Life imitating art?

Dear Dazzy,

I am laughing out loud at this pix you drew of me on the whiteboard from my first classroom-#815-back in 2006. Mr Parker had come to visit, and we took this pix because HE wanted a copy of one of your goofy lil drawings of me-aren't I glad I took it now?

It was to warn the kids NOT to touch the fan/light switch, LOL

I think they got the hint!

Last year, they let me move rooms, and while it wasn't my original idea, I embraced it. I couldn't imagine walking in there every day, knowing how you helped me set it up; seeing you at the board drawing a kid or two during Career Day; or putting the kid books with your illustrations in them on my bookshelf-it was heartbreaking enough to come home to our house every night, let alone repeat that awful emptiness within the confines of work as well.

So now room #715 feels right; after a whole year in the meat locker-it's waaaaaaaaaaay too cold in there LOL-I know what works where and I have adjusted accordingly. I feel comfy in it, and I know I will have a good year here. I didn't cry when I came in this morning-even without flowers on my desk from you.
I didn't cry as soon as I got in the car after school-not like last year at all. There's progress, eh babe?

I was even amazingly fine when I came in the house after school.
Boomie and Rangie were champs today ( phew!) and nothing was wrecked, pooped in or vomited on. :P

It's those lil things that make me happy some days...

But tonight when Boomer and I went for our usual walkies-around 9 PM-it's dark by then and if I need to cry a bit I can, without people thinking I am a nutcase-there they were.

As Boomster and I turned the corner, the couple from way down the street were walking, water bottles in hand, same black shorts on, the both of them engaged in the animated chatter of two people who like each other, and I had a huge surge of heartache.

For me, for you, for us as a couple, for the twins without their only real Dad...:(

Like the kids at school say, it's not FAIR!

I can recognize that I am not as sad as I was this time last year-but I also know now that I will never be "cured" of my grief. I am not sure what's worse-knowing, at 16 months after your death that I will always have this unfillable black hole in my heart, or being only a few months away from your passing and thinking that, "...next year I'll be so much better..."

It's a question I wish on no one-no one. I won't dwell on it, though, and by tomorrow morning I will be past it. I know pretty much how this goes now.
It just sucks.


So, Dazzles, when I am teaching this year, I will again be thinking of you every time I see a kid touch the fan/light pull. I will remember the heady feeling of walking into my first classroom-knowing the challenge that it was bringing to me, but also knowing that you would be my biggest cheerleader no matter what happened in room 815.

I like to think that in some ways you still are cheering for me from the sidelines. I just wish- as I probably always will-that you were cheering for me here in the flesh, and not from the other side of life's veil. Here's to wishing.

Love you Dazzy. Always.
Kisses, Wifey.


P.S.

On a side note, Obama picked Biden as his running mate-sad that it's not Hills, but hey-and in reading about Biden's past, I found out he was widowed at the age of 30-his wife and daughter killed in a car wreck; his two sons hospitalized with severe injuries. He was a single parent for a while, raised his boys, held a job in government, grieved and mourned and went forward. I applaud him.

I would have voted for him just because he was part of the DEMS ticket-but now that I know he is one of "us," that secret society of people in different stages of mourning, trying to carry on with our shell of a life-well I KNOW he would be a great V.P; he has already, as we say, been bitten by bigger dogs-and nothing much should rifle him. We posses that fearlessness that some never can grasp.

Joe Biden is my new homeboy :)