Au Revoir, Grandpere

To the seeing again...

That's the literal translation of the French farewell, and it is what I say to my grandfather. He passed away quietly, peacefully on Saturday evening, traveling from this world to the next between one breath and....

The day before, my father had purchased some summer sausage and cheddar cheese, two of my grandfather's favorite foods, long since forbidden due to dietary restrictions. But what of a diet so near the end? He had barely been able to swallow anything for days due to the edema. On Friday, he ate sausage and cheese for three meals, delighting in the rich tastes he loved. He woke Saturday and had his bowl of Cream of Wheat. After changing clothing, his last traces of energy drained away and he closed his eyes and began slipping away.

I got the call from my father during breakfast. MTL came home early from work and he drove me up to Saginaw, where we joined other family members gathering to say their au revoirs. We spent the day talking and laughing over memories, watching my alma mater Michigan State University trounce their rival University of Michigan for the fourth year in a row, and comforting one another. We held vigil in a sense, gathered together in mutual love for the once-hearty, now-frail man lying under blankets in his armchair, not quite in a coma but not fully with us either. We touched him, spoke to him, assured him of our love.

Finally, knowing he could linger for another hour or a couple more days, MTL and I took our leave. I kissed my grandfather one more time, told him that I loved him, and we drove away. As we left, one of my aunts was putting on some of his favorite music.

Fifteen minutes later my father called to tell me that Grandpa had passed.

When my time comes, I want a similar passing: peaceful, quiet, surrounded by the love and laughter of those I love most. I want my ashes scattered in a beautiful place where they may join the earth from which I was formed. And I'll see my grandfather again, along with my aunt and others who have gone before.

Au revoir, Grandpere. Je t'aime.

Until we meet again.

Rage, Rage Against the Dying of the Light

My paternal grandfather, who is 93, is in the last days of his life. We have no real idea how many days this may be, but his edema and congestive heart failure have transformed into a vicious cycle feeding each other, and the medication that was supposed to help the edema instead shut down his kidneys, so now he is on hospice care.

It's the long, dark tea-time of his life. Only less dark and more light, because if there's anything his decline proves, it's that he is wealthy beyond imagining in what matters: family and love.

His five surviving children have gathered from hither and yon, including my father, who flew back from West Africa on Sunday evening. I took the day off on Monday and drove him up to Saginaw, where he joined his siblings in caring for their parents. I spent several hours there as well, more so to comfort my grandmother, who is too frail to care for him physically but is still emotionally tied as ever to her beloved husband of seventy-one years.

I know it seems morbid, she confided, but even though I don't want him to go, at the same time I don't want it to last too long...

I understand. It's incredibly difficult to witness the painful decay in my grandfather, the more so because he has always been such a strong man. He is a fighter: he will not go gentle into that good night.

I come from sturdy farmer stock, German Mennonites on both sides who traveled from land to land fleeing persecution for their pacifist beliefs. All four of my grandparents are still alive, still independent, still in compos mentis, though age is taking its toll on them all. This grandfather is the oldest. Five years ago, at age eighty-eight, he re-sided their house and put in new windows. Up until a year ago, he could still be found in his basement workroom, crafting the gorgeous woodwork that graces all our houses. Picture frames, clocks, jewelry boxes, bookshelves, rocking horses, detailed classic automobile models...all his children and grandchildren and great-grandchildren own beautiful pieces that will be handed down from generation to generation. That was his hobby, the work of his hands and heart at the end of his days working the land or overseeing factories and warehouses or doing Master electrical work. The delicate curves of the clock on my mantel, the enormous bookshelf against my wall, the jewelry box on my dresser, and the incredible wooden rocking horse in my children's room: they each declare all the love that my reticent grandfather struggled to put into words.

I'll admit that witnessing this final fight has struck me to the heart; even more so, witnessing my grandmother's grief and my grandfather's determination not to leave her side, this woman he has loved for longer than most people have been alive.

I don't even know how to put into words the fear that is triggered by this. I just found My True Love recently. I know the chance of getting seventy-one years with him is somewhat slim, since we met in our thirties rather than our teens, but I want as many years as I can get. And the reality is that my family is longer-lived than his. How horrible a person am I to want to go first, when my time comes? I don't want to be in my grandmother's place, facing the loss of her life companion, the one she loves best in the world.

I have hope and faith in a life hereafter, but I am a creature of this world. Each loss leaves it a dimmer place, caught in the shadows of sorrow and death.

Tears

I'm angry and I'm crying and the only reason I'm still here at work is that if I go home I'll have nothing to keep me busy and occupied. Laundry and cleaning don't count because there's too much time for thinking.

This last weekend one of my former students was in a terrible car accident in West Virginia, on his way to an audition that would hopefully continue to move him along in his amazing gifts for music and dance. He suffered horrendous head trauma and has been in a coma all week.

This morning he died.

It's not right. It's never right, but it seems so particularly horrible when it's a bright, brilliant nineteen-year-old like Nate. He was one of the memorable ones. I can't remember a day when he didn't have a smile or funny comment to brighten up the day--and not in an annoying Pollyanna way. He made people feel better about themselves. He had a sweet confidence and joyful soul like few people I've met.

Just a few months ago he came into school with a couple of other former students to bring me lunch, because I always forget lunch, and because gifts of food are always welcome. He was full of hope and laughter over what he was doing in college, where he was going in life.

And now he's gone. And his mother will be facing her first Mother's Day without her son.

I hate this part of my job. It's always tragic when people die, but even more so when they are young and all that life and hope and potential is snuffed out long before time. This isn't the first time it's happened, but it is one of the hardest.

Rest in peace, Nate. You will never be forgotten. Thank you for making all of our lives just that much brighter during the all-too-brief time you were here.

Death And A New Beginning

The end-of-year holidays are always a bit hard, really, what with all the chaos and extended family and children running around getting underfoot and underskin and more extended family and build up of HOLIDAY HOLIDAY HOLIDAY and then it's all over and everything's just a bit flattish.

