Joy and grief do not usually go together. The idea of joy however is for joy to be there no matter the circumstances. I have been trying to find my joy this year, and it has been a bit difficult the last week or so. At school, MLK week is tough. We have parent/teacher/student conferences for two and a half days. These are 15-minute online conferences with the entire group of teachers the student has. We work from 8 to 5 with a few breaks. This year was very different for me. On Thursday morning my sister texted me asking me to call her when I had a break. I did. She let me know the hospice nurse was pretty sure our father was transitioning. Now a few years ago an ER doctor told us this and we all ran to his side and got Covid from him. So, the first struggle was, do we go or do we wait. I decided I needed to go after talking to Steve. We gave Hazel the choice of going with us. So, we picked her up at boarding school and drove to Connecticut to say our final goodbyes. Now I missed an afternoon of conferences as a result. I promised Hazel we would not spend the night in Connecticut. She didn't think she could handle it. The next morning, I started conferences again. Steve asked me if I was going to and my answer was, "What else am I going to do? Sit and cry all day?" I made it through all the morning conferences and started my afternoon ones. As my first afternoon conference came to an end, I received the news that he had passed. That was the end of conferences for me.
