June.
30 days of it came and 30 days of it went.
In the blink of an eye, those precious first moments of summer are now gone and with the last remaining hours of this, the very last day of the month we can only sit back and wonder how the time flew by so fast.
The answer is probably quite simple.
They call it Life.
We returned to the heat and humidity of the Texas prairie summer early this morning after spending 5 wonderfully cool days in the Pacific Northwest. It's a place where water falls aplenty and flowers grow like crazy. We saw some of the most beautiful ones this time and every where we went, our cameras were out recording images of floriculture that one can only imagine. The sights were breathtaking.
These gorgeous flowers caught my eye immediately because of their brilliant hues of orange, purple, and pink with a sprinkling of emerald green leaves mixed in. They do well in the Puget Sound evidently. The purple ones were my favorite. I could have looked at them forever.
This unusual tree is called a Monkey Puzzle. The picture doesn't really do it justice. We walked past it each day as we explored the area around our hotel. I thought it was quite unique.
These unusual flowers were perhaps my favorite ones. We never did learn the name of them, flowers that at first glance appear to have been spray painted in their color. They probably won't do well on the plains of Texas, but if they did I would surely try planting them.
Over and over, Mike and I remarked about how different life is between the two places and that difference is shown in many ways. Boats in the harbor, the rising and falling tide, a ferry that shuttles folks between the islands and the mainland, and tourists galore give belief to the fact that not only were we not in Kansas anymore, we weren't in Texas either.
Now we are back and the rest of the summer awaits us here. Before I know it, the first school bell will ring and life will continue on. It's always a joy to see something new but an even better joy to return home when it is all over.
It's a gift to see this great world of ours.
It's an even greater gift to find home.
This was perhaps my favorite picture of all those that I took. I loved the colors of the ships and if I were to give this photo a name, I think I would call it America.
On Monday, I thought we would never make it to Friday. The days seemed long and sad, full of waiting and waiting for the next thing to happen. Late last evening, I returned home to Texas from my sister's burial back home in Haven, Kansas. I was tired and ready for sleep and now I have awoken with a day that is flying by.
But at least we finally made it to Friday.
Today is the first day of trying to return back to normal once again and it's been awhile so I am not really sure what that state of normalcy really was like. Yet it will come to me and all the others affected by the loss of someone we all loved very much.
I took comfort in what the preacher said at Sherry's funeral on Wednesday when he told us that Sherry was so much better off than we were that morning. He reminded us that if she is absent from the body then that means her spirit is with the Lord. I'm a believer and so it makes sense to me. No more suffering or yards upon yards of oxygen tubing will be with her. She will never cry out in pain or sorrow again. Hey, no more medicine, breathing treatments, or trips to the hospital will be hers. She is whole once more.
That is comforting to know and I take much solace in it.
So it's time for those still living to continue on and that's what I intend to do. There are plenty of reminders about her time among us and some of those make me a bit sad right now. It will be a long time before I ever order a veggie sandwich from the local sandwich shop without thinking of her and the times that we shared one together for lunch. When her songs come on the radio, I will always remember my sister. Yet even in the sadness of seeing or hearing things that were familiar about her, at least they are reminders that once Sherry did live. Her life was important and it mattered.
At the graveside yesterday, we laid her to rest surrounded by wheat fields and Amish farms that dot the countryside between Haven and Yoder, Kansas. A nice Kansas south wind blew and the sounds of traffic moving along on K-96 between Hutchinson and Wichita almost seemed like a farewell song to her. She was really blessed, even in death, to have been driven there by one of her good friends and a former teacher with her at Roosevelt for many years. Bobby said it was his honor to bring her casket to the cemetery and you could tell by the look on his face that he meant it most sincerely. Not everyone has the chance to have a true friend bring them to their final resting place.
Sherry did.
Psalm 46:10 was one of her favorites and in it we hear the admonition,
"Be still and know that I am God."
Sounds like good advice for us all today.
Be still.
Sherry's daughters, granddaughters, and sisters posed for this photo before the funeral yesterday. We are her living legacy.
Carrie and Esther Beltz were two "old maid" schoolteachers from back home in Haven, Kansas. They taught there for many years, nearly as long as my sister Sherry and I have been teachers together. One of them taught first grade while the other taught second grade. They left a wonderful legacy for others to follow and to reap the benefits from. They were special ladies who stuck together as sisters and best friends. I loved them both.
A couple of days before Sherry passed away, she said to me~
"Peggy, do you think we will end up being just like the Beltz sisters?
I laughed and told her that I wasn't sure about that. Those ladies left some pretty big shoes to fill and to follow in their footsteps might be a little tough. I told her that time will tell.
