Back in Kansas as I was teaching in the elementary schools there, I always loved January. It was not for the ice, snow, and cold temperatures. That's for dang sure. Rather it was because the 29th day of the month would be the birthday of the great state of Kansas, "Kansas Day" as it is known there. It was always so much fun to be able to help my students understand more about the state where they lived. Children learn from early on there what the state symbols are, some of the very famous people that have been from Kansas, how to sing the state song, and where all of the places of interest are to pay a visit to. Kansas school children gain an appreciation for the "Sunflower State" in the days of their youth. Even if they grow up and move away, they still take with them the pride of knowing that no matter where they live in this great big world of ours, they still, deep inside of their hearts know one thing for sure.
"They are Kansans."
I'm one of those school kids who was educated all the way throughout my growing up years and beyond in Kansas. I attended grade school for a couple of years at Burrton and then finished up the rest of my grade school and high school years at Haven, just one county away. I got my "Associate of Arts" degree at Hutchinson Community College and my undergraduate degree at Sterling College. My "Master's" degree came from Wichita State University. All three of those institutes of higher learning are basically within one county's drive from each other. I learned early on to take pride in the state of my birth and to continue to hold it near and dear to me for all of my days. My home is no longer there but that does not mean I have forgotten about it, rather I have remembered Kansas all the more. I always have. I always will. I may now live in the Rocky Mountains but my life in the flatlands, out there on the prairie will forever be with me. My heart has stored them up and until I take my last breath, there they will be found.
The territory of Kansas became a state on January 29th, 1861. "Old Glory" would now have 34 stars upon it. 100 years later, on the centennial anniversary of the state, I would be a tiny first grade girl in the small community of Burrton, Kansas. I remember several things about first grade but one of the most memorable ones was getting to have a piece of Kansas' 100th birthday cake with all of my classmates. It was beautiful and I still have a faint memory of what it looked like and how it tasted. Twenty five years later I would be a teacher at a small elementary school in Yoder, Kansas teaching first and second graders who were predominantly Old Order Amish. I wanted to make a memory for them to store up in their hearts as well and one of the things we did that year was to celebrate the 125th birthday of their state with a cake just like the one I remembered. They might not have remembered every strategy I taught them about reading and math but my guess is that some of them remembered the fun times we had as we were learning. Eating birthday cake was just one of them.
I have thought so much about Kansas in the last year and half that I've lived along the Western Slopes. Even though I know that my life is here now in Colorado with Mike, I still think every day about the folks that I left behind when I came here to make my new home. When we went back to Reno County for 9 days in December, it was a bittersweet kind of visit. I loved every minute of it, the seeing of people and places. But when it came near the end and it was time to return to my new home in Colorado, I started to feel a tinge of sadness in my heart. For a brief moment in time I found myself dreading to come back here to a place that I now call home. My last visit there had been 6 months prior and upon my return I didn't realize just how much I had missed it. I felt like crying and so I did.
Mike grew up in a Navy family and they went to wherever his father was transferred. He's lived in some pretty exotic places in this world of ours, ones that I will never see in my lifetime. His family came back to live in Hutchinson, Kansas when he was a seventh grader and after he graduated from Haven High School six years later, he left to move to California where his father and step-mom Maggie were living. Mike's Kansas roots do not run deep at all, well at least not like mine do. He loved living near the water and now loves the mountains equally as well. Kansas is not that endearing to him and even though I used to not understand it, I have come to accept it.
The little ones in my first grade classroom at Olathe Elementary are a bit "geographically challenged" at present. They are much too young to have a good grasp on life beyond the confines of their homes, our school, or the road to their grandparents' house at Christmas. They are still little. They are children. Even though I know that, I'm still going to turn the month of January into a geography lesson for them about the state of my birth and of my heart. As I teach them the Kansas state symbols I plan to teach them the Colorado ones as well. It will be a great lesson in comparing and contrasting, one that I hope will stick with them for some time to come. I've set up a display of Kansas things in our classroom and since the sunroom here at home is decorated in sunflowers, it's a bit barren in there now. And on Thursday, January the 29th, they will partake in a birthday cake just like their teacher did when she was their age. It will be a day of celebration in order that we might say "Happy 154th Birthday Kansas!"
I shed a lot of tears during the first 3 months that I lived here in southwestern Colorado. They came without warning and at the craziest of circumstances. I was so homesick and lonely for a place that I foolishly felt I had forsaken. The donuts at City Market on Townsend would put me in mind of the donuts back home at the 5th Street Dillons in Hutchinson and I'd get a huge lump in my throat. It took me forever to unpack all of the boxes I had brought in my move here because they reminded me of the home I left back on 14th Street. Tears would come at the least unexpected moments and I knew I was in trouble when the mountains all around me seemed to close me in and suffocate me. It was as if they were sending me a subliminal message, one that said I could never go home again.
Little by little things began to change. When I was sad or upset, I'd talk to Mike and he would assure me that it would get better. I was thankful that he would never get tired of my complaining and whining about being homesick. He told me that as time went on it would seem more like home. I didn't really believe him of course, well at least not at first. But I have found over the course of the last 18 months that he was right all along. His wisdom came to pass. Mike and I owe a debt of gratitude and thanks to the good people at Olathe Elementary who came along at just the right moment and perhaps, without a moment to spare. They provided the anchor for me, without even knowing it, that allowed me to finally begin to feel as if I had a place here. To those people, the Renfro Family is always going to be beholden.
It's still dark outside here and for good reason. It's 5:30 in the a.m. and time to get the day started. I'm heading over to school this morning to make sense of the mess I left behind in my classroom and get things ready to begin the new week in just a couple of days more now. It was good to have a break but it's even better to return. It's strange as I think of it but my life has not turned out in any manner like I thought it would. Me, live in Colorado? Never gonna happen. The God who created me, who made me in mind that I would be called "teacher", had other plans. In faith, I continue to follow.
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