Monday Photo Shoot: Things I Have Others Probably Don't

Your Monday Shoot: Things You Have Other People Probably Don't
"Got something weird around the house that you figure is unique to your personal environment? Perfect. Get the camera:

Your Monday Photo Shoot: Take a snap of something in the house you're pretty sure other people aren't likely to have in their house. Pets and people are not included (we're pretty sure your pets and kids aren't in most other people's houses). For this photo shoot we're looking at things -- stange objects, curios, odd keepsakes and just generally weird stuff. "

                             From John Scalzi's Monday Morning Photo shoot.

 

I had to look around to find something weird, something I knew that no one would have in their own home. It's pretty unique to my environment. I didn’t think of it right away until my eyes fell upon it because I generally forget it's even there, and then I said, “That’s it! No one has one of those!”

I’m pretty sure no one has one because I thought of it myself, I put it together myself. I cut the root-branch myself, I added the bugs myself. I guess you could say it was my “creation.”

I don’t even have a name for it. Cicada Gallery? Insects on Display? Lotta Cicadas?

But if you look closely at it, you can see my favorite insect, the Cicada, several of them in fact, perched at various points on the tree root.

I’ve had it for about twelve years now, and have been adding insects to the “branch” from time to time. I don’t kill the bugs… they’re usually freshly dead when I find them. If they die in my path, and if their little bodies look whole and untouched, I glue them to the branchwith rubber cement!

Right now, I have on display a Carpenter Bee, a Japanese Hornet, a dragonfly, and several Cicadas.

Why do I keep them? Well, I became enthralled with the Cicadas one year when our area was having one of those summer events everyone recognizes as the emergence of the 17-year “locust.” They are not locusts, they are Cicadas. They might have been the 13-year sort, or the annual cicada. That year I was able to capture a Cicada just as it was about to emerge from its larval hard shell stage, and it was as beautiful as watching a butterfly emerge from its cocoon. I’ve had a great fascination for them ever since.

So, in remembrance of them, I suppose, and to help educate others who are curious, in or out of the classroom, I keep this little “nature” display in my drawing room, amidst all the other curious things that I am involved in.

Hmmm, I think these pictures are saying a lot more than I probably would have written about myself!

If anyone does have something like this hanging around their house, I'm thinking we might be kindred spirits!

IF, J-Land Style

I want to make a journal entry, but nothing comes to mind. Moments like this are a sign that I need to stop and be still. I need to empty my mind of all thoughts: What I am planning to do for school, what I am planning to do for church, what I want to do for myself, and what I want to do for my husband.

What I want to do comes into conflict with what I have to do.

Ever since my neighbor died, I've been thinking about what will happen when I die, or my husband dies. What will I do without him? What regrets will I have? What would I do differently if I knew that in 6 months I would die, or that in 6 months he would die?

There is no doubt in my mind that I would quit my teaching job if I knew one of us were going to die within 6 months, or even a year. In a heartbeat I'd quit. Everything I thought was important to me, to the contribution I see myself making, flies out the window when I think about what I have taken away from the marriage and our relationship. The time I give to school related things and church obligations, since he is not involved in either, means I give less time to us.

I can't lie about it. If you are a teacher, you know what I am talking about. The job doesn't end at 3:30 each day, doesn't end on Friday afternoon, and doesn't end with the last day of school. It goes home with you.

You think you can get away from it, and have a meaningful family relationship with those you live with and live close to, but not really. You are so tired by end of day, discourse is unlikely. So much of what goes on during the day and the week cannot even be talked about because some things are just confidential. What you can talk about doesn't really matter. You find things to talk about, but they don't seem to matter.

I need to find another way to put my family in front of my job. Or there isn't going to be a job. I can see the regrets piled high when the inevitable comes.

The irony is that this is exactly the reason I entered the profession in 1996. In the summer of '96, I asked myself, what kind of work could I get into that was worth taking up agreat deal of my time, worth sinking my interest and energies into, worth laying awake at night for, worth my skills and talents?

What kind of work would get me out of bed each day, even on those days when I felt tired and burned out, even when I'd rather stay home and stay in bed? What kind of work, when I imagined  laying on my deathbed, would I feel proud of what I had done with my life? What kind of work would make me say "It was all worth it?" 

Teaching seemed to fill the bill for me.

