Courage Doesn't Always Roar: A Teacher's Quest to Be Better Each Day

"You should be a writer," she says, hugging me through the tears as we stand outside the church on a crisp December Monday morning.  She was my Grandma's neighbor for many years and the daughter of one of her best friends, who passed away on another December day a few years ago.  Moments earlier, I had bowed by the altar near my Grandmother's casket, climbed the steps, paper in hand. I adjusted the microphone and saw the faces of my family and some friends who made the journey.  It was not a packed church. There was silence. And I began, with a composure that must have been a gift of courage from above, as I am rarely composed in the face of such sadness.  It was a special honor to write about my Grandma, to honor the beautiful life she led and the love she gave to so many.  To write something and then to stand in church and read it to the family and friends gathered.  It was one small kindness I could give back to her after a lifetime of kindnesses...

"Thank you for being a friend, Travel down the road and back again. Your heart is true,  You're a pal and a confidante." -"Golden Girls" theme song When I was a little girl, my sister, Christine, and I would sometimes sleep over our grandparent's house.  We called it staying at the "hotel" and it was a treat! Often we would first go out for Chinese food (I would drink too much tea and eat too many noodles with duck sauce- my favorite!) and then go back to Grandma and Grandy's cozy "hotel." We would change into pajamas and Grandy would open the bed tucked away in the sofa in the den.  Then Grandma would put fresh smelling sheets on the bed and at 9:00, we would watch "Golden Girls" together.  My childhood is filled with memories of my grandparents- their porch in the summer, Christmas Eves around their sparkling tree, Sunday dinners, and celebrations of all kinds. Being picked up from half-days of school by...

It's a black cloud kind of night. My beloved Grandmother is facing some health challenges.  At almost 90, nothing is to be taken lightly.  It is the horrific anniversary of the shootings at Sandy Hook. All of those precious lives gone in an instant. Grief so unimaginable. Country singer Joey Feek, who is dying of Stage 4 cervical cancer, attempts to play and teach sign language to her baby with Down Syndrome. The pictures make me cry. Sadness envelopes me tonight. Such a sad Slice of Life, but I guess the truth is, some slices are just sad. Some slices cannot be sweetened by platitudes and promises of brighter mornings. I won't stay here for long, in this place of darkness, but tonight I reside.  Tonight I am angry about a world where a child is dropped off at school and gunned down moments later.  Tonight I'm gutted by the unfairness of a new mother to a child with special needs dying of cancer. Why some lives are cut short. Tonight I'm wor...

I first met Miss Molly Mouse when my son, Alex, was 4 months old.  Play Hooray, a group that provides entertainment for children through birthday parties and other venues, was running some sessions for babies at my local library.  I was anxious to get out and meet other moms and provide stimulation for my 4 month old.  He wasn't as interested in being stimulated. I still remember "Dancing Queen" blasting, maracas shaking, and Alex sleeping away in my lap.   The star of Play Hooray, however, is the puppet Molly Mouse.  Molly has skirts for every holiday and season and she lives in a box that resembles the Dunkin' Donuts munchkin box.  We discovered that an elderly mother of the Play Hooray entertainers hand sews all of Molly's skirts!  When my daughter, Megan, was born, I knew Molly Mouse would be in her future.  I was back to work, so my mom would take Megan to her Play Hooray class.  Here is Megan, a couple of years ago, enjoyin...

This month, my book club read T he Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up: The Japanese Art of Decluttering and Organizing by Marie Kondo. It was a book that inspired a great discussion and confessions about our cluttered, messy ways.  The author advises you to only keep items that spark joy. She invites you to almost personalize your relationship to your items, like thanking your shoes for their hard work when you put them away each day! When something isn't useful anymore or doesn't spark joy, she suggests you thank the object for its role in your life and then discard/donate it. Some things were hard to imagine doing, like emptying the contents of your handbag each day and putting every book you own on the floor to decide if it sparks joy or not. (Um, not doing that.) I am a person with a lot of stuff and a person who holds onto a lot of stuff.  I somehow wonder how I would ever change these jaded ways for good, but Marie Kondo swears if you use her method, you would ...

