Formerly called "Secretaries Day," it is a day for national (international?) acknowledgement of all the hard work that these professionals do to let everything run smoothly.
Today also coincides with the day that our union now tells us teachers to *not* pick up anything from administration to communicate with the students. (eg. Report cards.) So much for appreciating our secretaries today.
I baked an apple pie for my secretaries.
A three day work week, due to a compensation professional development day on Friday, and this crap. I'm not looking optimistically to my next pay cheque.
News of the Pope's rapidly deteriorating health had been circulating for at least a month. But being "not catholic," it didn't strike me as something of a great spiritual crisis. We all know the guy's a gajillion years old (since everyone tends to poke fun at that, including me) and suffered from a series of ailments over the many years, including Parkinson's.
Today, as I was trying to avoid the chaos of April Fool's pranks that bombarded me in my science class, I felt an incredible wave of sadness. Perhaps it was the weather - the sombre grey of a much too-familiar winter that cast its gloom through the windows. Perhaps it was the moody rain that suddenly transformed into great globs of snowflakes, then mysteriously melted into another spell of rain. Or maybe just because it's Friday. Whatever the case, I thought it was because I was feeling like my usual incompetent self.
When I arrived home and turned on the television set (to watch my daily 3 Simpsons reruns, one in French and two in English), the channel was set to CBC Newsworld. News droned on and on about the Pope and his rapidly ailing self. The story had been all over the school in the last few days, due to our irish (and/or catholic) foundation of teachers and the predominant fear of death that haunts our students, whose parents of the military sort would go on duty for extended periods of time to uncertain areas of the world.
It unnerves the mind when one hears about the fading health or death of a popular and prominent figure of the world. The bit with Mother Theresa was like that briefly, except for the fact that her death was overshadowed by the death of a member of the british royal family, whats-her-name. This time around, it is the story of a man who is dying. Slowly but surely dying.
A medical corespondent started speaking about the most current status of his health. At the moment, she said that he was going through septic shock, which is the point where blood is not reaching the organs thus shutting down the whole body. It then reminded me of the very moment, almost two years ago now, when the doctors at the wretched hospital spewed forth their report on how there was nothing to be done about my father.
Lo and behold, the whole day connected. My heart and my mind agreed upon the feelings were caused by the "spiritual father"'s dying reminding me of my own father's dying. The wave after wave of teary-eyed people on television telling reporters what they were feeling then made sense.
As I write, the pope is dying, probably in some physical pain (but might be numbed from drugs?) or unconscious. Perhaps he's in the deep sleep stage, where no one can follow. I hope that the pope will "walk slowly."
My father... I think that if one has travelled this far, and one has done all one can, one should just let go. So we pulled his respirator and let his heart keep going...
And that is the moment when we look to religion to find answers, or to find comfort, or just to feel something.
