The Last Goodbye
A work in progress.
By Carol Rosenthal
Summer 2010
I looked into his eyes. They were the bluest I had ever seen them and they were moist. I was saying goodbye and he seemed to know what I didn’t – it would be our final goodbye.
One year, on our birthday, we rode the motorcycle to town for breakfast. It was one of my first rides on the bike and I held on for dear life. Yet, having him in front of me assured me I was safe. So I relaxed and made faces at my reflection on his helmet.
I sit and watch home videos. It is Easter and I am running around the yard searching for eggs. Purple pants. Red baseball cap. Curly, blonde hair. Three years old. He is helping me. I seem to be blind to all colorful things, but he has a way of pointing out the eggs and making my small self feel like I found them on my own.
A sunny Saturday and I was home alone, but only because he was next door, looking out for me. I was sitting on my tiny, pink bike with no training wheels, walking it up and down the driveway. Once in a while I could pick my feet up and coast, learning how to balance. He, in his oh-so-familiar grey slacks and white button down shirt, started up a lawn mower. George Jones’ voice coming from the front porch was drowned under the sounds of the mower. He waved and smiled as he drove around the front yard. His smile made me brave. I put my feet on the pedals and rode my bike for the first time that day.
My mom picked me up from college to drive to the hospital. He had just gone through surgery only to find out it was inoperable. I said hello and tried not to cry. I was worried about him, hoping it didn’t show. He smiled at me. I smiled back, begging my tears not to fall. We talked about school, my friends and the fun I was having. Mom said it was time to go back. I leaned, carefully so I didn’t bump the IV tubes, and hugged him. His grip tightened and he whispered in my ear. He said, “I’m so proud of you.”
Hot, humid air surrounded us that August day. My brother was getting married. I watched through the window in the back of the bride room. The guests filed into the church through the back doors. He walked in wearing a suit and a cowboy hat. At the reception, he danced with my new sister-in-law, but not with me. With hurt feelings, I danced with my friends and cousins.
Gathered around the kitchen table, I was trying to win a game of yitch. We’d played a thousand times before, but this was different. I could win if I could just get my hands on a king of hearts. But my brother won. I came in third. He hugged me and said, “Next time!” As I hugged back I thought he might just be the king of hearts I needed.
Every Christmas morning our first phone call would be from him. At 6 a.m. But we didn’t mind. When he came over, he yelled at us to open our gifts faster. He was more excited to see what we were getting than we were. I loved giving him his card each year. I had a contest going with myself. Would this year’s card make him cry like last year’s did? I hoped it would. And it always did. After lunch, he would find a comfortable chair and pass out. Mouth open. Lazy snores came from deep in his throat.
“No, no, don’t go,” he said. But it was time for me to work, time to leave him. I smiled, holding back tears. “It’s ok, Grampa, I’ll be back,” I told him. “Ok. Ok, I love you so much,” he replied. He knew me. He knew I would come back. But he knew he wouldn’t be here. This was it. “I love you, too,” I said, “See you later.”
Later.
Friday, August 6, 2010
Monday, April 19, 2010
Time Flys, Even When You're Not Having Fun
Ok, ok. I admit, contrary to my title, I am mostly having fun at Syracuse, studying my butt off at Newhouse. Please note the date of the last post, till now. It's (as I always say) been far too long between posts. What's a girl to do?! I am still working and working and working and doing a lot of homework. The truth is...I'm almost done and I have the worst "senioritis" ever, though it's not exactly senioritis, since that's what I had last year right before I graduated from IUP.
The truth is...let's roll with that. The truth is I'm tired of life here. I have loved learning about PR in a way that IUP never let me. I have loved meeting new people, having new experiences, trying new things and living completely on my own. But, I'm ready to go. I am ready to do OTHER new things. I am ready to experience married life. I am ready to work a real job, to start my career. I am ready to go.
The truth is...I spend too much time thinking about what I should be doing instead of doing it. I have piles of homework that I think on...how will I find enough sources for my ethics paper? How will I learn about employee communication within an organization when this is something most organizations keep kind of hidden? How will I make the time to get my work done at all? Well...I could get off my blog for one. But, I could use my time better. There are only a few more weeks here, and, since I'm mostly too busy working at Wegmans on the weekends to go out with friends, when I actually get invited, I should use the time when I get home from work to put an hour or two into my final projects.
