I Should Say Something Significant

I should say something significant at this juncture in my semester, with the hefty research papers all graded, the giddiness of the students yesterday as they attended the last class, their interchanges as they worked in their groups, and their class evaluations neatly stacked up on my desk, but mostly I'm just tired.  I carried some of their euphoria through the evening, but as Dave and I visited, the euphoria escaped from me like air out of a balloon, and after loading up their essay grades on the class website I took myself to bed.

I should say something significant, but mostly I just feel relief that it's over, done and all the things I have worried about happening this summer can rightfully take their places front and center, not obscured by deadlines and lesson prep and grading and the disruption of teaching an evening class, although after talking to Heather, I pretty much had a cakewalk compared to what she does in her 6 to 9:30 p.m. Biology class at her college.  My hat is off to her and to all the other community college professors, who metaphorically water two-acre fields with only a pitcher of water.  Truth be told, I think all educators (our name for ourselves) feel pretty much the same way, of having to do too much with ever-shrinking resources, both in time, money and personal reserves.

I should say something. . . but I'm pretty much out of words.

Happy Mother's Day!

Just for the record, we are a definite beater-licking family, as was the family in which I grew up.  Sometimes we were bowl-lickers, too, getting out the rubber spatula to scrape the sweet sticky batter off the bowl, a prelude to the cake rising in the hot oven.

On the strength of that memory, but not limited to that remembrance alone, I can say I was lucky to have a Good Mom.  Wangling seven children along the path of life can't have been easy, but she, with along with my father, got us all through kindergarten, then grade school, then Primary, Mutual, married (and sometimes re-married), and we all know how to write decent thank-you notes, although probably not all of us do. Yet, she still loves us all.

Thanks, Mom, for everything!