March 28: Grief, Magic, and Math

The week has felt overshadowed by grief and loss. I know there has been an abundance of good, but I have also needed the time to just feel sad and sluggish. A college classmate died from brain cancer. A few months ago she was as well as you or I, and now she is gone. I hardly knew her and yet the grief feels deep. It hits rather close to home as I glimpse my own mortality and think of how those closest to her are feeling. The love and support pouring towards her and her family through her journey and passing were incredibly beautiful, making it all the more poignant. Then the mother of a high school friend died suddenly. I didn’t know her well either, but the friend and I were both faculty kids and her father was my teacher, so I feel the sadness on their behalf. 

This morning when I was out for a short time, Sarah was missing me greatly. When Carl sent a text explaining her sadness I put a heart on it. She saw the heart and said her heart was cracked into pieces. Oh my goodness gracious. When I got home she gave me a big hug and did a few rounds of some of our customary verbal exchanges and then she asked me to get her set up to play Mario with Amy! It did warm my heart to know she missed me because so often we have small clashes with each other. 

Highlights from the week...Olivia caught a mouse and Sarah helped set it free, with help from Anna and Carl. Amy helped me with cat sitting for a friend and Amy was completely enamored with one of the cats, tearfully tearing herself away when it was time for us to leave. We often dressed as witches to do this job, calling it Care of Magical Creatures class. Amy flew on her broom to get there. 

Anna did amazing math work with Sarah. Somehow Sarah’s mind can be so much more clear and focused on math when Anna is around. She does things I didn’t think she could do. Anna is brilliant at coming up with new ways of harnessing Sarah’s abilities and helping her make connections. For instance, to help Sarah understand some of how addition works, Anna used symbols that Sarah loves, such as mice and musical notes. If you have 50 plus a musical note then you would write it as equalling 5musicalnote. 

Yesterday the kids dyed Easter eggs. It was mostly easy and fun, with the biggest difficulty being Sarah waiting for the eggs to be ready to dye and my impatience with her impatience. 

For all of the hard times, let me also always remember the moments when I hear the door close and realize the girls are wanting to be on their own to play games, as happened yesterday. There are so many wonderfully easy times but those can be hard to remember in our moments of struggle. 

May you have space and support for all of your feelings.