If  I'm going to sacrifice a great majority of my conscious living and giving for something, that something better be worth it. I don't want to lay in my bed, taking my last few breaths and think, "Man, I could have done this, or I could have done that.... why didn't I?"  or  "I could have spent more time with my family."

And then I remember the greatest sacrifice of all time. I remember Jesus, and wonder if he asked that question of himself? "Are they worth it, Lord?"

He must have answered "Yes, they are worth it."

No, I don't think he asked it on the cross... he might have asked it three years earlier when he began the journey to the cross. Surely the thought crossed his mind. There was that human side to him, after all.

I'm worth it... God says I'm His beloved. You are His beloved. Jesus, His beloved Son, made that ultimate sacrifice. For me, for you, for us all.

Am I worth it? He thought so.

Which leads me to believe that any sacrifice I make as a teacher is also worth it. Worth giving a life for. I may not be hanging on a cross, but my life is given up for the work at hand.

Teaching isn't the only job or profession that is worth giving up your life for. There are so many others ...

If you make it important, if you see its importance, if you can be the best damn worker, the best newspaper delivery person, the best cashier, the best plumber, the best real estate sales person, the best nurse or doctor or pharmacist, lawyer, policeman, clerk, cook, salesperson, store manager, custodian, bus driver, x-ray technician, anesthetist, veterinarian, soldier, ... and so on... it is worth it.

If you treat people honorably, with respect, and do what is right by them, and do not misuse or abuse your authority and privileges, if you seek to help those who don't understand and those who probably never will, your life given up for the work is worth it.

If you look for the good in others, and nurture it, expose it, praise it, and honor it, your life given up for that will be worth it.

If you can guide another into the Light, and give them room to walk beside you on your Path, your life lost in that endeavor is worth it.

If ...

There are more... so many more... than the few examples I have mentioned here. I know you have thought of some of your own. Would you share them with me? I know we won't be able to top Rudyard Kipling's "If", but that is not my intention.

Is what you do worth it? What makes it worth giving your life for?

I invite you to add to the list of "If's..." with your comments below.  Thank you, J-landers.

Remembering Grief

I've been away from my journal for the past few days, unable to make entries, mostly busy with the school day, and too tired when I came home each evening to journal. I haven't even visited many journals to read new entries. My email box was filled with AOL journals new entry alerts... way too many! That's when I realized I had more alerts than I could manage on a regular school day. So if you've wondered why I haven't been leaving comments, it's because I've been preoccupied with the days' events this week.

As mentioned in the previous entry, Sunday my neighbor suffered a massive heart attack and died so fast, he probably never knew what happened. His wife is now dealing with living without the man who has taken care of her during the recent years of her surgeries and illnesses. They were very close, devoted to each other. He did everything for his wife... she was his queen, as his brother puts it. His funeral was Wednesday. I was able to leave school early to attend it, and I'm so glad I did.

One other person from our neighborhood also attended, and we took comfort knowing that we were neither related to the man, nor could we say we knew him well, but could only say, "He was our neighbor," and we come to honor and remember him for that.

Several people who knew him better than we stood up and spoke of him. His daughter, his brother, his like-a-son friend, a minister. I heard things about my neighbor that I never knew because we never crossed paths in our areas of interest. He loved yard sales, and he was an e-Bay seller/buyer/trader. He was a former mailman, and once delivered newspapers. I heard of his manner in dealing with his children and grandchildren, and how much everyone who knew him loved him, and recognized his gruff ways to be what endeared him to them. There was much respect and honor shown at his funeral.

How could I not know these wonderful things about him when he lived only mere shouting distance from my back door? Because I never took the time to walk over and visit him, and he never took the time to walk over and visit with us. Just like I don't take the time to walk over and visit any of my neighbors, just to visit. I don't even know how to start that. I know some folks are good at that, but there are a hundred and more reasons why I don't just walk over and visit my neighbors than reasons why I should.

I cried during the service because as I heard the well-spoken, and often humorous, words of high praise and love for this man, and as I gazed upon the beautiful portrait that stood at the front of the crowded chapel that sunny afternoon, I felt something inside, and I wasn't sure of the feeling. I shouldn't be too sad, I thought to myself, because I didn't know him well, and the fact that neither of us had gotten to know each other well left me little to miss. How could I miss someone I had never really known? He wasn't like a friend. He was simply my neighbor. But, even that word carries much weight by Biblical standards.