Plus there's my birthday shoved in there, just wedged in anywhere it might fit, and here's the thing that sucks about having a Christmas birthday (it's not the present thing, because on the whole my people are quite good about realizing that if everyone else gets different presents for Christmas vs. birthday, then it's only fair that I do too, unless it's something Really Big that counts for both by the sheer Bigness of it all): even when people do acknowledge your birthday and even want to celebrate it, there's no point at all in celebrating it on the day itself, and what with all the exhaustion and business and familyness of the season, it's entirely too difficult to get your favorite people together to celebrate at all.

I'm thinking seriously of having my birthday celebration in June instead.

I've been anxious and on edge and horrifically tearful this last week. I did not cry on Christmas, thank God, because I've had too many Christmases spent in tears and I'm quite done with that, thankyouverymuch, but I have cried more in the last few days than I have over the entire last year. I'm not a very tearful person, really. I might get anxious or angry or melancholy or even suspiciously moist about the optical orbs, but actually tearful? Wet cheeks and reddened eyes? Crying into my pillow or a tissue? Not so much.

MTL has been patient and loving and comforting and rather alarmed. After all, when one climbs into bed at the end of a long day and wraps one's arms about one's beloved and then realizes that she's starting to gasp and shake with unexpected sobs, one does tend to become a little concerned. Well, at least he does. Rather than angry and shouty, like some people might be. He did remind me gently that I don't have to try to be strong all the time just because he's going through stressful times too--his shoulders are broad, after all.

It's what I'm here for, he said, and so I cried on those shoulders for a while, and then he made me laugh and I was finally able to fall asleep.

This time of year is a muddle of beginnings and endings, births and deaths. The last two years have been such a muddle of the same for me. And although I love so much of where life has brought me, the strain of the journey has taken its toll. There are new stresses in this new life as well: new family, new extended family, changing relationships, changing perspectives.

I think the bulk of my pain and rage (because those tears have been as much in anger as sorrow) lies in grieving the death of certain hopes and dreams that I've clung to for three long decades. Hopes that I would someday receive certain intangible things from extended family that, I now realize, I will never get. Dreams of a kind of acceptance and approval and pride that would, in reality, require the sacrifice of who I am, this person I've taken so long to be able to love.

A beloved cousin, one of my fellow Black Sheep, recently said to me that he knew from childhood that I would never fully fit into the parameters of expectation and acceptance in our Family. To do so would mean a rejection of who I actually am.

He's right. But facing that requires setting aside a lingering hope that somehow, someday, my Family (that huge, insane, ridiculously respected, secretly dysfunctional, looming, impossible Family) would actually be proud of me for exactly who and what I am, without a checklist of what must change for that to happen.

And realistically? That doesn't exist for anyone. It's not the human way.

Still...it's a death. So I'm grieving.

Apparently I'm currently stuck in the Anger stage.

But with each death comes a new beginning. Just like the passing of the old year gives birth to the new one.

Last night DMB helped the kids make pita pizzas while My True Love took me out for a steak dinner, just the two of us. Then we came home and played silly Wii games and watched a silly movie and ate chips n dip and drank sparkling juice and stayed up just long enough to watch the ball drop before crawling into bed like the old farts we are.

Today, we're all lazing about watching MTL rock Super Mario Bros on the Wii.

Just us. Just me and my family.

Draco De Ira

One of the hardest lessons I've had to learn over the last not-quite two years is how to forgive and what forgiveness really means. I've learned, among other things, that forgiveness is more about healing oneself and less about healing others. I've learned that apologies often follow forgiveness rather than the other way around. And I've learned that forgiveness needs regular application, since anger and resentment tend to ooze back into one's soul over time.

Forgiveness is rather like Preparation H, when you think about it. Or Tums.

I learned that first major lesson about forgiveness nearly a year and a half ago, on a day when I planted myself next to a small lake and begged God to please make two particular people Very Sorry for all the hurt they had caused me. The geese stared at me and honked moodily. Then I sat there and begged God to forgive me for the hurt I had caused those two people. This seemed a bit better, but I wasn't quite there.

So I sat, surrounded by goose shit, which seemed rather apropos for my mood, and read a bit from a book, perhaps one by Anne Lamott, who also struggles with anger and forgiving and therefore gets through to me with some deft application of verbal hammering on my brain. I don't remember any longer exactly who the author was: at any rate, the words were about forgiveness and about how we make huge errors in thinking that (1) withholding forgiveness does any damage to anyone other than ourselves, (2) apologies are requisite precursors to forgiveness, and (3) we are better than the people we have to forgive. And then the author drove home that when we refuse to forgive someone, we're as much as yelling to the Universe that we are better than God, who forgives us for much more than we have to forgive.

That sounds like Lamott, so it probably was.

I remember sighing, because the idea of forgiving these two people, who had no interest or willingness to recognize any need to apologize, seemed like a greater task than I was capable, especially in a time of such great stress and pain. Nevertheless, I bowed my head, and this time when I prayed, I asked that I be granted the strength to forgive. Then I said out loud (much to the surprise of the geese) that I forgave those two people, and I named them. Then I said it again, just to be sure, and found the words easier to say the second time.

Imagine my surprise when I felt a tremendous weight lift off my heart.

I've had to forgive those two people again since then, for the same original pain and (in the case of one of them) additional pain caused over time.

Regular application, especially when the acid burning of anger starts up again.

Since that day by the lake, both of those people have apologized to me for the pain they caused. It's a cycle, really, the forgiveness and apology and forgiveness again, and with time the pain truly does ease.

Other times...you're blindsided.

This last weekend I found myself enraged, furious, reacting far more strongly to a frustrating moment with The Widget than the incident truly deserved. I stood in the walk-in closet searching for clean and comfy clothes, and I asked myself what was really going on.

And I realized that my anger was at other people entirely, over a situation over which I have no control, where I feel guilty for even being angry at all, where the anger comes from years of hurt and pain and loss that I have shoved deep down over and over and over again because I do not feel justified in my anger.

But the anger is there. And because I have never embraced that anger, recognized it, and forgiven both myself and those other people for these decades of pain and grief, I have never moved on. I have, in fact, allowed that pain to poison other relationships and prevent me from opening myself fully to love.

