Ms. George teaches ELA: Year Seven

Wednesday Haiku

2008-10-08T17:56:00.003-04:00

And Summer Is Gone.
Heartbreaking, a friendship lost.
Savored in our class.

Inspired by California Teacher Guy, though not nearly as good as his about the beauty around him in Northern California. Although, the russet-golden leaves glinting outside my classroom windows today made me smile...a lot.

Overcome

2008-10-04T18:41:00.000-04:00

Thank you all so much for your kind words, thoughts, prayers, and condolences upon the death of my father. I am doing fine. By Friday the 12th I was feeling better about being in school and busy catching up on the students' names that I usually had a good handle on by the end of the second week. It is now entering my favorite time of year here in the Northeast. My son, Bear, is having a good season in football. My daughter, Diva Drama Queen, is adjusting to 7th grade and the idea that she now has to study a bit more to earn the grades she is to which she is accustomed.
I miss my dad, but this, too, will take time.

Wake me when September ends, but not for the original reason I quoted Green Day

2008-09-11T20:45:00.004-04:00

A few years ago, I quoted Green Day's "When September Ends" because I was getting used to a new cadre of students and waiting for them to start showing some of the challenging behavior exhibited the previous year. They never did, bless them, and in the rosy glow of remembrance, even those kids from my fourth year weren't that bad; they just really needed me to be structured and firm. This year's lovelies are different, but I have the best of expectations, like always. I still need to be structured and firm, especially with the last period of the day, but who doesn't? It is hard to hold the attention of a middle schooler under the best circumstances. Add in the bone-weariness of a full day, the eager anticipation of after-school activities (texting and computers anyone?), and you have a caged beast that will only tolerate so much laxity. They need structure.
It is the end of the second week of school for us here in NY. But it's only the fourth day for me. My beloved father died early in the morning of 5 September. I was with him. It was as peaceful as it could have been. He just stopped breathing. Before his last breath, through my tears, I was able to tell him again how much I loved him, what a great dad he was, how my sister loved him, and my mom, and all his grandchildren. I told him once more that it was okay to go, that his brothers and parents were waiting for him, and that I'd see him again in heaven. He breathed in one final time and then he was gone.
Dad was buried on Monday. I returned home Tuesday to a message from my collab teacher that another former lovely died. Two funerals in a week. Wednesday I returned to school. It was comforting to be back, although I felt out of place most of the day. Today was much better. Tomorrow should be the same. Sometimes we just need to pick up and go through...

Countdown (for me and the Beloved Offspring)

2008-08-31T20:34:00.003-04:00

My goddaughter came through town last week on her way to college. She is at Boston College and I'm so proud of her I can't stand it. Why? Well, aside from being my god-daughter and all, she is interested in being a Math teacher. Yeah! We need more good ones...
I am just about ready to go back to school myself. The Beloved Offspring, on the other hand, are not. They are physically ready and have supplies, but I'm not buying 5 containers of Clorox wipes for Bear's class. Do the maths: 29 kids x 5 Clorox wipes + 29 kids x 4 boxes of tissues = way too much stuff to be asking for, Miss Thing. I still have to find a 3 subject spiral for DDQ, but I'll look on Monday.
DDQ and Bear came to school with me for a few days last week, helping to hang things, clean out drawers, and generally hang out while I sat at my desk organizing. My handouts are copied and more things were sent up to copy. I've planned the first month of lessons with my collab teacher and sketched out the year. I have a new activity for the first week and have found my copy of the Wright Family story I use every year for listening fun. My business cards, extra credit cards, and homework passes (free! stuff all from Vista Print---go check this out!) came last week and they look so awesome. The business cards are for Back to School night and for the NYSEC conference in October; the others are for my classroom use, obviously. I still have to write my letter, but that will come next weekend.
Houston, we're ready for take-off.

Updates

2008-08-29T20:21:00.001-04:00

My father's Alzheimer's continues to progress in that downward spiral toward death. At the end of July, after two trips to the hospital in as many months for dehyration, he stopped swallowing and he was put on a feeding tube. I didn't want one and my mother really didn't either, but without a statement from my dad before he lost his ability to make such decisions, the priest really pressured her, as did the doctor. He is still losing weight though, and the thing with Alzheimer's is that his body will one day be unable to metabolize the food that is right now pumped in hourly. He is in a new home; the old one I shall not speak of but to say my father had to have surgery to cut out a softball-sized, necrotic bed sore at the base of his spine. We moved him. We are exercising our options.