I realized, as his wife followed the simple casket out of the chapel, walking with him one last time, why I felt like I had lost something... I had lost the opportunity to get to know him. It would never be possible now. Instead of being one of those who would and could stand up and speak on his behalf at his funeral, I had been one of those who sat and recognized that those who had lost him were the winners. They had known him enough to love him. I had not known him enough.

After the funeral service at the graveside, I drove home, but did not stop at my neighbor's house to visit with the family. I thought they needed their own time of grief... you see the excuses already beginning? That afternoon and into the evening, there were so many cars parked in front of their house that I could not go over there.

The next day, Thursday, as I drove home from school, I saw that there were no cars in front of the home, so I pulled in directly without going home first. I decided I would stop in and pay my neighbor, now a widow, a visit. She was amazingly strong, and able to talk about it, and bared her heart, telling me how hard it is to sleep at night, how worried her daughter is for her, and how glad she is to have some time alone so she can smoke a cigarette and cry if she feels like it without someone there to witness it all.

I remembered my own deep grief for a year following my sister's and niece's death nearly nine years ago... I can't even believe that much time has passed, but I remember the shock, the numbness, and the anguish.

I remember crying prostrate on the floor when no one was home because that was the only place that felt stable enough to hold me. I remember stifling sudden sobs whenever I saw a girl between 10 and 12 years old with long brown hair, or a young mother holding her baby. I remember feelings of panic whenever I'd pass a car accident. The day I walked onto the college campus for my Education class, and came upon a mock car accident scene on the campus lawn demonstrating something for the ambulance and rescue services left me trembling by the time I got to class, and I wouldn't take off my sunglasses because I couldn't stop the tears.

It's best not to stop the crying whenever possible. This woman, my neighbor, had lost her husband of twenty something years. I can't even imagine her grief. They were in their retirement years... it seems so unfair. I told her I understood her need to cry, and that it was okay to cry for as long as she felt the need. Any time of day... there are no rules for grief. Are there?

I haven't read Dr. Elizabeth Kubler Ross's book "On Grief and Grieving"  (as mentioned in Nat's journal ) yet, having only just ordered it today, but I'm thinking each person has their own time to grieve, and shouldn't base it on another person's schedule or expectations. I know from personal experience that over time, the grief softened. It didn't go away, but it became gentler, and more forgiving. It became less intense, less up front, even less personal.

I can't even say for sure that grieving over the loss of a child is any harder than the loss of a husband... I could never speak to that since I have not experienced it. Or that losing someone to a disease is less painful than losing someone to a car accident, or to war, or to murder. I would never attempt to compare one woman's grief with another's. I imagine that losing one's child goes deeper with the anguish that one so young could never live as long a life as the adults who gave birth to him. 

Still, losing one's mate after sharing so much life and so many years together is an inevitable sadness, promised on the day of one's marriage when we speak the vows... "til death do us part." Just as our lives begin, the end is upon us.

And now that I've said all this, this is the paradox: This time of grief is also a time of great joy. One's death should be a time of joy. I believe in the afterlife of eternity. I don't understand it as much as I believe it. Which means that on the one hand, I may grieve for the loss of a loved one, yet on the other hand, I believe that person has moved on into the next phase of a new life. And this is exactly where my neighbor is now: grieving for the half of her that is missing, and believing that he has joined, or will soon join, with his Maker, the great I Am for that sweet eternal life we long for.

I will be a better neighbor from now on. I'd rather grieve because I lost someone I loved than grieve because I had not loved.

When a Neighbor Dies

Yesterday, my neighbor died. 

Massive heart attack. Took him quick. It was traumatic for the family who were present when he collapsed. He was about 65. His wife was trembling uncontrollably sitting on her front porch by the time I heard the news. The ambulance had come and gone, and I had not even heard the siren.

I don't know why I didn't hear it. The TV was not on, I was not listening to any music. I was working on lessons for the week. I didn't have a notion that my neighbor was dying until another neighbor, who heard the sirens, called to tell me something was going on down my way. I looked out the back door, and there were the flashing lights of several vehicles.

I thanked my friend for calling me, slipped on some shoes, threw on my jacket, grabbed a flashlight, and picked my way through the woods that separated my house from my neighbor's.

