Remembering My Teachers with Gratitude

Remembering My Teachers With Gratitude

Margaret E. Holt                                                         May 28, 2018

The end of May, nearly June and endless rain fell for weather women in tight summer dresses who wave their arms across the map of Georgia announcing one tropical depression after another.  Weather news, sports news, local news, national news, international news, financial news--- all delivered as entertainment for amusing ourselves to death (an accurate earlier prediction authored by Neil Postman).   We’ve been pretty restricted to living inside, as Stell has endured two bouts of pneumonia.  Thank goodness we are both readers, and for sure he has needed long hours of sleep induced both by his bacteria and his medications. 

My life was transformed in minutes after the first hospitalization in February.  No days or nights were like any other times I had encountered in the past.  My concentration shifted immediately to all kinds of practical matters related to his condition.  Although we have been married since 1998, a second marriage for both, we lived independently of one another “medically.”  I paid little or no attention to his pills, and since fortunately I only take one blood pressure medication, he paid no attention to mine.  Other than his eye doctor, Tony Demarco (who is the son-in-law of very close friends), I really could not claim to know the names of Stell’s doctors, although he said them if he had a checkup.    Now, I can list at least ten, along with their specialties, and even make some smartass comments on their idiosyncrasies.  At home, I am now officially the pharmacist and un-licensed nurse.  I’ve learned to administer infusions, and flush the mid-line.  I also can make some claims to skills with medical transport, although I do recognize when I need an assistant for travel.

This is not a pity piece, and if you are on my journal list you already know that things have gotten much better in the past week.  Actually this is just a thought piece to say in life occasionally you can surprise yourself.  I’ve become content staying at home over these months, although despite all the angst about technology, technology has kept me plugged into most of the people who matter in my life.  If I didn’t love to read, perhaps I would need some serious psychological help (I’m certain there are some who would call for this now), but in addition to newspapers, the New Yorker, and The New York Review of Books, I’ve read innumerable great pieces on the Arts and Letters Daily website.

So today, yet again, I will raise my glass first to those East Liberty Elementary School teachers who taught me to read, and next to those along the rest of my academic journey who encouraged critical thinking.  My physical movement may be for the time being a bit restricted, but my mind has travelled thousands of miles.