MTL found me in tears and I poured out my grief and anger. Just saying it, just letting it out of my head, was a step. Writing this post, which has taken me two days, is another.

The next step is bigger. More painful. It holds more delving into truth, a stripping away of shadows and shame.

It's a choice I have to make.

I am stalled in the moment. The skies hold no answers. The window is drenched with autumn rain.

[Un]Erased

They are bittersweet, these days of sorting and purging and packing. Cleansing, to toss the bags and boxes of trash built up from years of forgetfulness and laziness. Ancient academic and financial papers that lost significance years ago. Broken bits of this and that forgotten in corners and closets. Outgrown clothes and toys and books and decorations.

Much of the undertaking is simple. I have lost much (though by no means all) of my need for Things. I feel less sentimentality about objects than I once did, no longer harbor an obsession with keeping anything and everything that might have importance. I prize relationships more highly than possessions these days, for nothing I owned made any difference when my life fell apart. People did.

The difficult part of this task, the bitterness on my tongue, lies with the memories. Too many of them, as I page through photos and scrapbooks and memorabilia: the detritus of a life lived as someone else, with someone else. What is linked to my children I kept, divided, parceled out according to affiliation. Certain other pieces, less shadowed, met the same treatment.

Much I discarded.

They are too bitter, those memories of loss and failure.

He thinks I hate him. I don't. But neither can I cling to a past that is laced eternally with gall and acid.

Besides, the memories will never be erased. They are an indelible part of me, nearly half the chapters that make up my life.

And now? Now it is time to turn the page.

It's Nine O'Clock On A Friday

It's 9:11 on a Friday night, and I'm sitting in bed catching up on blogs before drifting off to sleep in a bit.

I know. MY LIFE, IT IS A PARTY.

Seriously, I'm pretty happy to be where I am. This week has felt twice as long as it actually was due to a jam-packed schedule. MTL's been raising his eyebrows every time I whip out my agenda. There isn't much white space left. My scribbles have scribbles. I'm exhausted.

The end of the year, work-wise, is always jam-packed. This one, more so than many. I had the normal tasks such as writing, administering, and grading exams; finalizing grades; packing up the room; changing my voice mail; cleaning out both virtual and physical mailboxes; filing all the crazy paperwork that materializes in June; and checking out for the summer.  Then there were the usual functions: graduation, the end-of-year staff picnic, the end-of-year English Department party.

It was the goodbyes that got to me this year. I didn't fully realize until a few weeks before the end of the year just how many seniors I had connected with over the last few years. At graduation, the staff members create a little honor guard as the students exit the arena. This year, I had students piling up waiting for their turn to high-five, fist-bump, and/or hug me.

I even told two of My Boys that just ONCE, just for that moment, I was their Boi.

Brandon may have fist-pumped the air. I know he was telling everyone in range that I'd finally said it.

I said goodbye and good luck to a lot of special kids this year. I know my Facebook Friend count went way up that day. And if I wanted to, I could skip buying groceries on weekends for the next couple of months and just live off graduation party food.

This job comes with those farewells every year. I've gotten more used to them. The harder ones are when coworkers, friends with whom I interact and collaborate daily and monthly and yearly, say goodbye too.

Three of my closest coworker friends were on the bottom of the district seniority list. They all were laid off on Tuesday. I don't think it's sunk in for me yet: next year they will not be there. I lost my mentee C., and losing him is losing a friend, a wonderful collaborator, and a little brother all at once.

Okay, writing that made it a little more real. THIS SUCKS.

Then on Wednesday I went to a small retirement party for the first real friend I ever made at my school. He was a father figure, the first one to really get to know me, the person who told other coworkers I was worth getting to know. Every time I saw him, he had a hug and a smile and an encouraging word to give.

Dammit. I'm getting teary now.

Since then? I've been diving into sorting and purging and packing all the crap that piled up in the house over six years, because I'll be moving at the end of July.

I'll write more about that later. It is now 9:33 and I'm ready for bed.

What's awesome? I get to sleep in. For REAL.

'Night, all!

Today

Today, it's all too much, all at once. The ups and downs of this and that, the rollercoaster ride of expectations meeting reality. There's the death of the old, the next stage in joy with the new, bumps appearing in the road that once was broken and now is healing and yet and yet

life does not run smooth

I was foolish to think it might. There's that odd optimism raising its head at the wrong moment, bashing against the edge of reality. However better I am for being where I am now

life does not run smooth

and the road will bring new obstacles, new cracks, new heartaches to face.

Today I sit and stare at the great mounds of papers that must be graded, for time has run out. I have no interest. My mind has already skipped over the next week into this summer: bags to fill with trash and donations, boxes to line with books and toys and clothing and the necessities that will carry over into the next stage, places to go with friends and children and my beloved, hard days of work and long nights of play. The clock is ticking, and so much must be done. I mix anticipation with apprehension for what is to come for

life does not run smooth

and though I know I have strength I lacked before, love I lacked before, health I lacked before, still the anxiety of all the unknown wells in my throat.

Of some things I am certain:

faith

love

hope

and knowledge that there is nothing I cannot surmount because of them. I have been to the depths and back. I have known the dark of deepest night, wept my tears of pain and loss and heartbreak, faced the dragons of my despair and lost the battles.

But I won the war.

My chains are crumbling. My armor is stripped away. I have walked the broken road, followed dead-end paths, traversed the bridges built by God and family and friends to reach again the stretches and signposts that led me here.

And the rewards, the blessings: they overflow. New life, new hope, new faith, new love.

life does not run smooth

for life is imperfect, the road broken in a world that is broken. I have learned that the paths that appear easy are those that hide the greatest pitfalls. Anything worth having requires that a price be paid, a sacrifice be made.

Today I am overwhelmed and the tears run close to the surface. But I do not despair. Strength lies beneath, and Today will pass, and Tomorrow holds such brightness that I must catch my breath with the beauty that lies ahead.

D-Day

And it's done. As Sunday said in her comment on my last post, it was all very anticlimactic and businesslike, and that was exactly what I was hoping for.

