One of my sisters and I were able to go to the doctor’s office with my parents for the latest MRI results.
They’re not good.
The cancer has spread to the meninges (the membranes that cover the brain & spinal cord).
Okay – backing up just a bit.
For the last several weeks, my Dad has been struggling with pain from an extruding disc in his back, which has nothing to do with his cancer. He can’t sit or stand for very long, and spends most of his time lying down. He has also been dealing with nausea, headaches, and lack of appetite that he thought might be related to pain meds. It’s not.
So the MRI this week. The cancer in the meninges. Those symptoms are directly caused by his cancer. It’s all throughout a good part of his brain & spinal cord, and that is very concerning. The…
Today, at about 06:00 Central Daylight, my good friend, Sylvia, died.
She was a very sweet, elderly lady who never did really grow old.
She had the loveliest natural silver hair and pale skin, which made her look really good in pastels. She wore pink a lot, long before it was the current fad .She wore lots of modern fashions, including Crocs shoes on her tiny feet, in pink or powder blue.
She lived quite a life. Being only about 5 feet tall and sweetly quiet in personality, she married a lumbering guy who had many long, loud opinions, and whom we all, also loved. I am sure he is devastated, right now, although we all knew Sylvia’s time was at a close.
A teacher by profession, Sylvia never backed down from imparting proper English upon anyone who needed it (with an appropriate Southern drawl, of course.) Long after her retirement, she was still at it, peppering conversations at church with corrections of our grammar. Somehow it never felt like correction; more like a blessing. I guess that was a sign of her closeness to Jesus.
However, she also taught Spanish, and would greet anyone in that language, once she learned they had even a smattering of a grasp on it. “Hola, Catarina,” she would greet me. “Como estas, hoy, mi amiga?”
And we would have to answer in Spanish.
Since I majored in languages, we could converse a long time before one of us got stumped.
Sylvia was a people lover. She always believed everyone was innocent. Of course, while she could rationalize with Lizzy from Pride and Prejudice that we can’t ALL be good, she ignored that rational thought as much as possible. It was so easy for her to love anyone, and for anyone to love her. Even those who felt silly mispronouncing Spanish in the aisles of the church just loved her. My daughter, who knew ASL and some French, would answer her in one of those, and Sylvia was delighted to learn “just a bit more — you never know when you might need it.”
And because she was a lover of all people and thought all people innocent, she loved me when others thought me guilty. She had no evidence. In fact, the evidence made me look mighty guilty, but she refused to believe all that, and just loved me. I want to be like her, some day.
Her funeral will be huge.
I toy with not going. I don’t want to see her dead. It’s too late to hug her one more time. Her husband’s tears will cause mine to drown me. I don’t like some of the people she loved and who loved her in return. There won’t be enough room in the church for us all, anyway.
A Map of the Legality of Home schooling around the world. Green is legal, yellow is legal in most political subdivisions but not all or is practiced, but legality is disputed. Red is illegal or unlawful. Orange is generally considered illegal, but untested legally.
My friend’s teen children were tired.
I had always thought they were shy children because they hardly said much in church. I learned though: If anyone spoke first, these children politely carried on an adequate conversation. Then they would drop back into their tired mode, like a trance.
My friend, their mother, was tired, too. I had noticed signs of it: late (or absent), hastily coiffed, testy—all out of character for her and all beginning when school began each year. I understood it more after we had the “school” conversation.
I think she was just using me for a sounding board, not realizing that I have feelings, too. Most people in a State school need to verbalize their convictions to home educators. They subconsciously need our quiet endurance of these conversations, I think, to help them go on.
Since I believe that, I usually do not listen altogether mutely. Usually I say things like, “I am so sorry,” or “I know it must be a real burden,” or “Perhaps a different teacher (grade, school, district, etc.) would make a big difference?”
I am not being sarcastic when I say these things, although the temptation is sometimes there. No, I truly am sorry to see my friends suffer so because of their State education choices. Too, because of my own mistakes in the State systems, I know it truly is a burden.
Of course, I know a different spot within the State school system does not usually make much difference, but I also desire to help them see something: To me, their situation sounds burdensome. I hope to cause them to have second thoughts, if possible, within the context of friendship.
Therefore, I tried to listen gently to my friend’s tiring tedium of tasks. I am sure my eyes widened.
She wound up with, “but I just don’t see any other way to make sure they are doing well . . .”
I said, “Sandra, I know you are tired; anyone could see it in your eyes.” She dabbed at tears. “I don’t know what to tell you. If the teachers and the coaches will not do it, I guess you must—someone must.”
I hesitated, then went on, “The reason your children excel and the reason you are tired is that you are homeschooling.
“For most home educators, it is not so tiring, though, because they homeschool from 8:00 a.m. until early afternoon. You are homeschooling a lot, during those hours, but also during the hours from 3:00 until midnight and beyond. Add to that the fact that you are worrying, and you could not HELP but be tired. You are volunteering at the State schools, and then conducting your own homeschool afterwards.”
