IN LOVING MEMORY OF VICKI..Part 2

In my first post concerning Vicki and the ceremony her school held to dedicate the Morningside School lobby in her name I had hoped to include the short speech that her building's principal had given that day. A short time ago he e-mailed it to me and I want to include it here....

Good afternoon everyone. Some seven months ago, classes gathered in this lobby to take their annual class pictures to celebrate and capture the beginning of a new school year. Students, staff, and faculty gathered and posed with big smiles for that snapshot of a moment in time that they will remember and look back at for years to come. In this lobby, Vicki proudly stood with her class with a huge smile along side of her students full of hope for a new year.

In December, we came together as a Morningside family to honor Vicki’s life as a mother, wife, friend, and teacher. Today, we gather in our school, a place that Vicki truly loved, to once again recognize the impact Vicki had as an educator for over 20 years here. There is truly no way to memorialize Vicki in a way that would demonstrate how profound her impact was on the staff, faculty and students who worked with her over the 20 plus years she was at Morningside, but today we take time to remember and honor Vicki.

Many of us have been told that time heals all wounds. As I have grown older and have been put through many of life’s tests, I realize that time does not necessarily heal our pain, but does help to dull the razor sharp edge of our grief and hopefully turns tears into more of a smile when remembering someone we care about.

When the time came to honor Vicki, we asked ourselves how could we memorialize a teacher that loved Morningside Community School so much, a person that thought of teaching as her passion rather than a profession, that always put the needs of her students before herself? What symbolic gesture could we put forth that would represent and honor a person that had such a strong but graceful presence here, and represent her memory with honor?

Vicki had a true love for her students. Every single morning she greeted her students by name as they walked into their classroom. It was important to her that they feel welcome at Morningside and that they knew they were part of another family, our Morningside family. In a way, this new lobby welcome area will continue her tradition of greeting our students and families at the door of our building . We all know that the Morningside lobby of the past certainly was not all that welcoming. This new area will help to greet our families and make them feel comfortable and welcome in our building, something that was very important to Vicki. Vicki was a very private person, one that was not impressed with flash or glitz and certainly did not want to be the center of attention. With that in mind, we thought it was important to honor her in a subtle way. Now, as we enter our building, we can simply look to the left at this new welcome area and remember Vicki with a smile, keeping her prescence and those great memories close to us. