letgo!

I told my BFF Chris this after church yesterday: "I am trying to let go and let God."

She smiled and gave me a hug. "But it's hard when Linda's been in charge of the world for so long."

My BFF knows what she's talking about. It's why she's my BFF. She and my other close friends have walked the perilous road with me for a long time now. It's not that I chose to be in charge of the world. I sort of fell heir to it. Here's  the brief history.

I'd dreamed of being a teacher since I was four years old, but a serious eye disease caused me to step out of college before I graduated. I worked as a librarian for ten years, worked on my BA for elementary education, and found a job as a teacher at The Christian Academy in 1995. The pay was terrible, but I loved the job, my colleagues, and having my own classroom. Unfortunately, my husband began to have mental issues at the time and my work days were sometimes punctuated by phone calls from the nurse at Ron's plant. In 1999, a severe episode landed Ron in Friends' Hospital (for Those Deprived of their Reason) for eight weeks. Afraid that he would not be able to work again and with three kids at home needing a college education and shoes, I resigned TCA and took a job at Westtown Quaker School. The salary was almost three times that of TCA. I'd wrestled with the decision for most of the summer, finally convinced by our then-minister Lou that my duty was to provide for my family.

As a school, Westtown was lovely, a 700 rolling acre of peace in Chester County and a 45-minute commute from home. To the best of my ability, I tried to embrace the Quaker ways while teaching sixth grade and working on my Master's in Reading. In 2000, Ron--who had returned to work part time--was critically injured in a car accident. I spent years studying Reading Theory in hospital rooms and even did my oral doctoral proposal from a nursing station. I had intended to stay at Westtown for five years; I stayed ten. While the income was sufficient, no one really needed me there. The students I worked with as a Reading Specialist had parents who could easily afford to hire tutors.

I left Westtown in 2009, a victim of the downed economy which had attacked even the bucolic campus of the Society of Friends. Try as I might, I could find no full time job and since Westtown--as a "religious" institution-- had not paid into Unemployment, I could collect no benefits. Ever one to pull up my bootstraps, I took on part time assignments at three colleges, teaching as many as nine classes a semester while I finished my EdD and took care of Ron and the kids. Eventually I dropped the other schools and continued to work part time for Springfield College. I was promised--at least verbally--a full time position when I finished my doctorate.

In 2011, my EdD degree newly attained, I found a position with Catapult Learning as an Instructional Coach. For two years I drove into Philadelphia every day, working with teachers at six different schools and developing at least twenty workshops on learning theories. The funding for that contract ended in 2013 and while I was able to get UC benefits, I opted to take the first job that came along. The promised full time college position failed to materialize.

I worked at Alliance for Progress Charter School on Cecil B Moore Ave in Philadelphia for two years as their Reading Interventionist, driving over the Girard Point Bridge every day in rain and snow and dark of night, regardless of my worsening vision. I loved the job; I hated the job. It depended on what day of the week it was and what challenging class I had. During the second year, though, I really felt needed and successful with the reading program I initiated.


But, alas, once again the economy did me in and the Board could not afford to renew my contract for a third year. I spent the summer of 2015 worrying. Ron had another long hospital stay--this time at Eagleville--and Allen, my youngest son, had been diagnosed with Asperger's Syndrome. A friend of mine who still worked for Catapult let me know there was a job there as a Title  Reading Specialist. With no other offers in August, I took the position, this time driving up I-95 to Academy Road, a commute of 60-75 minutes each way.

As always, I was effective at the school. I adapted. I always do. The kids loved me. The teachers loved me. But my vision kept on getting worse, and in May I requested that I be placed at a closer school for the 2016-2017 year. I had a great summer--the best in  years--confident that I would at least cut my commute in half. I also found out that the cornea in my right eye was severely damaged and would probably need a transplant.

At the end of August,  I was told my school would be Hunting Park Christian off of Roosevelt Blvd, easily more than an hour down the dreaded Schuylkill Expressway. I tried to find a way to make it work, even considering public transportation, but the reality of the situation was that my vision is really too distorted for long distance driving. So, regrettably, I turned down the offer. Ron and I talked about my staying on unemployment for a while and resting my eyes, continuing only to teach my college classes.

Last week I got a phone call from a charter school in Chester and I will probably get an offer to teach. I am trying--really, I am--to let God make this decision. I do not want to go only because it is a job close to home, but because that might be where God needs me. But I also have a terrible habit of "battling with my mind", letting my calculator make decisions based solely on economics. I have been reading Joyce Meyer's Battlefield of the Mind and identifying where I allow my own mind to overtake God's spirit. Whether I go to this school, or another, or stay out of work for a while, need to be God's choice.

But I know my mind's tendency to ruminate, not trust. I have, as Chris observed, been in charge of the world a very long time.

Please pray that I can let go!

GOD IS GOOD. ALL THE TIME.

Back when our husbands worked at the same plant, I knew her better. We'd get together occasionally; I thought her to be loud and a bit brassy. She wasn't someone I would really choose to be friends with.

God can bring change to people, though. She and her husband met Lord Jesus one day. They joined a faith community and found that God--rather than money--could provide for their every need. And it wasn't always easy. Jack lost a couple of jobs and they weren't able to go through with an adoption for a child they wanted. They moved down South, hit hard times, moved back North. Their daughter had a difficult marriage and divorced. They took on the task of raising grandchildren.

Still, she wasn't someone I would choose to be friends with. Except for both being teachers, we had little in common. She and Jack would still stop by the house occasionally, usually at inopportune moments--like the time the ceiling in the hallway had fallen down!--and we'd go back to our own lives. After Ron had the car accident, Cheryl sent a card and a meal. We visited their church once or twice. But ours was a fragile relationship; we were pleasant to each other, nothing more.

God, however, can use all sorts of people in our lives. We never know where encouragement or inspiration may come from. We never know who is watching us. If we are godly people, we need to remember who it is we represent.

I was on my way through Walmart yesterday, picking up a few items for a family party. I wasn't feeling particularly well. The heat had kicked up my asthma and I'd developed a cough. But we only manage one cook-out a summer, so I was still gathering supplies and determinedly plowing ahead. That's when I saw Cheryl outside the restrooms and while I was tempted to just nod and move on, I stopped. And talked.

It's been a year since I talked to Cheryl for more than a second or two. We quickly filled each other in. She'd lost her job a few months ago and was unemployed, trying to find another job. She'd had an interview at a Christian school, but she said the salary offered was pitiable. She was still looking. I told her I was going to a new school as a Title 1 teacher, not thrilled that it was further away then I'd hoped. I wanted to teach four more years, I said, until I could get full retirement.

She sighed. "God is good. All the time."

I nodded. People were always saying that. After Ron's car accident, I heard it ad nauseum.

"I really mean it" she said. "I wanted to stay three more years and get full retirement. Now I can't find a job and we're probably going to have to move. But I still believe it. God is good. All the time. Even when it seems like He's NOT being good, He is. All the time."

Her words gave me pause. I told her about my eye problems and the likelihood of a cornea transplant. I told her I was worried about driving into the city again. I told her I had left the school placement up to God, and this is what He had given me.

"God is good," she said again. "All the time. If He sent you there, He has a reason. Just trust Him." We exchanged a few more words until her grandchildren and my husband expressed some impatience and we moved on.

But Cheryl's words stayed with me. God is good. All the time. Even when it doesn't seem as if He is good. I wondered if one of the reasons I was having trouble finishing writing my latest novel in progress--Doodle Cat--was because the main character, a woman minister, seemed to be struggling with her own lot in life. God knew that while I tried to handle it all  with grace, I often struggled with my load. Why couldn't I, for example, have a husband who was healthy and worked? Why couldn't I have a school 5 minutes away? Why did I have to have a stupid eye disease?

Because God is good. All the time. I may not know why the things in my life have transpired as they have, but I have to believe in the goodness of God. My plans are not His. His are better.

So even as I struggle to reconcile all  the pieces of  my life and try valiantly to write faith into my woman preacher character, I need to let Cheryl's word echo in my heart.

God is good. All the time. I do not have to understand it. I just have to believe it.

READY! (Well, almost)

I've been doing it for more than twenty years now: going back to school. As Labor Day looms ahead, I generally mourn the time I lost over the summer by not finishing the Great American Novel or cleaning out all my closets. Then I pull my shoulders back, put my chin up, and resolutely march

back into the school year. Many times in the past years, summer has been a disaster and I welcome the structure of school.

But it's been a good summer. Probably the best summer we've had since 1998, when bipolar disorder began to rule our lives and the kids and I learned to live on an emotional roller coaster. Unlike, say the summer of 2014, I did not spend every other week at Hahnemann Hospital while Ron had ketamine infusions that ultimately damaged his heart. Or the summer of 1999 when Ron's battles with clinical depression sent him to Friends' Hospital in Philadelphia for six weeks. Or even last summer when Ron was just home from a six week stay at Eagleville Hospital and a bladder infection demanded I take him for a shot every day for two weeks and Allen had  just been diagnosed with Asperger's Syndrome. Oh, and I'd lost my job and had the added stress of trying to find a new teaching position in a still-fragile economy.

This summer has been full of trips to the beach, of lunches out with friends, of times spent working on my knitting or blogging. I've read books and watched movies and have not once ventured anywhere near a hospital except for seeing ophthalmologists about the failing vision in my right eye. Allen and I have painted the living room and installed a new sink and even though I haven't gotten the patio I've wanted for the last three years or finished up my own great American novel, I have a sense of satisfaction. I'm still here, still kicking, still hoping that someday I will  be a full time writer.

And I'm ready to head back to school. Well, almost. I've got more than a week left of my summer vacation and I intend to enjoy what remains of it. But I'm also excited by the new classes I will teach this year and the chance to make a difference in the lives of all of my students, from the little ones all the way up to the adults.

As a career, teaching is unique in that we get a chance, every year or every term, to begin anew. We greet new students or teach new classes or, as I am doing again, embrace new schools. Our job is to help our students--whoever they are--be the best they can be. While every teacher I know needs some time over the summer to recharge for the task ahead, most of us recognize that teaching is not just a paycheck. It's a higher calling. Remember Christa McAuliffe, the First Teacher in Space, who died in the Challenger explosion in 1986? She knew teaching was a high calling.  As she headed off on that fatal mission, she told the world, "I touch the future, I teach."

And it's not always easy. State standards and common core have made teaching harder than it used to be. We do a lot of things that, strictly speaking, are not teaching. And we spend hours outside of school preparing our lessons and scouring Pinterest for great ideas and lurking in the aisles of teacher stores, coupons in hand because we frequently reach into our own pockets for items we need for our kids. It's easy, amid all the spreadsheets and prep for high stakes testing and keeping up our own Act 48 credits, to lose sight of just why we teach.

I know why. I touch the future. But more than just touching the future,   I shape the future. I have the opportunity--the privilege--to change the life of a child. Or an adult. Not only can I teach them to read and critically think, I can teach them to believe in themselves. While I may often drag into school weary from caring for my disabled husband and coping with my vision issues, I  make it a point at the door to slap on my smile and my positive attitude. Sometimes, I may be the first smile my student sees.

So, I go back. Again. Not because I need the money (and I do). Not because I am not quite old enough to retire (and I'm not). But because after twenty years and more educational pendulum swings than I can recall, after years spent in undergrad school and grad school and post grad school, I still believe that our best chance for changing the future is education. After all this time, I've finally figured it all out

It begins with building relationships. One student at a time.

My Mocassins

Pray, don't find fault with the man that limps, 
Or stumbles along the road.
Unless you have worn the moccasins he wears, 
Or stumbled beneath the same load.

I had managed to pull Ron's walker, the beach chairs, and the umbrella from the back of the van and I shut the door tightly, then walked around to the side door. "All set?" asked the van driver, Maryann, brightly.


I nodded as I helped Ron down from the van--two giant steps--and tried to steady the walker on the hilly drive. The beastly thing had already rolled away from me twice as I tried to lift all 30 pounds of it down from the van. There is no ramp into this hotel on the beach, so I needed to lift the walker up three steps while Ron steadied himself on the railing, then hauled him up the steps, then go back for the beach paraphernalia.

There may be tears in his soles that hurt
Though hidden away from view.
The burden he bears placed on your back
May cause you to stumble and fall, too.

In my childhood and youth, going to the ocean was a favorite activity. How I loved to jump in the waves and build sand castles at the ocean's edge! A day at the beach was full of adventure and family fun, chasing my cousins and my brother in and out of the umbrellas, hunting for seashells, and running under the boardwalk to cool off our hot feet in the damp sand. I loved to bring my own kids to the beach, each one carrying their own bucket and towel. And, when the kids were grown, I loved to just come and sit at the water's edge, letting the song of the waves wash over my weary soul.

But the peaceful lull of the ocean's side is more a memory now. It's too much trouble to get there.

