Circle of Life

It has been several months since the last blog ... well, we are parents now and the time I would have spent doing that is now spent sleeping. Being up until 11:00 pm these days is rare and even getting to bed past 10:00 pm feels late. Boy am I getting old.

I have been inspired to blog again for a couple of reasons: 1) My neighbor recently looked up our blog and commented that she enjoyed reading it. After seeing her comments, I realized that it is really nice to look back where we have been and celebrate how far we have come and I should continue to take part in this online diary of sorts. 2) My child has had several new developments during the past week that I don't want to forget.

I had every intention of blogging about the milestones tonight, but I think this post will take a different course. Before I digress, however, I do want to at least mention what she has "learned during the past 7 days.
1) Everything is a phone and if there is no object in her hand to turn into a phone, holding a pretend phone to her ear works just fine.
2) She is learning to high-five
3) She can now wave "bye-bye" with some consistency
4) She is mobile -- you can hardly call what she does crawling - it is two hands on the ground, one foot and one knee and a sort of wobbly shimmy across the floor that occasionally involves a face plant.
5) She laughs at us when we tell her "no"

I know that this is just snapshot of the joy that we are getting out of all of these accomplishments, but I know that those of you who have the pleasure of being parents understand.

While I had hoped tonight to blog about all of this joy, I am grieving. Tonight I learned that a beloved professor past way. Abraham Holtzman was my first political science professor at NCSU. At the time, he was only teaching PS 201, NCSU's PS intro course. He had retired, but came out of retirement to teach one class per semester. By the time I was taking Abe's class, I had already decided I was a Democrat and I knew that I wanted to major in political science. Despite already making these transformative decisions for myself, I will be forever grateful to Abe and his class. He changed the way that I thought about college, he taught me more than he will ever know about politics and he made me a better student.

When I was at NCSU, professors' grade distributions were posted online. Students could tell how many A's, B's C's, etc...a professor gave the previous several semesters. In previous semesters, Abe gave only 3% A's. Abe's class was hard. He would go down the aisle and ask a question and if you were wrong, he flat out told you you were wrong. He didn't sugar coat it and say "Well, that could be right .... does someone else have another answer?" He just said that you were wrong and I loved this about him. He would continue down the aisle until a student said the correct answer. If, while giving the answer, you said the word "Like" to stall, he would make a "buzzer" sound and mimic you saying "Like" with the most pained grimace on his face. He taught people in our class how to think on our feet and how to use the english language in ways that helped us sound intelligent. He taught us how to use knowledge to back up our opinions. His class was so much more than a intro class.

I learned at an early age that in order to do well in a class, it was best to get to know the professor. Not so that I could talk my way into a class, but so that I could learn the professor's style, what information they deemed valuable. I treated Abe's class no differently. Soon after classes began that spring semester of my sophomore year, I began visiting Abe's office on Friday morning's before my 12:15 pm class. In these conversations, I got to know Abe and from these conversations I learned how Abe thought and how he was going to teach us. And from that, I knew how to study for his class. And study I did. I read the book that he wrote for the intro class (and I still have that book) and I was prepared everyday. I never felt, though, that I studied that hard for his class - probably because I enjoyed the class and I enjoyed that material. On the first test which was all essay (all of Abe's tests were essay) I got a 98%. Knowing that it was a rare ocassion for Abe to give A's, I thanked him after receiving our scores. He said "What are you thanking me for?" I said, "For the A, I know you don't give those out very often." His reply, "I didn't give you that A. You deserved it."

Over the course of the semester I got to know Abe very well. I learned about his children, I learned about his life in politics. He gave me recommendations on what books to read. I learned that on a trip to Rome when he was a child, Abe's family ended up in the pope's presence during a ceremonial parade in which the pope was handing out blessings. His father told him to bow his head to receive the blessing and Abe asked "why? we're Jewish." His father retorted, "It's the Pope and we'll take all the blessings we can get."

After that semester, I continued to be in touch with Abe. I had started working for Congressman David Price and during 2001, Senator Lieberman was the special guest at one of David's fundraisers. Abe Holtzman wanted to attend and I picked him up at his house and drove him to the event at the Washington Duke. It was an honor to have Abe travel with me.

Over the course of several more years, Abe and I wrote to eachother. We would often write about politics, the candidates of the day and our thoughts about the races. I valued Abe's opinion and I hope that he saw some sense in mine. When Dan and I started dating, I even went to visit him with Dan and we enjoyed a lovely afternoon in the sitting room of their lovely home inside the beltline.

When I was in Abe's class, I was Sarah Randall. And he used to tell me that it reminded him of a poem - Lord Randall...he would always recite lines of the poem to me. I always took Abe at his word and never looked up the poem until now. Why would I wait so long to look up the poem that my great mentor and friend told me about for years? Who knows...but here is a link to it in case you are curious http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/lord-randall-2/

The last time I saw Abe Holtzman was last spring at a retirement party for a fellow NCSU PS Professor (Oliver Williams). I am thankful that he got to meet Emily then.

As I think about the life Dr. Holtzman, grieve his death and give thanks to God for the life of my daughter, I ponder the wondrous circle of life and the amazing life that awaits Emily.