Can we throw out the bath water without throwing out the baby? 

    Since the first week I've been subbing full-time in a fifth grade class. Honestly, it wasn't my first choice. Nor was it my second choice. I tried to obtain two other long-term subbing positions and at the last minute they both were changed. 

    The only one that was left open was fifth grade. It took me two days to decide to apply for the position. I've subbed fifth grade.

    Horribly. With disaster. With tears. 

    Mine, by the way. Not theirs. They were unfazed. 

    Perhaps the universe decided I needed to learn something. Or it hates me. Or it's laughing at my expense. 

    I took this fifth grade position and like Bean reminded me. "Mom, you get paid even if you come home crying." For the first two weeks it was my mantra. 

    And then I started to figure out the 10-11 year old lingo. Their hormones. Their obsessions. It's an intense age and the wrong look from a student can send someone into the depths of despair. For the first few weeks their vocabulary was like listening to a string of Tik Tok videos all day long. In fact, some of the students were even writing in this annoying lingo. I was about ready to crash out. Did they even know English any more? We were heading straight for Ohio. Their writing scores were cooked. 

    Luckily, living with Baby Blueberry, who is 12 now, keeps me hip and cool by keeping me updated on the new Tik Tok trends and internet references. I quickly learned if I used words like, 'Ohio,' Sigma, Gucci,' I could get the students to stop using them because I made them uncool. 

    Whoops. My bad. 

    Now I wish I could say my students were very demure, very mindful -  but they aren't. They're a rowdy and busy group who has experienced sub after sub over the last four years. Do you know what kinds of bad habits you develop as a student when you don't have a consistent teacher? 

    I have students who don't know their 3's on the multiplication chart. Do you know how difficult it is to learn two and three digit multiplication when you don't know your basics?

    But get going. We have a schedule. Lesson 6.1 is on Monday and don't get behind. Students don't know- that's too bad. Keep going. Keep pushing. 

    Do we move to middle school? We're dumb, Ms. H. We're cooked. I got an F. I'm flipping burgers at Wendy's. 

    I'm working at McDonald's, says another student. 

    Is the focus starting to happen? Can I clarify things for you? These students will finish fifth grade feeling dumb and incapable.

    But at least we did Lesson 6.2 on Tuesday, right? 

    Should the education system change?

    Absolutely, yes. 

    Today, I had an admin come into my room to have my students write apology letters for a trip they took and I thought they did pretty good. Perfect, hell no. But good. 

    But here they were writing apology letters. I think the idea was so their behavior was even better next time. 

    But I had a student ask if he needed to write an apology letter because... he wasn't there. 

    He wasn't there. 

    And the answer was...yes. He needed to write an apology letter too. 

    I can imagine how I would write it. "Dear so-so, I'm sorry for my behavior on the trip I didn't take." 

    Can we change the education system without throwing out the baby? 

    We have to. 

    Our kids. 

    Our grandkids are depending on us. 

    But we need to start with an empty tub and figure out what should go in. Because my students aren't even ready for Lesson 6.3, and we're supposed to be on Lesson 6.5 by the end of the week. 

    Maybe we can memorize our 3's by then. 

    

    

Grief coming around like a circle

 

Grief is a circle, so they say. We walk around along this path, coming away from our grief and then walking back to it. Sometimes we travel big and wide circles and sometimes they're tight, little circles. 

Actually, I've heard grief compared to many different shapes, as if this hard emotion needs the easiest of analogies to compare it to. It's a ball inside a box, it's a triangle full of sadness, it's a circle that never ends. Or maybe it's a lack of shape - it's a hole inside our chest. 

Grief is an ocean wave, flowing and ebbing and moving in and out like tides. High tide and low tide. 

So. many. analogies. 

Sometimes I close my eyes and I see my mom in that last scene where she's alive and conscious. She's in her pajamas, hair unkept, and body pain filled. We sit down and have cookies. We talk about the ordinary. 

The ordinary. The normal. I tell her about the girls. I talk about subbing. I have to share the conversation with my dad, who calls on his lunch break and talks for half an hour. 

I imagine driving over to her house and stepping into that scene- because in my head it is frozen in time. When I left that day, I said I will see ya later, mom. I remember staring at the stained deck stairs as I leave, holding a bag of Walmart French fries she has sent home with me because my Dad couldn't eat them. In my memory, I'm swinging this bag. This white Walmart bag, heavy with frozen potatoes. 

It is the last gift my mom will give me. 

Frozen, Walmart French fries. 

But it is ordinary. Sending something home with your kids, right? That is the gesture here? We live our lives in the ordinary. In just the other moment? 

My middle daughter is still grieving in heavy waves that I can feel roll off her sometimes. Grandma didn't live to see her graduate from high school. She just recently talked about that day. It was a painful day for her. 

Grandma wasn't there. Grandma made her older sister's graduation, but she wasn't at hers. 

Also, her shitty boyfriend at the time ditched her graduation to pack a suitcase. 

And her other grandma ditched her because she couldn't stand the other people coming to the graduation dinner, so instead of being an adult she chose to hurt her granddaughter. 

Grief is a photo frozen with pained smiles and big events. 

Grief is a lack of a photo. 

I dreamed of my mom the other night. She pulled up in her bright, red mini van and I swung the heavy, side door open. Just like I did a million times before. The sound of the door echoes in my head. I can hear it my ears. I feel the weight of the door in my fingers. She's in the driver's seat, explaining that she knew she was going to die and it was okay. We chatted a while and she drives away. 

I do believe she knew. She started teaching my dad how to make tator tots in the oven, and she wrote down the dog's medication list for my dad to follow the week before. She refused to go to the doctor before that day, because she kept saying she didn't want to die alone in the hospital. 

She knew. 

I still have that list, written in her shaky handwriting. 

Grief is a shape. Grief is water. Grief is explained best in analogies. 

Grief is part the ordinary. 

My mom died a year ago and I'm still not over it

1 year later. 

And sometimes I still grab the phone to text her exciting news.

Or I still think I should call and make sure she has what she needs.

Then I remember. Or maybe I'm not really forgetting...I just hope that I'm wrong.

This year has been a struggle.

Made even harder because she's gone.

Baby Blueberry still struggles...a year later, which has to be even longer in a eight year old's mind. 

This month she has made it a habit to eat mainly the snacks Grandma would make her.

Chocolate cereal with rice milk. Mott's fruit snacks.

And she asks Gibson quite often, "you're missing her, huh bud?"

I had promised my Mom I would take care of her dog.

On Christmas Eve, Hero Hottie and I had to take her blue heeler in and have her put to sleep.

On the way home a beautiful winter rainbow appeared out of nowhere and arched right over our 

house.

Sometimes fulfilling promises hurt like hell.

This morning I was going to climb to the top of the hill with a mug of coffee and watch the 

sunrise, because she died just before the sun came out. But today is windy and cold and the town 

is on fire.

Instead...

I will just miss her.

Just like I have the last 364 days.