Today is June 21, 2017 and the day for Sherry's funeral. After the services are over, we will all head north to Kansas and the little town called Haven. It will be time to take Sherry's earthly remains back to the place that we will forever call our hometown. We pray for safe travels for all of us, both in the going and the coming back home tomorrow evening. It will be good to have this part of the sorrow taken care of. The days ahead will be ones of healing and moving on with life. It's definitely what she would have wanted everyone to do.
God bless each of you for helping us through this time of grief. Thank you for your prayers, hugs, and warm heartfelt thoughts. We will always be grateful and remembering of you all.
We were just two Kansas farm kids, sisters who grew up to be teachers. In the years to come, long after both of us are gone, someone may say, "Hey, they were just like the Beltz sisters, you know?" What an honor that would truly be!
It's hard to believe that the month of June is well over half complete. Seems like yesterday that I was saying my good-byes to the third grade kids at Big Pasture and wishing for them a wonderful and happy summer vacation. Time flies and this thing called "life" speeds right along with it, hand in hand.
Unlike the human heart, it never misses a beat.
I spent the first couple of weeks of summer vacation visiting my sister Sherry in the hospital in Wichita Falls. It was good that she could be so close by and I quickly learned how to get down there from our home here along the Red River in record time. I got to go there every day for nearly 3 weeks and now that I look back at it, I realize what a precious gift it really was to me. Come to think of it, I imagine that it was a precious gift to her as well. All it cost was a little bit of gas money and some time and really, who cannot find that?
Now she is gone and once her funeral and burial take place later on this week, it will be time to return to that thing called life. Although it will never be the same, and it was never meant to be anyways, things have to continue on. I've always maintained the truth in the age old saying, "you do not honor the dead by dying with them". (I wish I knew the origin of that quote but it's important to me to remember.)
I have poured through the many pictures that we took together, not only in years past but in the recent two years that we've lived so close by one another, and have taken much solace in them. Every time we saw one another, I told her that we should take our picture. The strange thing was that she never refused to do so. Sometimes she would ask to wait a moment to remove her oxygen tubing or to put her walker to the side. Once in a while, I would straighten her hair just like she would do for me. I'm not sure how that all started but maybe the good Lord was telling me to be prepared and that perhaps Sherry's departure from this earth would come quicker than I would realize.
And so we did.
I think if I had to pick a favorite one, and it's really a tough call to do that, I'd have to choose the one shown below.
We took this a couple of years back in October of 2015 on our way back home to Kansas. I was readying my house back in Hutchinson for sale, and Sherry went with me back there half a dozen times to help me with the process. Only Sherry and I would understand this, but she was the "snack girl" and the "coin person" for that 5 hour trip up and down I-35. This picture is actually photo number one out of a gazillion that we took that time. Neither of us could stop laughing long enough to take the picture. One of us would say that we didn't look quite right, so I would take it again and again. I'm sure the people sitting next to us in the parking lot of the gas station at Guthrie, Oklahoma must have thought were were crazy. Maybe we were but if I should choose to act crazy, I cannot think of a person I'd rather do it with than Sherry.
When someone dies, those who remain behind have to learn the process of going on and for me I hope the process comes easier than it feels like it will today. Right now it kind of sucks and I suppose that for a while it will. Sherry would be the very first person to remind me that this summer of 2017, one that has begun in such a mournful way, will not last forever and that sooner than I realize, August will roll around and another year of school will begin. For me it will be my 40th year in the classroom, a goal I have long striven to attain. There is a sweet class of children who don't even know their teacher yet just up the road aways at Grandfield, Oklahoma. They will need me and the truth of the matter is this.
More than they can imagine, I will need them too.
This was the last picture we took together when she came home from the hospital in early June.
I always knew that some day I would have to write this blogpost. I just didn't figure it would happen today. One of the things that I have found to be true about writing is that the process of pouring out your heart is very therapeutic and healing. My heart hurts today and maybe, just maybe, the words I write will make the difference.
Who knows?
It's worth a try.
My sister Sherry passed away late last evening. I saw her yesterday afternoon and realized that the time was coming quickly. It was too quickly for my liking but realistically I knew that it was for the best. The pain and suffering of living with end stage COPD is a tough and bitter pill to swallow. Her health of the last month or so was steadily going downhill. Sherry's journey down that "slippery slope" was at the critical mass stage. Looking back now, perhaps there was only one way to describe it all.
Inevitable.
