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Season of Grief - Is this "A Thing"?


Clematis

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It does...and somehow I've reached 13 years and it no longer feels like yesterday but a whole lifetime ago...to the point I wonder if we really had that life.  Sometimes I feel like I made it up, like I'm crazy, like this whole grief thing is gaslighting me.  Very weird to explain. 

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  • 2 weeks later...

It's a year later and I think it is most definitely a "season of grief". Today is my father's birthday, and three years ago on this date...well exactly two months later he would be dead. We didn't exactly know that, but I was scared. Things seemed to definitely be going downhill. But then again, there had been so many times before when things had gone downhill and then he had improved almost to where he had been before. Down five steps and then back up four steps. Surely it could happen again. But it didn't. He was getting too tired of struggling to keep trying. I kept hoping and urging him to try to...try to do what I don't know. We were at the end and now I am going it alone without his companionship and backup. I so wish I had those ten years to do over. Not that I'd do anything differently. What more could I do? Enjoy the time more? I did enjoy the time I had and I treated it like it could be the end. I honestly can't say I would do anything differently. I just wish he was still here with me. Every day...

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I know, I enjoyed my time with George to the fullest too.  Nothing to do over, just wish we could have had it longer.  When he was on his deathbed (his final heart attack) I cried out, "Hang in there, George!"  He shook his head no.  I cried it out again, again he shook his head no.  That's when they threw me out and locked the door.  The pain was too great, he had to let go.  I understand that.  I wish I could have told him it was okay, but I didn't get to.  It was evolving so fast, I didn't have time to assimilate it and then we were apart.

I'm sure it was hard for you to not have him with you on your birthday.  My dad's birthday is always hard for me, so is George's.  With my mom it's different, she lived to be 92, she had stage 4 dementia and Leukemia, I didn't want to keep her here, it was her time.  I felt different with the others.  I still miss her, a lot, but it was her time.  I felt George went way too young (51) and my dad too (62).  I felt gypped with them.  No time is a good time for them to die.

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  • 2 weeks later...
On 11/15/2018 at 6:06 AM, kayc said:

No time is a good time for them to die.

I sure wish he were here. He was so supportive and I surely need it. I feel totally surrounded by people who see me as a big target. I have people in Oregon making up stuff about me even though I have barely begun to work there. The online company just notified me that one district doesn't want me to work there due to "concerns" about my professional judgment and decision making. Three incidents...one was that a woman with severe ADHD was assigned to be a proctor for my testing. We tested for three hours in one day, split into two sessions with the second after an assembly and lunch. She reported that I had tested this student for seven hours in one day, which would be very inappropriate for the student. Due to her ADHD she may have found three hours of proctoring an evaluation to be torturous, but three hours is not seven hours, even if the proctor did feel she lost her whole day. The other two things were similarly distorted. One was asking the primary support person something she did not know - and she didn't know who would know the answer. The third was about a student who has been in Special Ed for seven years and has never been tested. I suggested testing her, but when they resisted I told them I would go along with whatever they wanted me to do. I had basically suggested that it would be good to at least consider following federal law. 

So if someone makes up something about me or grossly distorts the truth, that means my professional judgment is impaired? This company told me that they hoped this would be an isolated incident but if there were any more reports of problems with my professional judgment, I would be out the door altogether. How do I keep people from making stuff up? I think it is out of my control.

And the SpEd secretary in Winslow is upset with me because I have asked that they please let me know in an email if they have some work for me (a student to evaluate) before I take a drive that is 1-1/2 hours each way to find this out. They also figure that it is ok to not tell me if I have a student to evaluate in the morning if I am going out there in the afternoon for a meeting. So if I have a meeting at 3:00 in the afternoon and drive out there at 8:00 or 8:30 in the morning, and there is nothing for me to do all day, that has me sitting in my car of hanging out at Wall-Mart for six or seven hours, that is ok with them. I think that's no way to treat anyone. 

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Wow, that's total noncooperation and inconsideration!  I spent five years volunteering in the school...enough to know that is not where I wanted to work!  There was too much nepotism.  It wasn't based on who did the best job, but who sucked up to who, who you knew, were related to.  No thanks!  I'm sorry you have all this going on.

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On 11/28/2018 at 6:14 AM, kayc said:

Wow, that's total noncooperation and inconsideration!  I spent five years volunteering in the school...enough to know that is not where I wanted to work!  There was too much nepotism.  It wasn't based on who did the best job, but who sucked up to who, who you knew, were related to.  No thanks!  I'm sorry you have all this going on.

The district in Oregon picked the wrong person and she was miserable with having to stay in a small room proctoring an evaluation, and she also doesn't know what she is doing. Yet. Not my fault. As to talking to various staff about whether a SpEd student should be tested, well by law it is a team decision and involves discussion. The school psychologist is an essential part of that discussion. But this is the district that had one school psychologist for five counties for years and are trying to get up to speed. I think they have a way to go...

The other district in Oregon loves me and everything about me. That is pretty great. I love them too...they are the district with the cheese I happen to love. And ice cream...

Meanwhile I am stating busy learning Hebrew. And trope - that is pretty exciting!

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Bandon Cheese?  Or Tillamook?  :D  I hope the bad school district isn't Beaverton, that's where my little sister is.  She can't wait to retire!  She likes her work, it's all the other stuff...

Good luck with the Hebrew!

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Yay Tillamook! Go Cheesemakers! I don't know anything about Bandon but I love Tillamook Swiss, and their ice cream is fantastic. The people at the school have been nice to me as well.

I can't wait to retire too, but not because of the cheesemakers. 

Today was a wreck of a day...there was a shooting in Winslow while I was there...a guy shot someone in the head. The victim was airlifted to the hospital in Flagstaff, while the shooter was at large for a while. They put all the schools on a lockout or "soft lockdown" for over four hours, so people inside the schools could have a relatively normal day, but no one could enter or leave the schools. Eventually the shooter barricaded himself inside a house with a hostage a few blocks away school where I happened to be at the onset and for the duration. I didn't realize until hours after it was all over that my neck and back was a mass of tension from the ordeal. It was really awful to be so close to something like this going on. And Winslow is a very small town. Teachers in the school knew these people. We all thought this might end with multiple people dead and when I left town the word was the mother of the shooter was sitting at a picnic table with some friends as close to the house there the standoff was as the police would allow her. I'm sure she was terrified that her son would not survive the day, but I just learned the police were able to end the standoff without any further bloodshed.

I am sure glad to be home with my kitty...

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OMG, Laura, that must have been so scary!  I didn't even hear about it!  But I don't get a newspaper anymore, I watch the local news and also read it on line.

It must have been frightening to not only the family of the shooter, but the family of the victim, I hope the person recovers fully but with a head wound, that doesn't sound good.  

I bet you ARE glad to be home, safe and sound!

If you ever get a chance to tour the cheese factories, it's fun.  I haven't been to the Tillamook one, but have the one in Bandon and also one in Boise.  And they give samples!

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