It might say something about my nature that as a little girl, I would start the Christmas countdown sometime in late October.  Cutting strips of red and green construction paper, I would create a humongously long Advent chain, weeks before Advent was even set to start.  A blue link at the top meant Christmas Eve and the final link, the yellow one, meant Christmas day.  Every night, I would tear off another link, knowing I was a little bit closer to the magic of Christmas. So when did I start dreading the Christmas season? There, I said it.  I know, there are entire songs and movies and plays written about grumps like me who aren't in the holiday spirit. It's ironic that as a kid, Christmas couldn't come fast enough, but as a grown-up, I am resentful of how it is has invaded the fall. Sirius has been playing holidays songs while I still had Halloween candy in a pumpkin and when I had some time to shop on Veterans Day, I was serenaded by "White Christmas". ...

My life is made up of lists of things to do.  As a third grade teacher. the list of "to-do's" feels rather endless and is always growing.  As a wife and mom, there are many "to-do's" that sometimes don't get done because of the teacher list, but still there are the essential things I must do, like fill out picture money forms, lunch menus, appointments, etc.  Laundry, cooking, dishwasher loading and unloading.  Laundry baskets that sit for days (weeks?) until I get around to putting the clothes away. Another "to-do" that is hard to do.  Please don't get me wrong. I am so grateful to have these "to-do's." I am grateful beyond words for my family, my children, and my job.  It's just...there is no room for me on this list.  For the me that isn't a mom, isn't a teacher, isn't a wife, isn't wearing another hat.  The me that is just me doesn't make it on the list, no time for her. And it's kind of tak...

"When you dance, your purpose is not to get to a certain place on the floor.  It's to enjoy each step along the way." -Wayne Dyer In the winter of 2009, my husband Mike, before he was my husband, agreed to take ballroom dancing lessons with me in preparation for our April wedding.  Once a week, we would drive 20 minutes from our apartment to the ballroom dance studio.  Dennis was our instructor.  He was dapper, always dressed impeccably, and he was patient! Very patient.  Our wedding song would be Billy Joel's "Just the Way You Are" and Dennis choreographed a dance routine for us, teaching us the steps and adding more each week.  Wedding planning can be pretty stressful stuff, but the weekly dance lessons were actually a fun escape.  We laughed and named the steps, including one called "Toss the Lady." We practiced during the week in the living room of our apartment, working together to master the first dance we would perform...

"But it's alright now.  I learned my lesson well.   See you can't please everyone,  so you got to please yourself." -Ricky Nelson, "Garden Party" My class has been reading Fish in a Tree by Lynda Mullaly Hunt.  On Friday, we watched the video Lynda created where she read aloud Chapter 17 and then answered questions about the book and her process.  At one point, Lynda spoke about praise and how we all want it, but we have to be careful not to rely too much on it.  To stop looking for validation outside ourselves and find it within.  Gretchen Rubin described her need for "gold stars" in The Happiness Project.  I'm a gold-star-loving-gal myself.  Nothing makes me happier than the warm, fuzzy, kind, encouraging words about something I've done right.  I've saved notes and letters from former teachers and now former administrators, parents, and students.  On the hard days, these words help fill up my deflated sai...

The night my beloved grandfather, Grandy, passed away, I slept on his couch in the den, alongside my mother.  My Grandma snored loudly next to his hospital bed in their bedroom, a bit of comic relief at such a tragic moment.  The hospice workers had told us he was "on his journey" and we knew he would not be with us much longer.  In the middle of the night, or early in the morning, Grandy breathed his last, my mother next to him, having had a sense he was going. When he was carried out by the undertakers, they advised us not to watch, and so my Grandy left what he proudly called his "little nest" for the very last time. I was 20 years old, a college student.  As I drove back home that morning, my head and heart filled with the words I knew I needed to say about my grandfather.  I walked in the door, sat at the computer, and typed.  I wrote his eulogy, hours after he passed away, and somehow later found the courage to stand up in the church and speak, th...