I'm closing comments on this post. If you would like to comment or respond, please email me directly at teachermommyblog [at] gmail [dot] com -- or just click on that "E-MAIL ME" button over on the left!

Now for more paperwork...

Perhaps

I know I've been gone a while, and I know there's plenty I could write about, but plainly put I'm just Too Damn Busy. Papers to grade, paperwork to complete (both for work and the personal life), exams to create, errands to run, a divorce to finalize.

Which is where this quickie post comes in. Tomorrow morning at 8:30 Eastern time, The Ex and I will be entering the court room for what (knockonwoodcrossyourfingerspleasedearGodplease) will hopefully be our final appearance and the finalization of our divorce. We're getting along quite well right now, so there isn't all sorts of tension, but we both just want to be done with all this legal crap and move on. So please hold me/us in your thoughts and prayers, and hopefully tomorrow I'll be able to post a follow-up informing you that I am, in fact, Done With That.

I'll see you...maybe...on the other side.

new

This poem was originally written back on March 19th, but I didn't feel comfortable posting it here until now. Credit my love for e. e. cummings and the influence of a muscle relaxant (my back was BROKE, peoples) for the slightly unusual style.


i screamed openmouthed in terrorwise
link    ed to you despite sp ac e

strung like pearls on rope  made of
lies
i am
not wondering where you are
closeor                          far
i sang my sorrowsong already and look over
there
is the note against the sky
a bird poised like music on linesofcommunication between
you
and me

i am exempt from your pain

tattooed my denial of despair on skinsmoothsilk
flash my hope at every
one who glances at my feet

theyve trod many a broken path and been worn down to
cracked and bleeding remnants of memory

been there before
been there again
wandering in circleslikestuck

and c   u   t the ties finally broke the chains
though bound by life we made
and now the screams have vanished and I sing
new
love like sweetness on the tongue after bitterhate
i am newtoo
and will not coat my heart in nacre to hide the wrong
with  in

no
i shine like diamonds

Clearing the Air

MTL's uncle died this last weekend. He had terminal lung cancer, the result of a lifetime of smoking, and he died in his sister's arms, coughing up blood as his lungs hemorrhaged and his life drained away.

I can't get the image my imagination has created out of my head.

Michigan went Smoke Free this last Saturday, ironically enough the same day MTL's uncle passed away. This means that (most) public buildings; including restaurants, hotels, and bars; are now entirely smoke free. No more smoking section, no more clouds of carcinogens floating through the supposedly non-smoking section, no more eyes burning nose dripping lungs aching foulness driving me out of establishments in search of fresh air.

I couldn't have been happier when I saw a hand-drawn sign saying "Now Smoke Free" on the door of the restaurant where I ate Saturday night.

I'll admit to having smoked occasionally in college. It was rare, it was always in social situations, and I'm not sure I ever finished an entire cigarette. Finally, when I realized that hey, I don't LIKE smoking and doing so just because someone else is smoking is, well, STUPID, I stopped doing even that much.

As for those who say the law takes away their personal rights? Well, what about my personal right not to breathe in the smoke they've chosen to inhale? Just because they're THEIR cigarettes doesn't mean the smoke magically knows not to enter MY lungs.

I have friends who smoke. I love my friends. I hate those cigarettes. I hate the smell. I hate the secondhand smoke. And while I have always been one of those annoying (to smokers) people who make snarky comments about cigarettes being bad for your health, now I'm not just snarky.

I'm angry.

I understand the addiction aspect. I do. But now I know, much more up close and personally, with enough of the graphic reality to make me shudder, what may very well lie in store for my loved ones who smoke.

And when I think that every time they light up one of those cancer sticks, they are willingly running the risk of one day lying on a bed, spewing life from their mouths and noses every time their shredded lungs convulse, leaving the nightmare memory of agony and blood and helplessness behind for those who loved them...

Yeah. I'm angry.

Because it's suicide. Slow suicide, but suicide nonetheless.

Birth Day

She was young, too young, and the mother of five young children who still needed her as children always need their mothers, small or no. She had been dying by inches, holding on for days and weeks through pain and vomiting and decay and her body's rejection of man's last attempts to save it. She held on by sheer will, something left undone, something left unfinished. It wasn't, somehow, her time.

Four years ago today, her husband held her hand and told her she could go. He loved her, he always would, but she could let go. It was time to go Home.

And she left us, quietly, between one breath and another, slipping from this world into the next, leaving behind parents and siblings and nieces and nephews and friends beyond count, leaving behind the five children who had also said their farewells to what extent they understood.

The news traveled. We wept. Even though I was stone, I wept. And I was angry. Death had robbed her of all the years she should have spent on this earth.

Four years later, I still weep. But now, I see that day from a new perspective. I cannot be truly angry. I do not understand why she left us too soon, but I do understand something else.

What we saw as Death was instead her Birth.

Hers were tears of joy as she stood in a new body, one that stood tall and strong, her hair thick and full again, her skin unswollen and unblemished. No pain. No anguish. She ran with sure feet, arms spread open, and gathered in the children waiting there, the precious souls she had never known as more than a momentary existence before loss had swept them away. Her face rose to the blazing glory that lay before her, and she shone in the light of the Son.

Her real life began then.

C. S. Lewis says we live in the Shadowlands, the dim, dark outline of that country that lies Further Up and Further In, where lies "the beginning of the true story, which goes on forever, and in which every chapter is better than the one before." She lives there now, and her story here with us was but the Prologue to the eternal one written by the Great Author.

In Music, Memoriam

Fraught Mummy at Brits in Bosnia started a meme ages ago, and she tagged me. She instructed us to write about "a song that reminds you of something, that has a story for you. Not necessarily your favourite song or a even a song that you love, but a song that instantly takes you back to that time and place." 

It's a meme that's perfect for me in many ways, because music connects to memory for me All The Time. I have entire soundtracks for times in my life. DraftQueen is my official LifeTrack DJ, in fact, because she always seems to find the perfect song to send me when Things Happen. The problem, therefore, is not thinking of a song, but choosing just one. 

It took me a long while to get around to this post. The timing, therefore, is choosing the song for me. And because of the nature of this post, I can't tag people the normal way. So if you are inspired to carry on this meme, please do.