The things I said did not help her. She was convinced hers was the only way to send her children into law school.
The entire conversation did help me, though.
It gave me several more reasons that I would never go back into the State institutionalized education program.
You can learn from it, too, perhaps. Perhaps you can see why people should stay out of that system.
Failing that, at least you will have a list of things you must do (should you decide to quit home schooling) to cause success in State-educated children.
Once, a dear friend was explaining to me how the State school experience was better, and how her children were receiving the best education available.
Have you ever noticed how State institution school parents think they must educate us to this “fact” and we must bear it patiently, but the reverse seldom holds?
She was striving to explain her children’s bright future and perhaps she could not hear herself speaking. As I listened and tried to grasp what she was saying, I was astonished at the obvious conclusion.
Maybe it would be instructive to share it all with you.
Granted, her children were in the best State schools available in our small city. They were a wealthy family and had moved into a wealthy neighborhood for the expressed purpose of better State schooling.
That this fact was possible should be enough, alone, to terminate State education.
She wanted her children to be lawyers and she wanted them in the best colleges in the nation. I will also grant that she was a very dedicated mom, committed to performing whatever activity (except home schooling) necessary to raising up successful children.
She was misinformed, though, and not thinking about the entire scope of the picture.
To prove to me her commitment, she began itemizing the duties she undertook for her children’s education. This was a typical day:
She drove her children to school, herself, to prevent teen driving troubles in their lives. They did not enjoy being the only ones arriving with Mom, but she was dedicated enough to insist.
She was careful to deposit them at the school early, to give them free time to form friendships of their own choosing, so they would not be relying on whomever might sit nearby in class. This also allowed time for composing themselves before facing the day.
She signed them up for sports, although they were not athletic, to help them overcome the sitting they must do daily, and to improve their chances for scholarships.
After school, they had sport obligations, of course. She went to every practice and every game, with a video camera. She recorded every pertinent happening at these gatherings.
During the day, she edited these videos, juxtaposing the skills of opponents and her child and his teammates, to show where more effort would benefit.
After school, her children had oceans of homework. She was strict about it, allowing no play until all work was done. Since supper was prepared in advance, she helped with their homework, explaining things they could not get the teachers to answer adequately. She was their cheerleader, greeting them with encouraging one-liners, such as, “You can do it; one more hour ought to get it!”
She showed them the sports videos, explaining her thinking in detail, so they could discuss how more effort would cause more success. Again, she cheered them on. (I do not know where their coach was.)
Since homework reigned supreme in their home, except for a break for supper, the children labored until midnight or beyond, at which point Mom simply conked out. (She did ask me if I thought she was wrong to require them to continue until two a.m. or later, when she, herself, was unable to do so.)
The next day they began again.
It was true that her children were doing well in school. They did not have as many friends as they might have liked, but they were receiving high grades in difficult subjects, and they were often on the first sports teams.
The Lord said to Moses, “Speak to the Israelites and get twelve staffs from them, one from the leader of each of their ancestral tribes. Write the name of each man on his staff. On the staff of Levi write Aaron’s name, for there must be one staff for the head of each ancestral tribe. Place them in the Tent of Meeting in front of the Testimony, where I meet with you. The staff belonging to the man I choose will sprout, and I will rid myself of this constant grumbling against you by the Israelites.
So Moses spoke to the Israelites, and their leaders gave him twelve staffs, one for the leader of each of their ancestral tribes, and Aaron’s staff was among them. Moses placed the staffs before the Lord in the Tent of the Testimony
The next day Moses entered the Tent of the Testimony and saw that Aaron’s staff, which represented the house of Levi, had not only sprouted but had budded, blossomed and produced almonds. Then Moses brought out all the staffs from the Lord’s presence to all the Israelites. They looked at them, and each man took his own staff.
The Lord said to Moses, “Put back Aaron’s staff in front of the Testimony, to be kept as a sign to the rebellious. This will put an end to their grumbling against me, so that they will not die. Moses did just as the Lord commanded him.
The Israelites said to Moses, “We will die! We are lost, we are all lost! Anyone who even comes near the tabernacle of the Lord will die. Are we all going to die?” Numbers 17:1-13
Ooh, I see this too often!
Women rebel and are corrected. Then they say, “Poor me—I’ll DIE!”
If you can finally convince them that obedience will not kill them, they sulkily say, “The whole thing in anti-woman!” although actually, they could greatly improve things FOR women by doing right.
If you attempt convincing them of that, they next will blame all their troubles on the church, or even more, on Christians, and deliberately and happily sow seeds of persecution.
Lastly, if they have a shred of intelligence coupled with an iota of wisdom they might try asking, “Is it dangerous?”
And then a few of them will see the delight and begin to live right-side up.
And live to catch the blame from the next barrage.
Home's Cool! 