This last year has been tough emotionally and physically. Weekly (and more) trips to my father and mother through hospitializations, three nursing homes, his living at home for the last time in between respite days, feeding him for hours while he could still eat, doing things you never envision having to do for a parent, helping my mother with finances and papers, I'm spent. And I'm not the woman who has had to say a long, sad, lonely goodbye to her husband of 44 years this July. Dad is still alive, but no one knows for how much longer. The doctors can't say; the nurses won't tell you much except what you can read in their eyes. I hope, for my mother's sake, it is not much longer. I've been mourning my father for years, but this last year, when he has lost who I am, who my children are, and now, most times, who even my mother is, it is time to let him go so he can.

Countdown

2008-08-20T11:48:00.004-04:00

Many of my colleagues across the country, including my beloved sister, head back to the classroom this week and next. I do not officially start until the day after Labor Day with a Supe's conf. I did go in to school this week for two days with the Beloved Offspring to get the Box-of-Badness that sat underneath my desk for a year cleared out. Everything from my desk drawers is now in the appropriate binders or thrown away. I sent up the first month's work of photocopying and organized which copies of stories I will need a few extras of. Some work will have to be copied at school, but mostly I try to take advantage of our in-house copying guy. The more teachers that do this actually save our building copy machines from overuse. Usually we can count on a two week turn around for our copies. Believe me, I recycle what I can from the short story unit, but there are many worksheets that have to be copied. I also will have the students copy things for themselves from my website.

One thing that continues to surprise me is how long it takes for students to copy from the overhead, smartboard, blackboard, whatever. I used to think this was a good way to save paper: have the students take more notes. When the note-taking consumes 1/2 the period, however, this gets really unrealistic, really soon. What do you do when you are faced with all the test prep/readiness we have to accomplish and you still want to make learning fun and interesting enough? Do you take up time with notes or have a handout ready? So tell me colleagues, what do you do about the note-taking? Can you give me some advice to consider before my school year starts?

Ladies and Gentlemen, Parents of All Ages: the PreK-PSAT!

2008-08-13T10:43:00.004-04:00

Well, honestly, if the College Board has its way, we're not too far off from testing in utero, are we? Pardon the neccessary hyperbole but check back in a few years and we'll see just what was exaggerated.
In New York, 8th graders are tested on Math, Science, English, Social Studies, Second Languages. These tests, as part of NCLB, indicate which students meet the standards, or at least the standards as represented on the tests. Doing well on these may help with your placement into Honors English in HS. Students in Medium-Sized-Moderately-Affluent-School-District already can be channeled into advanced Math in seventh grade and continue into advanced Math for 8th, as well as Honors and Regents Science. However, there is no Honors English program in the Middle School because that would be...tracking. Now we could use the 8th Grade PSAT to let kids know what courses they should start taking right away to make themselves the most attractive to those competitive colleges that their parents want bragging rights to. When I was in HS, I knew where I wanted to go to college, but I really didn't give my transcripts too much serious thought. Now it seems you have to start planning those accelerated courses from middle school. So much for sorting out all that tricky adolescent angst. The article doesn't talk about moving the program national, but it can't be too far off.
I mean really, what is one more test?

Thanks to my NCTE Inbox weekly update for the info and the link

School Tax Cap?

2008-08-04T13:35:00.003-04:00

By this Friday, the NYS Legislature will have finalized plans to put a cap on school taxes. They are also hoping to have other options in place to help districts pay for the rising costs of fuel, transportation, and, of course, all the other unfunded mandates required by NCLB. New York pays the highest school taxes in the country (local and state) and something needs to be done to better fund education costs. Yes, these costs include paying teachers fair salaries (if not always competitive) and continuing to fund pensions. However, something needs to be addressed within the tax system, a way to more equitably fund education. People are moving out of districts because of school taxes, or voting down the budgets. I don't live in the district where I work. Even if I wanted to move, the higher cost of housing (median $500,000) and the higher taxes make it unreasonable. I don't understand how people can continue to afford $12,000 or more a year in school taxes. It will be interesting so see what the legislature works out and what the reactions will be...

