Lot's Wife

Do you remember the story of Lot's wife in the Old Testament?  Lot and his wife and daughters were sent away from the city of Sodom and Gomorrah just before it was destroyed with the words, "Run for your lives!  Do not stop anywhere in the valley.  And don't look back . . . "  Lot and his two daughters followed their instructions, but Lot's wife couldn't do it.  She couldn't help herself.  As she was following along behind Lot, she looked back.  And it cost her everything.  In the days immediately after Steve's prostate cancer diagnosis, I spent a lot of time online learning as much as I could about the disease and the treatment options; on one of the websites, I came across this bit of advice: "When you are comfortable with a decision, once you have made it, don’t look back. Remember, you made the best decision you could make. There is no room for second guessing yourself."*  In the hard couple of days that followed, I thought of those words often and even offered them to Steve when he started worrying about decisions he had made and wondering if there was something he could have done in the past that would have prevented him from getting prostate cancer.  It was the "don't look back" part that made me think of the story of Lot's wife, of course.  But in her case, the words weren't just a bit of helpful advice, they were a heavenly command.  And if Lot's wife had heeded them, she would have been protected.  So this got me thinking: maybe the same is true for each one of us--whenever we are assailed by doubts over decisions we've made as carefully as we could, or when we are threatened by temptation or fear, we will be protected if we remember to look up, not back.

*http://prostatenet.com/page/userfiles/pdf/13215907386.pdf

First Day of School

For the past forty-six years (except for the two years right after college), the end of August/beginning of September has meant going to school.  You'd think I'd be used to it by now.  I've been teaching at SUNY Fredonia for twenty-five years, yet every single year I get nervous before the first day of school.  My stomach is jumpy and I have trouble sleeping the night before.  I get to my office bright and early and scramble around getting last minute things ready for my first class.  These days my classes are filled with early childhood and childhood education majors, so, in general, they are students who like school and are fun to teach.  This makes the day fly by, and by the time I get home, I'm tired but calm.  The jitters are gone, and the excitement of a new year and new students lingers as I get ready for the second day of school.

Beginning of Day One

End of Day One

Here We Go Again

The real packing hasn't begun in earnest yet, but the pile of stuff in the piano room is starting to grow as it does every year around this time.  I'm not sure that sending a child off to college at the end of the summer is any easier now than it was seven years ago when we did it for the first time, but I guess I've finally gotten somewhat used to it.  This doesn't stop me from feeling sad each time I pass through the piano room and see textbooks and dishes and laundry detergent waiting to be loaded into the van.  It also doesn't eliminate the tension I feel between yearning to hold on and needing to let go.  And, of course, I'm well aware of how empty and quiet the house is going to feel Thursday night.  But watching my children go and come back repeatedly over the past several years has built up a kind of resilience in me that I didn't feel when this whole process started.  With our youngest child heading into her junior year, we are nearing the end of the path we started seven years ago, and I suspect I am going to need every bit of that resilience as we face the next step: life after the college years.

Waging War

We found out this week that an intruder has been quietly lurking in our midst.  Its discovery left us feeling betrayed and frightened at first, but now we're mad, fighting mad.  On the positive side, the survival rates are high for prostate cancer; plenty of men have fought this foe and won.  But as many of you know, when you discover cancer hiding in your own body or the body of someone you love, it feels big and scary, and sometimes it's hard to think rationally.  We would surely appreciate your prayers for wisdom as we explore treatment options, for strength if the fighting gets tough, and for a peace that passes understanding as we wage war against this insidious invader.

