A little about your sweet friend Laura

Why blog?  Do I have anything truly interesting to share?  Any skills people can apple to their jobs a la all of the teaching blogs I am addicted to?  Do I have the ability to write - that kind of writing that sucks you in and even after you're done reading, you find yourself pondering how that writing has changed your outlook, your day, your LIFE?  Nope, I've got none of those skills.  Plain and simple, I've created a blog because the television remote fell off the table and in my temporarily handicapped state - I can't reach the darn thing.  Is that the only reason I created this blog ~ truly, no.  I've always loved to write.  Things I wrote in college always were well-received by those pretentious, granola-type, bizarre story-writing professors.  Additionally, anyone who knows me, and now is the time y'all start shaking your heads, knows I spend way too much time inside my own brain.  Finally, after five or six years of life-changing events, the time has come to vomit any and everything that causes me pain.  For those of you who have known me, these events aren't new, my perspective hasn't changed ~ however, I can assure you of two things:  1)all names have been changed to protect the innocent (or not so innocent) and 2) I will not always uses proper punctuation.

So today, oh captive audience, I'm going to give you a brief overview of me.  Waste of time....but I need to start somewhere.  Oh, and you're really not captive so if you don't want to read it - take a hike :)

I'm a simple gal - love puppies, long walks on the beach, children, chocolate, and God (not necessarily in that order)  My God has saved my live countless times and even now as I type this, I feel myself crying.  It is only through Him that anything I've done that's good, cool, rad or awesome has ever been done.  I've been blessed with my soulmate, who is sometimes my hatemate, but will be my forever knight in shining armor.   I also was gifted with two of the most beautiful, creative, intelligent, strong girls that are more than I ever prayed for.  In addition, I have two of the most amazing parents in the world ~ parents who survived the loss of a child way too early(more on that later) and made themselves better people for it.   I teach ~ because I love children.  I love their minds, their smiles, their belief that anything can be fixed with a band-aid or a hug.  I love pretty much everyone despise people who make comments about teachers getting summers off, and any other anti-education political rhetoric IN SPITE OF THE FACT THAT THEY HAVE NEVER SET FOOT IN A CLASSROOM AS AN EDUCATED ADULT.  I  believe in the power of change, that nothing is impossible ~ rather there are impossible people.  I never doubt the power of a smile, a hug and will never leave someone I care about without telling them I love them.  I know too well you may never get the chance to say it again.

I think people are too busy doing what they don't like and not busy enough doing things that make a difference.

In the last six (?) years I lost my only brother, who by that point had become one of my very best friends and I truly believe I will never find another like him.  My favorite, close to the end, memory of him was when he took my oldest who was three at the time to see Robots (the movie).  As the three of us walked out, he carried my sweet baby because in his words, "There were puddles and she was princess and should not ever get her feet wet."  At that moment, I knew my brother would make some woman the happiest person in the world.  Sadly, he never got the chance.  On May 12, 2005, my parents were on vacation and he was watching their dog.  We spoke briefly on the phone ~ just to check in and make sure everything was going well.  At the end of the conversation, I told him I loved him (I believed in never forgetting to say I love you even then.)  He usually grunted in response.  After all, he was a thirty year old man.  Instead, that evening, he said, "You know what Laura, I love you too."  The next day, he died at his desk of dilated cardiomyopathy.  He was so loved by his co-workers that is took three EMS to pull his friend off once they realized it was too late for lifesaving efforts.  Those same co-workers waited for me at the hospital, as I had to identify his body.  Those same co-workers stood with me as I called my parents to tell them something a child should never have to tell their parents.  They stood by me as my father screamed that he had lost his best friend.  At that point some of my co-workers had arrived and didn't wait to be told what to do - they just did.  They watched my babies, they brought food, they helped with funeral arrangements.  

This is an event that has made me ever-resentful.  When friends have these ridiculous fights with their siblings and don't speak for days, weeks, months, years.  This is an event that has made me ever-jealous (against everything in me) because holidays suck.  They just do.  But most of all, this is an event that has made me realize that some of the best things in life are short-lived and you better take everything you can from those moments because you may never get them back.  

I guess the best way to end this entry is to tell you that my brother loved God.  His favorite place to be with God was a creek near our childhood house.  (Of course, he also got in trouble for riding a wooden raft he lit on fire down that same creek - boys will be boys I guess.)  He found biblical parallels in Star Wars long before anyone got past their Ewok Village.  So I know I'm blessed in spite of losing him because I know I WILL see him again.  And somehow, I know he's going to say "Hey Laura, wait until I show you how amazing it is here."