2008-08-03T18:54:00.000-04:00

Went to Saratoga to see The Police and Elvis Costello and the Attractions on Friday night. Great show, but I would have liked to hear The Police jam a bit more. They played:
Message in a bottle
Walking on the moon
Demolition man
Voices inside my head
Don't stand so close to me
Driven to tears
There's a hole in my heart
Every little thing she does
Wrapped around your finger
Dee doo doo doo
Invisible sun
Roxanne
Can't stand losing
King of pain
So lonely
Every breath you take
Next to you

Elvis was very energetic and sounded awesome. As the opening act, he played for about an hour. Sting came out to sing 'Alison' toward the end of the set. The Police reminded me of U2 all those years ago on the Joshua Tree tour. I slept out underneath the Empire State Building to get tickets after being a fan since their first album, Boy. I was so excited to see them and then they only played for an hour and a half...the same time frame used by The Police twenty years later. I'm telling you, Peter Gabriel blew them out of the water on his So tour (Growing Up was just as good) and Dave Matthews does it every year we've seen him at SPAC. Note to The Police: just an hour and a half? I really enjoyed the show, but I'm even more glad I bought the lawn seats.

Interesting (reading)

2008-07-31T20:43:00.002-04:00

In case you are not an NCTE member who gets a news feed weekly about issues in English Education...have a look at this. Apparently there will be more on the topic to come.

I love this thing

2008-07-31T20:25:00.005-04:00

You have to check out this site if you are a teacher...I am so going to use this next year for book reports (or something). My Beloved Offspring and I had a lot of fun making some of these. I did not sign in so I just printed out what I created. I would have my lovelies do the same. We are allowed one or two color copies if we print at school. I could post the colorful ones and grade the black and whites...

I also have a link over there ===>

So this may only appeal to some of you, but...

2008-07-30T15:39:00.002-04:00

Take the Quiz here!

I do love Austen, don't you? I'm thoroughly enjoying Pamela Aidan's Fitzwilliam Darcy trilogy this summer. I'm on book 2: Duty and Desire. Astoundingly, I did not turn out to be Miss Elizabeth Bennett. However, I'm much happier with Elinor than with Marianne.

I'm baaack (from Carolina)

2008-07-20T20:58:00.001-04:00

We got back safely from our Southern Sojourn. I really appreciate my sister and her husband (and Beetle) putting up with us (and Albus the Wunder Hund). On the Saturday before we left, she and her friends surprised me with a pre-40-40th birthday dinner. It was supposed to be a dinner over at her friend's house that I was not allowed to even lift a finger for. That alone should have clued me in, but no. You see, when I am visiting, I cook. A lot. New things, old favorites, you name it (literally)--I'll cook it. No peanut butter pie this time, but two big pans of Ina Garten's Outrageous Brownies, grilled chicken (Greek marinade), grilled veggies, garlic pepper tilapia, beef and pork ribs, French Toast casserole, chocolate pie, marbled refrigerator cookies, Spanakopita, Baklava, etc...
One of the highlights of the evening was a blind tasting we did of eight wines: two whites, one rose, and five reds. We had a rating system designed by my sister's friend (spit it out, bit** please, keep on hand, company picnic, orgasmic...), crackers for in-betweens, the whole deal. It was so much fun! I have to get the exact list from E. as I may want to use that up here some time. All in all, it was a nice two weeks. We got back home though and Bear started Boy Scout Camp. Diva Drama Queen's Science camp is in two weeks (she designs and builds a Green model building/house) and Bear will start football. And so it begins...

I started having school dreams though the other night. Next year's Daily Planner from my favorite English teacher is on the way. I ordered some really interesting books on reading comp for my AIS class, found two new-old dictionaries, collections of Wordsworth, Tennyson, and The Best Poems of 1997, a Norton Anthology of Short Stories (clean for copies and with good questions), and a couple of Thesauri? from the thrift store (at a dime a piece on sale!). I'll have about two boxes of books to bring in to school and then I can take to the shelter the box of books I left on a shelf because I did not have enough hands to carry it on the last day. I also am trying to cull my home shelves of doubles, and books-I'm-really-never-going-to-read-so-who-am-I-kidding (Jan Karon's Mitford Series anyone?). I'm starting to itch for the seventh year to start...but I'll know it's close when I get my first Workmare.

Sweet Carolin(a)

2008-07-07T21:14:00.002-04:00

I'm in the heart of Dixie with my Beetle, my Beloved Offspring, and my lovely Sister (and her lovely husband).
Hope you are having a great summer, too!

