Eclipsed

So we have an insane robin.  

It first showed up a week ago and slammed itself against our window repeatedly.  Like for two hours!  I googled it, like you do, and read that sometimes robins see themselves reflected in a window and try to scare themselves (?) away to eliminate the competition.

I banged on the window and told the robin to go away and he did, but he has come back every day.  Our window is a mess.  Is it blood?  Is it snot from the robin's nose/beak?  I don't know.  But it's gross.

Adam put blue painter's tape on the window as an indicator, "Hey bird brain, this is a window."

Sunday morning I watched the bird aim for the middle of the x.

Yesterday morning it was smacking into the window again.  It was early enough that there was no reflection because it was barely light at all.  I told it, as I have several times, that it was dumb and should go away.

I texted my family the bird report (because this is the kind of riveting content you are promised when you are in fam-a-lam.)

Braeden texted this:

He's the same kid who used to take spiders out carefully on a piece of paper rather than squash them.

We had an assembly at school and a man named Tom Ballard (not the same Tom Ballard I grew up with) was the presenter.  Before the assembly started and I was observing him interact with students, he struck me as the happiest person I had seen in a long time.  

He talked to us all about his rocks.  He cuts rocks into slices and then into hearts and then he gives them away.  He had one for every student and teacher in our building.

He said that giving them away makes him happy.

His very demeanor changed my day.  I sent this text:

The heart rock guy eclipsed my insane robin angst.

And that wasn't the only eclipse that happened.

My joy at seeing my students eclipsed the groan I felt in every cell of my body when my alarm went off at 5:45 AM.

During the actual eclipse, I had 6 pairs of glasses for my students to share, and share them they did.  They would exclaim in excitement and then pass the glasses on to the next kid.  I'm almost always just so proud of those kids!  They are kind and patient and understanding of lack.  They get it.  There are only 6 pairs:  we can work with this.

Adam conducted a funeral yesterday and here is part of his talk.

His wise words and the way they make me feel eclipse everything:

“At this moment, light is quite literally coming back into the world. While we have been in here, others have been outside staring at the solar eclipse. During an eclipse, the sun is emitting as much light as it ever has. It is only our ability to see the light that is temporarily diminished.

"Perhaps as we sit here or as we have sat with our thoughts over the past week, we feel like light has gone out of our life. We need not confuse recognition with resignation. We can recognize that the light has dimmed, at least temporarily, but we are not resigned to the idea that it will never be restored.

"Jesus Christ is the light and life of the world.”