Back to School

Ryan was a teacher, both by profession, and in life.  By this, I mean that teaching was what he was meant to do; he was made for it.  He was one of those rare people who not only knew exactly what his calling was, but also actually managed to find a job doing it.  He was fantastic at his job, and he loved it.  This time of year, it's hard to get away from all of the back to school advertisements and chatter, and I'm finding that they are serious triggers for me.  The thought of a new school year beginning without Ryan being a part of it truly saddens me- it feels like the world is out of order.

Ryan came by teaching as a career in a roundabout way, but he came alive once he discovered it.  I think he initially hoped to teach at a university, but after just a few months teaching at Montgomery County Community College (Montco, for short), he decided that he would be happy working there until he retired.  The college loved him just as much; I think that if you spoke to any of his colleagues, they would tell you that Ryan was among their finest faculty members, and if you spoke to almost any of his students, they would name him as one of their favorite teachers.  His loss was felt intensely at the college.  It must be strange for them to be starting up the new semester without him walking into the office.

Ryan, doing what he did best and loved most.

The beginning of a new semester was always an invigorating time for Ryan.  I see so many teachers complaining around this time of year that their vacation is over, and that they have to go back to the grind.  Not Ryan- he was always excited to be starting up again.  On the first day of classes, Ryan would usually be up before me, in a great mood, energized and ready to go.  He always looked so handsome and professional, but the running joke was that he could have blended in with the students because of his age and the youth in his face.  After the first day of classes, he'd invariably come home to me and tell me over dinner how he had a great group of students and he was optimistic about the semester.  He particularly loved working with students who went out of their way to learn- people who were passionate about education, like he was.  Working at the Pottstown campus of Montco meant Ryan had a lot of non-traditional students- single mothers, war veterans, retirees, and the like.  He loved making a difference in their lives in particular.  He got enjoyment out of the bad students as well- catching cheaters became one of his favorite things.  I loved the glint he'd get in his eye when he'd caught a plagiarist that day.  I think he got a lot of satisfaction out of the detective work that went into it.

Strangely, as good as he was at his job and as beloved as he was, Ryan was always terrified of doing something wrong and getting fired.  I think this was a natural reaction to having everything he wanted, and being able to think what it would be like if he didn't have it anymore.  If something had gone wrong at work
that day, he'd go on about it to me for what seemed like hours, listen to my advice (which was usually "you're worrying too much), and then proceed to call his mother and go through the whole process with her too.  When I told him that he needed to relax, he'd admit that I was right, but explain to me how important his job was to him.  He'd say it was the most important thing in his life, then quickly rephrase to say that I was the most important thing in his life, and then the job.  He'd told me many, many times that he'd read that the emotional stress of losing a job was a close second to the emotional stress of losing a spouse.  Ironic.

There was a lot that made Ryan good at his job, but I think the fact that he loved what he did was the biggest factor.  I've never met someone who loved their job so much, and I was envious.  I've never been able to find that perfect thing to do with my life, the thing that would bring me the kind of fulfillment that Ryan had.  I think I told him often that I was jealous of his career.  I'm not sure if I told him often enough though how proud I was of him.

It sort of makes my skin crawl to think of the new year starting and all of Ryan's coworkers going back to teach, the students coming into class, and Ryan not being there.  Someone else is in his cubical, someone else is teaching his old classes.  Ryan was meant to do what he did, and now he's not doing it anymore, and that seems so wrong.  I know so few people that know their purpose in life.  Ryan had found his, and he got to do it for such a short period of time.  I'm sad when I think of all of the students coming through the college who won't get the opportunity to take his class.  This was a man who was contributing to society, changing lives, making a difference in the world.  He had so much impact, and I refuse to believe that it was his time to go, because he had so much more to give.  He wasn't just teaching his students, he was teaching me too, every day.  I miss learning from him, and I can't stand the thought that our daughter won't get to learn from him- he would have loved teaching her too.  It's simply wrong that he won't get the chance.

