In my Senior English class, we are starting to read Into the Wild by Jon Krakauer. The book is about the journey of one young man, Chris McCandless, into the wilderness of Alaska. One of the tasks, prior to reading, that we ask of the students to do is to write a curriculum vitae. I felt that the assignment was important enough that I gave them my own personal curriculum vitae.
1) Born in rural Missouri, head first almost arriving before the doctor.
2) My birth year saw a “Purple Haze” of the Hendrix’s kind; Oscar was “A Man for All Seasons;" and PBS was born.
3) My father walked high on steel beams across the Gateway to the West.
4) We moved East to The Bay State, the place of my father’s childhood.
5) We returned to the State of Misery
6) My 5th birthday party, my kindergarten class mates were invited but no one came.
7) Sundays were filled with sounds of an arm-chair football coach for Cardinals and their giants, Dierdorf and Hart. but the Steelers of Pittsburgh with Bradshaw and Swan were supreme.
8) After 2nd grade, another house, a new school, no friends
9) 4th Grade saw the arrival of the Fat Fairy and Mr. Alcorn that made a little girl who loved school, hate school.
9) After 4th Grade, moved to the house of my inheritance. New school … now parochial not public. Superficial friendships.
10) My father often slept at the kitchen table or on the back porch in his lawn chair induced by the intake of Budweiser. There were arguments...threats to leave.
11) We traveled to Iran, “to where???” many said….to return 6 months later because of a revolution, Islam, and Khomeini to questions of “where did you go?” “Iran” “Oh, my, there????”
12) 8th grade came with the Big C….Cancer that is. Innocence is ripped away, a little girl skips being a teenager and is forced into adulthood.
13) Her body becomes the canvas for insurance paid tattoos. The burn of 3300 RADs of radiation a day, 5 days a week 4 weeks long. The stares, mostly from adults. The smells, the burn, the ice, the vomit….all chemo, 2 times a month for 6 months. NO PIZZA! How will a 13 year old live!
14) 1985, She knew Stacy’s mom but not the one that they sang about. College, away from home, to the land of Sycamore Trees. Anti-sorority socority girl…..sisters were made for life.
15) 1991, first year of teaching….not much older than her students. She learned from them more than they probably learned from her. 24 years later, they are some of her true and best friends.
16) 1997, she married at 30 to a man and his son. 1998, she adopted her oldest son. 1999, she gave birth to her son, a toddler size blessing.
17) 2001, 9-11 A marriage starts to be enveloped in mental illness, verbal and emotional abuse, the strength of the girl that became a woman was slowly dismantled. 2007, The Big C comes again.
18) 2008, her world was rocked to the core with the KIA of a former student and the daddy’s girl lost her daddy on this earth to her Father in Heaven… 2 guardian angels she knows they were made..
19) 2012, the marriage implodes...she realizes that she is dead to herself, her family, her friends, her students. She says it is time to bury the marriage and heal.
20) November 2012, her Destiny becomes her Forever 16 Guardian Angel...her heart is broken, her son’s heart is broken, it was so dark, so desolate, there was no light.
21) Her world continue to spiral until one day, she saw light…..faint light….but the little girl….that skipped her adolescence….the woman she was slowly emerged…
22) Today, the light is bright. She is perfectly imperfect.
Gladiator ... I Will Continue The Fight
On 12 July 2018, one of my chemo heroes went home to his Heavenly Father and my world ... the world, in general, lost one of the brightes...
