Smiling Mom

Dear Grandma Bryan,

So wri­ting this let­ter is pretty hard for me to do. Not because I don’t have fond memo­ries, I do!  But because I fear that I won’t be able to tell you elo­quently enough just how much I love you and how gra­te­ful I am for the life I’ve had.

I have lived a very bles­sed life.  A life filled with love, lear­ning and accep­tance.  I have grown up with the bene­fit of having a two-parent hou­sehold.  And, ama­zingly enough, my parents have loved each other throughout the good and bad times.  How lucky am I to have had this experience?

My mom is an ama­zing woman, a woman you rea­red.  A woman who you single-handedly rai­sed to be an adult.  For this I am eter­nally gra­te­ful.  When I look at you and your life, I see a woman who was for­ced into a life where you were requi­red to become a sin­gle parent well before your time.  You wor­ked hard and rai­sed three beau­ti­ful chil­dren who were, essen­tially, the same age.  I can’t even ima­gine!  But you did it!  You did it all while wor­king full time, paying a mort­gage, and pro­vi­ding your chil­dren with the things they wan­ted and nee­ded.  I admire you so much for this.  It must have been such a cha­llenge at times to keep it all together.

I have vivid memo­ries of Christ­mas Eve at your house from years ago.  I remem­ber all the cou­sins get­ting together to open pre­sents, eat din­ner, and play.  (I always wan­ted to eat at the bar! But usually had to sit at the kid’s table) We use to have so much fun.  I know this was a won­der­ful time in your memory as well, having your house filled with the sounds of laugh­ter and family.  One memory in par­ti­cu­lar that I have is when I recei­ved a huge Bar­bie head for a gift.  This head was equip­ped with lots of makeup, a girls dream!  So ins­tead of the inten­ded use, Bar­bie, I deci­ded to make up myself, my clothes, the car­pet, my cou­sins and just about anything I could find.  Need­less to say, the makeup disap­pea­red from my Bar­bie head by the next morning.

Each Christ­mas Eve as we drove home, I remem­ber watching the moon in the sky and searching for Santa’s sleigh.  These are memo­ries that I che­rish each Christmas.

I also remem­ber many days spent with you pic­king black­be­rries, peaches, and oran­ges.  I loved pla­ying on your jun­gle gym in the back­yard and pla­ying hide and seek with Jeff, Shauna, and Kathlyn.

But now, as I write you this let­ter, I’m hol­ding my daugh­ter, Ella, in my arms and rea­li­zing that it is because of you and the family you’ve crea­ted, that I am bles­sed with the life I have.

You have wor­ked hard, so hard.  You’ve lived a life filled with family, The Hea­venly Father, and friends.  You’ve crea­ted many knick-knacks to remem­ber you by.  Both my chil­dren have a blan­ket, made by you.  And each holi­day I take out my deco­ra­tions, the por­ce­lain Christ­mas tree, Hallo­ween cat and hat, Eas­ter bun­nies, and think of you.

And when I speak my daughter’s name, Ella, I am remin­ded of my his­tory, your mother, you.

Wri­ting this let­ter is extre­mely hard.  Time is never enough.  I don’t feel like I’ve had enough time with you, and neither have my chil­dren.  You, like­wise, didn’t have enough time with Grandpa Bryan.  But you will!  You are about to embark on a whole new jour­ney one filled with eter­nal love and hap­pi­ness.  For you, I’m exci­ted.  But for me, sel­fishly, I feel sad as our time together begins to come to an end.

I love you Grandma.  I love you.

And I thank you so much for the life I’ve had.  I have been so blessed.

With my love,
Nanette

My dad is currently an ele­men­tary school prin­ci­pal and has been an edu­ca­tor for more than 20 years, and in one month is retiring.