Whatever You Do, Don't Cry

Seven years ago when my first child was about to head off for his first year of college, I had already started my semester at SUNY Fredonia. I was teaching ENGL 100 that semester, so I asked my class full of freshmen for advice: What should I do or not do when I drop my son off at college? They had a number of suggestions: "Don't hang around forever," "Don't try to introduce him to all the other freshmen," and "Help him get his sheets on his bed! But their biggest piece of advice was this: "Whatever you do, don't cry." I promised to remember and even told my son what they'd said at dinner that night. We laughed about it, and I promised again to heed the advice. So when the time arrived, we loaded up the minivan and headed for campus. When we got to his dorm, a troop of friendly upperclassmen were there to help us carry his belongings up to the third floor. We helped him settle in, chatted with his roommate's parents, and headed off to the dedication service. Then, all of a sudden, it was time to leave. Ben hugged his dad and siblings goodbye, then it was my turn. As I gave him a big hug, tears sprang to my eyes. He saw them, and said, "Mom, remember what your students said." I nodded and tried to smile, but I couldn't stop the tears from trickling down my cheeks. I felt just as I did on the first day of kindergarten when I had to walk away and leave my precious child alone in a new place. Sure, he was much older now and more than ready for college, but this was a big new place, and he wouldn't be coming home to me at 3:00. In fact, he wouldn't be home until October break. But it was time. So with one more round of hugs and goodbyes, we climbed into the van and left our boy standing in front of his dorm ready to start his new life. This week I have two first-born nephews and a last-born niece heading off for college, so they and their parents are in my thoughts as I write. To my siblings and their spouses I'll offer the same advice my freshmen gave me, "Whatever you do, don't cry." And to Drew, Anthony, and Mackenzie, three things: 1) Forgive your parents when they cry anyway, 2) Don't forget to call and text from time to time, and 3) Have a great year and remember how very much you are loved!

Back-to-School Supply Shopping

It starts innocently enough--your child gets a cheery letter from his kindergarten teacher with a list of things he'll need for the school year: a nap mat, some crayons, a couple of pencils, a pair of safety scissors, and maybe a box of Kleenex to contribute to the classroom community.  Add a lunchbox and a backpack, and you're done with back-to-school supply shopping--no sweat. But each year the list of supplies your child needs gets longer; soon you're buying colored pencils, markers, highlighters, erasers, composition notebooks, index cards, Post-it notes, notebook paper, folders, and three-ring binders.  Plus, if you have more than one child in school, you're juggling multiple lists, tastes, and preferences, and back-to-school shopping is starting to feel a little bit stressful.  By the time your kids get to high school and they still need all of the above plus graphing calculators, the stress and expense mount.  But all of that is nothing compared to when they leave for college, and in addition to all the usual school supplies, you're searching online for cheaper-than-bookstore-priced textbooks, as well as all the things they need for their dorm rooms: wastebaskets, lamps, mini fridges, fans, under-the-bed storage boxes, closet organizers, laundry bags, shower caddies, extra-long twin bed sheets, laptop computers, printers, surge protectors, and ethernet cables.  Then a couple of years later when they move to a townhouse or an off-campus apartment, they need pots and pans, mixing bowls, dishes, vacuum cleaners, extra furniture, cleaning supplies, and shower curtains.  You think back to your first child's kindergarten supply list and realize the only thing worse than all the back-to-school supply shopping is going to be the first year you don't have to do it anymore . . . .

Bandanas for Ben

When my son Ben was little, he drooled . . . a lot.  At first, I snapped little terry cloth bibs around his neck to help protect his outfits, but he outgrew the bibs before he stopped drooling, and his little shirts and the bibs of his overalls were always soaking wet.  So one day, on a whim, I tied a navy blue bandana around his neck to catch the drool.
 

 He didn't mind wearing it, and it was easier to change the bandana than the shirt, so for the next two and a half years, he almost always had a bandana tied around his neck.  We collected bandanas in all the colors we could find, and I usually tried to match the bandana to his outfit.

Sometime around Ben's third birthday, he gradually stopped needing the bandanas.  Our second son used them for a little while during his first year, and our daughter didn't use them at all.  So when kindergarten rolled around for Ben, I used some of the bandanas to make his kindergarten nap mat. Long after kindergarten, Ben and the rest of us used his bandana blanket to wrap up in on cold days.  It's now stained and thin in spots, but I can't imagine getting rid of it or of the rest of the bandanas that are stacked neatly in the corner of my top dresser drawer.