Angelia Vernon Menchan

Angelia Vernon Menchan is an author, publisher and public speaker who owns two publishing companies, MAMM Productions and Honorable Menchan Media. Mrs. Menchan is also a Budget Officer and former Job Corps Counselor. To date she has published twenty-three books of her own work, both fiction and non-fiction and more than eighty ebook novellas on amazon.com. You can access her bibliography on www.amazon.com search words: Angelia Vernon Menchan




Contact information:
Website: http://acvermen.blogspot.com
Email: acvermen@yahoo.com
Phone numbers: 904 714 2272 904 303 2679

Wednesday, February 13, 2008

Love or Respect

Love or Respect, which is more important?
Well, to be respectfully loved or lovingly respected works for a sister,
But I am going to have to say,
It depends on where you are, and what you are doing...
One of the most exasperating things to me are those,
Who are looking for love in all the wrong places,
Work being one of those,
When I come to work, my goal is to get it done,
To the best of my abilities,
And to be paid well for my efforts,
If I have a friendship or two, then more the better,
But Love, uh uh…
Which brings to mind one of the biggest compliments ever paid me by one of my students,
Her name was Pleshur,
I will never forget the day I met her,
She was in orientation and attitude brimmed off her like paint fumes,
Immediately I understood,
She appeared to either have a birth defect,
Or she’d had a stroke and the side of her face was twisted,
I was sure she had taken a lot of hits from insensitive people,
I knew my work was cut out for me,
The first few months,
She would only come by as required, mostly to complain,
She didn’t like the dorms or the food and she hated being in the boondocks,
After all she was from the Bronx and we were in Oklahoma on a Wildlife refuge no less,
I allowed her to vent, I needed her to come back,
Sometimes when she wasn’t due to come by, she would peek her head in to get hard candies off my desk,
One day she took it upon herself to tell me, “Ms Angi, everyone seems to think you are all that. But not me, I really don’t even like you.”
Nodding, I simply looked at her,
“You wanna know why?”
‘Only if you want to tell me…”
“Just because I don’t.”
‘Okay…” She got up stalking out, making sure the door rattled.
But,
She didn’t stop coming by and we had many conversations,
Often about her career choices, educational accomplishments...
But many times about how she felt about things,
I will never forget the day she left,
She came by to thank me…she had a couple things she thought,
She would never have, a diploma and was trained to be a medical assistant,
She looked me dead in my eye saying,
“I still don’t really like you and I don’t think you are all that…But…
I do respect you and I thank you…” I swallowed down a lump…
“You wanna know why?’’
‘Only if you want to tell me.’
“Because you always made me do my best and you didn’t care if I liked you or not, you still treated me right….” She sprinted off to catch the bus…
I stood there until I could no longer see the bus, knowing…
In that case RESPECT was better….much better...

Love and Blessings,
Angelia

9 comments:

msyonnie said...

I love this! It reminds me alot of the kids i work with and gives me wisdom on how to deal with them if/when they ever present something like this to me. Thanks for sharing sis!

Angelia Vernon Menchan said...

msyonnie,
you are quite welcome, the thing that worked most for me as a parent, counselor, mentor is treating young people with dignity and respect, remembering it isn't about me...and holding them accountable...

blessings,
angelia

Yasmin said...

As Aretha would say R-E-S-P-E-C-T! In a relationship outside of the home, I don't care if someone likes/loves me as long as they respect me. But when it comes to matters of the heart, I demand both. I also believe that if my man says he loves me...he already respects me...because for me love is not just a feeling...it's an action verb and requires an individual to do something to SHOW ME. Love+Respect=a Happy Marriage in my household.
xoxo

Angelia Vernon Menchan said...

Yas,
I hear ya!

Blessings,
angelia

Anonymous said...

Wow...a good example, you don't have to like someone to respect them.

Everybody is not going to like us; no matter what you do. You'll have those that don't like you just because you might be doing something they aren't doing or because you're not living up to their standards, and the list goes on and on.

I try to live my life in a way that even if you don't like me, you can't find a reason not to respect me.

Anonymous said...

With affairs of the heart and in personal relationships, I do demand both love and respect. They go hand in hand. Can't have one without the other.

Angelia Vernon Menchan said...

That's just it Shelia, respect has it's place and many times, love has nothing to do with it...But I wholeheartedly agree that love in respect together is mighty awesome, indeed...

Blessings,
angelia

Gwyneth Bolton said...

It's also a great model for how to treat people. You give respect and you get respect. You treated that woman with respect no matter what and in the end she respected to. Lots of great lessons to be learned in this one, sis. Excellent as always!

Gwyneth

Angelia Vernon Menchan said...

Thanks Gwyneth,

blessings,
angelia