Touched

Tonight, at a holiday party for the historic house association on which education committee I sit, I was surprised to be thanked for my work on the 3rd and 5th grade curricula!  My friends, the director and education coordinator (the wonderful Mrs. S about whom I've written frequently) had encouraged me to stay to have fun when I said I could only stay a bit.  But I thought they were just being nice, you know, wanting me to enjoy myself since I don't get out much.

Yes, I can be dense.  Then, when the dedicated and hard-working director, Mrs. A, stood up and thanked the illustrious guests as well as the long-standing house docents, she also acknowledged me!  I couldn't have been more surprised.  Seriously.  I thought she was talking about my two other main colleagues on the committee who had been there much longer.  I had no clue until she looked at me and mentioned my work in Chicago.  And then I think I blushed deeply from my spot in the back of the room where I had been comfortably pacing on the rug. I shook hands, we took pictures, and I went back to my spot in the back, this time with people smiling and nodding at me.  And I could barely contain my sniffles.

I can't begin to say how touched I was.  See, the historic house and these wonderful women (it's mostly women) have been such a light in what has been not exactly a dark but definitely a gray year.  Because while they supported and accomodated me in my health struggles, they also allowed me to do what I love to do, which is engage children in learning about history through material objects, interactive tours, and hands-on experiences.  It was an intellectual challenge (learning colonial history) and professional challenge (stretching my museum ed legs again but in a new living history as opposed to art museum setting), in an inspiring, open-minded collaborative environment, so far from my "sick room" that it was a wonderful distraction, even when I couldn't participate as fully as I'd like.  It was--they were, and still are--a life line for me, for which I will always be truly grateful.  So the honor, the gratitude, the appreciation were all mine.

But it was really wonderful to be recognized.  (In fact, I'm not sure how much that ever happened in my professional life--people are always nicer to volunteers!).  And I will always treasure the paperweight with its hand-drawn depiction of the historic house.  (When we met up right afterward, Sis and Bud oohed and aahed over it.  Bud said, "Congratulations, Mommy!  That's cool." And Sis offered me a tissue!)

And I'm rearing to go for the spring tour season!

Thank you so much.