The house I rented for the week is lovely, but not nearly as close to the beach as advertised. We have enjoyed the pools and the quiet, but I was determined to sit by the ocean and spend at least one afternoon trying to let the waves work their magic on the stress produced by a hectic school year. The transit van, the resort office had told me, would take us "right to the beach." So far, though, we had only made it to the hotel where we would pick up  the beach wheelchair I'd had to jump out of the van 15 minutes ago to reserve, following a security officer down a labyrinth of hallways and stairs to the storage room where the chairs with their bulbous tires are kept. The officer wheeled it up to the pool area, where it now waited for Ron.

Just walk a mile in his moccasins
Before you abuse, criticize and accuse.
If just for one hour, you could find a way
To see through his eyes, instead of your own muse.


Slowly, steadily we made our way across the lobby to the pool area and I settled Ron into the chair. But I could not handle the walker along with the other stuff I had to carry so, amid Ron's protests, I left it in the security office. Then I pointed out to the guard at the desk that there was no way I could push my 350 pound husband through the beach sand to the water's edge. We waited another 10 minutes while the guard called someone. The guard pushed Ron down the ramps by the pool and onto the sand where a lifeguard took over. I struggled with the other stuff alone.

We made it to the seaside and set up camp, but Ron wanted to go sit at the water's edge. So with some heaving and ho'ing, I managed to get him out of the beach wheels and into a chair at the edge of the ocean. I settled him in with bottled water, sunscreen, and a towel. Then I sought a few moments peace under the umbrella, keeping a watchful eye on Ron.

Brother, there but for the grace of God go you and I.
Just for a moment, slip into his mind and traditions
And see the world through his spirit and eyes
Before you cast a stone or falsely judge his conditions.

Ron loves to talk to people, so he was enjoying himself at the water's edge, splashing in the surf. And, as much as I love my husband, I was enjoying a few moments of peace, away from the demands of caring for an ill spouse. I ran down to check on him every few minutes,making sure he was hydrated and was not burning. People were stopping to talk with him and a few men offered to help him when he needed to get up. For a few moments, I had the luxury of letting someone else take care of Ron.

But peace however hard won, is seldom lasting. While I am certain no criticism was intended, several women did stop by my chair to ask if my husband was alright, if he was "safe" down there. I smiled and nodded and tried to go back to reading. But the peace of the ocean was pretty much gone for me. 

"Handicapped accessible" is a sign placed on all buildings that have a ramp or an elevator, even if located in a hard-to-find corner. Buildings constructed before 1970 do not fall under the guidelines of the Adults with Disabilities Act. While it is true that "new" construction must provide access for all, no such requirements are attached to older buildings. So when I booked this little cottage by the sea and was told it was all "handicap accessible" it was only true to a point. Yes, the van will take Ron to the beach, but the van has no lift. Yes, there are beach wheels available, but the ramp ends at the pool area. And as kind and understanding as people may try to be, telling me "it's only two steps up" does not help me when trying to maneuver a large man over concrete.

Eventually, we needed to backtrack our steps. Several of the men who had volunteered to help Ron did their best to  get him back into the beach wheels, and I got a lifeguard to push my husband back up to the pool, while  carried the rest of the load. Once we traded the beach wheels for Ron's walker, we called the van driver and then needed to negotiate down the steps to wait for her outside. By the time we got back to the house and I unloaded everything, whatever peace I had felt at the ocean's edge was pretty much gone. I got Ron into the house--also advertised as accessible but with four wooden steps--and he fell into bed for a long nap.

And I sat on the back deck with a cup of tea, contemplating how easily we take for granted access to things we enjoy, assuming others can have the same freedoms. 

Remember to walk a mile in his moccasins
And remember the lessons of humanity taught to you by your elders.
We will be known forever by the tracks we leave
In other people's lives, our kindnesses and generosity.

It is not easy being Ron. It is not easy being me. I am often left to carry the burdens Ron cannot. And it is a crying shame that words like "handicap access" are not really what they should be. Just as Universal Design for Instruction allows teachers to build in--not add on--access to the curriculum for all students, Universal Design for buildings needs to take into account the needs of all the population. 

So, while the sounds of the ocean will continue to lull me into peace, the journey to the ocean with a handicapped man cannot be taken lightly. Today, we're headed to the pool.

Take the time to walk a mile in his moccasins.
Mary T. Lathrop, 1895