The Luckiest No Matter What!

Today my brother would've been 31 years old.  I realized that he has been gone for over 5.5 years, which is incredible for so many reasons.  To some extent, it feels like yesterday- other times it seems like so long ago because of how much my life has changed.   As I drove to work this morning, he was on my mind.  Eric is often on my mind on the way to work.  I think it's because of the peace and quiet a car ride can bring you without three kids in the back.  I'm not even really sure what I think about- it's not really memories or wondering how he is, but more just seeing his face, saying his name in my mind.  Allowing my heart to feel his absence and giving myself permission and some time to grieve all over again.  It's hard, sometimes, remembering him.  The last couple years of his life, he wasn't himself.  He was often a lying, cheating, stealing addict... crippled sick with his disease. He was also helpless, hopeless, and desperate. He was misunderstood

I tell my sixth graders all the time how freaking powerful knowledge is- in so many different ways, in so many different forms.  We talk about how empowering it feels to be knowledgeable about a topic.  How smarts and intelligence and information is one of the only things someone cannot take from you once you have it.  How their pen, their pencil, their voice is their most powerful weapon.  How they "are all geniuses and the world EXPECTS their contribution." (read Angela Maier's Classroom Habitudes - game changer!)  I say these things, I believe these things with every bit of my being. I love learning myself. Because we teach so globally in Team 61, I am constantly learning about the world, which has made me into quite the bleeding heart.  When you know all the needs that are out there- the heartbreak, the fury, the passion, the weight of so many causes and people, natural disasters, corruption, inequity, injustice, etc etc.  I walk around heavy with it- wanting to f