****************************

Four years ago my mother sent out an email asking for some help. My aunt, her only and baby sister, was nearing the end of a long fight with leukaemia. She was in hospice. The toxic side effects of chemo and the gradual failure of her body had made her restless and highly sensitive to sound. She could no longer handle being read to for any length of time. She craved music, but only certain music was bearable. My mother, who had become her main non-medical caretaker in hospice, asked us if we could find and send CDs that were soothing, instrumental only, and uplifting.

I felt helpless, much as I had been feeling for months. I had just born my first baby, the tiny DramaBoy, a couple of months earlier. I was exhausted, overwhelmed, and (unknowingly) depressed. My beloved aunt, the one after whom I was named, the one who had cared for me when I was a baby, the one who had fought so hard and so long for all five of her own beloved babes, was dying, and there was nothing I could do.

I looked through the instrumental music racks at Best Buy and Borders. I found a couple of possibilities under the New Age category, but still felt uncertain about my choices. Neither felt quite right.

At that time DramaBoy was up frequently during the night, and I had taken to tuning the satellite tv to the New Age music station. The slow-moving blue title box gave just enough light to maneuvre without waking DramaBoy's father, and the music kept me company and calm. I would sit propped against the pillows to nurse my small son, dazed and halfway dozing while the mainly instrumental music would wash over me.

One night as I stared blankly at whatever was in front of me, DramaBoy suckling peacefully at my breast, I heard a lovely piano piece begin. The melody was what snapped my head up from half-mast. I knew that song. I knew the words. And something about it spoke to me.

The title box informed me that the piece was, indeed, "As The Deer"*, the artist was named David Nevue, and the album was titled Overcome. Realizing that there was no way I would remember this by morning, I grabbed a serendipitous scrap of paper and pen and jotted down the information.

When I looked up the artist and album the next day on Amazon, I discovered, to my amazement, that Nevue (a Christian pianist who specializes in lovely inspirational albums based on hymns and psalms) had composed and recorded the album as his father was dying from cancer. I listened to the progression of songs and knew that this CD was meant for my aunt. I ordered it that day.

My mother told me later that near the end, Overcome was one of only two CDs that my aunt could listen to. Again and again she would ask for it, calling it "[my] CD", using the nickname I went by as a young girl. It was playing that day in March 2006 when she peacefully passed from this world into the next.

I am crying as I write this. My aunt's death is something I have never completely worked through. I am torn between anger that someone so young and so loved, the adoring mother of five very young children, was taken from us too soon and in such a very painful way; and joy that her life AND her death were full of meaning. She and her story touched many lives. She still does.

I could not bring myself to listen to Overcome for years, even though my mother gave me my own copy, as she did many other family members. Last year, as I was working through a different grief and different loss, I finally started listening to it, often at night as I once again struggled to sleep. And finally I was able to find peace in its lovely music rather than torment and grief.

As the deer panteth for the water
So my soul longeth after Thee
You alone are my heart's desire
And I long to worship Thee

You alone are my strength, my shield
To You alone may my spirit yield
You alone are my heart's desire
And I long to worship Thee

As the deer panteth for the water
So my soul longeth after Thee
You alone are my heart's desire
And I long to worship Thee

------------------------------------
*From Psalm 42

Shadows

Yesterday was Groundhog Day. I didn't really notice at the time, what with all the depression and sadness and whatnot that happens when one's relationship comes to an end. I knew the timing for our beginning had been bad, that we had a lot of obstacles facing us, and I understand the reasons he feels he just can't be in a relationship at this point in his life, but pain doesn't care much about how logical the cause is.

I am clinging to hope rather than despair, however, and am doing whatever I can not to fall into the darkness. My friends are amazing. Add my sister in there, too, who called and talked and listened for a long time despite not feeling particularly well yesterday. I look back at last year, at the torment I was going through then as another relationship was ending (much more traumatically and messily and in a very drawn-out manner, mind you) and realize that the difference--in me, in my coping mechanisms, in the depth and breadth of my support group--is astonishing. Not that I don't feel like my heart is trying to tear itself in two, but I was actually able to laugh last night. I ate lunch today, voluntarily, for the first time in days. I made it through the workdays and functioned: my students could tell I was struggling, but I was able to be an effective teacher nonetheless. I didn't walk out. I didn't disappear. And rather than having a tiny handful of friends and family with whom to talk, I had...well, I lost count. The love floods in.

And these last four-plus months? They've been good. They've been healing. I gained confidence in myself. I learned a lot about myself, about life, about relationships. I did things I've never done before. There was stress and angst, but there was also a great deal of happiness. And ultimately, even though it's hard to feel that way right now, I do know that time was worth the pain.

Then today I heard that my great-uncle, my mother's paternal uncle, passed away after years of battling Parkinsons. It's been a long time since I saw him or his family, because they've lived in Florida for years, but I have fond memories of Great-Uncle J. I remember his amazing Donald Duck voice he'd use for all of us kids. I remember his kindness and gentle sense of humor. I only had him as a regular presence in my life for a relatively few years, but he left his mark. He will be missed.

So now I wonder: if bad news comes in threes, what more lies in wait this week?

It doesn't matter so much whether Punxsutawney Phil saw his shadow or not yesterday. I'm thinking he may have had the right idea when he turned around and headed back indoors.

But I'm taking my friends with me.

Some Styles Should Just Die a Quiet Death

O. M. G.

When I decided to declutter every custody weekend as my New Year resolution, I knew I'd probably come across some interesting finds. What I found the other night...Wow.

This weekend, since I was taken up with tending to snotty noses and cabin feverish kidlets, I decided to be ruthless with my hanging clothes, since that would be simple enough and wouldn't make much noise after bedtime. I grabbed a heavy duty garbage bag and waded in. Shirts that are baggy with much washing...gone. Skirts that haven't been worn in four years...pitched. Dresses that were given to me and never worn more than once or twice...bye bye.  And the contents of that hanging bag that is falling apart with age...HOLY CRAP.

