For the past couple weeks, I have received dozens of emails about March being Women’s History Month and there have been several insightful newspaper articles celebrating the accomplishments of women throughout history.  In fact, in 2010, the celebrations are focused on writing women back into history. As a woman with no children of my own, I often wonder if I will be able to leave any mark on history. When you’ve no progeny of your own to remember you or to carry on your name, the notion of your legacy gets more than a fleeting thought.

If you’re going to be part of history, I would imagine that you’re expected to break through some significant barrier, as did Dame Jocelyn Barrow, Maya Angelou, Heather Headley, Edna Manley, Beryl McBurnie and many others whose achievements dwarf those of someone like me. These women were all very talented in their various fields, and all of them were able to be influential in their communities.

What then can us lesser mortals hope for? Perhaps all we can do is identify a talent within us – big or small, do our best to make that talent work for us in a positive way and then work even harder to positively impact our own small sphere of influence.  We hope to be able to inspire someone else with what we do and how we do it. We’ve got to start some place and I am a firm believer in finding that starting spot – that jumping off comfortable thing that one does well in order to be impactful.

In my mind, there is no more powerful woman in this world than a mother. I watch my sisters and see how their way of doing things, of thinking, of solving a problem has now been internalized and fine tuned by their various sons – all six of them. It is a bit disconcerting to hear justification for an act that sounds oddly familiar, oddly older than the mouth from which it sprouts with such confidence. Suddenly, some Trinidadian flavor is now imbued with the taste of the red, white and blue of Americana.

I see and hear it in myself when I say something that I know is the exact wording of a warning my own mother gave me many years ago.

Another woman who has the ability to change lives for the good or the bad is a teacher. So many of them in my lifetime have been female and all have made an impression.  One cannot say enough about a good teacher who can challenge her students to go beyond the task and who can encourage them to keep on searching for answers. To this day, I remember my Geography teacher Sister Mary Magdalene. She had an obvious thirst for learning more about the world, a world, for the most part, she’d never see. I think of her every time I visit a new city or country. Then, there is Sister Helen, who will be celebrating her golden jubilee next month. She awakened my consciousness about social justice. She was the one to blame when my parents had to be called in after I preached sedition from the top of the lunch room table to a room full of stunned girls, all prim and proper in their convent uniforms, complete with that awful Holy Name Convent tie.

How then do you make your mark? How do you become part of history? I think that you are able to, if you can touch someone’s life, someone’s consciousness. Maybe an acceptance and knowledge of self would be a good beginning. There truly is a place for each of us on this earth. Open your mind to the possibilities. I’ve accepted the fact that although I am not a mother, I can be a good aunt, a good wife, a good daughter, a good friend, a good Godmother and hopefully, a good role model for young women who cross my path. Somebody is bound to remember me.  I accept the fact that, in many instances, my touch on someone’s life may be one of gossamer lightness. Fleeting yes, but maybe remembered in an uncertain situation. After all, to this day, I still ask myself “What would Sister Helen say?” If that happens, I would have made my mark and hopefully be more than a footnote in history.

Sandra Bernard-Bastien is the Director of Public Affairs & Organizational Development at the Children’s Services Council of Broward County. She is also the author of Who’s Who in the Caribbean Media, and together with her husband Elliot published a book that spotlights Trinidad and Tobago-born icons who have made a positive impact on the world stage – World Class Trinidad & Tobago – An Area of Abundance.  Her most recent book, Presidential Rhetoric: Clinton and Obama across the interface of race compares and contrasts the speaking styles of Presidents Bill Clinton and Barack Obama.