant branch fell into my yard, and there he was at age 85, sawing it up. This quiet, calm gentleman was all about loyalty.

Jack died last week at 94. His obituary made brief mention that he was a World War II glider pilot.

I worried that so many readers wouldn’t know what that meant. I know about them. But only because of Emeril Lagasse’s four-layer Classic Black Forest Cake.

In 2003, Ian and I became empty-nesters, and feeling romantic for Valentine’s Day, I set out to treat him to a spectacular chocolate cake.

In an act of insanity, I spent serious cash buying the ingredients and drove all over town buying weird things like an elevated cake turner.

I robotically followed Emeril’s directions exactly, but his cake didn’t rise. Frantically, I made another chocolate cake from scratch, made the horizontal cuts, lavished expensive kirsch syrup over each layer to soak, and dutifully assembled layers with dark, sweet cherry filling poured between.

But when adding the frosting, time broke into freeze-frames as the entire cake and filling began to fall apart and drip down from the elevated perch onto the counter — despite my frantically piercing it with wooden skewers and weaving a tapestry of obscenities that could be heard throughout the magic that was Scott Crescent.

Alarmed, Ian rushed out of the shower onto the unholy scene and froze. Endless seconds ticked by as it dripped.

I collected myself enough to call Jack. He would know what to do, and he always wanted leftover desserts. He arrived instantly to find me like a stick of lit dynamite and Ian like he were about to wade ashore at Normandy.

He commenced to laugh — heartily! We spooned what we could into a bowl, and he left with it, absolutely thrilled.

Jack’s reaction changed the mood, and we went on to have a romantic Valentine’s evening.

The next day, I spoke with Jack about perspective. It was then that he told me he was a glider pilot in the Second World War. I had no idea what that was. He told me, but to this day it seems surreal.

There were only 6,000 glider pilots. They volunteered for their do-or-die mission to fly glider planes loaded with troops, cargo, vehicles, anti-tank guns and explosives to the front lines.

To save weight, these pilots wore no parachutes. They knew that with each mission, 20 percent of them would die and three times the number killed would be wounded or taken prisoner.

Everyone knew the “G” on their silver wings stood for guts.

Spearheading the major invasions, glider pilots would crawl into their unarmed, motorless, wooden planes and be hooked by tow planes — swept airborne from a dead standstill to 120 mph in seven seconds.

After detaching, their planes would float in the dark of night deep into enemy lines amid anti-aircraft and sniper fire.

Utter pandemonium would ensue as the planes crashed on land or sea. If they survived the landing, the pilots helped unload the gliders, fought alongside the glider troops and guarded the nearest airborne division headquarters.

The glider pilot program ended after the war and is widely considered to have played a decisive role in the spectacular air operation success of World War II.

Jack was with the 76th Troop Carrier Squadron in campaigns in Sicily, Normandy, southern France, Holland, Bastogne, the Rhine crossing and Central Europe. He flew three glider combat missions beyond enemy lines into Normandy, Holland and Germany, for which he was awarded a Bronze Star. Like the glider pilots before him and the few who remain, he will be inurned in a national cemetery with military honors.

Jack taught me something about loyalty. And perspective. He had seen real tragedy, and it didn’t look like a failed black forest cake.

At the age of 59, her candle burned out too soon. She helped unify this nation, and we need her now more than ever.

When she was sworn into office as U.S. representative in 1973, the Congress had about a 40 percent approval rating. Gradually the body has become fully polarized. With approval ratings of 10 percent, Americans were amazed last week when the Congress functioned enough to pass needed legislation extending payroll tax cuts.

During the Republican presidential primaries, we’re not hearing words to reaffirm our shared values or that try to unite us. Instead, the flames of the most disgruntled among us are being fanned. The chair of the Federal Reserve is treasonous; the president’s Christianity is not real; the government is waging war on religion; we should wage war on Iran; the free press is evil; Planned Parenthood and the U.S.-Mexico border should be shut down.

The essential message is that government is the enemy. Divided we stand. The most radical candidate will become the party’s nominee, driving the wedge down deeper into the body politic.

Yes, we need Barbara Jordan back now to unify this nation once again, like she did 38 years ago.

In 1972, President Richard Nixon was running for re-election against Sen. George McGovern. His campaign committee paid five men to break into the Democratic headquarters in the Watergate Hotel in Washington, D.C. (Pretty unnecessary — Nixon’s victory was one of the most lopsided in history.) The men were caught.

Washington Post reporters Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein uncovered the cover-up, and all the president’s men (the five burglars and two others) were convicted in 1973.

The ordeal rocked the political world. Hearings were called to consider whether to impeach the president. Jordan served on the House Judiciary Committee. Americans were glued to their televisions.

On July 25, 1974, a 38-year-old, relatively unknown black representative in her second year in Congress delivered the opening statement to begin the hearings. In 15 minutes, Jordan electrified and focused a nation in turmoil.

[To view that speech, click here.]

She united us and changed the course of history. Fearing impeachment or removal from office, Nixon resigned from the presidency two weeks later.

In 1992, the gods smiled upon me, and by some accident of fate, I was allowed into Jordan’s policy seminar at the University of Texas’ LBJ School of Public Affairs. A nursing graduate student, I was out of place among 10 confident political science graduate students, selected for their accomplishments. I was old enough to be their mom, and the only knowledge I had of government, beyond the basics, was from a UT government class that I slept through in 1965.

I’ll never forget how I felt when I actually saw her in person. Chills went down my spine when I heard her first words. Her voice rang from the mountaintop.

She assigned readings by the most respected authors on basic democratic principles, the Constitution and topics of national debate. We each argued a side and respected each other’s informed opinion. Riding the fence was unacceptable. She gave us each a little blue handbook of the Constitution.

I absorbed the conviction that public service is a high and honorable calling. I learned that the Constitution is a purposely vague and sacred document that forged a government in which our liberty was not entrusted to a particular branch, that one branch would check the others. I learned that in America’s great experiment in democracy, the people hold the power, and rightly so.

Above all, I learned what government of the people, by the people and for the people really means. We are the government, and the government is not our enemy.

As we remember Barbara Jordan on this day, we need to reflect on her clarity of thought, her voice, her message of unity.