Inside were two dresses that looked more like costumes than actual clothing items, at least to the contemporary eye. One was the equivalent of my prom dress, the dress I wore as a senior to the Junior-Senior Banquet back in 1995. Why have I kept it for nearly fifteen years, schlepping it across international waters and from abode to abode all this time? Pure sentimentality. Not for the night itself, which was rather forgettable (I didn't even have a date, though neither did a lot of other girls--there was a severe deficiency of males), but because I had chosen the fabrics and pattern as a sophomore while in the States, and my mother had made the dress for me for my senior year.

Somehow I can tell that the years 1993 and 1995 were involved:

In case you can't tell in this very poor-quality cell phone photo, it is made out of emerald green satin, the top part of which is solid sequins, with a large bow/fabric flower at the angled waist. And let's not forget the puffy sleeves.

WHAT WAS I THINKING???

Oh, that's right. It was the 90s. And I was a sophomore when I chose it, and the definition of "sophomore" is "wise fool"--i.e. someone who thinks she knows everything but doesn't.

And then there was this slinky black cocktail-style dress, also straight out of the late 80s/early 90s. I don't know if I ever wore it. I don't remember how I got it. But it stayed with me, just in case (of what, I have no idea):

The photo doesn't even come close to showing just how bad it really is. This one is also satin, though at least there are no sequins involved. There are, however, padded shoulders, a line of rhinestones adorning the (invisible in this photo) swath of extraneous fabric dangling from the waist, and (also invisible in this photo) lots and lots of ruching down the full-length sleeves and in the back. Leading down to the long almost-train of fabric ready to snag on one's heels at any time, of course.

Wow.

I'd be cringing in embarrassment if I didn't think I have a better handle on fashion nowadays. Though of course I'll probably be saying the same thing about what I wear now in another fifteen years.

The good thing? I still fit in them! And I got a good chuckle AND a blog post out of the discovery.

Who said cleaning can't be fun?

There's a Reason I Listen to Alanis Morissette. And It's Not Because of Her Stellar Fashion Choices.

As much as I love myself (because really, who doesn't?) (love themselves, I mean) (well, or me, because I'm awesome) I also am my own harshest critic. No, really. I may not always let people know just how much I judge myself, but I do. It's far easier for me to see myself in a negative light than in a positive. Thus the self-deprecating humor. You know, make fun of myself before other people do, because then it hurts less? Yeah, I'm special like that.

(You see what I just did? Yep. Slammed myself in a joking way. Jeez, I can't help but do it even when I'm talking about how I do it.)

Sometimes the humor fails me. Then I just get angsty. Let me tell you, it's a real riot walking around with an inner teenager, especially one like mine. My inner teenager is not the bubbly cheerleader who loves trips to the mall and texting all her BFFs about the cute guy she saw at Forever 21. Oh no. Mine dresses in black with black eyeliner and mopes about in the corner and writes dark poetry about the horror of existence in a world of pain and anguish and bubbly cheerleaders.

Okay, fine, I've also been known to hang out at the mall with friends and text BFFs about guys, such as the cute policeman who totally gave me a major break this summer on not having renewed my registration for, oh, seven months; or the hot mechanic who changed my oil and replaced my sway bar links this weekend. But then my inner teenager has to hate ME, so it gets complicated.

I never said I was a simple person. I come with fine print. People just keep forgetting to read my manual.

Heck, I wish I could find my manual. Maybe then I could figure out how to run my own head.

Crap. Where was I going with this post? Oh right! Harshest critic. Angst. Too complicated for my own good. Fun stuff. Not entirely sure why I'm spewing this, but hey. Whatever. You can just stop reading if it's too emo for you.

Except now I'm panicking that you're really leaving my blog because AND THIS IS KIND OF THE WHOLE POINT OF THIS STUPID THING I have abandonment issues. And I've been realizing lately, as I've been navigating the ridiculous self-designed maze of my own mind (map not included), that I have a nasty habit of never fully giving myself to those I love. Deep down, you see, I don't really think I'm good enough to keep people around. So I have to protect myself from the inevitable. Friends, family, significant others, my own children...it doesn't seem to matter who the person is, there is always a part of my heart, a part of ME, that I hold back in reserve. There's always an unwillingness to risk myself fully in a relationship, because in the back of my mind a voice is always whispering They always end up leaving. One way or another, you will lose this person. He or she will leave you, will walk away, will break your heart if you give it all.

It's a sobering realization to have. It also explains certain behaviors. For example, my tendency to NOT write my parents much when they're overseas. Oh, they get my blog, I tell myself (which is a handy excuse these days but doesn't do much to justify the previous thirteen years). My mother will write long, lovely, newsy, satisfying letters that make me feel like she just sat down and had coffee with me. And I will, if she's lucky, write back a paragraph or two. Just the basics. A brief response to specific questions, usually. A quick update on how the boys are doing.

For another example, my ability to disconnect from friends and not even realize that two months have passed since I've seen a person or even necessarily talked to that person on the phone. I just continue to go on through my life, pushing away any sense of missing a connection. If she really wants to talk to me or see me, she'll call me, right?

I have to wonder, too, if I'm capable of loving a man in a way that means forever, 'til death do us part. I haven't done so well so far. And recently I've realized that it's one thing to say I love someone: it's another to give him my heart. Fully, completely, with all the tremendous risk that comes from placing that most delicate part of Self in someone else's hands. I don't think I've ever done that. I'm not sure what it takes to do so, or whether that strength, that willingness to risk so much, is even in me.

Most sobering is the realization that as much as I love my children, there's still a part of me I withhold from them, too. You see, they're going to grow up. And they may not like me very much some day. They may not call. They may not talk to me. They may resent me for choices I've made and have yet to make. They may move far, far away and only come home for the occasional holiday. I will lose them. One way or another, I will lose them: to jobs, to wives, to time.

So I shield a part of myself off from the world. Because if I give myself fully, then every time someone leaves, every time someone walks away or vanishes or drifts off or outright rejects me, there's a piece of my heart that goes with them. And I'm not sure there would be enough left of me to survive.

Sometimes I Wonder If They Exchange Messages With One Another. You Know, Just to Keep Each Other Company. Since They're All Lonely and Forgotten and All.

