Tomorrow is the First Day of the Rest of My Life

 

Tomorrow is the first day of the rest of my life--trite, but true.  Tomorrow is the first day of my last school year working as a Special Education para educator.  I have mixed emotions as I like my job.  Actually, I have the best job in school district because I work with the best student in the best high school.  I have amiable workmates who are the cherries on my work sundae.  So why not keep working?  The reasons are multiple.

Unfortunately, retiring and collecting both my Social Security and my retirement will actually give me a raise.  I have always joked and said that if I kept working much longer the district would expect me to pay them.  I wasn’t far off the mark.  I will be 63 in February so am already eligible to collect SS.  When I first began working with my student when he was a freshman I told him that I wouldn’t retire on him, that we’d graduate together.  He has come to be very dear to me and makes each day a joy.  He says that between the two of us we make one good brain.  That makes me laugh.  I am his hands; he is the brains in our outfit and very forbearing to tolerate spending the better part of 6.5 hours of his days with an old lady.  In some other life he could have been my grandson.  Tomorrow he begins his senior year which means nine more months to help him prepare to make his way in the world.  He will always need and have help, but it’s time for him to spread his wings and find his path, even if it is in a wheelchair.

For over a year I have been living in a commuter marriage.  In June 2012 my husband Dave and I determined that it was necessary for him to return to work for Lockheed Martin to help pay some debts.  He had retired when Lockheed closed their Seattle Flight Service, but had offered him jobs in other facilities over the years.  Finally it seemed an offer that couldn’t be refused, especially when we discovered that he could rent a room from an old friend from his FAA Bakersfield days who happened to be working at the Prescott, AZ facility that offered Dave the job.  The year plus of having a commuter marriage, which I discovered is not all that uncommon (not a good commentary on American life), has been a year of learning for both of us.  Dave admits that in the beginning there was a certain amount of excitement with regards to living somewhere new for a while.  That wore off somewhat rapidly when he realized that life was going on at home without him where grandchildren were growing and changing and I was learning to do without him.  That has not always been easy.  He is home for a few days to attend his mother’s funeral and admitted that he doesn’t want me to get along too well without him.  Anxious to feel needed he had not even unpacked before he started doing chores around the house as if he’d never left.  We get by without him, but I am the first to admit that life is much smoother with him.  Originally Dave’s move to Prescott had an end date of his 62^nd birthday (SS) this month, but a little raise has enticed him to stay into October to sell back his annual leave at the higher rate and get two more pay checks so it’s home before Halloween now with the plan for him to do some projects on our Gig Harbor house with an eye for selling it. Then we can move to our other house in Ilwaco, WA which will presumably be cheaper to live in.

The move to Ilwaco will also put me within six blocks of my nearly 92 year old mother who so far is remaining in her own apartment.  Every time I have to come away from Ilwaco I worry about her despite the fact that we pay for a chore person once a week, one of the neighbors to take out the garbage and for a medic alert system.  This week we are burying Dave’s mother whose birthday would have been Friday, just 11 days before my mother’s.  I don’t think I will ever regret spending more time with mine.

The last, but most important, reason for me to want to quit my job is my own Special Needs daughter.  Amy is 42.5 years old and has Down’s Syndrome.  The average life expectancy for people with an extra 21^st chromosome is 50.  I feel the clock ticking.  She can be frustrating and stubborn and loves me more than anyone ever will.  She is a gift with whom I want to spend as much time as possible.  There have been times during Dave’s absence that she’s been alone for 7 hours a day at home, although for the most part my daughter-in-law has been at home with her.  While she’s happiest with her own company and knows she can reach me at any time by calling my cell phone and I am only ten minutes away, those have been anxiety ridden hours.  Dave is not Amy’s biological father, but she has him wrapped around her tiny pinkie and one of the things that made me fall in love with Dave was a remark he made when we were first “keeping company.”  He said, “It’s nice.  You’ll always have Amy.”  Who could not love a man that thinks it’s not only okay to have my child always with me, but desirable and then was willing to take on a ready-made family that included her three brothers and grandmother.  Perhaps I’m lucky that he didn’t run away and join the circus before 21 years had passed!

So tomorrow begins the first day of the rest of my life and my last first day of school.  How exciting is that?

Looking Toward the Firsts and the Lasts

 

Amy’s and my summer at the shore is coming to an end.  We are getting ready to head home to Gig Harbor so that I can go back to work at Gig Harbor High School.  This time of year is always filled with mixed emotions for me.  I like my job.  I assist the most amiable eighteen year old student who is forbearing with an aide who is an old lady.  This will be our fourth year together and other than a new schedule, we have our ways of getting things done and have been together long enough to finish each other’s sentences.  We have similar senses of humor.

