speak softly….

Nurse: We need to empty his stomach contents. He shouldn’t have had that juice at eleven.  Did you bring a decompression tube?

Me:  No, I didn’t think I’d need one.

Nurse:  I’m going to get you an eighteen French catheter and a Q-tip. You should be able to do it with that.

Me (up for anything): Sure, let’s go for it!

(ETA:  Several readers have asked, “why the q-tip?”  The (non-cotton) end of the q-tip can be used to open up the valve on the G-tube:  stick it in and the valve pops open.  Keep it in and the valve stays open, allowing you to empty the stomach contents via the tube, or, in this case, the catheter.   Why the back end of a q-tip and not some other long, pokey item?  Since it comes pre-wrapped in a hospital setting, the q-tip is sterile.  And hospitals like things to be sterile–go figure.)

Today I have on my desk before me document that is dated 11-10-1986. It’s a worn, stained piece of paper that never, until just now when I scanned it, existed digitally. It was created by a gifted teacher, a man who was a mathematician at heart but who ended up teaching ESL instead. He was a teacher’s teacher, and he taught me so well in my graduate school days as a beginning teacher I still remember some of his more vital lessons: listen to your students (they’ll tell you what they need); set a good example; turn your work around in a timely manner; be fair.

At each semester’s end, I remember this man and his lessons when I dig out the document he gave me, back in 1994, that same artifact that remains his most profound legacy:

A grade calculator.

For those of you who teach, you know how mindbending it can be to take a semester’s worth of student work and arrive at a grade that is meaningful, decent and fair. I cannot say enough about what this calculator does for me, the awe I feel when I pull it out (and the panic I once experienced when I thought I had lost it–how would I ever find Bob Land again? Did he still have copies of this?) and the distinct memory I have of the moment I was given the document itself.

Me: “I’ve heard you have a system for grading….”

BL: “Oh really?”

Me (sheepish, humble): “I heard someone say it’s a grade calculator?”

BL (with a smile): “Well, it doesn’t actually calculate the grade, that part is up to you.”

Me: “But it helps?”

BL: “Well, yes, it’s a short cut of sorts.”

Me: “Could I see it sometime?”

BL: “Hmm, I’ll think about it.”

The man wasn’t coy or shy, he just knew the value of the thing I had heard mentioned.  And yes, clearly, eventually he did hand me a copy of his Blessed Calculator, and I have never forgotten my gratitude.

The biochemistry class I’m taking this semester has indeed proven to be a ball buster.  We’re only half-way through but already I feel like throwing my hands  up in the air and declaring, “Foul.”  Foul because it just gets harder and harder; because half the class is failing; because on Wednesday night the class was cancelled and five minutes later a substitute showed up; because I study my ass off and half an hour later have forgotten everything.  “Can we make this open book?  Please?!”

This week came a new and different turning point.  The cute little calculator I purchased at the beginning of the semester, warm and fuzzy and blue:

Not cutting it.  Instead I now have this:

A thing whose manual looks like this:

Oy.

The Literary Reflections department at Literary Mama is seeking personal essays about writing as a mother, reading as a mother, or developing a career as a professional mother-writer.  Here’s the submission guideline link for handy reference. http://www.literarymama.com/submissions/

The anthology edited by the incompable Suzanne Kamata, “Love You To Pieces” is available for pre-order on Amazon.  Even better, you can search inside the book.  If you click on “excerpt,” guess whose piece shows up?  Well, just look and find out….  Even better, when you click on the product details for the book, Amazon recommends that you buy it along with Jennifer Graf Groneberg’s “Roadmap To Holland”!  Amazing.

Please consider buying a copy of the book.  It’s a wonderful, moving and truly incredible piece of work.  Thank you, Suzanne, for the best kind of labor, the labor of love.