The truth is...I can do this. I will be done in about three weeks and then it's comprehensive final time. I'm pretty much scared to death of my comprehensive final as I feel like we didn't get quite as much education as past Newhouse PR grad students because of sick teachers and bad clients, etc. What if I didn't learn enough? What if I don't really know very much about PR at all? What if I pass, but have to do some re-writes? Or worse...what if I fail and have to re-write the whole thing? But that's not going to happen...I remind myself of the truth -- the truth is I can and will succeed.
Because the Truth is Jesus, and He is my Savior, Helper and Friend and I know that through Him, all things are possible. I know that when I get my exam and I sit down to write the most detailed answer possible to each question, and when I'm on page 107 and feel like I don't have another word in me, He will give me the strength to continue and He will help me remember the things I learned and He will help me suck it up and finish. He's the only one I'm even allowed to talk to about the whole project, so good thing He is the Truth and He is the One who knows it all.
And finally...the truth is I CANNOT WAIT TO GET MARRIED. I don't want to say goodbye to Bill one more time. I want to be together forever and for always and know that every night when I get home I get to spend the evening with him. Weekends with him. Good times and bad times with him. It's going to be a great future and I'm ready go get on with it. I'm also excited for our honeymoon in Disney and excited that I just purchased our wedding invitations today from David's Bridal Inviations and they are fabulous and I can't wait to see them and hold them in my hands and wonder what people will think when they open these lovely invitations!
Now...I will stop thinking about what I should be doing and go do it...Ethics paper, here I come!!
<3
The truth is...let's roll with that. The truth is I'm tired of life here. I have loved learning about PR in a way that IUP never let me. I have loved meeting new people, having new experiences, trying new things and living completely on my own. But, I'm ready to go. I am ready to do OTHER new things. I am ready to experience married life. I am ready to work a real job, to start my career. I am ready to go.
The truth is...I spend too much time thinking about what I should be doing instead of doing it. I have piles of homework that I think on...how will I find enough sources for my ethics paper? How will I learn about employee communication within an organization when this is something most organizations keep kind of hidden? How will I make the time to get my work done at all? Well...I could get off my blog for one. But, I could use my time better. There are only a few more weeks here, and, since I'm mostly too busy working at Wegmans on the weekends to go out with friends, when I actually get invited, I should use the time when I get home from work to put an hour or two into my final projects.
The truth is...I can do this. I will be done in about three weeks and then it's comprehensive final time. I'm pretty much scared to death of my comprehensive final as I feel like we didn't get quite as much education as past Newhouse PR grad students because of sick teachers and bad clients, etc. What if I didn't learn enough? What if I don't really know very much about PR at all? What if I pass, but have to do some re-writes? Or worse...what if I fail and have to re-write the whole thing? But that's not going to happen...I remind myself of the truth -- the truth is I can and will succeed.
Because the Truth is Jesus, and He is my Savior, Helper and Friend and I know that through Him, all things are possible. I know that when I get my exam and I sit down to write the most detailed answer possible to each question, and when I'm on page 107 and feel like I don't have another word in me, He will give me the strength to continue and He will help me remember the things I learned and He will help me suck it up and finish. He's the only one I'm even allowed to talk to about the whole project, so good thing He is the Truth and He is the One who knows it all.
And finally...the truth is I CANNOT WAIT TO GET MARRIED. I don't want to say goodbye to Bill one more time. I want to be together forever and for always and know that every night when I get home I get to spend the evening with him. Weekends with him. Good times and bad times with him. It's going to be a great future and I'm ready go get on with it. I'm also excited for our honeymoon in Disney and excited that I just purchased our wedding invitations today from David's Bridal Inviations and they are fabulous and I can't wait to see them and hold them in my hands and wonder what people will think when they open these lovely invitations!
Now...I will stop thinking about what I should be doing and go do it...Ethics paper, here I come!!
<3
Monday, February 8, 2010
The Life of a full-time grad student/part-time TA/part-time deli employee...
To think that it is already February 8th and I haven't blogged since before Thanksgiving is CRAZY. But then I look at my life and wonder how I even have time to type this up right now.
1. I am a full-time graduate student, in class for 12 hours a week. Plus graduate level homework, which is no easy task.
2. I am a part-time TA, for graphics classes. I teach five a week, totaling six hours of teaching, plus I spend approximately nine hours a week in my office, doing helpshops and keeping track of lab attendance, a.k.a. a total of 15 hours a week.
3. Finally, I am a part-time deli employee at Wegmans. Going on six years with the company. This weekend I worked Fri.-Sun., for a grand total of 24 hours.
Let's put that altogether...12+15+24=51 hours a week...not including time spent doing homework, exercising, and sleeping. This makes me think I could TOTALLY handle agency PR, since weeks are typically longer than 40 hours a week. Good to know I could handle that much work and so many projects at the same time.
