It's About Celebrating The Life That Was

Soon To Be In The Arms of God

Just like the weather has changed dramatically this week (snow on Monday, 83* today) so has the health of our beloved band director/teacher. The warrior fought a good battle. Sometimes you are called to lay down your weapon and make peace with the beast.   

And so we pray.

 

Uli Phone Home

It all started when King Ralph walked out the front door, leaving it ajar, to look at the minor damage that M's co-worker/band mate's mom caused to her car.  King Ralph had M's car yesterday, I switched car's with him after work so M could have her car to drive to evening band practice.  As I stopped so she could cross the lane to hop in the car, co-worker's mom waited for her to cross and then proceeded to back into the car.  Never met co-worker's mom...but I have now. 

Like I said it all started when King Ralph walked outside at 8pm to survey the damage.

9pm D went looking for her beloved pooch only to find she was no where to be found.  Just like Toto she loves to run.  Given the opportunityty to run wild and free she'll take it!  We all hopped in cars to canvass the area.  M & D calling out Uli's name came upon two boys playing basketball in their driveway who alerted them a woman was walking with our doggy on a leash looking for the owner and said she told them she would send the little black dog to a shelter.  Uli has tags, a tag with her phone number stamped on a heart.  Why not call us?  We rushed home called the local police who directed us to the animal control division-- no luck. 

So we said our prayers last night that Uli finds her way back to us today. 

In the words of ET--ULI PHONE HOME!     

So What If My Shoes Hurt My Feet

Yesterday I rummaged through my closest for the proper shoes, shoes to match my black pants and white blouse.  I went with black boots because one, it was cold out and two, the heel height was perfect for my always-to-long-pants.  The curse of being five foot four and one-fourth inches tall.

When I walked in the office it felt like a furnace.  Uhg. You want to complain but you don't realizing the right to complain about the hotness in a building is hardly worthy for the day.  The outside temperature was perfect for my long sleeve blouse.  It felt liberating.  As the day rolled on my feet were fighting the notion of being trapped.  My ten toes wanted to twinkle like Fred Flinstone as he foot peddled his car--free and breathing.  Instead my pinkie toe on my right foot was crying I want to go wee-wee-wee all the way home.  When my day was finished the BWFs and I loaded in the truck and drove to the funeral home.  The reason for the black pants, white blouse and black boots.  When the three of us entered through the doors the pain of rubbing leather on my little toe seemed to vanish; vanish with the notion that my temporary pain was nothing compared to the pain of my co-worker's forever broken heart.  Her family's broken hearts.  Laying to rest a son, a grandson , a brother....

As a staff we constructed a beautiful wreath of small hands in colorful papers.  Each of us in the building wrote words from our hearts of condolence to our friend and co-worker.  I started my message with the words of Psalm 34:18  The LORD is close to the brokenhearted and saves those who are crushed in spirit.

I have now sadly watched three friends bury their children.  In no way the natural evolution of life.  It, at no time, has been an easy witness.  As parents we are not to bury our children.  Each of my friend's children left this earth to early, all taken by different cause.  Each mother and father however with the same cry.  Although the cry is different in sound to the ear, the pain of cry is all the same.  Heartwrenching!  A pain I can hardly fathom.

Once I was alone in the truck the boots were unzipped tossed to the side, the pain of the pinch by shoes not welcomed on my feet eased.  The guilt sets in.  The comprehension that my pain had an easy, quick fix can do that.

So next time you put on a pair of shoes that cramp and feel like a confinement...look at your children.  Then thank God that you can stretch your arms out and pull them in close to love them, to kiss them, to hug them, to talk with them, even yell at them.  Realizing never to take their presence in your life for granted.           

My Day of Lasts

It seems like I blink and the days of firsts become the days of lasts. I stand in the middle of the kitchen screaming AMEN!, as I pack the last lunches of the school year. I have a break from the worry of do I have enough sandwich baggies.

Three more days. Just three more days.

For me those three days are full days, for the girls short days. Short days filled with stressful test taking. M is a more relaxed teenager than D haven taken three AP test a few weeks back. To which I really holler an AMEN! because I am not sure I could have handled much more of M's stress level at that point.

Today also marks D's last piano lesson with her (and Princess A's) long time music teacher. I have been scurrying across town for nine years to make lessons on time, giggling at there rewards of a single Pez for a lesson well performed and staring at the giant pine tree suited for a Rockefeller Center Christmas tree [that consumes the entire front yard] for nine years and today...today that all ends. Bitter sweet. Fear not the piano will not be silenced as we meet a new teacher next week.

So I say...good-bye school lunches, till we meet again. Good-bye Mrs. Johnson, may the silencing of the piano in your home and idle parents parked at your curb bring you a joyful retirement and mostly in honor of the kids, good-bye 6th hour, may your finals' questions be kind and easy.

Making His Fashion Statement in the Darndest of Places

When I got to work yesterday my brother found me as I walking out to be with a student to tell me Joy's husband had passed away. We made quick conversation about what time to head over to the funeral home. Then we went on with our day.

So after a whirlwind of after school pick and drop off of kids, I went home chocked down dinner and headed to the funeral home.