Okay, so you know how you have your Safe Email Account and your Junk Email Account? And how you start out with a new email address and you're all determined that this will be your Safe Address that does NOT get filled with all sorts of bills and spam and emails from people you're trying to pretend Do Not Exist (Anymore)?

And you know how this becomes a long line of Safe Accounts becoming Junk Accounts?

Yeah. My Safe Account (In Real Life, not my bloggy address, though no doubt that is doomed one day as well) is slowly making that change.

I remember the first real email address I had was in college, that good old Michigan State University one that ended with a million extensions Back In The Day (cuz I'm getting Old, y'all) before they decided to simplify things the year after I graduated. Whatever. It was so primitive. Yellowish-white letters on a black background, because that was how we rolled in the Days of Yore. When I graduated, I knew I would never use it again, but it was handy as the I-Have-to-Write-Down-an-Email-Addy-so-Here's-the-One-I-Never-Use default. You know, for all those applications and memberships and whatnot where you know they only require an email so they can flood you with more spam than a World War II foxhole.

I also had a freebie Juno account for a while, but that one became attached to a short-lived stunt as a book editor for a tiny publishing company run by a very former friend who thought that quantity mattered far more than quality. (Remind me to tell you about that some day.) My real maiden name is still out there on the Intarwebz attached to that stupid company on a no-longer-legit but not-quite-defunct website, so no doubt there are still some poor saps sending cover letters and manuscript teasers to that lonely Juno account. If it still works. I don't even remember what it was and have no intention of figuring it out, so whatever.

(Sorry, author-wannabees. I feel for you, but really, you would have regretted that move anyhow. The idiot dweeb individual who ran that company would probably have expected you to turn around and pour any profits right back into the company because, you know, it would pay out Someday When We Get Big. Ha.)

(Not that I'm bitter.)

There were a couple other short-lived accounts along the way, but I didn't use them much. There was one for the school where I interned, but unless some misguided students and parents kept emailing me after I left, no one's using that any longer. Probably deleted anyhow. And I think there was one for the Time Warner Road Runner internet service we used when we lived in an apartment in my early years of teaching, but I never really used that.

No, I was using Hotmail by then. Ah yes, that Hotmail account. Those who know me personally may remember the days of my Hotmail address, which used (and still uses) my maiden name. There are still a few people who get confuzzled and email me there, which is now where messages go to die.

Because my Hotmail account became my Junk Account about five years ago. We moved into a house and our new internet provider provided us with shiny new email addies. The transition was both inevitable and timely: already my Inbox was starting to pile up with far too many spam and business emails, and my index finger was cramping up from hitting delete.

You see, there comes a time when one starts having to use one's REAL account for certain memberships and business accounts, especially when one starts signing up for those oh-so-convenient online billing and banking transactions.

So my Hotmail account became my Junk/Business Account, and my SBCGlobal account became my Personal/Aren't You Special account. Some people missed the news, but most friends and families simply sighed and dutifully changed their Contact lists.

(We won't go into how AT&T took over SBC after a while, which was Not Welcome since I'm really not fond of AT&T and the whole thing brought up some I thought monopolies were against the law!!!! rage.)

So this morning I opened up my SBC AT&T Yahoo (dammit) account and sighed. Because sitting in my Inbox, as has been the case pretty much every day recently, were multiple spam and ad messages.

You see, my Hotmail/Junk account is slowly going by the wayside. Every time I open it up I find there are approximately 1,289,456,723 new messages waiting for me, and the sheer effort of skimming through them to find the very few remaining legitimate messages, all of which are bill-related, is just exhausting. So when I've opened up or changed bills and accounts lately, I've been using my Real email addy.

Which is the Kiss of Death.

Right now I'm only seeing the edge of the tide. Inevitably it will rise and the flow of unwanted and delete-worthy messages will become unmanageable.

Looks like it's time to start shopping for a new address.  Which means that another email account will join the throng of spam-choked long-forgotten Inboxes trailing mournfully in my wake.

Gmail, anyone?

We're Staring at the Headlights and There's No Hero Riding Into Sight

Oy.

Okay. There's another reason I haven't wanted to write much prose lately.

It's called Stress. Over my everlovin' fund-cuttin' teacher-bashin' student-screwin' state legislature's decisions to cut education funding again and again and again. Halfway through the school year, as is the idiotic illogical normal way things are done around here.

My district, a large district, will lose an estimated $14.5 million as of December 20, 2009.

My building alone will lose almost $600,000.

This is not projected money, money that would be spent Down The Road that simply cannot be spent now. This is money that (because of the way things are done in this state) was already figured into the budget for the year before the state said Oh, sorry, did we say you could have that? Never mind.

This is money that pays for the programs that educate our youth, for the teachers and support staff who make the programs happen, and the facilities in which the programs are run. This is money that is spent to cover costs in a district that has already been paring away at spending and programs and jobs in an effort to absorb all the budget cuts made over the last several years.

So we are in Crisis. Crisis-mode decisions have been made, and the devastating results are already in play.

Last Thursday, after we wasted our time sat through a professional development presentation, four close English teacher friends of mine and I headed to a nearby Coney to eat lunch. I snapped a picture of them, these four young 20-somethings who have become my colleagues, my buddies, my mentees, my confidantes, and sent the picture to Joe via text labelled My peeps. He texted back Hi peeps! And then he and one of my peeps teased each other through me.

The next day three of them were told they will be laid off as of January 25th.

The fourth one is the next on the chopping block. Reality says she will not have a job next year.

The reason? One of the many cuts being made at the semester's end is the position of high school media center specialist (i.e. librarian.) Our libraries media centers used to have one full time MC specialist, one full-time MC paraprofessional, and one full-time MC secretary. And they were Busy. Over the last several years, the media centers first lost the secretaries, then dropped the para-pros to half-time, then lost the para-pros entirely. Our beloved MC specialist is quite possibly the hardest working and most overworked woman in the building, and she saves our asses on a regular basis. I put her on a pedestal along with our IT woman and the administrative secretaries.

Now all four high school MC specialists have lost their positions. Each school will have one para-pro working in the MC half the day.

