I walked into our new homeschool co-op entrance with a little bit of trepidation. I was walking in as a regular mom … er, not even. I was walking in as a grandmother. I was not on the board or acting in any official capacity. For the first time in 9 years, I was just a regular member.
Last spring, I resigned from my position for many different reasons. It took me until mid-July to be fully happy with that decision.
First of all, Izzy is in the final stretch of her college career and is preparing to graduate in June. Even with accommodations, school is tough for someone with a different learning style. She took three academic classes over the summer and wrote four papers. They needed to be researched and edited. We spent many long hours working together on these. She passed every course. She got good grades on her essays. I would not have been able to plan my fall class at the co-op and easily help her too. It would have been very stressful. I was glad not to have to do any co-op lesson planning and I didn’t miss it.
This fall, she has a few more papers to write and conduct research on. At co-op, instead of planning the next lesson in my free time, I can help Izzy with her paper. I just feel more focused and free. I am helping my daughter, who really needs the help. I prefer this over plans for students who may or may not even care about what I’m teaching them.
She has one more big project to complete before Christmas break. We start working on that this week with the research phase. Next semester, she has nothing but art classes. I can’t help her with those. I am not nearly as talented as she is. Here is a recent work that she sold.
My second son has taken on a new job at a Michelin-starred restaurant in Miami. This time, as I understand it, he will be working mainly as a butcher. He took a course in California on how to make all of the different cuts of meat and he really enjoyed it. This job will give him more experience doing that.
My sister and I were reminiscing about a local butcher shop we visited when we were kids. The workers all wore white aprons and the meat was fresh and wrapped in clean white butcher paper and tied with a string. Sam’s cuts will be going directly to be cooked and served, but it’s so interesting to me that he is intrigued with this type of work. He did tell me that the really experienced butchers can cut a strip of beef or pork correctly by just eyeing the meat. They don’t have to do any special measuring or prep work. I look forward to hearing more about it.
Gabe has been working a third-shift maintenance job for over a year now. He just got word that when they get more staff, he can move to 1st shift. That is going to be so much better for his sleep schedule!
Sam and Gabe, and really the whole family, had a tragedy this fall. A good friend of the boys was killed in an auto accident in August. He didn’t die immediately. His strong heart and spirit kept him going for two more weeks, but eventually his body couldn’t compensate for the magnitude of his injuries. This young man, Andrew, had been friends with Sam, Gabe, and Kassi since high school. He was in Sam’s wedding and he had even been to our house a few times. I invited him to come to help us celebrate Gabe’s 30th birthday in July. He came and brought baklava, telling me that his mom always told him to never show up to a place empty handed. Then to know he was suffering so much was just gut-wrenching.
The saving grace in all of this has been Miss C., and all of her activities and just watching her grow up. Having a child/grandchild just forced us all to keep moving forward, even in grief, for her sake.