Jeff King has spent the last cou­ple years as a co-principal of an Los Penas­qui­tos Ele­men­tary School. He’s rein­ven­ted him­self nume­rous times over his past twenty-something years in the busi­ness. He star­ted as a 2^nd grade teacher, spent time doing admi­nis­tra­tive work in the dis­trict office, as a middle-school math teacher, then a middle school vice prin­ci­pal, ele­men­tary school prin­ci­pal, high school prin­ci­pal, and finally is finishing up his years as an ele­men­tary school prin­ci­pal yet again.

But more impor­tantly my father has begun a revo­lu­tion. It all star­ted with a dream, and morphed into a reality.

His dream? He belie­ved that all stu­dents could learn and be successful.

Revo­lu­tio­nary:
–adjec­tive
1. of, per­tai­ning to, cha­rac­te­ri­zed by, or of the nature of a revo­lu­tion, or a sud­den, com­plete, or mar­ked change: a revo­lu­tio­nary junta.

The day he became prin­ci­pal at Los Penas­qui­tos Ele­men­tary School, he began a revo­lu­tion. Over the past ele­ven years with the tire­less effort of all Los Pen teachers, sup­port staff, and their two prin­ci­pals, Jeff King and Damen Lopez, Los Pen went from a school that was “doing as well as could be expec­ted” edu­ca­ting some of the poo­rest kids in the com­mu­nity; to a school who rou­ti­nely out per­forms their other more affluent neigh­bo­ring schools.

Revo­lu­tio­nary:
–adjec­tive
2. radi­cally new or inno­va­tive; outside or beyond esta­blished pro­ce­dure, prin­ci­ples, etc.: a revo­lu­tio­nary discovery.

Edu­ca­ting poor and under­pri­vi­le­ged kids is my dad’s life work, his pas­sion. I, as I’m sure many of his colle­ges, have got­ten an ear­ful on more than one occa­sion about why it is pos­si­ble, impor­tant, even cri­ti­cal for all under­pri­vi­le­ged chil­dren to be educated.

He along with Damen belie­ved they had a mes­sage that must be sha­red with a lar­ger popu­la­tion than just one ele­men­tary school. They believe that all chil­dren in low-income areas have the right to be edu­ca­ted and suc­cess­ful. As a result, Jeff and Damen star­ted Tur­nA­roundSchools, a com­pany pro­vi­ding trai­ning for teachers based on the follo­wing principals:

* All chil­dren, even those who live in poverty or who are lear­ning English, can be aca­de­mi­cally suc­cess­ful and attend college.
* Public K-8 schools have to power to make that dream a reality.

Now my dad along with Damen is edu­ca­ting teachers, prin­ci­pals, and supe­rin­ten­dents in mas­ses so they can begin revo­lu­tions at their own schools.

Jeff King.

A man who can be quite impos­si­ble and rarely takes no for an answer.

A father, hus­band, educator.

A revo­lu­tio­nary.

–noun
1. a per­son who advo­ca­tes or takes part in a revolution.

Since I can­not be there on Thurs­day to toast my dad at his reti­re­ment party, I’d like to say the following:

You are a man who has chan­ged the lives of thou­sands of stu­dents and teachers. You believe in the uni­que abi­lity of each indi­vi­dual you come across. Because of you and your lea­dership, many chil­dren who pre­viously did not have a chance, do. Because of you, lives have been chan­ged. Because of you, I am a bet­ter teacher. Because of you, this world is a bet­ter place.

The mark you leave on edu­ca­tion is one of high expec­ta­tions, a belief that all stu­dents can learn, hope, and success.

You have ins­pi­red teachers to great­ness, and chil­dren to dream dreams they never belie­ved they could. Because of you, we all are better.

As I’m sure your staff is, I am sad­de­ned to see you retire. But we know you have great things in store. We know that you’ve been called to make a dif­fe­rence in many more children’s lives.

You have begun a revolution.

And we are so proud.

***************************************

Now it’s your turn… do you know Jeff King? Is there a funny story that sticks out in your mind that you’d like to share? A thought or toast? Please leave a com­ment and I’ll make sure he reads each and every one. Thanks!

