Posts Tagged ‘minutes’
It’s hard to see my grandma like this.
Ever since her first stroke, she’s been slowly slipping out of touch with reality, and seems only the palest shadow of her former self. I remember her adeptly playing the piano; I remember our card games and love of reading; most of all, I remember her razor-sharp intellect and sharper sense of humor. As the years pass, remembering them takes more and more effort.
Conversations will begin with her telling me that she loves me. If I respond, she tells me she loves me again, and repeat. If I don’t respond, she thinks I don’t love her and starts crying, until I finally tell her that I do love her. She does this with anyone nearby, and would go on for hours if she could stay awake that long.
Instead, I try to change the subject.
Remember when we’d play Sorry! for hours at a time? Or Go Fish? Or Gin Rummy?
She might nod and smile in recognition; she might not. It’s a crapshoot. If she does remember, I know I’ve made her happy. If she doesn’t remember, she’ll break down, crying. Given the that I might make her happy, I decide the risk is worth it, and so I take it.
I doubt she’ll remember either way. I decide to try.
Within 45 minutes, she goes back to bed. I talk presidential politics, high finance and cattle ranching with my grandpa, and I enjoy it. Within the hour, we hear grandma calling to us from the bedroom. We head back.
As I feel my moment of panic, fear and trepidation approach — as I feel like I want to leave, and now — I, inhaling, think to myself:
The grandma I want to please lives still.
The rest comes naturally.
As I exhale, the grandma I see laying prone on her bed isn’t the grandma who sticks her finger in her nose and then puts it in her mouth, anymore; she isn’t the grandma who needs help getting out of her chair; she isn’t the grandma who leans heavily on the walker while grandpa keeps her from stumbling onto the tile hallway.
On that bed, I see the grandma who’d regularly drive me down to the local library in her Lincoln Continental, ketchup and baloney sandwiches in tow. I see the grandma who’d toast cheese and pepperoni on white bread, and, serving it with orange soda and a side of SpaghettiOs, call it lunch. I see the grandma my sister and I would help put up the Christmas tree every December, long after my immediate family stopped bothering.
We go back to the living room, and we visit. The first thing she tells me:
I love you.
I love you, too, Grandma.
First Five Minutes of Class
April 7, 2008 in The Way It Were
Tags: amendment, black, class, classroom, cnn, comments, crazy, culled, establishment, first, five, government, history, journal, management, minutes, obama, packet, pastor, preacher, quiz, relevant, religion, sciences, snagged, social, studies, thursday, white
Good morning, class. I know that it’s a pleasure for me to see each and every one of you, but I know it’s even more of a pleasure for each and every one of you to see me.
Don’t forget that on the board is today’s journal. I’ll read the prompt:
Continue writing if you haven’t finished your journal already.
Be sure to pick up this week’s packet. Don’t forget that to more than one point on Thursday’s quiz, you must turn in this packet completed. For every opinion article in this packet, remember your Read and Response. For those of you who are new, that requires you to write one paragraph summary and one paragraph reaction. Easy cheesy.
One of the columns is about Martin Luther King, Jr., and is especially appropriate as we begin our week studying the Civil Rights movement and the development of its constitutional basis. We’ll segue into this movement using a fiery pastor with ties to Barack Obama and a discussion of both their free speech and free religion.
I’ll be passing out actual responses to the sermon I culled — that means “snagged” — from comments at CNN.com. If you get one, you’ll get to read it aloud. Be sure you act it out passionately, as if you actually believe it. That way we get the real feeling of what that person is saying.
Say, for example, you get this:
If you’re mumble and monotone when you read it aloud, I’ll make sure you have to get up and do it again. Raise your hand if you’d like to volunteer. Okay, that looks good.
Just a hint: You should probably read it while we wait for the last few people to finish their journal. You’ll have a little bit of time to prepare while we watch and discuss the six-second soundbite version of the sermon. Depending on your quote, you’ll go before or after we watch the seven-minute version of the same sermon and discuss it.
Before we get to that, go ahead and take a minute or two finishing up your journal. I’ll pass out the comment slips, and finish getting set up.
I’ll be here if you have any questions.
****
In other news: George Washington is just too vulgar for school, sometimes; same with JFK.