Food for thought again

My Friday morning Breakfast Club visits just keep getting better and better. The first week back after New Year, two of the regulars overslept and did not come. I started out alone for breakfast but was later joined by Tina and her little girl, Gracie, who often dined on Friday mornings. We had a great visit and I loved the time!

The following week, Randy and Carol, did make it but no one else showed up. Marlena said she had not gotten around to making all the phone calls and such so I asked her for the information as I have more time than she does for stuff like this. The three of us enjoyed our time together, with Carol telling how much they enjoyed their fall cruise to the western Caribbean. Later she e-mailed pictures of herself parasailing, her first time!

This past week, I knew Carol and Randy were going to be absent but Marlena called to let me know at least Pat was coming. Yay! She did come, and so did Tina and Gracie. What a marvelous meal we had together! Pat had called in with her menu choice, in hopes the kitchen wouldn't stop serving before she arrived (it has happened!) while the rest of us enjoyed the breakfast buffet. The bacon was perfection---just short of being burned.

Pat is a retired teacher and Tina's older child, Gabe, is autistic. The conversation was simply an amazing one of which to be part as the ladies described their kids (Pat's grandson  is autistic, too) and the battles fought within the school system for help. 

Gabe was at first in a private school not equipped to deal with a special needs child, but is now flourishing in a gov't. school with programs designed just for his problem. Pat said that even as recently as 15 years ago it was somewhat rare to have kids considered 'special needs' in school, at least in this number. What is going on?

Pat taught all special needs kids for many years, but they were special for other reasons. Her first school was in a very poor (in every way) part of Jacksonville, where she was up against more incredible things than she ever trained for. Made me think of the story/movie "Freedom Writers", where the new teacher ends up with the high risk students at a high school. That story had a happy ending, and I wonder if the same is true for the students Pat taught in those days.

                        

Pat and another teacher instituted a program where they held a Thanksgiving dinner for the students and their families, probably the nicest thing to have happen for these folks all year. Especially for the kids. Pat taught second grade and truly loved her job and her kids. 

She is unsure if the program continued after her co-worker and she left that school, but I am sure it was wonderful while it lasted. Mostly single-parent homes, mostly no dad in the picture. More than once the kids and she had to the hit the floor at the sound of gunfire echoed outside the building. "Okay, we'll just have school on the floor today...." When Pat said which school this was, Tina said that school was on the news this a.m. as being on lock-down, due to a SWAT team being in the area. Gulp!

Pat is part of our water exercise class, one of several teachers who join our group. Perhaps half the participants are current or retired teachers, a couple from private schools. Maggie O. and Pat G. were high school drama teachers, both of them still working as subs; Owene taught at St. Johns CDS; Maureen is still actively teaching her kindergarteners, working along side of her daughter!; and Randy until recent years worked as a substitute teacher. 

These people, whom I know from our time together in and out of the pool, are so NOT the ones who would take over a state capital and carry on like fools. Especially those who teach and taught the younger ones---they obviously love their students and sacrifice for them, even bringing them food to eat when they have nothing in their own homes....

I am personally so very thankful for the blessing of a Lutheran school all my learning years, where I was safe, and had my packed lunch every day, after breakfast at home. And then dinner around a table with my sisters and parents. Something I took for granted is also something more and more kids have no clue exists! 

I like the fact that when someone asks me what it was like to grow up in a family like ours, my first thought is the laughing. And my school memories do not include having class on the floor because of bullets flying outside. My sisters did have to do the 'duck and cover drills' in their early school years, but I never did. 

                               

Leaving that breakfast made me feel many things, besides sadness for the state of affairs our society is in, but gratitude for having these wonderful people in my life, people who have actually made a difference in the life of children. In Tina's case, it is going on now for her children, and for Pat, as a grandma of several kids. And others who flow in and out of my daily dealings....you just never know, do you? But, the Lord does!