Heather worked with me individually after the yoga class. We arranged for her to give me a private, piecemeal. Instead of meeting for a 90 minute private, we meet after classes when we can and work on one asana at a time. Today we worked on the opening breathing exercise. That’s it, and I got a ton of information to work with. I hope I can remember half the corrections she gave me.
After class, I first went to the UPS store to drop off the packing material that surrounded the new toilet when delivered, two large leaf and lawn bags filled with these large Styrofoam pads. I had forgotten to bring a roll of packing tape from the house to seal the large Priority package I was sending to Dorothy. They charged $5.00 for a small roll of tape that I could get at the post office for $2.00. I went to Long’s. I bought a large roll of tape for $9.00 and a Kind bar because I would be out until noon.
I managed to get everything for Dorothy into a large priority box. I got two phone calls while waiting in line. I never get two phone calls in such a short period.
The first call was from St. Michael’s. The accountant found a receipt crediting me with the $1500 contribution. The next question was how much I contributed from the cash people sent me in response to Mike’s death. I was told it was in the thousands, and all I got credited was $800. We’ll see how this works out. I also asked to speak to Brenda. I suggested that the church set up a microphone system at the Holy Rosary Church. The church is small, and there are always people standing outside the building. This way, they can hear the readings and the homily. I also asked what would happen if Mike’s grave was dug, and Damon, Cylin, and August couldn’t make it to Hawaii because of the threat of the coronavirus. I’m freaking out about everything. I have always been someone who thinks ahead, but over the past 40 years, these thoughts have not been accompanied by anxiety as they are now. Mike, despite his overwhelming anxiety, was a calming influence on me. Then I went to the bank to cash a check. The line was long, but it moved fast. I made it in plenty of time for my 10:30 PT appointment.
I’m losing it somewhat. This grief has blindsided me. I miss Mike like crazy now. I feel like something has landed on my heart and solar plexus, or something is pulling those two areas tight. A lot of it is just that I have to think about things that were his problem in our relationship. Money. He was the money man. He managed our investments. He also spent more than I did, but that was okay. He had accumulated something like twenty credit cards that I had to close out and cut up. The man was a hoarder, but he was my hoarder. I loved making him happy. Fortunately, I could afford this highflyer who ordered two new books a week and bought more tee-shirts, sweatshirts, and shorts wherever he went. Some highflyer, but it added up. Boy, did it ever. Now I have to get rid of it all. Clearing out the house was easier in the beginning.
After he died, I continued the blog saying, “ This will be my year of magical thinking.” Boy, was it ever. I don’t think it ever really got through to me that he was gone, gone, like permanently. The first anniversary of his collapse was four days ago. My year of denial is up. I don’t like it. I’ll take denial any day.
On that note, Mike’s towel fell on the floor. It was securely in place. There were no earthquakes, no one brushed by it, yanking it to the floor. How did it get there? Mike made a previous effort to communicate with me by doing a major shifting job on the free standing towel rack. That was in response to a dream I had where he told me he was leaving me because he fell in love with another woman. No rational bone in my body or mind would think that would be possible. This is not because he was so madly in love with me, although he was. It was because Mike would never, never, never have done such a thing. He might have left me because he was unhappy, but he would never be involved with another woman before the breakup.
It is possible to live with some and also feel alone. Mike and I had a period like that in our lives. When I am unhappy, I let people know. I talked to friends but didn’t think to reach out to Mike. It’s one thing when you’re fighting, but we weren’t fighting. We just weren’t laughing together. Something had died.
I came to a point where I had to think about leaving him. But I said to myself, “I have nowhere else to go, and he’s a really good person.” Miraculously, that dry spell ended shortly after that. At some point, I told Mike what I had been thinking. He said he had had the same thoughts, but he also thought he had nowhere else to go, and I was a really good person. The rest, thank God, is history. We were a wonderful, loving couple until his death. I was so lucky.
Katie, my PT, worked on getting me to relax the muscles around my left hip. Good luck! I stopped at a local plumbing supplies shop to see if I could pick up a bone colored toilet seat for my new toilet. The guy said he only had white toilet seats; if it needed a bone toilet seat, he would go to Lowes. I texted Scott with this information. He was going to Lowes and picked it up along with the seal.
Since I was right by Costco, I dropped in to pick up the large container of almond milk that wasn’t available the last time I was there. I also saw a package of frozen General Tsao’s chicken. I couldn’t resist.
I raced home. I made it just in time to throw on a dress and rush off to school. I got there a little after 1 pm; the school closed at 2 pm. And I was exhausted. R. in Mrs. D. approached me immediately, asking to work with me. She came out with a book. She was reading it so well. I asked her if she had read it before. She said no. She did a good job, except she had problems focusing. Drove me nuts! I was so tired, and I hadn’t had a chance to eat anything.
I worked with D. next. I had asked Mrs. D. to rate his behavior on a one through 10. She gave him a five because of some problem he got in trouble on the bus today; apparently, he got in a fight. However, his behavior in the class had been okay. I have to ask her to evaluate him only on his behavior in class. The original problem was his acting out so badly that it was difficult for her to teach the rest of the class. When I spoke to D, I asked if there was anything I could do for him. He said no. I told him if he needed me, I was there. Then I asked about how he was doing with his parents, he said a little better. It was clear that it wasn’t good. We’ll work on that next.
I worked with I. next in Mrs. B’s class. He did very well reading the first Carpenter story. He did the StoryJigSaw puzzle exercise on the story. I then flashed him the individual words out of context. He was able to recognize each one. He was distracted because he wanted to go back into the room to participate in some fun activity.
D. was happy to come out. He is doing a fantastic job reading what he does know, and he knows so much more. He has problems not recognizing when he doesn’t know a word and making inappropriate guesses. I am keeping score now. A mark for each word he guesses wildly versus a mark for each word he recognizes he doesn’t know. With this system in place, he is doing better. He is not wildly guessing as much as he has been.
Once he recognized that he didn’t know a word, I wrote it down; then, he identified the vowel letters. Then I asked him to tell me where to break the word up into syllables. He would tell me, and I would make the lines. Toward the end of the session, when I started this procedure with a new word, he snatched the pencil from my hand to do it himself. I was hoping he would do that. I find when students feel they can do work on their own, they will, even to the point of snatching a pencil out of the teacher’s hand. You go, boy.
I was wide awake now from the stimulation of teaching. To this day, I find teaching an exciting profession. I always learn something new, even if it’s just something unique about another human being. Frequently, I find out something new about the reading process, how the human mind works, and some new strategies for teaching something.
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