Alas, poor lovelies. You thought you knew it (so well).

2008-06-25T19:20:00.003-04:00

"It" of course, was the material studied. The results however, were not as expected. My hair is still purple and black. Secretly, I'm relieved as it is a hassle to commit a few hours to hair (I am not as high-maintenance as that sounds). However, I would have liked those few extra kids to pass. No failure was a real surprise, but all failures are disappointments fraught with memories of what I could have done better. The pass rate ended up at 92%. Not bad, you say? Well, I guess...but I'm not happy about it.

Alas, Poor Lovelies! They knew the material, Reader, with infinite best intent, or most excellent fancy. I hath bored them front and back a thousand times, and now how abhorr'd in my imagination my failure is! My gorge rises at it.

I must get a drink or get to a nunnery.

With most gracious apologies for Bowdlerizing the Bard:
Hamlet, Act V, Scene I, 185-8

Final Exams

2008-06-22T18:21:00.001-04:00

My final exam is tomorrow. My running bet is that if 95% of my lovelies pass the test, I'll dye my hair green (a nice dark forest green- not the neon-80's type). Last year, I bet that 94% would pass (down from the originally-planned 95 due to an accounting error on my part). So this year, I had to up the ante. I'll let you know how it comes out.

All the portfolios have been graded. All but the two that did not come in. I actually persuaded half of the original four refusals/latenesses to hand something in, as even a 50+ is better than zero. However, I came to the decision that every one of the lovelies who handed the work in would pass the assignment. I had to honor the effort. Of course, the late-lovelies will suffer in their homework points, but overall, I was pleased again with this year's projects. One student used handmade envelopes to put each of the artifacts in and then enclosed them in a mailbox decorated with 'Ms. George.' Another student painted two canvases and held them together with an accordian file in which the artifacts were contained. Many did scrapbooks, others stuck to the typical binder approach. Several students did 'memory boxes', one themed his around the election year events, while another around the colleges whose sports teams he follows. One student fashioned the portfolio into a book (clever use of cigar box and fab computer and hand-drawn graphics) organizing the artifacts into 'chapters' renamed from the assignments. I did not get a digital portfolio yet, but because the project required original work from way back in Sept. forward, it would all have had to been scanned...I'm not going to give up on one day seeing one, however. I have been listening to the students' soundtracks on my drive to and fro: what an eclectic bunch! I am going to miss them. Friday will come too soon, I'm afraid.

Why?

2008-06-06T18:13:00.003-04:00

Why do students refuse to do work? Why would they refuse to hand in a project (the Portfolio) worth about 25% of their 4th quarter grade? Why would they stand in front of you (but not really look at you) and say "I'm not going to do it"?
Grr.
If I say I won't let them fail themselves, why do they?

What's in a name?

2008-06-01T00:25:00.005-04:00

So, what if you were adopted?
And you knew from the time you had memories. And that was okay if not kinda cool in a weird way. Although the whole heritage/ethnicity thing was missing and that was annoying when all your friends had one or several and you were just a big????
And you were sorta not interested as a kid, then interested as a teen, then not again, in finding your birth mother/father/whomever?
And then you had physical children and you wanted to make sure there weren't any ticking, medical timebombs?
So you thought you'd try to find out but then got too busy with life and you let it go...esp. when the laws of NYS say you pretty much have to be DYING to open sealed adoption records.
Until a folder comes to your mother from the now-deceased lawyer who handled the adoption 'cause the practice was dissolved and closed cases...well, where do they go?
In the folder is the court records, lawyer correspondence, signed affidavits, etc.
On one of them is your name. You know, the real one.
Oh---my---lanta.
Now what?

Read this and tell your friends...

2008-05-13T21:05:00.002-04:00

A friend at school sent me this from her mom today and I had to share. If you don't get School Library Journal, you should check it out!
This speaks right to the heart of what is wrong with the current system of education in this country. Read it and share with your friends. In NYS, remind them to vote for their school budgets next Tuesday.

Linky to "Killing Me Softly" and my apologies if that song is now stuck in your head.