As my brother, my BWF and I entered a funeral home in the city we had never been to more or less heard of...my brother turns to me and said, "this place smells like Grammy's house." Oh-my-gosh he was right the place smelled just like my grandmother's house. Then we entered the funeral parlor looked around and my brother turns to me and says, "those are Grammy's chair." There they were the exact same pair of chairs that flank the end table in her living room. My brother then commented that he was waiting for the Chipmunks Christmas album to begin playing and he would have felt like he was standing in my grandmother's Downersgrove home.

Then we waited to greet Joy.

As we waited I commented that her husband looked good. I didn't know Joy's husband but for some reason I was expecting a man who was feeble from years in a nursing home suffering from Alzheimer's. Not the case. Then my BWF whispers to me to look at his sport coat. I thought, Joy, simple woman of simple means. Then as we were nearing to leave I commented to Joy (as I don't often do this at funeral because...) that her husband looked good. It was then that she said "ya he does except for that darn coat."

Joy's husband laid there in his casket with the most hideous 1970's era heavy polyester mostly red with blends of yellow, green and navy blue large hounds tooth sport coat. "He loved that ugly thing" she said, "we all hated it". She continued telling us how every time he put it on everyone in the family begged him to take it off. Joy said she use to tell him that his ugly sport coat needed to go to the cleaners but that he always followed with that he needed to wear it on Sunday. And on went the story. One day he entered the room wearing the sport coat when his own mother insisted he take that coat off that it was hideous thing and if he didn't she would make sure he was buried in it.

There we stood in the middle of the funeral parlor all laughing realizing new life doesn't always have to be laden with sadness. My BWF said "well he got the last word" and I said "and his mom got her way."

So Arthur entered the gates of heaven looking similar to Norman Fell's character Stanley Roper from Three's Company. Without a doubt felling like he owned heaven.

That Favorite Teacher

D had a recent assignment for her English class, an exit project of middle school reflection. Last night I looked over her project doing the thing I love to do--finding grammatical and spelling errors. It was when I came to the section of the project that was a thank you letter to a teacher who somehow touched, inspired the student in her--it got me reflecting...

Mine was my sixth grade teacher, Mr. Brown. He was cool beyond cool. So suave. My Obama. He loved Donna Summer and had an old stereo in his room. Now that was outrageous!, in a good keen way. He meant business though, if you crossed the line, talked too much you were commanded to scribe dictionary page 186; every comma, every semi colon. I wrote that page often for talking. Also my desk was frequently snug next to his to keep my lips from moving and my brain focused. His wife made great sweet potato pie (a perk for having that desk placement). I remember we gave him a party at the end of the school year. We collected money and purchased cool Mr. Brown the newest, hot-off-the-press Donna Summer album and had a cake fashioned into a dictionary opened to page 186. Great how we all have that favorite teacher who transcends learning from just an experience to an adventure. I truly believe it is an important part of all of our desires to want to be educated. My girls if asked, "who was mom's favorite teacher" can tell you; it is "Mr. Brown". I hope he realizes how much he meant to so many kids, kids who were probably to immature to say thank you.

D is my girl who has know since the fourth grade that she was destined for a life in the field of education once marked her path longing to a be a school librarian-- until last year. In no way has she tossed aside or given up her feverish passion for books. No instead she has found a new avenue for her crave to be an educator. Music.

Last year suddenly D announced to me she wanted to be a music teacher. I was not and am not surprised; she loves to play the piano, often bored from the regular and required pieces of her lessons she scourers the Internet purchasing sheet music of movie soundtracks. Of late it has been the music of Pride and Prejudice. Her playing that piece transcends the home into total silence so we can all absorb the tranquility this masterful arrangement offers to the soul and the time she has given to it in an effort to perfect it for performance.

Okay back to the thank you teacher letter... D wrote her thank you letter to her music/choir teacher, Mr. Hutson, her favorite. I too love Mr. Hutson. Since he is also M's color guard instructor I often tell the girls I would love to have him as my brother. They laugh at me. But there is something about his sarcastic humor that is seasoned with his boyish southern charm that grabs. Mr. Hutson calls all his female students "divas." We once had a nice conversation on a band trip bus ride about how he believes every child has a right to experience the fine arts of education, regardless of there talent. Being a middle school choir teacher he gets that...every time he conducts a choir of Peter Brady's in the midst of puberty and finding, hearing something the average listener can't--potential. I read on, how he inspired D to want to be a better singer, a better piano player...that she hopes, she strives to be as good on those black and white keys as he is. That she has valued his guidance, instruction and his humor. Then I felt a tear in my eye. A tear because D has found her Mr. Brown. That she too will most likely one day tell her children all about "Mr. Hutson, her favorite teacher."

Now, who was your favorite teacher?

Come On Blues Do it for the Givens'

Little Miss Abby has been my playground mate all week. Her arms wrapped firmly around my waist as she tells me how she misses her dad--a high school classmate of mine, who I had to scan the yearbook to recall.

Last night Saint Louis got a taste of this dad, his love for his family and the Blues.

This morning the office stood still and somber as they watched the rebroadcast that can't help but to put a lump in your throat.

So if you happen to be decked out in your Blues jersey, stretched out on the couch enjoying the game...feel free to scream up to heaven to one of STL's biggest hockey fans to ask God for just one more chance at the big prize.

Now Blues--don't choke!