By the time I got there, the ambulance had already taken him away. His wife crying on the porch. My neighbor Carol consoling her, talking to her, giving to her. Carol knew what she was going through. Carol's son was killed a few years ago in a 4-wheeler accident. This very month. Today is the anniversary of her son's death. He was only 15.

There was Carol, giving more than I could give, but I stayed, and I went inside to see how the daughter and granddaughter were doing. The EMT supervisor was still there, and wasn't going to leave until someone had arrived to stay with the family. At the time, there was hope that my neighbor was still alive... the EMT's were "working on him," and that gave the family hope, but the truth was visible in their grief. They knew. They knew.

Someone arrived to take them to the hospital, and I made my way back home. I came home thinking he might still be alive. I called my husband who was out of town for a training workshop and told him the news. My husband had worked with our neighbor from time to time, piddling stuff, but not often. Not often enough. Mostly, they might cross paths while cutting trees or doing other yard work. Mostly, a wave of the hand, a smile, a holler.

Christmas cookies and Christmas cards were exchanged between each season. When our dogs visited them, they'd give them a treat , and when their dog was alive, I treated her likewise. A few phone calls to check up on each other from time to time. But mostly, where we live, we all have jobs, and we are seldom home during the day. When people are working all day, and running around on weekends, there isn't much time to be real neighborly.

Although, in this neighborhood, there are a few of us who do like to keep the connections strong, and so we have summer ice cream parties, and winter sledding parties (when it snows), and some have Christmas Caroled, one year a neighbor organized a luminary party to line our streets with luminaries made from gallon milk jugs. What an endeavor that was! There are Girls' Night Out a couple times a year. Not enough. There are bonfires at one neighbor's house, and, just lots of brief little moments when we do come together.

Mostly, what brings us together is extreme weather.  Hurricanes, ice storms, and tornadoes have brought us together. Everyone knows their neighbor when the weather rampages. People check up on each other, share water, share heat, share food. When you get snowbound for a week without power, it's good to have neighbors. My dogs and I had to sleep in the home of one of our neighbors (who happen to be best of friends) during one particular power outtage a few years ago when an ice storm trapped the south east. They had fuel heat... I had electric. It was an enjoyable adventure to share those days and nights with them like that. My husband wasn't there for that experience because he was icebound at work. He had slept in a motel room near his workplace.

And now I'm reminded that when your neighbor dies, it matters. Even though we seldom came together, and our paths seldom crossed, we were there when we needed each other. There's security in that. Security to know that right next door is a man or a woman who can contribute something in way of friendship, conversation, opinions, news, or even a "hey!" and a wave of the hand. You borrow a gallon of water, get a cup of coffee, a bite to eat. You help your neighbor cut the trees that fell in his yard, and he helps you cut the trees that fell across your driveway.

I rely on my husband as much as my neighbor's wife relied on him. But he's gone now. I can't imagine... I don't want to imagine... my life without my husband with me.

Yes, when I think of my neighbor dying, I think of my husband, and then I cry because he is my best friend. In the end, he is my best friend. I don't want to lose him like that. But the reality is that one of us is going to lose the other, if not like that, like something else. One way or another, one day, one of us is going to not wake up, or collapse suddenly, or be killed in a car accident, or die of some disease, or whatever... something is going to take us away, and life as we know it will never be the same.

So I know only to be kinder, to be more loving, to say what is good, and do what is good, and to encourage, and to support.

May my mouth never say another thing that could harm the image of another. May my ears never hear another word that slanders another person. May my eyes never see the darkness in a person, but only what is good and true in them.

Thereby, others may not harm me with their words, nor hear slander against me, nor see only my faults, for faults I have many, but see the good in me.

I'm baking lasagne to take over to the family tonight, and an apple pie which I bought because I didn't have time to bake one fresh. There are many cars coming and going next door. It is dark and raining. There will be many hungry people visiting, comforting, grieving over the next few days.

This is one of those times when the neighbors get together to help out. I thank God for my friends and neighbors. For the ones I often talk to on the phone and for the ones I seldom see.

Four things

This assignment came from Sassy at Sassy's Second Word. You can participate too.