Baby Stuff - Birthing Class

I am going to have a baby.  Really soon.

For most of the time that I've been pregnant, I've been working on getting used to the idea of becoming a mother without my husband.  Now that it's almost here though, and I'm going through all of the typical pre-baby stuff, I'm not sure how I'm going to do it.

The baby preparation has been a challenge all along- I told my parents and in-laws that I was pregnant the day Ryan died.  I went to my first prenatal appointment that day as well, and have gone to every one since with my sister instead of my husband.  The first time I went to Babies R Us to register for baby gifts, I cried in the aisles because I was so full of grief that he couldn't be there picking out baby things with me.  Ryan loved toys (see a future blog post which will focus exclusively on this), so it would have been a ton of fun registering with him.  The loss has been there for every stage of the pregnancy, little and big things, good and bad.  There has been no normalcy.  It has, however, always felt pretty distant.

Now though, it's coming happening very soon, and all of the little things that need to be done are happening.  Two weeks ago, I started my birthing classes.  Tracy, my older sister, offered months ago to be my labor coach, so I knew I would have a partner for this.  Leading up to the classes though, I was extremely apprehensive.  How could I handle walking into a room full of young happy couples, ready to have their first babies together?  For them, this would be one of the happiest, most exciting times of their lives.  It would be a room full of what I was missing.  Hospital employees take note: it would be really helpful to offer these classes separately for single mothers.

So, I've been worried about this for some time.  When we walked in the first week, I had blinders on, a coping mechanism I've gotten really good at.  I didn't look at any of the other couples in there, I just walked to my seat and looked straight ahead.  I later counted five other couples, happy new parents times five, plus me and Tracy.  I've found over time that simply explaining my situation up front is often a better course than keeping it to myself; people tend to be really uncomfortable for a few minutes, but it saves me from being uncomfortable for a longer period of time.  So when we introduced ourselves, I explained who Tracy was and why she was there.  After that the class itself wasn't so bad, I'd gotten lucky and didn't get a group full of super bubbly newlyweds full of public displays of affection.  But, the whole thing, just like everything else, was so surreal.  I couldn't help thinking about how if Ryan were here, he would have put his arm around the back of my chair and rubbed my back periodically, or held my hand during the video.  I thought of the jokes he would have made about the emoticons on the "stages of labor" poster, and how we would have gotten a quick bite to eat together after.  At the end of the class, when we did deep breathing, I involuntarily imagined sitting leaning against his legs instead of Tracy's, the whole time being acutely aware that it wasn't.

The second class was worse.  In it, we practiced breathing through simulated contractions.  The focus of the exercise was for our partners to know how to give support during increasingly uncomfortable contractions- mainly through touch and massage.  We sat in front of our partners, so they could massage our backs during the fake contractions.  In the room all around me, husbands comfortably rubbed their wives backs.  And my poor sister tried, as she always does, to do the right thing for me.  But for me there isn't always a right thing to do.  Tears started rolling down my cheeks and all I could feel was cold reality.  Ryan wouldn't be there to rub my back during labor, or to hold my hand, or to kiss my forehead, or to share in the joy of the end result.  Tracy massaging my back just made me think about how Ryan wasn't, and won't.  There's no fixing it or making it better.  I think I feel a little aversion to having anyone touch me at all during labor, though I know I can't know what I'll feel like until I'm there.

The religious and spiritual people in my life are always ready to point out that Ryan will be there with me, and he'll help me.  I believe that too, I do.  But it does not comfort me.  Ryan being there in spirit does not make up for him not being here in the flesh.  Missing his touch, his support, his voice- there's nothing that can replace that, and I'm not sure how I'll make it through.  I just keep telling myself that these are things I can do- that I am strong enough for it.  That's how I got through the birthing class, I just kept saying "I can do this, because I have to".  I'm sure I can.  Like so many things though, it seems completely impossible (not to mention unfair) that I should be having to do it under these circumstances.

