Sheila Sims Iding
The most special things in life come in very limited numbers. That’s probably why they are so special. You get one marriage (supposedly); you only get a few special sons/daughters; only one kindred spirit; a couple pets that steal your heart. And…when it comes to the best of friends…you only get a few. I am blessed to have the best of friends. Even more, I am blessed to work with some of the best of friends.
Some of the teachers I work with aren’t just co-workers…they are my most cherished friends. I am lucky because they share my life both at school and beyond and they are a special part of that life…both at school and beyond. Some of them are newly-formed friendships but some have been since forever. Carol Schafer is one of those forever friends. We go back. No…we go way back. I had to be 15 or 16 when I first met her. The country girl from Aurelius and the city girl from Lansing.
We met playing competitive fastpitch softball together. We spent MANY years from April to September traveling the Midwest playing ball together. We bonded as teammates because I was the pitcher and she was the centerfielder. She chased down all those hard hit balls when my change-up didn’t work quite right (which was quite often, I’ll admit.)
When you spend all those summers together you become more than friends…you become family. Her parents became “mom and dad” to me and her siblings became mine. When she started to teach at St. Gerard, it’s not like we reconnected because we had never un-connected. When she started to teach at St. Gerard it was like family coming home. It was like having a best friend…a sister…just down the hall. It was the best of both worlds…and then it got even better.
Somehow, she began stopping by my classroom in the morning before school starts. The frequent morning visits turned into routine morning visits and so it was…so it is…every morning at 7:10ish she stops by my classroom to visit. We talk about school things, educational things, family things, fun things. Turns out these talks have been the perfect place to vent about problems, brainstorm ideas, exchange teaching strategies, discuss student concerns, discover new technology ideas and share spiritual experiences. The perfect place for therapy.
In those morning sessions, we have talked about everything from recipes to solving the world problems. We have cried about family members we have lost, struggles our children have endured and students who have stolen our hearts. We have laughed about cherished memory, a silly joke or a situation that just made us giddy. We have talked lesson plans, travel plans and wedding plans. While we talk, she has sorted papers for me, stapled books together and help organize my desk…my mind…my heart.
I get to school really early everyday and it’s quiet but lonely there that early in the morning and I love when I look at the clock and it’s after 7:00 a.m. because I know she will be stopping by Care Corner. I also know that these aren’t just talks or friendly visits, they have come to be a special sort of therapy. For a few years now we have joked about our “therapy” meetings or tabled a problem until morning “therapy”.
Today was her last day for several weeks as she is having hip surgery tomorrow to finally repair a very painful hip condition. I am so happy that she will be able to get her hip fixed and be pain-free again. I am happy for her but I am not happy about losing my therapist. I will miss our morning therapy sessions. I will miss her walking through that door, I will miss how she sometimes surprised me with an Egg McMuffin, I will miss how she left post-it notes in my lesson plan book for me to find later in the day and I will miss how her laughter echoed in the room after she left.
Tomorrow morning she is heading to surgery (YEA for her!) and I will be headed to Care Corner. I will miss her. She knows me better than anyone.
She chased down all those balls in centerfield when I pitched. She stood beside me at my wedding and sat by my hospital bed for each baby’s birth.
She was the first person who showed up at my door the morning my dad died. She was the first friend I called when Andy died. She’s been the person who sat on the other side of my desk all these mornings. I needed her in centerfield, I needed her at funerals and weddings and I need her in Care Corner at 7:10 for my morning therapy sessions. St. Raphael watch over her, help her heal, help her know how much she is needed…and loved.