4 jobs you've had in your life:

Waitress in a Mexican food restaurant (I was 18)

Student-artist in TV studio, Athens, Ga (I was 20)

Homemaker and Mother (21-45)

Special Ed teacher (grades K-12) (46-present)

4 movies you would watch over and over:

Master and Commander

Postman

Dances with Wolves

For the Moment (early Russell Crowe movie)

4 places you have lived:

Connecticut (born in Waterbury)

England (in the late fifties)

Berlin, Germany (in the late 60's)

Warner Robins, Georgia (in the early 70's)

4 tv shows you love to watch:

Lost (not the reality show, the airplane crash story)

Big Brother

Survivor

Medium (Her husband is adorable)


4 places you have been on vacation:

Cruise to Jamaica and Grand Cayman (culture-shock)

Florida (Orlando, etc) (such fun!)

North Carolina Outer Banks (peaceful)

New York, Niagra Falls (awesome!)

4 foods you love to eat:

Chicken and pasta

Wendy's Mandarin Chicken Salad

Shrimp, Lobster

Medium Rib Eye

4 places you would rather be right now:

Visiting my mother in Alabama

Visiting my son in Durham

Visiting my sister in Georgia

Visiting my brothers in California

Ok tag you're it!
Any one who reads this journal but only if you want :)

 Leave a link at Sassy's http://journals.aol.com/debbted/SassysSecondWord !

Weekend Assignment: Best Money Ever Spent

From John's By The Way assignment this week:

"What's the best money you've ever spent? Whether it's something you love, something you use all the time or something that doesn't owe you a nickel, what is it?"

"Extra Credit: Aside from food, what's the next purchase you plan to make?"

Best money I ever spent, or we ever spent, was when we bought a parcel of land in this subdivision and built a home on it back in 1981.

We’d been married about three years when our son was born, and about two years later, my husband got the urge to buy some land and build us a home. He began the process of subcontracting, got the land cleared in March, the foundation was laid, well drilled, septic system installed, and the house was built. By November we had moved in and celebrated our child’s third birthday. We have lived in this house ever since. It truly has been a home for us. Steven does not remember living anywhere else. This is contrary to the lives my husband and I lived as children, both having done extensive moving.

Even after twenty-five years, I still love to look at our home from the outside, and love to come back to it at the end of every day.

The journey began after we were married in 1975, when we bought a used mobile home for $3000 and lived there for over two years while we saved every penny we could make, deferring vacations and gifts and any luxuries. We sold the mobile home for what we paid for it, which was like living rent-free for two years, and put the money down on five acres of land with two little square two-bedroom houses and lived in one while we rented out the other for a couple of years. Even after our baby was born, we scrimped and saved. We sold the five acres and two old houses for an even greater profit and put all the money into the land and the building of our new home, where we have lived ever since.

The house is in a friendly, growing, community, and though our neighbors seem close in proximity, there are so many trees out here that we feel like we are living in the forest sometimes. We love the yard, the woods, the sounds, the smells here.

Sometimes we don’t go anywhere for vacation because we don’t want to get away from home. In fact, we stopped going camping after we moved here. One summer, while hiking in the Carolina mountains, we realized the trees and shrubs and plants we saw all around us were the same ones growing in our yard. The deer and squirrel, the birds were the same. We live a few hundred yards from a major river. We thought, why do we need to pack up all the camping gear to get away for a week, when what we get away to is just like where we live? Couldn’t we just stay home? Not only would we save lots of bucks, which we could spend on other things we like, but we wouldn’t have to drive for four hours to get there. And we’d still have all the conveniences like bathrooms, showers, TV, our own bed, and a kitchen. No packing and unpacking. I hate that part anyway. We don’t need a break from our home…. we need a break from work, so why couldn’t we take our vacation at home?

Yes, I’d say the money we put into this home was the best money ever spent.

Extra Credit: Next purchase we plan to make, aside from food: since we are in our fifties, the likelihood that we need to buy anything more seems very small. Actually, we'd like to downsize. We may have to consider our needs in the future,and sell this house and home to buy something closer to town, something smaller, more practical, with no yard maintenance.

We'd certainly miss this place, and all the memories we have stored up here, but reality will dictate where and what we will do over the next ten to twenty years. That, and our health!