I sit here today at the kitchen table typing out these words to try and tell you how I feel. But it's not easy, at least not like I thought it would be. I've lost plenty of friends and family members before in my life. Shoot, I lost my mother and my brother only 6 weeks apart back in 2007 and even though it hurt, it still doesn't feel like this. Perhaps it is because it seems like a part of me inside has gone with her and there's a gap that I'm going to have to fill and that will happen I am sure.
It will take some time.
I have often said that I learned everything I needed to know about how to be an exemplary teacher simply by watching Sherry all these years. I will forever stand by those words. She was my mentor, the one person I could go to when I was challenged with something within my own classroom and I'd ask her what she thought I could try to do. She always had a good answer, generally speaking one of just simple common sense. Even after she retired back in 2010, Sherry remained always a teacher and she enjoyed so much hearing about what was going on in my own classroom. Over the past few years she helped me out with school supplies, snacks for the kids, books and materials of her own, and a listening ear at the end of a long day of school.
You know what? I will miss that.
Even though I knew what kind of a teacher she was, it has been so heartwarming in the past few days to see firsthand the "fruits of her labor" with the visit of a former fourth grade student of hers. That young man drove all the way from Tulsa to the southwestern corner of the state of Oklahoma to say his thanks and good-bye to Sherry. I have never witnessed in my life so tender a moment such as it was. When he arrived, they didn't even have to say a word. Their actions said it all. Bittersweet tears streaked both of their faces. Each of them held the other's hand and their eyes never left one another. Their hearts did all the talking and it was a memory that forever I will keep in my own heart. He wrote a letter to her that I will share at her funeral services next week, a reminder to me of just how powerful and mighty the influence of a good teacher can have upon a student.
Her being gone is going to take a while to get used to. More than likely it will be a long while. In one of her last afternoons of being able to visit with me, I told her one simple thing. My words were short and sweet, bringing a smile to her face.
"Sherry, for whatever days are left for me in the classroom, I will teach every one of them with you in my heart."
And I will.
We were just two Kansas farm girls who grew up to be teachers and truly best friends.
(April 2010 back home in Kansas at Avenue A Elementary School in Hutchinson. We both retired that year. Within a few months, we were both back in new classrooms again.)
It's kind of strange how life turns out, you know?
Teachers seem to run in our family. Take a look at these two ladies. That's what they are.
Teachers.
My sister Sherry and I stopped to pose for the picture shown above in April of 2010. It was taken outside my classroom at Avenue A Elementary back home in Hutchinson, Kansas. Sherry and Wes had been back home for a visit during spring break for Sherry. It was a special year for the both of us. We had both decided to retire as soon as the school year was over. So we began the custom of taking pictures with one another. It's a tradition that we've followed very closely for the past two years.
It's one that I am now so thankful for.
The crazy thing about the idea of retiring is that neither one of us really did stay retired for long. Retirement began to grow old about 7 weeks into it for the both of us. Sherry ended up returning to her old school in Altus as a paraprofessional and I returned to the classroom at Lincoln Elementary. Seven years later, I'm still at it. Sherry finally stopped due to health reasons but she continued to serve in a capacity most important to me.
She's been my mentor.
I have both my bachelor's and master's degrees in education. I've spent the better part of my life learning how to be a better teacher. I've gone to inservices, workshops, taken online courses, and a host of other things in order to get better and become the kind of educator that I thought I should be. Yet the very truth of the matter is this.
If I have become a master teacher in any way, shape, or form, it is not because of some college degree that has been affixed behind my name. It surely isn't because I've sat through countless hours of sometimes VERY boring teacher workshops. Nope. It's because of one thing.
I have modeled an extremely talented, caring, and master teacher.
I have followed the lead of the best educator and kid wrangler that I have ever known.
Lucky for me, she's my sister.
Sherry~
Things are going for a little tough for her right now and for this moment, that's all I want to say about that. I hope you understand. If you would, please say a prayer for her and for all of the others who are going through this very tough time with her.
She has touched so many lives in this world of ours.
Mine will always be one of them.
The other morning while sitting at the kitchen table, I heard the sound of birds singing right outside the front door. They were so loud that I fully expected the porch to be filled with them, but when I checked outside there were none to be found. I heard their songs many more times throughout the rest of the day. As I watered the outdoor plants this evening, I found out why their music was coming through so loud and clear.
The hanging Boston fern had become the local maternity ward. No one had knocked on the door to ask permission. It had happened. Just like that. The most beautifully perfect nest had been woven smack dab in the middle of it all. I marveled to see it, the construction work of a bird who knew just what to do before the baby arrived.
