When Woody died, we had about three weeks of school left. Of
course, everything was put on hold.
Several times during the summer I would try to organize my thoughts
enough to teach the kids and finish up the year. It would last a few days, and
then grief would cloud my thoughts and darken my view. We finally did get to a
stopping point, yet all their quizzes and tests remained ungraded. A pile of
papers accumulated on my desk until it was so overwhelming, I couldn’t even
begin to think about grading it and recording their marks in a progress report.
When we moved, everything went into a box. I tried to unpack
and organize our new classroom enough so that we could start another school
year in September. I enrolled Haley and
Haden in an online curriculum knowing that I was unfit for teaching. The
classroom remained a war zone with piles of papers and books strewn on the
floor and the desks. Once again I felt completely overwhelmed and closed the
door on the chaos knowing that it would have to wait. Never had I felt so
muddled and frustrated at my lack of motivation. Was this grief? Yes. My focus
was completely annihilated. I wondered if I ever would be able to arrange my
thoughts in an orderly fashion again. Were my days of homeschooling over?
Nearly eight months have come and gone since that
life-altering day. Finally, today I organized our classroom. Everything has a
place. The desks are clean and the books neatly line the shelves. Now I begin
the tremendous tasks of grading four months of school work, creating progress
reports and transcripts for last year, creating new excel worksheets for our
new school year, and applying to colleges for Haley. It has been a good day.
At least it was. Going through the mountain of paper work I
came across a physics quiz dated May 8, two days before Woody’s death. Tears
stung my eyes. I felt the tightening in my chest that always occurs when I remember
that once we lived without the overpowering sense of loss. Once my children had
an adoring father who loved them with every ounce of his being. Once my husband
slept in the bed next to me and kept me warm on those cool nights. Once
everything was normal.
We will heal. We will move on as life gently pushes its way
back into our hearts. However, it will never be normal again. It aches! I
feel as if I have been damaged beyond repair. Sometimes I want to scream and
beg for God to rewind time and let us start that day over with different
results. Yet, there is no rewind button—no do overs. Therefore, we will
continue going forward, one step at a time, knowing that God will restore our
joy. God will help us discover a new normal, and somehow we will flourish as we
learn to laugh and love again.
For now, I am thankful for the baby steps we are all making
as we learn to move again. I will never cease to wish that day had not occurred.
However, I cannot change the course God has chosen for my life. Therefore, I
will grade papers and focus on homeschooling my children through their last
years of high school, one page at a time.