So today is my dad’s birthday.

57.

Yikes.

He’s gray now, and bla­mes my tee­nage years for this sud­den onset gray­ness that somehow hap­pe­ned right about the same time I got my first boy­friend and went off to college.

Wha­te­ver, it couldn’t have pos­sibly been all my fault!

I was an angel.

Per­fect.

Ahem.

My dad doesn’t have a sense of humor, at all!

(My dad, gues­sing eClaire’s gender)

Well, maybe a little bit.

He’s a fan­tas­tic photographer.

(eClaire in the same dress my mom and I wore at the same age)

(BC on his second birthday)

(A pic­ture of me last Christmas)

(Uncle J with the kids)

My dad is about the best grandpa a kid could have. He takes time every sin­gle day to talk with my kids. He video con­fe­ren­ces with them through our com­pu­ters and watches as they dance around the house in their goofy ways.

I can mail one of BC’s scrib­ble dra­wings down to San Diego and and my dad treats it like it’s the best art­work he’s ever seen.

He’s everything you could ever hope for in a grandpa.

My kids love him more than just about anything in the world!

My dad often says that I’m quite stub­born. That I’m a bit pig hea­ded and quite strong-willed.

Need­less to say, we weren’t all that close throughout my tee­nage years.

Funny because I get these stubborn-like traits from my dad. Every. sin­gle. one. of. them.

It’s true.

You would think that he would have ‘got’ me a bit bet­ter than he did when I was a teen.

But now that I’m an adult he fre­quently tells sto­ries, to anyone who will lis­ten, about those days. He tells about how I crea­ted a power-point pre­sen­ta­tion of sorts when I was 12 (with a flip chart et. al) and lots of pic­tu­res and dia­grams and direc­tions on how to pro­perly wash a dish. Then I called a mee­ting and pre­sen­ted it to the family.

Or about the time I ran over lightly tap­ped the neigh­borhood boy’s butt with my Toyota truck when I was 16 because he stuck it out at me in the middle of our cul­de­sac and wouldn’t move.

And dare I say, that I usually detect a hit of pride in his voice as he tells each story?

I eat it up! My dad is almost per­fect in my eyes and he has a huge impact on the way I choose to live my life.

He is a great man.

I guess I feel as lucky, if not more, than my kids. My dad loves me more than anything in the world. Until recently I never really unders­tood this type of love. And then Hubby and I had our own daughter.

Now Hubby’s eyes light up and heart melts with just a bat of eClaire’s eyes.

It’s only now that I rea­lize I had, and will always have, the same effect on my dad too.

This is something I will never take for granted.

A dad’s love.

How lucky am I?

Happy Birth­day Dad!

57 and still kickin’

Not Bad!! You may make it to a ripe old age yet!!

Mary Pop­pins Non­nie, my mom, flew in from San Diego last night.  Here highly anti­ci­pa­ted arri­val has been quite the topic of con­ver­sa­tion around our house lately.

BC:  Is it my birth­day yet? Is Non­nie coming?  Why is she coming?  Is she coming for my birth­day?  Why?  When is Non­nie coming?  and on and on and on…

eClaire also was quite exci­ted to see her approach our van at the air­port.  When it daw­ned on the other­wise mute child of mine that Non­nie was here, she went abso­lu­tely crazy!

eClaire: (Hands cove­ring her ears screa­ming) NONNIE.  NONNIE. NONNIE.

The whole way home.  Uh, can we say excited??

A few days ago my dad was tal­king to the eClaire on the phone.  He loves to get a reac­tion, good or other­wise.  So he asked eClaire:

Grandpa:  eClaire, Who do you love more? Grandpa or Nonnie?

eClaire:  NONNIE!

Grandpa:  OK, let’s try this again, Who do you love more?  non­nie or GRANDPA!

eClaire:  NONNIE!

I guess she made it clear who her favo­rite is.

Sorry Dad. It ain’t you.