Farewell, Charles

On Friday morning a custodian I was friends with at Bloomsburg University sent me an obituary by text. I was shocked to learn that the man who had been my department chair the last several years I was a professor there died about a week ago - 4 days shy of his 59th birthday. After contacting other faculty members, I learned that he had been ill since the fall and had been on medical leave since December and had retired last month. I couldn't have asked for a nicer department chair. He bent over backwards after I became a mom to give me a wonderful schedule filled with evening classes, online classes etc. instead of teaching at say 8, 9, and 10AM on MWF as I had done prior to having children. The last time I was in touch with him was in the spring of 2016. I know I had told him thank you many times, but when I learned of his passing I had this desire that I wanted to tell him thank you one more time to be sure he knew how much I appreciated him. Ironically his memorial service will be on July 12. I say ironically because that was the day my mom passed away last

year. Unfortunately it's at 2:00 in Williamsport, and I'll be in Bloomsburg with the kids from 10:00-5:00 that day, unless I'm serving on a jury that day.

Another former colleague who retired and moved to Oklahoma is flying back for his service. I am hoping maybe I'll be able to have lunch with her or something that week. I haven't seen her in probably 6 years or something like that. I am going to send a sympathy card to his best friend, Dan. I shed a few tears yesterday morning as I thought about his passing. He professed to be a Christian so hopefully I will be able to say thank you to him again in Heaven some day. I think whenever I hear of an unexpected death of someone I knew, particularly when the person dies at an age that seems to be on the "young" side, it makes me really remember again how we truly have no idea how many years we have left on this earth. There's no guarantee we'll make it to age 60 or 70 or 80. Although my mom lived a longer life than Charles, prior to her diagnosis of ovarian cancer I had no idea she was nearing the end of her life. I didn't expect her to live to say age 90, but I had no idea she'd pass away less than 4 months after she turned 71. Even

though she wasn't "young" it still shocked me and felt "early."

Although I have no way of knowing for sure whether I'll be on planet earth tomorrow or in Glory, that doesn't mean we can't make plans for the future, as long as we realize we have no control as to whether they will actually take place or not. I think that's forever etched in mind from May 2012. The dentist called me to remind me of my 6 month cleaning the next morning, and I said something like  "I'll be there." Then in the middle of the night I ended up in the labor and delivery ward (at 22 weeks in the pregnancy that's not a good thing!), and it was months until I was actually able to get to a dentist office due to bed rest, hospitalizations, a baby in the NICU, driving restrictions, etc. Over the past 16 years of marriage we haven't really had a plan in place regarding vacations. At one point Paul and I got in a routine of alternating trips to the Caribbean vs. Europe - sometimes that meant one of each in one year and other times it meant each year we alternated between the two. Since we have

had kids it's again been rather random, hence the reason we went to Florida five times from 2010-2015. Some of those years we went on more than one vacation in the year so during that time span we also spent a week in Williamsport, the Poconos, Grand Cayman, and on a cruise.

I had been thinking lately that Nadia is turning 9 and so I had been start making a list of places I hope we go on vacation before she grows up and flies from the nest. It's somewhat challenging to make that list because I have no idea what our financial situation will be in the future. I'd love to put things like London and Hawaii on the list, for example. When I was a teacher I planned field trips in connection with what we were studying in science or social studies. So I started mapping out what our content would be in those subjects the next several years and then started writing down field trip and vacation ideas accordingly. I am already liking having this list because even since I started it as I thought of other ideas I went back and added them to the list. This list

can constantly be modified by adding, deleting, or moving a field trip from one year to another. Not every field trip will be aligned with what we are studying that year, of course. When I list the years, I am thinking of July through June as our "year." Sometimes I picked things based on the fact we'd have a child in fourth grade that particular year as when that happens the whole family gets in for free to any National Park or National Historic Site. For example as we'll be studying 1860 to the present in two years, I thought during that year we could visit a variety of Civil War sites and also spend some time at Myrtle Beach. The year after that I think we'll be exploring a variety of countries and cultures, so I am hoping that year we can take one trip to Ontario and Quebec (drive here) as well as fly to Mexico. We'll have to be in a better place financially than we are now to afford the trip to Mexico, but still it's not insanely expensive to I'll keep hoping that might be feasible. When Oliver is in fourth grade (four years from now), I'm thinking maybe we can go out west and visit many national parks. It will be fun to keep working on this list over the months and years ahead, and hopefully we'll go on some wonderful field trips and vacations in the future months and years! Some places that have been on my "I hope to take the kids there some day" mental list aren't on this list yet - such as San Diego, Mt. Rushmore, etc so I definitely view this list as a work in progress! And although we've been there several times, I think it would be nice to return to Florida once when the kids are old enough to enjoy Epcot and Universal Studios, if our financial situation improves.