Wow! My last post was on Tuesday, February 18, 2020. What a lifetime ago that was. So much has happened in 15 months. Where do I begin?
Let's start with the obvious, we had a global pandemic! I am a preschool teacher in a public elementary school. We went on spring break on March 13, 2020. The governor of the state of Kansas said that we will not have school the week of March 16th while we figure out what the pandemic means for public schools. In just a couple of days, she cancelled school for the rest of the 2019-2020 school year. WHAT? We were all in shock and not sure what was going to happen. We quickly learned about Zoom, Google Classroom, Google Meets and many other things. We jumped in the deep end without a lifejacket and took off swimming. It was incredible the way the Chase County Unified School District pulled this off. We have a great staff. The entire country pulled together and did what we could for the children. All the while, the medical personnel all across America were pushed to the limit. What amazing people they all showed us that they are. So many people's lives were changed in an instant. Most people definitely rose to the occasion.
A lot of worries come with a pandemic. My husband is an EMT for our small community ambulance service. My son is a paramedic for a nearby larger community. Both came in contact with the virus at different points. I am a worrier, so I worried. One of my daughters suddenly had 3 middle school and high school age children at home to educate. Wow! What a job! Guess what I did! I worried. My other daughter worked as a Food and Beverage Manager at a Convention Center/Hotel in Kansas City. Her field was one of the first and hardest hurt in the job market. She quickly lost her good job with a large corporation. Because she is one that does not sit around well, she quickly took a job with Target as one of the online shoppers that filled orders. This was a fraction of what she was making. In fact, she would have made more on unemployment, but she knew the right thing to do was work if you can find a job. This job involved a lot of walking on concrete floors. She ended up with stress fractures in both of her feet. She decided she needed to find a desk job and get off of her feet some. She went to work for the Johnson County DMV and was able to let her feet heal. Guess again what I did during all of this! I worried about her. Is she making enough with these lower paying jobs? Will her feet heal?
Now, we get to June of 2020. My mother had gone through treatment for cancer and was doing better before the pandemic. They had to close the Senior Center in our town. That was a very sad thing to have happen. My mother enjoyed visiting with the staff and clients at the Senior Center. She, like so many others, pretty much stayed home during this time. She started getting sick in June. She had a couple of stays in the hospital. We finally learned that her cancer had come back. I brought her to my home from the hospital on a Friday. She passed away a little more than a week later. My heart was broken.
In July and August, I was on a committee that worked on the plans to reopen the schools in August. There were lots of decisions and plans to be discussed. The committee came up with a great plan that kept students in our district in the school buildings for the 2020-21 school year.
September gets here and we find out that my father-in-laws leukemia came back. He passed away on September 24. It is a hard enough situation under normal circumstances, but once again, we had to plan a funeral during a pandemic.
The next couple of months were spent lining things out for my mother-in-law. They had been living in an assisted living home. We had her moved to a new apartment in the facilities. She was starting to meet some people and adjusting to life without Jim. Her health then took a turn for the worse and she got COVID. She passed away November 23. At this time, the pandemic restrictions were tighter. We found ourselves planning another funeral during the pandemic.
As we were getting ready to leave for Loretta's service, I received a phone call from one of my cousins letting me know that my mother's sister passed away. This was a very sad phone call to receive. My husband also lost his dad's sister at this time. We were able to attend the service for my aunt, but not the one for my husband's aunt.
I was feeling very shell shocked at this point. I have been eligible to retire for a couple of years now. This really was something I was thinking I wanted to do. I did not want to make the decision while I was physically and emotionally exhausted. I decided to think about it some more during Christmas break. It became very clear that it was time for me to retire during break. I felt very much at peace with this decision. The first day back from break, I handed the principal my retirement notice. What a weight was lifted! My "official" retirement date is June 1, 2021.
I started to feel relaxed and very much looking forward to spending time doing things I wanted to do. Things like traveling, crafting and spoiling my grandkids. The next bomb decided to drop around spring break. My son and his wife found out that the baby she was carrying had some complications. A lot of possibilities were discussed, some of them were very scary possibilities. You know what I did, I worried. This time I also prayed more than I ever have in my life. I asked everyone I saw to pray, and they did! When Ella was born on April 14, there were complications, but not the super scary ones. They are ones that we can deal with. This experience has brought me closer to my friends. They really picked me up when I thought I could not handle one more thing. They encouraged and supported me and most importantly, they prayed! I think every church in my small community had my son, daughter-in-law and granddaughter on their prayer list. The candles at my church were all lit during this time. There were a couple of times I traded out the burnt out candles for new ones. I am sure that a lot of those candles were burning for my granddaughter.
God is good!!!! I have told my son many times that God knows what he is doing giving Ella to him and his wife. Kayla is an RN and Matt is a paramedic. They can and will handle taking care of a tracheostomy and all of Ella's other medical needs. I will learn how to feed her through her feeding tube and even take care of the trach if I would need to.
God is good!!!! Through this time, I have been able to keep my grandson overnight a lot. I have enjoyed this a lot!!! I am so happy that he is completely okay with staying at Memaw's and Papa's. I am so thrilled that I was able to take him to Kansas City to meet his little sister. It was an awesome experience. His sweet little 2 year old voice telling his little sister that he loved her was the best! He won't be able to see Ella again for another 30 days, so he will have some sad times. He was thrilled to meet her yesterday.
God is good!!! This whole experience has made me appreciate my family and friends so much more. People are great! I love each and every one of you that has been there for Ella, Matt, Kayla, Ollie and the rest of us. God is listening to our prayers, so please keep them up!
So this very long post to tell you that it has been the hardest 15 months of my entire life. But I am getting through it with a little help from my friends and God. My plans for retirement were always to blog about crafting. So here goes... I am going to start my retirement plans and get back to blogging about crafting.
Love you all and hope you enjoy this blog...
