Well, it’s been a rough week for my family – my Penn State family and my biological family. We sadly lost our legend, our coach, our father, our founder, our inspiration, JoePa, on Sunday. 🙁 As a Penn State family member, it was so moving and comforting to watch the coverage all week long to see and hear how this man affected so many lives for the good. Watching his family and the Penn State family come together and remember a man of such honor and integrity made me more proud to be a Nittany Lion than ever before. (If you know ANYthing about me, this is a pretty bold statement:) )
I would have loved to be there in State College to honor him with my Penn State family.<3 But you can bet your bottom dollar that I was there in spirit. My heart was heavy all week, and I still have not had enough emotionally stable minutes to watch the ending of the Memorial for Joe. I’ll get to it when I get to it. Thank GOODNESS for my Penn State network of friends who have understood exactly what a toll this has taken on me. I wouldn’t have made it through last week without all of you.
 |
| Penn State Forever <3 |
 |
| stunning pic of the stadium glowing 1/27/12 |
Then when I thought things couldn’t get worse – my world was turned upside down again. Friday night, I got that dreaded phone call that shakes us all – hearing that a loved one has passed away. My grandfather – my Papa – was led in by angels Friday night. As heart wrenching as the news was, being surrounded by my entire family all weekend long managed to warm my heart again. We all lost someone so special and someone so close to us, but we made it through this weekend one hour at a time – together. And that’s how we will survive the next two days. We have to.
 |
| my beautiful grandparents <3 |
Just being together was so comforting to me. We shared stories and memories about Papa, and we shared more than a tear or two, too. Just being in each others’ company, we knew that the sun would come up tomorrow, and we would be ok. That’s what Papa would want anyway. Fussing and worrying about him would be the last thing he’d want us to do!
So I’m headed back to PA this evening for the viewing and services the next few days. I’ve got 2 days of sub plans done, labeled, and laying out on my desk for the two DIFFERENT subs that will be filling in for me through Wednesday. (Let’s face it y’all – sub plans are the polar opposite of fun, right?! And for 2 different subs on two consecutive days?!) But the good news is, it’s all ready to go and I even transformed my classroom from Winter Wonderland to groundhogs and hearts while I was at it. 🙂 Productive, happy, resting easy teacher . . . . CHECK!
To end on a happy note . . . I was explaining to my firsties today that I would be heading to Pennsylvania tonight. One of them looked at me totally serious and said “Well, Mrs. Schroeder, you should know that I’ve been to Pennsylvania severalll times and there are NOT that many pencils there like you may think. I have NO idea why they even call it that!” Get it? Pennsylvania . . pencil ?!
Thank goodness for family, friends, funny firsties, and an amazing hubby. <3 Whew. Next post will be filled with many more rainbows and unicorns 🙂 I promise.