Baby Panda Born at National Zoo

This week, there was a baby giant panda born at the National Zoo in Washington.  Baby pandas are always considered miracles because of how endangered the species is and how difficult it is for them to procreate; apparently female pandas are only fertile for a few days a year, making conception and eventual birth unlikely at best.  So this baby panda cub was big news, particularly on morning television, which I watch while getting ready for work.  Matt Lauer and The Today Show crew spent a ton of time fixating on it.  The panda, whose gender has not yet been determined, was teeny, tiny, and sort of rat looking.  But in a few weeks, I'm sure he/she will a ball of furry cuteness.

The National Zoo's new baby panda cub at three days old.
Not yet super cute.  Courtney Janney/NZP/National Zoo

This story would have been great news for Ryan.  Because Ryan, my military historian husband who wrote his dissertation on chemical weaponry in World War I, ADORED cute, furry little animals.

This was something I found out about him prior to our first date, when I worked with him at Borders, and then became a defining feature of our relationship.  It was one of the little Ryan things that made me love him, and that maybe not everyone knew.  I think it started with his own family dog, Lucy, who joined his family as a puppy, and extended to just about any other mammal you could think of.  I think a lot of it came from his intellectual fascination with animals, the way they moved, the things they did.  For example, he loved that Lucy would turn her head when you said her name because she wanted to hear better what you had to say, and the way that she would go through the same routine every time she got out of her bed (stand up, stretch her front legs, stretch her backs legs one at a time, shake her whole body, finishing with the tail, stand there wagging her tail at you).  He loved watching my brother's cat staling in the tall grass, or squirrels running around looking for nuts.  He could get hours of entertainment out of this.

Baby polar bear- the kinds of picture
Ryan would make me look at with
him when we were bored.

Television and the internet of course helped feed the addiction.  Many mornings in the summer Ryan would put on Animal Planet and watch a show called Big Cat Diary, which followed families of cheetahs, lions and leopards in Kenya.  Sometimes before bed he would start looking up videos of baby cheetahs roaring (you should check that one out, it's pretty awesome), or pictures of baby polar bears, or videos of Jack Russell Terrier puppies playing.  And I can't tell  you the number of times that Ryan would yell at me from the basement "quick, Kate, hurry up, you have to see this!!" Then I'd come running down the stairs, nearly falling and breaking my neck, just to find out that there was an adorable wolf cub on television that Ryan couldn't let me miss.  Ryan did goofy little impressions of the animals too; sometimes in the morning when I was putting on my makeup, he'd show up behind me in the mirror, and perch his head and fists on my shoulders and make a cute little face.  Like a little mouse.

So when the baby panda was born last week, despite the little miracle that he/she was, I was a little heartbroken.  Ryan could have taken a thing like a baby panda and gotten weeks of material out of it.  The story probably would have made his morning, and then we would have had to look at pictures of baby pandas, and he'd have looked up a bunch of panda facts, and we'd have talked about that time at the Berlin Zoo when we saw a giant panda at feeding time.  He did a great impression of the panda eating a carrot.  I miss that every day Ryan stuff more than I have words for.  These little Ryan quirks brightened my days. Thinking about it now makes me smile, and then ache. The happiest memories can cause the most pain, because I'll never have them again.  There are no pictures of Ryan making his little mouse face, and I'll never again hear the excitement in his voice when a baby polar bear shows up on TV.

Baby girl's nursery friends.

Ryan's love for animals is something I plan on sharing with our daughter. When we found out about the baby, we decided not to find out the gender.  When I thought about what we would register for in the way of nursery decor, we agreed on gender neutral jungle animals.  To keep with that,  found a great nursery set with monkeys and giraffes.  I got a little stuffed polar bear for her, and am sticking with the animal motif in clothing.  Ryan and I had planned many trips to the zoo with our family- I still plan to bring her once she's old enough.  I hope she likes them too, and her fascination with animals will help to remind me of his.