Reflection #15 (Only 1061 to go!): Getting Back On The Horse

Reflection #15 (Only 1061 to go!): Getting Back On The Horse      Just as singers must sing and dancers must dance, so teachers must teach...brace yourself.  I was prompted to write this reflection because of an email that I received yesterday from an alumnus. We’ll call him "Bob" (not even close to his real name). In a previous note, he had disclosed a couple of bad turns his life had taken...loss of job and end of his long marriage. Yesterday, his follow-up note was positive and up-lifting. (Wait! Do those two words mean the same thing?)  The problems still existed, but he had a “Life is what it is!” attitude as he sets about the task of dealing with them.

     In the late summer of 1969, Carmen Pintozzi had taken his team on a retreat...a pretty standard practice in those days...to help build team spirit.  He was a history teacher at Ignatius, and he was also the cross country coach. Since I was the A.D. at the time, I joined them, and one afternoon Carm and I were walking around the retreat house grounds chatting.  He was 30 years old with a wife and 3 kids, all under six years old.  While we walked, he was telling me his long range plan for the future.  Carm loved to paint (pictures; not walls) and he was pretty good at it.  When he retired, he wanted to move to Wisconsin, near a lake, and devote himself to that passion.  In January of that school year, Carm passed away unexpectedly from leukemia.  
     Carm's widow was understandably heart-broken with the loss of her wonderful husband, and frightened by what dangers might lie ahead, but she focused her attention on her children and created for them a rich and full life.  They learned well from their mother and have, in turn, each have met their own challenges head-on and persevered in a manner that has made their parents very proud.

      At the age of 20, Pat O’Mara contracted polio and was wheelchair bound for the next 30-plus years of his life.  Pat went on to become an outstanding teacher of math at Saint Ignatius, held many jobs at school, all the while being a loving husband and the father of six children.
      A favorite saying of mine (compliments of Jillian Luzzi) is: Define your life; don’t let your life define you.  If there had been a poster made with that saying, Pat’s picture would surely have been on it.

     I close with a quote from the Raispis/Spalding Clichés To Live By. This was originally penned by a newspaper columnist, Sydney J. Harris:  Life is the art of riding a horse backwards without reins, and learning to fall off without being trampled. There would be fewer personal catastrophes if we spent less time practicing the art of riding and more time practicing the art of falling.   I would add ...and getting back up on the horse.