The past few days the weather has been cool and even a bit rainy which would make my husband, was he here, sad, but it does not me.  Yesterday afternoon as I dozed on the couch before a DVD a sound reached my ears which I’d not heard for a long time.  For more than 20 years I’ve tried to discover that it is on our front porch that creaks in the wind to no avail.  It is a slow creak as I would imagine the ropes of a sailing ship creaking against a wooden mast as the ship rocks upon the water rather in keeping with the fact that our 132 year old house is two blocks from the Port of Ilwaco.  I have come to love the sound, but was surprised to hear it since the sun had been making a gallant effort to make an appearance when I’d set the sprinkler to watering the garden which I needn’t have bothered with.  Now it was raining.

Returning to a job I enjoy is some compensation for leaving the creaking house by the sea that I love as is the turning of the seasons.  I realize that Autumn does not officially begin until September 22^nd (my husband’s birthday) this year, but my favorite season is whispering her name and leaves from the birch tree are littering the yard between the house and the barn.  I took the combination of Mother Nature’s behavior as signs that it was the time to shift some things inside from Summer to Autumn mode.  Out are coming my harvest table runners, table clothes and napkins along with my collection of pumpkins and turkeys and my happy Autumn crow.  Once I am back in my routine of work and coming to Ilwaco to help my almost 91 year old mother, I have little time for what I call “playing house” otherwise known as decorating.

One twist on the end of Summer this year is that our financial advisor says that I can make this my last year of working for the school district.  As a matter of fact between my retirement and Social Security, I will get a little raise.  It will mean living frugally because Dave is also leaving his job at Lockheed Martin in Prescott, AZ where he’s been since June of ’12 and returning to Gig Harbor to begin collecting his Social Security, along with his retirement from the FAA.  We will soon be embarking on a new phase of our life as we shift our lives from Gig Harbor to Ilwaco.  There will be the sadness of having the children and grandchildren farther away, but Dave is certain that we can live more cheaply in our house by the sea than in an upscale suburb. 

Mostly I want to be nearer to my elderly mother and spend more time with my Special Needs daughter.  The average life expectancy of an individual with Down’s Syndrome is 50.  Amy is 42.5 years and I bless each day with her.  She can be extra work, infuriatingly stubborn, and loves me more than anyone ever will.  I would not trade one day with her for any other day so regardless of finances or other inconveniences; I am excited about the changes to come.  It will undoubtedly be a time of firsts and lasts.

A Weekend of Mixed Emotions

 

Today is Labor Day and this weekend has always been bittersweet to me.  Unlike most parents, when my children were school age I loved having them at home during the lazy days of summer and was as sad as they to see summer vacation draw to a close.  Now I work for the schools and still am sorry.  On the other hand it means that my favorite season is around the corner.  Although the calendar and the moon say otherwise, Autumn is whispering her name in the foggy mornings.

 

Just as though I am a student myself I have to have back-to-school clothes as compensation to begin our ten month march back to Summer.  This summer I was busy with doctor appointments for my mother, myself, and my husband, not to mention Dave’s knee surgery, but I did manage to find a new jumper that will be snug this Fall and Winter and there’s always the tie-dyed blouse I bought for our class picnic last month which I did not get to attend in the long list of things that have gone by the boards since mine became a commuter marriage.

 

I had plenty of projects that have gone undone such as painting the porch furniture, getting that bird house put up and does anyone ever get all their summer reads read? The furniture will have to go back in the barn and the bird house wait.  The books can be read evenings and weekends when Mother Nature turns our attention inward.  Summer may be over, but there are still the delights of Autumn to look forward to and just now my attention is turned toward SeaTac because today the baby comes home for ten days!

Back to School

On some really delightful days I’ve been known to say that I’d do my job for free...

Along with my favorite season, this time of year means back-to-school and back-to-work. I love my job, although I’d really rather be at home with my daughter, my husband, my grandson and daughter-in-law, but as jobs go, mine isn’t bad. I am perpetually stuck in high school which at age 60 is a little weird and cool.

Because I am a “para educator” (a fancy word for teacher aid) I see school from a different vantage point than the classroom teachers. Rather than having a home base, I am a gypsy, moving from room to room where there are Special Education students. Every year, every semester is different. It makes the day go quickly and it presents its own problems as I have to deal not only with a multiple of personalities in the students, but in the teachers as well.