Lost and Found

Have you ever misplaced something, thought you might have lost it? You look everywhere for it, tell people so they can look for it, too? Recently, two things come to mind: my pen, and a Fluency Reading lessons book with transparencies.

First, the pen disappeared about three weeks ago. It was a champagne colored Cross pen, slender, with a satin finish. I bought the pen three years ago at Office Depot one day as a way to treat myself.

I love pens, I love to write, but this was more than an ordinary pen. It was distinctive and sleek, and the way the metal barrel smoothly twisted to expose the pen tip was a pleasant change from the ususal plastic clicker pens. It felt comfortable in my hands, rested nicely against my fingertips when I held it in writing position, and it fit perfectly in my wallet without adding any additional bulk.

It might have fallen out of my purse while I was shopping at WalMart or who knows where. I looked in my car for it, in the trunk, under the seats, in the door pockets. I searched the pockets of my jackets and sweaters, skirts, and coats. I've checked all the bags I carry to school or church, canvas, corduroy, leather, or weave. I asked people at church to keep an eye out for a lost white pen, or off-white. The pen has not shown up.

The fluency book is one I purchased at an educators workshop. I had not begun using it for my reading class until recently, about two weeks ago. It took me awhile to figure out how I could fit the lessons into my already full Wilson reading class, but as I pondered the importance of fluency, I decided I could set aside one day a week to work on fluency after spending three to four days on decoding skills.

I had given the kids each a copy of the reading passage from the first lesson. I modeled reading it fluently, and I explained the three components of fluency (rate, intonation, and emphasis). Then, we did an echo reading of the entire passage. That's where I read one line, they read the same line and try to copy my rate, intonation and emphasis on words. After an echo reading, we read it together as a group, and then I listened them read it individually. Then I sent them home with their copy to practice reading out loud each night. I told them that on Friday they would read their passage to the class, and I would give them a score for each of rate, intonation, and emphasis. I didn't know how well they would take to this extra homework, but they actually seemed to like having it.

By the following Friday, they returned to class. I had made extra copies of the passage for those who forgot to bring theirs back. After their spelling test, we began the readings. They were so serious! I asked them to stand at the front of the class to read their passage, and to read with confidence. I asked for volunteers... several wanted to go first! That surprised me. The smiles as they were called to take their turn at the front of the room to demonstrate their good reading skills was amazing... they haven't smiled that much about their reading in a long time.

Well, needless to say, these kids stood up and read their passages with near perfect fluency. Their intonations made them sound like they were speaking expressively, not reading one word at a time. Emphasis gave some words more importance than others, and the increased rate guaranteed fluidity as one sentence gave way to the next. They were reading fluently!! Spontaneous clapping erupted as each child finished reading his/her passage (2 paragraphs). One boy, who is struggling at a 2nd grade level, read as well as the best reader in the class, and when he finished, another boy whistled his approval.

They wanted to do it again, so the following Monday, I gave them another passage, about tornadoes, and they did the same thing. I modeled, they practiced echo, group, then individual, took it home to practice every night, then came in and read it out loud to the class on Friday.

Then, I lost the book. I looked everywhere for it. I didn't know what I was going to tell the kids after their long break over the MLK weekend. I sent an email to all the teachers asking them to see if they may have accidentally picked it up from the work room where we make all of our copies. I might have left it in there one day after making copies of one of the passages.  Throughout the week, teachers have stopped me in the hallways and at lunch to ask me if I found my book. Those I talked to promised to keep their eyes open for me.

I searched my own classroom several times over, examining closely folders, notebooks, and shelves. I looked in all the obvious places, then in the not so obvious places, like the bathroom, the library, my car.

Today, I told  my students that I could not find the fluency lesson book. Several kids let out a mild cry of dismay! No! Mrs. G do you mean we can't do that any more? I told them I could find other passages, I had other resources, and we would start next week. Kids, you'd think that only one book, THAT book was the only book I could use. I told them to get over it, and then we began a decoding lesson.

After school, while looking for something else in and amongst the notebooks on my bookshelf in the classroom, where I had already searched at least a dozen times earlier, guess what I found? The fluency book with all my transparencies, and the copies of passages I had made for the next three weeks! I was thrilled, to say the least. Now I don't have to make up my own materials (which takes more time than using already prepared materials), and I'll be able to continue the focus on fluency with ease.

Now, if only the pen would reappear like the book did!