Catching up is hard to do

2008-05-05T17:57:00.002-04:00

Interims for the fourth quarter are due by the end of the week. Another year is slipping through my fingers. I have been so blessed for two years now, I am starting to worry about next year. How can I continue the streak? From what I have heard, we should be okay, but there are a lot of cliques and catty girls. Bring 'em on.
The lovelies have received their portfolio project outlines and are working hard on their Revolutionary War Literature Circle groups (using role sheets from Jim Burke over at the English Companion). We plan to have them finished by the end of next week so we can read a Twilight Zone episode, and watch the TWO versions I now have, before Memorial Day weekend. The Multi-Genre Projects were quite good overall, although why some lovelies continue to try to underwhelm: late-late-late projects, half-done, half-*** work, you name it. Hopefully, the Portfolios will get them back on track. I would like to have a year where I get all of them in (and complete). We'll see.
I am working on my list of lovelies for whom I am teaching this year. My first class of lovelies is edging closer to their HS graduation. I will try to compose some more worthy entries over the coming weeks. A lot of bittersweet reminsicing ahead, I'm afraid.
My mother has had some health concerns lately. Hopefully taking her medicines now will keep her out of the hospital. She thought that just eliminating salt from her diet would heal her high blood pressure. Apparently not.
My father's health continues to decline. He has not walked since January and needs ground food completely fed to him. His occasional mutterings are rarely connected to anything. However, once and awhile, for just one second or so, when I visit him (sometimes with my Beloved Offspring Bear and the DDQ, sometimes with my mother, but mainly alone) I believe that the flash of a smile in his eyes is there just for me.

Reading, Reading, Just Keep Reading...

2008-03-18T21:08:00.003-04:00

This year's crop of Multi-Genre Projects came in on Monday. There were very few stragglers. I'm looking forward to getting to read them: each a representation of a student's interest in a topic of Social Importance. As usual though, I'm spending time in the evenings with my physical offspring and some good books (Ian Rankin, Libba Bray, Carol Jago). Spending time with my children is the only legitimate reason I have for not having started grading in earnest.

Bear and the Diva Drama Queen are off all of next week and I'm not. This is one of the times I wish I was working in the same school district as my offspring (but then I remember my paycheck and get over it). They're going to be visiting friends who have been generous enough to keep them occupied during the day whilst I and the Bitter Half are at work. Grr. I really wish I had at least Monday off. Next year, this won't be so much of a big deal, as the Diva Drama Queen will be old enough to Be In Charge of herself and her brother during the day. Oh, she's Been In Charge for an hour or so, but all day is a bit much. After the summer and the start of her (gasp) teenage-ness, I'll feel better about leaving them for longer bits of time.

I can't believe we're at this point in the school year: a few weeks away from the start of the Final Quarter. We're revisiting short stories by way of Science Fiction for awhile. Mostly we'll be reading Ray Bradbury, but I've found a few other shorts I'll use. I stick to Ray mainly because I love his writing, but also because I have access to the entire Ray Bradbury Theater on DVD thanks to my goddess of a collab teacher. We'll read a little, watch a little, and read some more. We'll end the year with some reading and watching of The Twilight Zone while we prepare our portfolios. So much to do and so little time it seems.

Today Arthur C. Clarke died at the age of 90. We lost Madeline L'Engle last September. Ray Bradbury and Ursula K. LeGuin are still going strong.

I've named mine.

Who are your favorite Science Fiction authors? What are your favorite stories?

Things They Don't Teach You

2008-01-31T16:53:00.000-05:00

I had some pretty good teacher-training, I must say. From the excellent role models I had in HS (thanks Mrs. A and Mrs. M--rest in peace), to the dynamic profs in college (Dr. P and Dr.OD and many others) to my inspiring trainers in graduate school (Dr. S squared and Dr. D) I was taught and shown, how to be a teacher. I try to live the ideals they instilled in me every day. I am actively conscious of how to be a teacher. Believe me all you who are new to the profession, there is a lot more than just knowing your subject, as important/essential as that is. You have to learn how to know your students, how to help them be the best they can be, even if for some/many it does not involve being A or even B students. Not everyone can be. And that is ok. Teaching is so much more than following a script, or reading through a textbook. Teaching kids is not teaching to a test. Teaching is not something just anyone can do.

What we want to instill in our students is that they can be themselves and that it is ok: as long as they try, as long as they see something of value in the process of education. They can be honor roll material and they can just pass-- if that is their best.

When they struggle, we should be there to help them. When they feel alone, we should help them see they are not, when they say that they can't, we should work with them to see that they can, providing of course, in all of these instances, they allow us. Teaching is a reciprocal relationship.

