A Family Affair
I missed my Sunday morning blog post. At the time I would normally be writing yesterday, my mother passed away. My sister and I were with her. We were bustling around getting ready for the day, talking to each other and Mom. She was snoring…a light, restful sound from a tiny body that hadn’t been very restful in life…and then she wasn’t. She just stopped breathing. But we were with her, and she wasn’t in pain, and my grieving (at least some of it) had been in gear for a while already, so it was sort of beautiful to be there. As with all major events in life and death, it made me reflective. I’ve thought a lot about my parents and the gifts they gave my sister and I, and of the gifts my sister has in turn given me.
My parents were educators, as is my sister, as was my paternal grandfather. That guy went through 9 years of school (everybody thought he was crazy as most people only went to school 6 years and then quit to work their farm full time), then to college (more craziness) to be a teacher. After teaching a few years, he decided he wanted to be a lawyer, but by that time he was married to my grandmother who firmly said no to paying more money for school, so he just studied for the bar on his own til he passed it. Yeah. Another time, to be sure, but still pretty impressive. He was a lawyer then a judge in a small county in west Texas until his sudden death in the 1950’s. My dad was a student at Texas Tech University and the county leaders called and asked him to take over his dad’s judgeship (again, another time when things like that actually happened). But my dad said no. When I asked him why???? He said, simply, “I really wanted to be a coach and a teacher.” And so he was.
His first coaching/teaching job was in a small town near Lubbock, Tx, and they really wanted him as an assistant football coach (my dad was a state-renowned football player in high school. In case you aren’t from Texas or are unaware, high school football is sort of a big deal in Texas. Especially in small towns), so they hired him before he was even done with school, and had him teach Science when his degree would actually be in Math, because that was the position that was vacant. By this time he and my mom were married, so he took the job, finished his degree, had my sister, then five years later had me, and a teaching/coaching career was launched. We left there in 1968. At my father’s funeral, my sister and I heard a million stories from the close to 500 people who attended the two days of celebrating my dad’s life. He never lived or taught in a town of more than 3,000 people (some places we lived had fewer than 1000 people), and many of the visitors were former students. A man was telling my sister and I a funny story about dad, then he concluded with, “Your dad changed my life.” To put this in perspective, the year was 2014 and he hadn’t actually seen my dad since he graduated from high school in 1968. Every story we heard ended the same way, “Your dad changed my life.”
When we moved my mom to an independent living complex a few months ago, some of the folks who visited her were people who were former students from 1963 to the year she retired. Mom didn’t finish her degree. Once married, she never went back, but each time my dad was offered a job, the school district hired my mom as an educational aide. So. My parents were always present at every school my sister and I attended. We got to witness how they navigated their careers, and to be honest, there wasn’t much of a line between work and home in our house. Our house was always full of assistant coaches, former students, football players, and kids who weren’t as lucky as my sister and I.
This is the legacy my folks left my sister and I. She’s an amazing educator as well and now travels the state of Texas training first year teachers not only how to do the job well, but how to love it and why it’s so vital. We grew up thinking teaching wasn’t necessarily a job, but a mission…a passion…a way to pay forward the opportunities afforded us at birth and to instill in learners a love of learning. Along the way, we understood that teaching students how to be kind, how to find help, and how to own their gifts was as important as teaching subject matter. We saw this as a living example in our home.
As we prepare to lay my mom to rest next to my dad, I’m looking forward to hearing all of the stories about her from former students. When I called a family friend to deliver the service, his wife (who was my son’s kindergarten teacher and who together with her hubby have five children who were also my students) said she could think of about ten stories off the top of her head and that she knew her sweet husband would have a few perfect ones to share. It’s going to be a celebration, I guarantee you.
What do teachers do? They change lives.
Enjoy your piping hot beverage this morning and remember how sweet this life is when we spend it in service of others. Cheers!
