I had a quote that kept rolling around my head this afternoon, and for some reason I just couldn’t place it… my memory isn’t always so great these days, but I finally figured it out. Every year, I love reading Steinbeck’s Of Mice and Men with my ninth grade classes. And every year, the same lines from the text grab me and pull me into a greater appreciation of the language of pure, great literature. Here’s what’s been sticking in my brain: “As happens sometimes, a moment settled and hovered and remained for much more than a moment. And sound stopped and movement stopped for much, much more than a moment. Then gradually time awakened again and moved sluggishly on.” The past three months since Lucy passed has felt absolutely, exactly like Steinbeck described in those lines. That time had stopped. Movement had stopped. The world stopped for more than a moment. And now… now I’m at the point in the story in which time has gradually awakened again and is moving sluggishly on. It’s both promising and undeniably heartbreaking all at once. For some reason, I see my return to work as the next step, the next turning page. It breaks my heart. However, after going in to work for the past two days, setting up my classroom again and bracing for my return, I feel like the pause button has been released and time is simply continuing on, and I’ll be back in my niche as if nothing has changed. There is little time to think of anything else in my job, and in some ways that will be both healing and heart-wrenching. The paradox of life as a loss parent (and teacher). Time is now moving sluggishly forward and I have little control over it. I must return to exactly the way things were, even though nothing is truly the same. Time goes on, with or without us, doesn’t it?

Lucy, I promise to keep finding ways to spend time with your memory and spirit, little one, no matter how much time moves forward. I love you so much…