Social butterfly isolated but still upbeat about life
So, one asks, how do the people who were so involved in community and charitable events during the pre-pandemic days cope now that life has changed so drastically?
Before, say, mid-March, the social butterflies, if you will, had their community-events and social calendars filled. Now, not only are their calendars empty, save the online Zoom meetings, but many people are basically sitting at home, especially the retirees, trying to stay free of COVID-19. For these people, almost overnight, their lives have been turned completely upside down. How are they coping? They’re in lock-down mode, their mental state in complete opposition to the way they have lived most of their lives. Probably the best way to find answers to that question is to talk to some of the people now living through it. If you don’t personally know McAllen resident Nedra Kinerk, a former McAllen Woman of the Year with a doctorate in education, you probably know someone like her, although they do come in short supply. Always upbeat. Optimistic. Never met a stranger. Resilient no matter what life throws at her. A person whose mission in life seems to make the world a better place in general, and Hidalgo County a better place in particular. A social butterfly, social animal, it makes no difference what you call her, she readily admits to loving life, people, and the RGV. This, despite drawing ever closer to 90, which is hard to believe if you look at her. She looks at least 15 years younger and usually has the energy to match.
Earlier this year, before the COVID pandemic struck, Nedra Kinerk was not only involved in helping facilitate the census count in Hidalgo County, but she was surprised during the city’s State of the City Address when McAllen Mayor Jim Darling presented her with the city’s first Nedra Kinerk Citizenship Award. Blowing and going, closing in on the age of 90, she wasn’t letting the passage of years slow her down. Then came the pandemic. Now what? She was widowed from her husband of 59 years, Robert Kinerk, 10 years ago, has four children, three grandchildren, and five great-grandchildren, but none live nearby.
“I really regret that I don’t have them living close to me,” said Kinerk when contacted by phone recently. “I really regret that. Sometimes there’s a feeling of being alone -- not lonely, I’m not lonely -- but there’s a feeling of being alone. And so when you start thinking like that, you start thinking about all the positives in your life and realize, okay, (the pandemic) is a challenge. It’s not a problem. It’s a challenge, and challenges are something that you find a way to deal with.”
Like most people in her age bracket – she was born in the summer of 1932 – Kinerk is staying home to stay safe.
“Oh, I have been so good staying at home, washing my hands. I have some friends and every once in a while they say, ‘Do you need anything from the grocery store?’ I have not been to the grocery store since March the 15th or 16 th , but I’ve been very fortunate. I have some friends who have gone for me, and when my daughter was here briefly, she really stocked me up on a lot of groceries. I’ve been staying at home, been doing meetings on Zoom. In fact, obviously Futuro RGV is not going to have a big (election) forum like we always have done for the past 20 years. What we are doing instead is having what we’re calling ‘Pandemic 2020 lessons learned for the future.’ They are 20-minute interviews with various RGV leaders on where we are (with the pandemic), where we need to go, and any advice they have.”
There are people who make Kinerk believe that after a big storm – “like we’re going through right now” -- there’s a rainbow (on the horizon), “and you don’t get rainbows unless you go through a storm, and we are going through one heck of a storm right now. So think about what the rainbow is going to be.”
Kinerk believes in a resilient America. “We did it after the Great Depression. We did it after World War Two. We did it after the tumultuous Vietnam period and the protest of the sixties. I can’t believe how I never even heard of Zoom six months ago.”
For Kinerk, though, the question becomes, since she was such a social butterfly prepandemic – “Social animal fits just fine” – how does she stay sane now in this crazy, mixed-up world of ours where isolation can become a big problem for a lot of people?
“Well, I don’t know how this will sound, but when I really feel alone, I start singing to my self, ‘God will take care of me in every way, throughout the day, God will take care of me. God will take care of me.’ Somehow that redirects (my mind in different directions) instead of starting to mope around and feel sorry for myself. I think that there’s more out there, and I need to look forward and reach for it.”
The “it,” though. What is it exactly, and how can people in her predicament tap into it?
“First, my version of God probably is not the traditional version of God. I think that the creative energy or force that everything evolved from, living and non-living, whatever’s in this universe, I choose to call it love. Christians call it God, as one would call it. Others call it Mother Earth. Others call it this, and others call it that. Others call it the Sun God, but the name ultimately boils down to the creative energy that everything started from. So since I was born and raised a Christian, I go ahead and call it God, but basically I call it love. To me, I have it on the tombstone for my husband and me, and it reads: ‘Love lives forever.’ I think love is forever. And so when I feel alone, that’s my starting point. Sometimes it’s more successful than others, but...”
For Nedra Kinerk, friends are also a big part of her ability to still put a smile on her face during the more difficult times.
“I have a lot of friends, and I’m very grateful for them. I’m very grateful that somehow my husband and I made the decision to come down to Texas to spend our retirement years. I never dreamed of living in Texas. When I was all those years in Indiana, Texas was the wild woolly west, but we got down here, and we liked the weather. We liked the people. Of course, (this area) was kind of a quaint, small (place) back in 1979 when we first came down. So, the RGV has evolved, and that’s what living is about – evolving, growing, and being more than you were before. And that’s what I tried to do. So here I am, a retired college professor and the RGV was kind enough to adopt me and make me one of their own. And I’m proud of that. I’m grateful for that.”
Kinerk was McAllen’s Woman of the Year in 2014 before receiving the Citizenship Award this year named in her honor.
“That Citizens Award that (McAllen Mayor) Jim Darling and the city awarded me last February, that really meant a lot to me, especially since it was named ‘The Nedra Kenerk Citizenship Award.’ I don’t know if it’ll ever be given again, now that we’re in this pandemic, but for them to do that for me, I was so dumbfounded. It still blows me away that they considered the things that I had done and was doing, because I just kind of figured these are things that I ought to be doing. No big deal. So, I am very grateful for that honor.”
Always a mover and a shaker, not even a global pandemic can slow down Kinerk, even if she is stuck at home. At least she has Zoom and friends who call to check in on her. Plus, she’s still working on community projects.
“We (Futuro RGV) are also working on getting the 2020 Census deadline moved back to December 31st, which the 2020 Census people originally asked Congress to do, but it got stuck in the U.S. Senate, and then they moved the deadline up a month so that we absolutely could not count everybody. As you know, (Hidalgo County and the entire RGV) have lost billions of dollars from being undercounted in the 2010 Census. We are even worse undercounted now than we were in 2010. So there goes another several billion dollars that we need for healthcare, infrastructure, education, and possibly representation in Congress.”
So, you see, there you go. Nedra Kinerk may be homebound for the most part, living alone, but that fire in her belly to set things right, the passion that drives her to support the underdog and her community, is still there; and that may be one of the secrets to getting through this pandemic with one’s sanity still intact. Stay busy focused on other things, other problems besides COVID-19, and don’t sit around moping. Plus there’s that song she sings to herself around the house when she feels really down, which provides her with some comfort: “‘God will take care of me in every way, throughout the day, God will take care of me. God will take care of me.”