Teachers are some of my favorite people. We are a family of teachers. My son Frank is a high school art teacher. My in-laws are retired teachers, two of my brothers-in-law are teachers and two of my sisters-in-law are teachers, but I am sure that single one of their classrooms would be different and I have to adjust my brain to get in sync with each one as I move through my day.

Because I am on the move and seeing something beyond the individual teacher’s classroom door I am privy to what is going on in the hall. In many ways it’s like watching my own high school experience. While technology has radically changed how students interact, write and do research, the drama of being a teenager is pretty much the same.

Last year I spent two thirds of my day with one student. He is quadriplegic and very, very smart. I am his hands. I take notes during lectures, type when he dictates, fill in bubbles and blanks on tests. For that last bit we go into the hall. This year we will be together all day—which includes geometry, not my favorite subject. Yes, he’ll get it, but it helps if I do, too, since I’m the one writing everything down!

Last year was my student’s freshman year. My plan is to see him through to graduation and it will be fun to watch him grow intellectually. Besides smart he is funny and compassionate when someone else in his situation might be bitter and cranky. It is an honor to work with him and he is very good to tolerate an old lady. He laughed one day and said, “Between the two of us we have one good brain.” We’d BOTH been struggling with an algebra problem on homework.

The four years between freshman and senior years are huge. And then they walk up to you in the community and tell you how much you meant to them when they were in school and it makes even the bad days worthwhile.

On some really delightful days I’ve been known to say that I’d do my job for free and been told to be quiet. At the rate we are going with state budget cuts I will be putting my money where my mouth is any day.

Today is the end of July and it’s the last working day of the month so it’s payday—yeah! Tomorrow is the first of August, the last holiday month of the summer—boo! I have a bittersweet relationship with August. While I love the fact that it is still nice weather and the first fruits of the harvest are being reaped, I feel the sands of summer trickling through the hour glass of my time away from school.

Now is the time for thoughtful parents to prepare for their children to return to school. Me, too. September can be an extremely expensive month with the purchase of supplies, clothes, shoes, backpacks, emergency packs, and pictures. When mine were going to school they also sold insurance in Fall. I don’t know if they still do that. I never availed myself of that which I purchased, but I guess it bought some peace of mind for me. I remember September as being a month where the money just flew out of my wallet. Nowadays if you’ve a child in high school you also have to pony up for a graphing calculator which in all likelihood your child will never use after fulfilling their math requirement and you will not know how to use for that garage sale because the thing is too complicated.

If you aren’t sending a child or grandchild back to school, remember those low-income children who do not want to arrive on the first day in last year’s things and no supplies. There are always donation bins at banks and grocery stores where you can put in a package of paper or box of pencils that will be greatly appreciated.

August first is the Celtic celebration of Lughnasa or the first harvest festival. It honored the Irish god Lugh. I can see why the Ancient Celts celebrated the time of year. It was the time for them to begin reaping the rewards of the work of Spring and Summer and begin to think about the coming Fall. I am always a season ahead mentally so some ancient memory must linger in my brain that even in this age of super markets (emphasis on “super,” as in huge) and shopping malls I am always planning for the season to come; so in Summer I plan for Fall and Winter. For instance I am currently scouring thrift shops for footed pajamas for a grandson size 6-7 and a granddaughter size 5.


It is lovely that Lughnasa is falling on a Saturday this year which in Ilwaco is also farmers’ market day. We can have a Lughnasa dinner filled with the flavor of the first harvest. Since I incorporate different things into our tradition I will probably prepare Gormeh Sabzi, a Persian dish, for our Celtic celebration. I’ve posted the recipe previously. You can fiddle with it and use whatever is on hand. I like to use broth instead of water and I use the crock-pot because preparing a meal in one costs about eight cents in electricity and stays in line with my commitment to walk gently on this Earth that gives us Her bounty.

August means the blackberries will begin to ripen. With not much rain this summer I don’t know fat they will be. Right now the ones in my departed neighbor Viola’s yard are just beginning to turn with just the point-men at the end of the clumps beginning to darken. August means blackberry pie and milk-cartons filled with the frozen fruit for use in Winter.

The nip in the air which will come toward the end of the month will also herald the beginning of the end of Summer though the nice days will linger into September, the night s along the coast will remind us that Autumn is coming. After the heat wave we’ve come through, nippy nights sound delightful!

For further reading on Lugnasa, which has many different spellings, click here.