Many times, they will leave our classes and we'll never see them again, we'll never know if we 'did it,' if we made a difference, if it all mattered, even just a little. Sometimes, we'll know. Maybe they'll come back to visit, "Ms. George, you made me feel like I was somebody." Maybe you'll find out through a parent, "After three years, you are still Jon's favorite teacher, the only one who he said taught him something." Maybe you'll hear by way of a sibling's passing a picture inscribed with a note, "Hey Ms. George! I'm so happy my sisters have you. I really got stoked on English in your class. I'll never forget how you made me confident in myself. PS your still my favorite teacher."

I had a great education, but it wasn't complete. I haven't even begun to see 'complete' and I've been doing this for six years. Nothing in books prepares you for the ache you feel as your favorite (don't lie-you have them, too) students leave at the end of the year. Even your most troublesome students share something with those who have shared many things with you: the death of a parent or grandparent, the pain of eating disorders, or the secret shame of cutting (yes, all these things were known by the appropriate people as well) the students who would seek out your classroom as a refuge from bullying or boredom, who would visit from the HS letting you know they were there by tapping on your window, who would rush in to your room at the start of a new year and a new grade to tell you about his sister's new pregnancy and how he was excited to be an uncle, leave something behind as they move up grades, out of buildings and away from your class. They leave the memories. It's hard. You become connected, you struggle, you share, and then the ties are loosened and lost.

Nothing in books prepares you for the message whispered from a colleague, passed on in print from the principal, and emailed from the Superintendent: one of your students has died. One of your lovelies from your first year teaching, the class you were so lucky to have been given as a 'newbie teacher' has died. A senior in HS with the world ahead of her. Why? It is too soon to know. Rumors circulate as they are wont to do. You don't want to believe them, so you think of other things. You look at that picture her younger sisters gave you, the one that said, misspellings and all, "PS Your still my favorite teacher." You sit at your desk, you look out at your empty classroom, and you cry.

Happy New Year, Good Night, and Good Luck!

2008-01-02T19:31:00.000-05:00

I have so much on my mind these days with school (still going wonderfully well and I really, really enjoy the hell out of these kids) and with my physical children (growing like weeds and I really, really enjoy the hell out of them) doing fine, while my father is so, so not.
We are still trying to find him the right home, but his Alzheimer's is making him now get a bit aggressive with caregivers so he's had to be placed on the lowest dose of a sedating drug to hopefully take off the edge (and prevent any further injuries on their parts). For me to have to write that my father, the man who probably was the most gentle man I've ever known, a man who had not needed to spank me more than the fingers on one hand (saying much more about him than me-trust me), and who I only saw get visibly angry once, has been aggressive with his caregivers, is as hard as you could imagine it to be, multiplied by thousands.
Please keep reading the wonderful teacher-bloggers out there who have insightful things to say about their teaching. Thanks especially to CTG and Bellezza, but thanks to all who have spent time commenting here. Although I don't respond to your thoughts as much as I should, I have appreciated everything you have said and I'm continuing to check up on you even if I don't write. As for me, I'm writing in my journals and writer's notebooks with my lovelies, but I don't have the time/energy to sit and try to be witty or interestingly profound here. 'Here' is the only thing I can run away from, even in a metaphorical sense, so I'm running because I can.
Perhaps I'll see you in the comments section on another blog; perhaps I'll pick this up again.
If not, again I say in the words of Garrison Keillor, "Be well and do good work" (if you want to keep in touch, leave an email in comments- when I post it, I'll remove it if you want).

First Day Back

2007-11-28T19:09:00.001-05:00

A few short years ago, I dreaded the day I returned to school after a sub had been in. My lovelies that year were sometimes not-so-lovely. The last two years though have been quite nice. I haven't had to write up a blessed soul. I'm going to give my whole team 'positive behavior' tickets as soon as I can scrounge that many up from the PBIS people.

Thanksgiving evening is usually a time of relaxation, movies, and a nice warm fire while we try to digest turkey, ham, pie, stuffing... This year found me leaving my Bitter Half and our Beloved Offspring to race the two hours to my parents at the hospital where my mother had been admitted for observation following an unnaturally high blood pressure reading and some major fluid retention. Typical for my mom, when I spoke to her about noon that day, telling her that the children and I would be out to them by about seven, she sounded a bit weak, but otherwise o.k. saying how my father was "having a slow day." She didn't tell me how badly she actually felt. Which would have been easier than the gut-wrenching statement by my father-in-law, "It's a woman, but it's not your mother's voice," as he handed me the phone. I thought something had happened with Dad.

