Sunday, September 5, 2021

 TERRY

As I sit down to write it is 8:30 AM and my Terry is still sleeping.  Lately she has been sleeping a bit longer in the morning.  She is doing the same as in the past many days.  She seems in good spirits BUT I would say she is slowly losing some of her strength.  Well if one spends 24/7 in bed of course that is going to happen.  She does not seem to have any interest in  being up a around with the walker but is content to be in bed and watch TV.

Wow here we are in the middle of Labor Day Weekend.  I think back at Labor Day Weekends of the past and for many many years it was the LAST days of summer play/work before school started.  It seems impossible that the last weekend like this when I was looking towards school on Tuesday is 14 years ago.  I remember it as if it were yesterday.

SEPTEMBER 3RD, 2006

It was a Sunday and the end of summer.  As I climbed out of bed and tried to be quiet as I descended the stairs so as not to wake Gail, I had much on my mind.  Gail had been battling breast cancer for two years now and she was feeling pretty good but still had weakness and tiredness from all the treatments that she had gone through.  I put the hot water on for my French Press and sat down at the dining room table with the Bible open to Pslams 23 which had become my "go to" verse for some time now and I slowly read through it a few times.  "Yes, though I walk through the (deep, sunless) valley the shadow of death, I will fear or dread no evil, for You are with me.  I stalled on those lines and read them several times.  I then said "Really Lord, if I am to have no fear or dread of evil(death) you need to give me more strength. "

As I closed the Bible and poured my first cup of FP I collapsed on the couch with a million thoughts going through my mind.  Gail had been doctoring for over two years now.  She had a year long stretch of weekly treatments, she had experienced MANY X-Rays, she had taken cup fulls of pills and more.  She had experienced a treatment that put her in bed for two days and then she said "not one more of those!"  And here we were doing one day at a time and I had school in two days.  I had looked very closely at my school records and knew that I could retire at the end of the year with full retirement benefits.  Given, one or two more years after this year would give us a greater $$ monthly income BUT I knew that was not worth it.  

So on Sunday, September 3rd of 2006 I planned out my final year of teaching.  My career had started way way back in 1969 and now it would end in 2007 thirty eight years later.  I had enjoyed my teaching years up to the last two.  We had gotten a new supervisor and she was not kind to me in terms of schedule.  So for the last two years I had worked part time at Highland Park and part time going to different schools which I did not like.  BUT now in 2006/2007 I was back full time at Highland Park but because of student population my co-worker and I had to share one room.  I will put it this way.  We got along as long as we could avoid conflicts which mostly happened but not always!  

On Monday, Labor Day, I knew they were going to have the school open so I went in early in the morning to set things up for Tuesday.  One thing I did which kind of saved me was I made a calendar of the entire school year and had the days numbered down to 0 which meant I had that many days left of work!  I returned home by noon and Gail and I took a picnic lunch down to the river to have a fun outdoor time together.  

I did not share with my fellow teachers that this was my last year.  BUT as the days and months went by it became very clear that it was time to cash in and leave education.  Things had already started out on the wrong foot.  Our supervisor had scheduled an all day workshop for teachers of the deaf and it was to take place in downtown St. Paul.  It was the very same day that we had open house at our school and by going to the workshop it would leave us NO time to prepare to meet parents so I skipped the workshop.  I found out in no uncertain terms that I was no popular!!!  

Another thing that happened that made me NO friends was time off.  Each year a teacher would get 10 days of sick leave.  I had not used many of them so I had like 170 days of sick leave coming.  Well when you retire you can get paid $100 a day for up to 150 unused sick days.  So I had to make a decision was I going to give the district 20 free days or was I going to use them?  The way the last year started out I was determined that the school was not going to get the 20 free days so starting in October I planned a schedule out for the rest of the year so that when the last day of school came I would pretty much have 150 sick days coming.  Well it is not really right for the kids to take that many days off so I did end up with 154 days of sick leave.  Back then and perhaps even today one just needed too call in sick the night before and they would get a sub.  Anyway the story behind that is not all that interesting.  

So to condense the story June 2007 came and the last day of having students was Wednesday, June 13th.  Then teachers had two days, Thursday and Friday to have meetings etc and finally wrap up the school year on Friday, June 15th.  I had shared with my fellow workers about June 1st that I was retiring so they knew.  There was a party for me in the library on the 14th.  The interesting part was the gal I worked with in the same room claimed she had something to do and did not come!  Anyway Friday came, my last day and things were pretty much wrapped up.  I was sure that most teachers would be out of the building before noon.  We got an announcement over the PA about 8:30 that there was a meeting for all teachers in the typing room at 9:00.  At about 8:55 the two interpreters and my fellow teacher said they were going to the meeting.  I said I had a short thing I had to do first.  One of the interpreters looked at me and with a smile said, "Have a good retirement!"  At 9:15 I walked out the door to a new life.  Thirty-eight years of teaching came to an end and little did I know what was ahead.  I did know that Gail and I had a BIG trip planned for the fall and we did that.  We packed the pickup and left for a 7 week five thousand mile trip up into Canada but that was after our new adventure of working at the State Fair.

I know that was long and I am guessing IF anyone starting reading it they did not finish because of the length.  Our trip was wonderful.  When we arrived home in late October we took Henry and Liam camping for two days and that was a hoot!  We then settled in for retirement.  We finished the shakes on the upper part of the house and then went on a three week trip to Hawaii with two couples.  BUT times were about to change. Over the next year Gail needed to go in for more tests and yes the cancer had returned and her days were numbered.  Another time perhaps.