I've mentioned several times how much I appreciate my wife. She is truly a special lady, but today I was reminded of just why she is.
This morning, she began applying for more jobs. Any open elementary position she was certified for at Bryan ISD, she applied for. She's already done that for College Station, but has been holding off on Bryan and other surrounding area schools because she doesn't know as much about them. She jumped into a position in her one year of experience that really hurt her, and she has been very cautious about where to look- but we're at a point where both of us are stretching our comfort level in an effort to get the type of career we want.
About that year from Hell. She was teaching Life Skills (Serious special ed, one of her kids was blind, deaf, and in a wheelchair. Basically, these kids were being taught basic stuff, just to survive.) in Marlin, where I was a youth minister. She took the job with the promise she would have no more than 9 kids with two very experienced aides. She showed up to find no aide, and more kids. By the end of the first month, she had fourteen kids. Finally, she got an eighteen year old recent grad as an aide. She later got pregnant, and was often sick. During that year, a school counselor was fired for sexual harassment. A new hire teacher in January started paying 5th graders to call in bomb threats so she wouldn't have to teach her class. The principal disappeared during the TAKS testing. Kristin viewed a victory day as one that no one got seriously hurt in class, because it was so overwhelming. She was destroyed by the school, and at the same time saw victories in the students she taught- one kid started the year by coming to class in violent tears because he had such bad experiences the year before, and she got him to love school.
When we moved after that year, she was thankful to take a year off because we moved to a town of 3,000 and 1,500 of them were teachers. No chance for a job there. Then we began our family and she happily settled into being a stay at home mom.
But, now, our kids will both be in school. And she was willing to step up and try to teach again. I watched her apply this morning, to schools she knew little about other than they were near us. I saw the trepidation- and at the same time, determination- to do what she needed for her family. I saw in her eyes the war between fear and hope, and I saw hope winning out.
When we met, she always said she needed to be stronger, to have more of a backbone. I think she's always been stronger than she thinks. But she has a determination, a work ethic, that when she engages that, she becomes unstoppable. I see it in her attempts to get employment, and I see it in her work to reach her goal to fit into her wedding dress on our tenth anniversary in less than a month. I've no doubt she will fit in that dress, because she has put her mind to it.
And I've no doubt that any school administration would be blessed if they would give her a chance. Because the same determination she applied to trying to get a job and get in that dress she applies daily to her family, and would apply daily to her students.
That's why she is awesome.
I love her too!
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