Friday the 14th of December

I taught my last class of fall semester 2012 on a big wave of emotions. I'd been thinking a lot about Charlie going off to school -- getting on the bus after I left for my early Friday morning Elementary Latin class -- because as I was ascending the curving on-ramp onto the Pulaski Skyway and hearing the Decemberists launch into the mariner's revenge song I remembered, amid giving Charlie various things for sinus congestion and stomach discomfort and concluding that I have whatever he has, I had forgotten to give him his daily meds.

Happily, I immediately contacted Jim at the gym and he hastened home to get the meds and thence to the Big Autism Center to give them to Charlie.

When some students expressed less-than-thrilledness about the essay question format of an exam I emphasized the importance of ye most basic written-by-hand-on-paper-communication by talking about how I rely on a black-and-white notebook that Charlie's teacher, therapists and I write back and forth in. If his teacher isn't there, anyone can read it whereas an email to his teacher would only go to the teacher's account and it's not that the school classroom staff can just check emails when they have kids to teach and care for. Of course, Charlie's teacher and therapists arent's writing essays on Herodotus and Thucydides but I know from daily writing, writing and writing that the more you do it, the better and more fluid it comes.

Our children and those to whom we entrust them every day to learn, how beyond important they are and all the more so on this day.