Pink Giraffe Musing

When I was a kid in school, I was a walker.  Out of my K-12 career, I walked all but two years.  As a child I didn't always love it.  But as an adult, I look back on it with great fondness.  I remember anticipating that 3:30 bell and practically flying from the school when it sounded.  I would run up the gravelly hill, with my gold and blue Hilton Wildcat tote bag, catching up with friends along the way.  It is such a feeling of freedom....joy...... pure bliss.  I remember it vividly.  I can picture the cracks in the side walk and the acorns we had smashed along the way the previous day.  Frequently, I took off my shoes and walked home barefoot, much to my mother's chagrin. As with most things, the rules have changed, and the walkers at my school are not given the same freedom, or opportunity for youthful zeal at the end of a school day as I had "back in the day".  For this reason, it came to be that I wal...

  "It has been said, 'time heals all wounds'.  I do not agree.  The wounds remain.  In time, the mind, protecting its sanity, covers them with scar tissue and the pain lessens.  But it is never gone." -Rose Kennedy    I am a visual learner.  I am a visual thinker.  Sometimes I think this is what makes me a good teacher.  I can take something abstract or inconceivable and turn it into a picture to help people understand it better. So when my children and I first began our journey through grief, I tried to put it into a picture for them.  I felt like they didn't understand the road ahead.  I thought they believed the terrible heaviness of the initial tragedy was how they would feel forever, and I wanted to give them hope.  I told them our grief was like a big wound.  That is was similar to a cut or scrape like you get from a bad bike accident.  It hurts.  It hurts terribly. ...

I have been given all sorts of advice over the last 8 months.  It has all been well intentioned.  Some of it has really resonated with me.  Some of it, not so much.  One of my greatest sources of advice has been my husband's dearest friend.  Not only did he love Michael like a brother, he lost his father as a boy.  He is one of the few people who can come close to understanding the loss I feel, and also understands firsthand what my children are going through.  In the months since Michael's death his friend has become my friend too.  He texts me, calls me, messages me to check in.  He has been working on my deck to finish a project that Michael started.  He tells me sweet things that Michael said to him about me.  We share in each other sadness, and he gives me a picture into what my  kids are experiencing.  And he said to me one day......Beth, life is for the living.  And I have embraced that....

This post is really for me.  It is probably more of a journal entry than a blog post.  I am writing it because I really believe in the power of positive thinking.  But, like many of us, I find myself dwelling on the negative from time to time.  Sometimes, it is in the form of problem solving, and that to me is okay short term, but sometimes I let it drag me down, and I have enough stuff in my life to drag me down these days.  So, in an effort to count my blessings I decided to write this. Last time I taught, I felt like I became jaded by the paperwork, meetings, parents in denial, but mostly all the time spent doing everything but teaching and planning (like making floats for the Christmas parade, lettering 500 certificates and meeting after meeting).  I found it frustrating enough that when my daughter was born I quit my job to be a mom, and never really looked back.  I taught part time in private settings, which was truly the perfect situation ...

Looking back at the moments following Michael's death, I think I felt like I was in some surreal bad dream that was an episode of ER or Grey's Anatomy starring me.  I was overwhelmed by pretty much everything besides breathing. And, as I was dialing the phone to call my parents, I kept thinking, I wish this would just be over.  It was just too much to take it.  Too hard.  Insurmountable.  As the phone began to ring the realization hit me...., "Oh Beth, this is only just beginning". He is gone.  Sometimes it still takes me by surprise.  How, after all these months, I am not sure.  But there are times when I am running or driving, or I look at a photo and I think, "he is not coming back",  and it just seems crazy.  I mean really crazy.  This is my life, are you sure?   Really, just gone, just like that?  How can it be?  There are arguments as to whether it is easier to lose someone s...

Photo of a Poster in the hallway at my school August 13, 2012 Well, to say that I am in a "season of change" in my life would be what seems like a major understatement.  In a life that seems to be on a long and winding path to who knows where, I started yet another chapter today.  After 10 year break, I stepped back into the front of  a classroom today.  I have to say, that even after all these years, it felt somewhat routine.  And for that I am thankful.  There are some things about this job I want to write about.  Coincidences some may call them.  Luck.  I don't know.  Karma.  Maybe I'd call it grace, or a blessing.  To me, I see a hand in it that isn't mine.  Here is why...... Three years ago, the school where I am working lost everything in a flood.   The building was under 10 feet of water, the children evacuated to safely as water lapped at their feet.  Oddly enough, I remember be...

“Don't walk in front of me; I may not follow. Don't walk behind me; I may not lead. Just walk beside me and be my friend.” -Albert Camus This I know to be true......there is not a wrong way or a right way to grieve.  There is also not a wrong way or a right way to treat someone who is grieving.  But, given my recent firsthand knowledge on the topic, I will say, there are things I would recommend and suggest, just in case you are interested should you find yourself dealing with someone going through what I am going through.  Frankly, if you know me and you are reading this, I hope you never know another woman under 80 who loses her husband to anything but old age, but being that I myself now have 8 (yes 8!) widow friends, and I am the OLDEST of all of them, I don't think that is likely.  So, for what it is worth.  Here is what I think: 1.  Treat me as normally as possible.  If you treat me normally, I will be much happ...