Before I begin I want to share a link to our family story that has just come out in book form. My mom has recently published the book on Amazon Kindle and in hard copy. Her many years of labor have come to fruition.
5/8/19
May 1994
Is it a coincidence that this written journey here has taken us to an amazing day in my life when an amazing day in millions of graduating seniors’ lives is happening this month? No, not a coincidence, but pretty cool all the same. Each year in May millions of graduating seniors and their families come together to celebrate many years of schooling and for most, countless days and nights of hard work. It is a pretty special month and worth celebrating with those around us that are having that special day. A chapter in their life is ending and a new one beginning. There are other ends and beginnings. Recently, in our family’s life, we have had neighbors and family members move away, so a chapter in our life has ended and a new one, especially for them, has begun. Makes us sad, but thankful for the memories.
Do you remember your graduation? I do, and to be honest, I miss high school just a bit. Maybe it is because I feel like there were not as many worries or stresses before graduation that a person seems to encounter in adult life. Maybe it is because I would like to go back with what I have learned about people and develop relationships with others that I did not pursue for one reason or another. I had a few close friends and then many others that I had a nice conversation with at my 20th reunion. The reunion made me miss the friendships, teachers, football nights, my first job at Burger King, and my beloved Chrysler. After cancer, I enjoyed being a teenager, which is what I always strived for during cancer.
Graduation was not only the end of 13 years of schooling, but for me it was the end of a few years of rough patches mixed in with plenty of high patches. It was the end of a disease that changed my life from a healthy, sporty junior higher with her future ahead of her to a broken, bedridden junior higher with blurred vision. I approached graduation, back to health, and ecstatic about what was going to play out in the next few months and years, not wanting to turn back for any reason to what I had just experienced.
In March of my senior year, I made the decision to pursue my dream of teaching and go to a Bible college in California where they offered a teaching degree for Christian school teachers. I always knew I wanted to be a teacher. I have vivid memories of sitting in my third and fourth grade classes with one of the most wonderful teachers in the world. His name was Mr. Hendon, and he made the process of learning in a classroom setting the ultimate experience. He brought math facts to life with games. He took us outside during reading group to get fresh air and discuss the characters like they were sitting beside us. He had a smile and encouraging word that made the struggle with history dates and science terms bearable. I was going to be like him. I remember where I was sitting and where he was standing by his desk in this large classroom in an old day care turned Christian school on 14th Street in Abilene, Texas, when I said to myself, “I am going to be just like Mr. Hendon.” That was the beginning of my pursuit of being in a classroom when I grew up. And then, I had so many other wonderful teachers that solidified that decision along the way.
When May and graduation rolled around, I was ready to hit the road. Graduation was the beginning of a new road stretched out before me that was leading to my ultimate dream. The summer months were spending time with friends who would not be going with me, camping in the mountains with the family, and working many hours at the downtown jeweler. I was basically the only employee so I had long days of cleaning shelves, windows, and jewelry cases and putting items out in the morning and in the safes at night. It was a pretty boring job, because how many small mountain town patrons does a jewelry store have in the summer months besides those needing watch batteries? Not many; when the snow melts in April and school gets out in May everyone leaves town. I enjoyed it to an extent, and that extent was that it would be paying for my first semester of school.
A new beginning was a new car my parents bought for me that I would end up driving for the next five years. It was a perfect car for me, two door Ford Festiva with moving seat belts. Boy, did you have to be careful with those. It is not a wonder why cars do not have those anymore because it about took off my head on many an occasion and drove my passengers crazy. I actually saw one the other day and can not believe I carpooled in college with four others in there. How in the world did we fit?! Let me just say Ford was the creator of the first SMART Car, and they did not even know it.
And before I knew it the next chapter in my life began, and I was beginning my college experience. I walked on campus blessed beyond all measure with a new car, a friend of mine as my roommate, and money to put on my school bill. I was going to start on my teaching dream, and I was super excited. Plus, I was going to school in Southern California which has so much to enjoy like Disneyland, shopping, the beach and trips to visit friends’ homes who grew up living there. The weather is great and the thrift stores are amazing, oh, and they have IN-N-OUT burgers! Yep, the freshman 15 was inevitable! Unfortunately, I am pretty sure I pushed my family out the door sooner than they wanted to go, but it did not take long before homesickness crept in, and calling cards and scheduled pay phone calls were a must. (Yes, you are right, no cell phones in the early 90’s for us.) I was having a great time, but I missed my family.
My beginning was shortly set aside for a new beginning that showed up back at the homestead, and it was not because I had left…
Ends and beginnings are healthy cycles in life; an end of something and the start of something else. Can I submit that in life an ending does not necessarily mean completion, but that we have to shift focus. Until we see our Father’s face we might see this happen many times whether it is the end and then a beginning or a shift in focus. Beginnings, exciting? Yes. Endings, exciting? Sure. Sometimes not so much in both scenarios. But I am grateful for one thing; God is there for either one of them, and that is so comforting. He IS the Beginning and the End. Revelation 1:8, “I am Alpha and Omega, the beginning and the ending, saith the Lord, which is, and which was, and which is to come, the Almighty.”
God Said Cancer 