"Jesus wept." John 11:35
I do know the context of that verse, and I am not pretending to have that same grief, but there are some things that are weighing heavily on me and it helps sometimes to remember that the Second Adam wept.
I don't have to be at work until 11:45 today, and I had planned to sleep late. I set the alarm for 7:30, but the phone rang at 4:40 and I've been up ever since. I did try to go back to sleep. I am dying for some sleep. But it doesn't seem that I'm to be allowed to have it.
The children and their parents will come for Open House today. It will be a long, stretched out period of time and, even though we officially close at 6:00, lots of parents usually walk in around 5:55 or so and we end up staying until almost 7:00. I do hope they all come, though. I'm ready to meet them.
It's been a strange week so far. Some things about the year are looking very good, yet there are a lot of changes, so it'll take a while to get adjusted. And, as I knew would happen, I am not the same person I was a week ago. Then, I was reading novels by the pool. Now, I am consumed with trying to learn all I can about teaching a quadriplegic. I am told our school has never before enrolled a child with this many physical problems. There was another child a few years ago who had the same paralysis, but she was not on a ventilator and she had neck control. In fact, that child is now doing very well in college and is considering attending law school. But. . .and this is where I'm really torn. . .that child was served by special education teachers who were trained to work with her. Now, as a result of NCLB, all children must be given the same education--in a regular ed. classroom--which is just the biggest pile of garbage because all children do not have the same needs. I just feel that it is a huge disservice to this child to have to be with a teacher who has no experience at all with this kind of thing. So, while I find it a tremendous professional challenge, which I thrive on, I can't help thinking it's selfish to feel that way because this is not about me. It's about Lakera.
So there's just so many things going on, and some of them are really sad. Emily lost her mother Friday, and now she has to start school-- which is a monumental and exhausting task to begin with-- after having gone through the emotional horror of finding her mother dead on the floor four days ago. It's just really hard to know how to help her, when my own hands are full with school and home. Lizzie starts this year, and that's a big, big deal and I'd like to have been able to spend more time with her this week, preparing her for some things and just being a better mother. I have this feeling in my stomach, like I've swallowed a rock or a ball of wire or a clod of dirt or something, and it just sits there undigested and I don't want to eat or anything.
I'm still thinking a lot about a book I read last week on eugenics and genealogy charting and sterilization laws. It was pretty disturbing and we are not that far removed from it. I really didn't know much about that time in American history, probably because it's a dirty little secret, especially after it was discovered that Hitler based his own sterilization program on the American model. Again, I feel I've swallowed a ball of wire.