With a stern-but-compassionate discussion with her new doctor (she hasn't had a regular one since Dad takes up all the medical time these days and she is a typical Southern woman putting herself last) she has realized that she can no longer care for my father, her husband, at home. His Alzheimer's has progressed far down into that void that grows ever larger toward the end of this tunnel. He rarely recognizes me, or my children. He talks, but it is rarely connected to things that are going on at the time. He is up on average of 3-5 times a night and only has about an hour and a half of awake time between naps during the day. He can be resistant to hygiene, relying entirely on my mother to clean him and dress him. He will still feed himself, but not his medicine. We have to hide that in applesauce or yoghurt after we've crushed it. He will go into the car or come in from meals or go outside for a short walk only with continual prompting and encouragement. If he were to fall, my mother can't pick him up, not like she could before, but now she can't lift anything over 15 lbs.

When he came home from the first home over Labor Day weekend, I thought it was a bad idea. My Beloved Sister didn't like the nursing home he was in. I really didn't either, but it wasn't as bad as some I'd seen. Dad wasn't being abused, but neither was he being interacted with or talked to. I won't even mention the meds the hospital put him on without our consent that had contraindications to his Alz and heart meds leaving him in a stupor that resembled the Thorazine shuffle I remembered from my direct-care days. Except my dad wasn't even able to walk anymore. I blame the hospital for this though, the nursing home just followed the Doctor's orders and I didn't think to check his meds (neither did my mother until his 30 day intake which was when we found out and took him off of them). Once my mother brought him home and enlisted the help of PT and the County Nurse, my dad is walking again. My mom's main concern was that Dad wasn't getting the love he needed like at home. Unfortunately, the three months between then and now have wreaked havoc on a 78-year-old woman's constitution. Even the constitution of a farm girl can have havoc wreaked by Alzheimer's care.

My mom came home after a day and a night in the hospital. I was home with Dad and remained there until yesterday afternoon as we worked to find a new nursing home and get the financial papers in order. Mom rested as much as she allowed herself to and is finally taking what appears to be the proper medications. She has more tests next week. Dad is now in respite (30 day break for caregivers) in an awesome nursing home. He is talking with the other residents and seems much happier than he was at the old place. Of course, he's awake and walking now, but this place is like a hotel. What could be wrong? Well, they have no permanent beds. Dad is now fourth in line for a male bed. There is no Solomon-like wisdom that can be found to make up for the fact that three other men---fathers, husbands, grandfathers, brothers---have to die so my dad can have a place to live out his life. How do you pray for something like that? How can you believe that it is in His hands? I've been struggling with faith since my father's rapid decline has taken him away from me, my mom, my sister, our children. My father was a good man, a great father, a gifted and beloved teacher, a loyal brother, caring friend, pillar of our church (devout, Lector, Knight, member of the Parish Council and the HNS), loving Uncle, Godfather, Brother-in-Law... and this is what he deserves? This is what he gets after years of prayer and sacrifice? My mother deserves this? This is what she gets after years of prayer and sacrifice? She is still holding on to her faith, believing something will work out. Dad will still voice most of his prayers from memory although repeating them out of order.

I, on the other hand, don't know what I still believe in anymore.

Happy Thanksgiving wishes and a bit of poetry

2007-11-21T20:41:00.000-05:00

"Nights"

~Kevin Hart

There’s nothing that I really want:
The stars tonight are rich and cold
Above my house that vaguely broods
Upon a path soon lost in dark.
My dinner plate is chipped all round
(It tells me that I’ve changed a lot);
My glass is cracked all down one side
(It shows there is a path for me).
My hands—I rest my head on them.
My eyes—I rest my mind on them.
There’s nothing that I really need
Before I set out on that path.

This poem seems to speak of the perfect Thanksgiving spirit: there is nothing that I really want because I have what I need and I'm truly, completely thankful for it all.

Be thankful for those who love you and whom you love in return.
Blessings and Peace on this Thanksgiving Eve for today, tomorrow, and the days that come.

This poem is part of the wonderful collection on this site...read and be merry, or be moved!