Monday, October 09, 2006

A somber weekend

Although I had time to write this weekend, I did not feel up to it at all.

On Saturday, I attended a funeral of one of my professors at the University of Minnesota. Her class was the first one I took in my program, the Master of Liberal Studies, in the summer of 2003. My major output during that time was my paper on teaching chess in the classroom that I have published on my website and on the Minnesota State Chess Association's website.

Jill had been sick for a couple of years with cancer. Since she was a person I did not see very often after the class had ended, I did not know that she was going through this ordeal. I had found out by e-mail this week that she passed and the arrangements for her funeral.

I stayed through part of the reception and talked to one of her friends, a fellow musician. We talked about losing loved ones. (I lost my brother in January of 2004.)

I felt okay during the time I was at home that evening, but I woke up tearful in the middle of the night from a strong dream dealing with Michael's death. I hadn't felt that way in quite a while, and although I shouldn't have been surprised considering that I was at Jill's funeral earlier, it still caught me off guard.

I spent the rest of the day both sad and tired.

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4 comments:

irenie said...

(((Java Joe)))

Joe Erjavec said...

Thanks, irenie, I appreciate it. Learning to live with grief is a challenge, but I think I'm getting better at it.

Anonymous said...

I was Jill's student also. She was such a cute, old-school style professor - and I really learned the basics from her.
She will be missed

Joe Erjavec said...

I know, I learned much from her, especially considering that was the very first class in the program and much different from any other class I have had before.