I got a call from a friend of a friend of a friend that sounded like a great opportunity. It was shortly after my husband, Mike, had been declared free from blastomycosis and ready to return to work after a many months of absence getting chemotherapy. So much had happened that I needed to put my longing to return to college on hold once again. Still, I needed something more in my life and I had asked my friends to be on the lookout for any opportunities that I might try. Thus came the call that brightened my world. 

A local woman had put together a little pre-school program that was housed in the classrooms of a nearby church. She called it “Do and Learn Preschool.” It was a year long program for three and four year olds that took place on Tuesdays and Thursdays. One of her regular teachers had suddenly bowed out leaving her in a scramble to find a replacement before the new school year began. The call that I received was from a stranger who had heard that I was an almost degreed teacher. She provided me with information about the school and urged me to call its director. Uncharacteristically I did not hesitate.

My interview for the job was serious business. I had to bring a transcript of my classes and grades and a resume of any kind of work I had done. The director presented me with some pointed questions that demonstrated her intent to find someone who might be able and willing to maintain the quality of her school. At the conclusion of the discussion I was not so sure that I would land the job, but a few days later I was overjoyed to be employed as a teacher of four year olds. An additional perk was that Catherine would be a member of the three year old cadre. Best of all the school was only about three minutes away from our home. 

Planning meetings with the director were intense. She was quite serious about offering a high quality program that included regular lesson planning meetings and a structured curriculum. It would be incredibly important real world practice for my future and might even help me to hone in on the area of education that might be most appealing to me. It also involved a great deal of work outside of the classroom hours, a precursor to the realities of being a teacher. I threw my enthusiasm and skills into what I was doing with my entire heart and soul. It was incredibly fun and also helped a tiny bit with the payments for Mike’s medical care that were not covered by or insurance. I saw the job as a kind of godsend. 

In the meantime Pat had graduated from the University of Houston and was once again announcing his intent to apply for training with the City of Houston Fire Academy. He was also dating a beautiful young girl who lived just down the street from our childhood home. Her name was Kelly and Pat was totally smitten with her. We all saw that things were moving rather fast for him as he settled down into pursuit of the future he had always imagined. 

Mama’s family was growing at the same time that her home was becoming empty. My brothers and I were all involved in traveling down our own adult pathways. Even though our mother had a career that she really enjoyed, the direction and meaning of her life had changed dramatically. She had done a phenomenal job of guiding us to adulthood, but the prospect of being alone after so many years of serving as the center and guiding force of the family was bearing down on her. It became a constant topic of discussion between her and her doctor. Luckily she had two granddaughters on whom to focus her doting attention and there was good news that Becky and Michael would soon give her another grandchild to love. 

Time has a way of accelerating to the point where one month then one year begins to bleed into another. I literally began to lose track of the months and years as I threw myself into my teaching job and being a mom to my two girls. I was enjoying life and loving that my mothers and brothers seemed to also be doing so well. Mike was healthy and we were surrounded by good friends with whom we constantly celebrated life. Our weekends were filled with invitations that kept us quite happy. It was a moment in life that was filled with so much promise. Our cousins and our friends were finding love and having children just like we were. 

The seventies were a time for growing up, finding the compass of our lives. They were often bumpy, even a bit scary, but by nineteen seventy nine we were knew exactly where we wanted to go and how to get there. In July Mike and Becky’s daughter, Kim, was born, a beautiful child who would prove to be incredibly bright and sweet. In October, Pat and Kelly were married in the same church where Mike and I had pledge our love and devotion eleven years earlier. Joy was literally oozing out of our pores. 

I saw that or mother had done a remarkable job of being both mother and father to us, often with an impossibly low income. She had taught us what was most important in life and encouraged us to be the individuals we wanted to be. We knew how deeply she loved and devoted herself to us. Now it was time for each of us to pass down the beautiful lessons we had learned from her. We were each creating our own brand new circles of love concentric with the one in the center of our family that Mama had begun over thirty years before and that she would continue to maintain for the entirety of her life.