Along the Road to Home

I have found myself running the gamut of feelings in the past couple of weeks.  With so many things happening in life right now, I should not even be surprised.  It feels like we have been moving since last September, kind of like being in 72 hours of nonstop labor before you give birth to the most beautiful baby on earth. I lived in the same south central Kansas county for 57 years, teaching for only 2 school districts during the first 35 years of my career in education.  I didn't say farewell to many things back in those times, unless you could count the day I threw my favorite pair of sneakers into the dumpster because they had far surpassed reaching the age of retirement.  Life didn't change a whole lot back then for me. It does now. Since May of 2013, Mike and I have lived in both the mountains of southwestern Colorado and along the Red River here in Texas.  I have taught for a total of 4 school districts since that time.  I have met many wonderf...

I saw myself in the face of an elderly woman yesterday. On Monday we signed the papers on our new home, one that was purchased from the sweetest woman who had been its caretaker for over 60 years.  It's not all that often that a guy can do that, you know?  More often than not these days, folks buy homes and live there for awhile before moving on to something different and better.   But not that sweet woman and certainly not that special house. When the keys were handed over to us and we went our separate ways, I couldn't help but to think of my own mother who had found herself doing the same thing in the spring of 2003.  At nearly age 83, Mom had to make the decision to let her own home of more than 25 years be sold.  Living in a longterm care facility would be expensive, and she had to somehow find the necessary funds to pay for it all.  In sadness Mom agreed that it was for the best because she knew that no longer could she live alone. I wa...

Tiny cabin living will soon come to an end.  You know, it's not been the worst experience I have ever gone through in 63 years of living.  There have been plenty of ups and downs to it all.  I like to look at the last 30 days at the local KOA as a life lesson in gratitude, one that I shall forever remember.   The day after tomorrow on Saturday, we will start to load everything we brought here into the car.  Sunday afternoon when Mike gets off work we will head north to Newkirk to be there for the closing on the new house Monday morning.  Then it will be back to Burkburnett in the evening so we will be here for work and school on Tuesday.   We are learning to live our life together in stages right now.   It hasn't been easy, but it can be done. Mike and I are living proof of that. And although I do not consider myself to be a " material girl " in any way, there are surely some of my possessions that I have missed not having s...

I think of my mom so much these days even though she has been gone now for nearly 12 years.  I keep her picture along with one of my father on a shelf in our second grade classroom.  Every August as school begins, I introduce "my folks" to the kids that are under my care.  I tell my students that I keep their pictures there to remind me to always do my best and to honor the upbringing that I was given by 2 people who loved each other enough to have a little baby they named Peggy. I keep something else in my classroom to remind me of my mother, a soft black and white checked lap robe with a white tag in the corner announcing that once it belonged to a woman named Lois Scott. She was my mother. I found the lap robe this past summer as I was cleaning out my sister and brother-in-law's house in Altus.  Sherry had undoubtedly taken it home after Mom had passed away in September of 2007.  She had tucked it into a box and taped it shut, never to be opened unt...

The days of the first 3 weeks of tiny cabin living flew by, and now we are on the downhill slide as we enter the final 7 days here.  There were many lessons to be learned, among them the fact that neither Mike or I could really live like this forever.  I love the idea of living simply, but at this point in time we just need more space to spread out in than a 450 square foot tiny cabin provides. Maybe when we are older and have both retired it will become more appealing to us.  For now, we are most thankful to have had a solid roof over our heads, a bed to sleep in each night, and a safe place to wait out our time to finally settle in our new home in far northern Oklahoma. There have been several mini lessons we have been the recipients of.  One of them is being most careful each morning as we back out of our parking places in the predawn darkness when we head off to work and school.  A camping spot, one that might have been barren as we went to bed the night...