Lessons Learned

A crisp November wind frosted the single pane window as a recently single mom sipped her coffee in a drafty Main Street apartment.   Sleeping peacefully snuggled in the warmth of layered blankets,  her three children were joyfully dreaming.  A tear dripped on her cheek as she sipped her coffee on Thanksgiving morning. She bravely struck out on her own with her caring arms wrapped around her two daughters and a son.   A mother was making a life for herself and her children.  Waiting on the corner every morning for her ride,  she started working a demanding factory job to be the sole provider for her family.   Tired and sore after long grueling days,  she would smile and love her children.   Her burdens and worries hidden from the three happily playing kids who basked in the sunshine of motherly love. A few more tears, dripped down her cheeks as her children started to stir in their beds on Thanksgiving morning....

My friend Hazel lived to be 99 years old. She taught in a one-room schoolhouse before getting married and raising a family including my friend Doyt.   During my last visit with Hazel, she said people need to spend more time with children because it makes them wiser.   I thought she meant adults make children wiser. I was wrong. A tender little boy taught me a lesson today and somewhere out there in the great beyond my friend Hazel is smiling. The little boy is six years old with special learning needs and a gifted heart.  He is the son of immigrants. We celebrated Veterans Day at school today.  Our ceremony ends with the playing of Taps and a moment of silence. 500 students leave the gymnasium in absolute silence in honor of men and woman who are no longer with us. Taps is played.  I state to the students that we will have a moment of silence.  As I am counting the moment of silence, I could hear the soft voice of a child whimpering....

Today,  I took a walk through the woods to track down migratory ducks.   I was alone and not a person to be seen which made the day perfect.  No agendas, no deadlines, and not a problem to be solved. Just a simple walk in the woods. I started smiling.  There is a calm that finds me in the woods.  My constantly churning mind slows down and my stressors wash a way like a fallen leaf in a babbling brook.  All my senses merge into one as I interpreted the splendor of nature. I smiled as  I thought about my first memories of just walking through the woods with my Dad in the Ashtabula River glacier cut gulf.  We stopped drank hot chocolate and ate a peanut butter and jelly sandwich.  I dropped my sandwich and watch it float away in the clear stream.   Many dads would have chewed on their son for being careless.  My dad simply lovingly spilt his sandwich with me. Fifty years of cool fall days have come and gone since my ...