This will work well.*

As a result, those MC specialists (all of whom were once teachers and are certified) are being moved back into the classroom. Even the one who only taught for a couple of years and hasn't been in a classroom for twenty-five. They have the seniority, they have the certification, so they will go into the classroom and the low people on the totem pole are gone.

Thus, my peeps.

Don't get me wrong. I don't want the specialists to lose their jobs either and I believe (knowing the kind of people they are) that they will work their butts off to do well as teachers. That's not the issue.

What is an issue, besides my friends losing their jobs, is that all these cuts (and there are more than these, believe you me) will Not Be Enough. More are coming our way--if not during this year, certainly within the next couple. Our in-school custodians are losing their jobs as the district switches to a cheaper (and much less effective) outsourced company. Some secretarial positions are being cut, others put to half-time. Bussing may have to be cut. Elective and Fine Arts programs may disappear. Sports programs may even be cut--freshman and junior varsity teams are already on the list of possibilities.

Class sizes will very likely rise (we're already at 35). The middle school program may be changed drastically, leaving about fifty teachers either laid off or transferred to high school, which means lay-offs there. Our contract is up for negotiation this summer, and I have every expectation that we will be forced to take dramatic salary cuts and benefit changes/losses. More people will lose jobs. MAYBE even some administrators (and believe me, that's a true sign of a crisis).

I understand, to a certain extent, why this is happening. Michigan is in crisis too. The state does not have money and is cutting all sorts of programs. Education is not alone. Police and fire departments are being drastically slashed. Other programs are being cut entirely or severely underfunded.

And I know that not just state employees are suffering. Almost all of Michigan is suffering. I know many people who have been laid off and cannot find jobs. Believe me, I'm grateful that I have one.

In fact, yesterday I found myself counting up the number of English teachers in the district who stand between me and a layoff. It may be human nature, but I recoiled at my cold-blooded approach to reality: how many bodies (so to speak) must fall before I do? And how bad would things be that I, who have approximately 14 people buffering me from unemployment, would be on the chopping block?

The reality is grim. It has been for some time, but now I'm catching a glimpse of the Reaper in my peripheral vision.

However, I have to wonder: at what long-term price are we making these short-term decisions? How will overcrowded classrooms, lack of bussing, lack of enrichment and Fine Arts and sports programs, and (yes, I'm going there) underpaid and overstressed teachers create an educational environment that will draw crucial people and funds to this state? What are we sacrificing for the present crisis that will contribute to the long-term one? The experts waffle on when we will start emerging from this recession, but I can say this: unless positive decisions are made rather than negative ones, that journey will be a very long one. And at this rate, I believe we may drop down into a full depression rather than the "milder" recession sooner rather than later.

In the meantime, I'm glad the legislators are able to sleep at night.* Apparently they're so relaxed about the oncoming train of the December budget cuts that today they declared a hiatus from sessions and decided to take a two-week vacation.

Unfortunately, they left a lot of people stranded on the tracks.


*In case you can't tell, this is being said with Deep Deep Sarcasm.

In the Waiting Line

By mutual agreement and mostly because I am the one with the most time on weekday afternoons to actually get Official Things Done, I was the one who filed for divorce. By a strange concatenation of events, I filed yesterday, on the fourtheenth anniversary of when our relationship began. As if that were not ironic enough, I filed divorce papers approximately five yards from the counter where almost exactly eight years ago I filed the paperwork for our legal marriage ceremony, which took place eight years ago two days from now.

It felt surreal.

I don't quite know how else to explain it. I wasn't quite depressed. I wasn't joyful, either. I was mostly shaky, because now the wheels are set in motion. I watched the clerk stamp the papers and saw that already, just like that, we have been assigned dates for the two major hearings we must attend before the decree can be handed down in six months. I could see the great machinery of government grinding its gears, catching us up in its deceptively ponderous motion. The potential energy of our divorce turned kinetic in a matter of fifteen minutes.

I walked out the door, shaky and a little stunned, and sent a text to about a dozen people. I just walked out of the court house. I have officially filed for divorce, I said, the words stark on the electronic screen. Within moments, the texts started rolling in. A few were congratulatory; most were concerned.

Are you ok?
How do you feel?
Wow. (((hugs)))

I went back to the house and collapsed on the bed after lugging all my stuff inside--it was another "toggle"* day. I talked to a few people on the phone. I tweeted and Facebooked about how weird I felt, and how I had no idea what to make for dinner because I had no money and no energy and no desire to cook. I shored myself up, gradually feeling my head straighten out and my mood lighten.

Then I went and picked up my two little boys, who were very happy to see me and amazingly well-behaved and so polite about asking if they could eat food from "Old MacDonald's" that I succumbed after two seconds and agreed. So we swung through the drive-through to pick up a ten-piece McNugget meal. The boys devoured the chicken and some of the fries; I ate the rest of the fries and drank the Coke. It was a proud mommying moment. It was a very real single-mommying moment. And we snuggled on the couch watching the Backyardigans, which stretched from one episode to two before we went upstairs to get the boys to bed.

I did no grading last night.

This morning the boys were so cooperative that we got out the door only fifty minutes after I woke up. When I arrived at work, my darling mentee S. walked into my room with a bag of mini biscuit pizza makings for the boys and another of fancy pasta makings and French bread for me. Supper is set for tonight. I have friends already working on plans to get together for GNOs in the next few weeks. The love is rolling in.

It still feels surreal. A part of me is grieving the loss of something that was and always will be an enormous part of my life. We will always be tied together by that time and by our children. Another part of me is simply impatient to Get Through It All and Get On With Things. The largest part of me is simply lying quiet, watching warily from a corner, unsure of this new and uncertain future that looms in front of me.

Yeah. November sucks.

******************************
*TOGGLE

Meaning:

Any instruction that works first one way and then the other; it turns something on the first time it is used and then turns it off the next time

Classified under:

Nouns denoting communicative processes and contents

Hypernyms ("toggle" is a kind of...):

command; instruction; program line; statement ((computer science) a line of code written as part of a computer program)

Use in this context: 

A day in which custody and residence switches between the two parents