I'm not sure why, but seeing that nest, woven of old grass, sticks, and even a swatch of a cotton ball, made me think of something from the Good Book. Matthew 6:26 reminds us that just like God watches out for the birds of the air, He watches out after us as well. It's amazing to me how birds know just how to gather up the materials needed to bring new life to fruition as well as finding a safe place to tuck their temporary resting spots inside of. The nest we found was one that brought a smile to our face and satisfaction to our hearts in knowing that we provided a place to build it that was safe from predators.
Our house here along the Red River in north Texas was thankfully constructed with something other than bits of twigs and random building materials strewn upon the ground. Our house is safe and provides us a place to call "home" and one at the end of the day, we are grateful to live in. It's not fancy and with 3 bedrooms and 1 bathroom is rather modest by today's standards. There is no swimming pool in the backyard, no hot tub sitting on a deck. We were able to purchase it at a price that was well within our means and by the time were are 74 or so, we will have paid it off.
I'd say Mike and I are pretty lucky
Nah, on second thought I'd say we are really blessed.
Every once in a while times are tight, at least they are for our little family. I'm sure the same can be said of any of you as well. Seeing that little nest made me realize just how fortunate we are indeed. Although we don't have everything that we want, we definitely have more than we need.
All things considered, I guess you could say one thing.
We are doing very well.
This was us a year ago during our first summer as Texans. We were living in a little rental house that was on the other side of town. We had no idea that in six months more we would find a new house to buy. Now our names are written in the red dirt of this land in the Red River Valley.
At the ripe old age of going on 62 years old, I'm scheduled for my very first hearing test in a couple of weeks more. It was necessary because my good husband Mike will NOT stop mumbling. If you have been in my shoes, you know what that means. I'm having a little trouble, especially when people speak in lower tones. I'll go and get it checked out and if all is well then that's good. If not, well I guess I will deal with it then.
So much for perfect hearing.
Must be all of that music on the jukebox in my folks' restaurant back in the '70s.
If I lost part of my hearing because of 3 Dog Night or Creedence Clearwater Revival, then so be it. It was worth it.
Strange as it sounds, a couple of days back I had no trouble at all hearing a really soft voice, a command of sorts. It caught me so off guard that I stopped in my tracks and listened, not only with my ears but with my heart as well. I really believe that it was God's still small voice and that voice was telling me to check online to see if any teaching jobs were available in a nearby town.
And so I did.
When I woke up that morning, the last thing on my mind was switching schools for next year. Trust me. It wasn't even on the radar. I was happy at my present school and looking forward to another year in the fall. I was eager to begin teaching a new group of third graders as well as keeping in contact with the kids that I moved along to 4th grade. It was the plan I had worked out and had begun to bank upon.
God had a different idea.
I paid a visit to the new school and ended up being offered a position for next year which I gladly accepted. I believe it's going to be quite a good learning experience for me and since I consider myself a life long learner, well that works out pretty well. My plans for next year changed on a dime a few mornings back and all because of one thing.
I listened to God's command, given to me with His still small voice.
Sometimes I wonder how many chances I have missed out on simply because I either didn't hear Him calling me or I heard correctly but chose to go my own way. Probably that has happened more often than I would care to own up to. How about you? Have you ever felt that way?
Today Mike helped me to take home the very last of my things from my old classroom at Big Pasture. All of the Kansas remembrances that decorated my room, all of my books and other materials, school supplies that I had on hand, and a carload full of other things are now sitting in the back of our cars until I can take them to my new school. When I left for the last time this morning, I took a quick glance back and marveled at the emptiness and the quiet that the room now offers. It was home to 21 9-year olds and their teacher for the past 9 months.
I wonder, will it will miss us?
I don't know what the future will hold for me in this upcoming 40th year of education, but I look for it to be my best year ever. I go forth in total faith that something very wonderful is waiting for me there. I have learned an important thing since I left Kansas 4 years ago. There are children who need good teachers to find them no matter where you are in this big world of ours. I'm soon fixing to find out just who those dear children might be.
God has realigned the universe one more time for me. I'm not afraid of the challenge at all. The way I figure it, He wouldn't just bring me out to the wilderness and drop me off to fend for myself. I know for certain that God will go with me. There's nothing to be fearful of, no reason for any worry on my part.
Somewhere out there, another teacher is looking for a classroom just like the one I have left in Big Pasture. God has begun the process of realigning that person's life as well. They will hear just like I did, that same still small voice. Whoever they are, I hope for one thing.
I hope they find Big Pasture.
Wherever I have gone, my life has always revolved around children. These special ones were part of my classroom in 2010 when I retired for the first time from Kansas. 7 years later, here I still am!