Currently I am getting ready to write up a case study on best practices in PR management. I think that I want to focus on crisis communications, but maybe employee relations. Regardless, once I have picked the issue, I have to research various organizations and see how they practice the issue, and see who seems to handle it best. I'm still a bit confused on the difference between my literature review and the rest of the case study because they seem like they'd be the same thing, but apparently not. The literature review will be a review of what the said issue is, such as what I mean by crisis communications, and will review some cases that have been studied before. The rest of the case study will be my analysis of approximately three different companies and their PR practices. I think it should be interesting and I'll definitely learn a lot.
Next, in Agency PR, we were split up into groups and formed mini PR agencies. My group is a mid-sized firm and we represent RF|Binder. We are going to really learn what it will be like to be working for an agency. We just finished a project, called a differentiating factors report. This just means we did research on the firm we represent and wrote up a sheet with information about what makes RF|Binder different (and perhaps better) than other firms. We are trying to be selected by the client to represent them and their new product, iZUP. Of course this is fairly fictional, and we won't really do the actual campaign and take on the client, but we are competing with the small and large firms (other class members in their respective teams) for who would have been picked as the representing agency had this been real. It's all pretty exciting.
My other two classes are fun and I am definitely learning a lot, campaigns and ethics. Ethics is a bit intimidating but I think I'll do fine and in campaigns we get to work with a real client, like we did in research last semester. Overall, I think this semester is going to be great, and I'm excited that it is my last. Already in week four, time is flying.
Wedding plans are coming along and I landed an internship at the Erie Maritime Museum and Flagship Niagara League for the summer and I'm really looking forward to it. I will be working there 40 hours a week for eight weeks and then my degree will be complete...UNLESS I find a job...then I can do that, and the first eight weeks will count to finish my degree!
Well, I better run as I have to teach now! :)
Happy blogging...
1. I am a full-time graduate student, in class for 12 hours a week. Plus graduate level homework, which is no easy task.
2. I am a part-time TA, for graphics classes. I teach five a week, totaling six hours of teaching, plus I spend approximately nine hours a week in my office, doing helpshops and keeping track of lab attendance, a.k.a. a total of 15 hours a week.
3. Finally, I am a part-time deli employee at Wegmans. Going on six years with the company. This weekend I worked Fri.-Sun., for a grand total of 24 hours.
Let's put that altogether...12+15+24=51 hours a week...not including time spent doing homework, exercising, and sleeping. This makes me think I could TOTALLY handle agency PR, since weeks are typically longer than 40 hours a week. Good to know I could handle that much work and so many projects at the same time.
Currently I am getting ready to write up a case study on best practices in PR management. I think that I want to focus on crisis communications, but maybe employee relations. Regardless, once I have picked the issue, I have to research various organizations and see how they practice the issue, and see who seems to handle it best. I'm still a bit confused on the difference between my literature review and the rest of the case study because they seem like they'd be the same thing, but apparently not. The literature review will be a review of what the said issue is, such as what I mean by crisis communications, and will review some cases that have been studied before. The rest of the case study will be my analysis of approximately three different companies and their PR practices. I think it should be interesting and I'll definitely learn a lot.
Next, in Agency PR, we were split up into groups and formed mini PR agencies. My group is a mid-sized firm and we represent RF|Binder. We are going to really learn what it will be like to be working for an agency. We just finished a project, called a differentiating factors report. This just means we did research on the firm we represent and wrote up a sheet with information about what makes RF|Binder different (and perhaps better) than other firms. We are trying to be selected by the client to represent them and their new product, iZUP. Of course this is fairly fictional, and we won't really do the actual campaign and take on the client, but we are competing with the small and large firms (other class members in their respective teams) for who would have been picked as the representing agency had this been real. It's all pretty exciting.
My other two classes are fun and I am definitely learning a lot, campaigns and ethics. Ethics is a bit intimidating but I think I'll do fine and in campaigns we get to work with a real client, like we did in research last semester. Overall, I think this semester is going to be great, and I'm excited that it is my last. Already in week four, time is flying.
Wedding plans are coming along and I landed an internship at the Erie Maritime Museum and Flagship Niagara League for the summer and I'm really looking forward to it. I will be working there 40 hours a week for eight weeks and then my degree will be complete...UNLESS I find a job...then I can do that, and the first eight weeks will count to finish my degree!
Well, I better run as I have to teach now! :)
Happy blogging...
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
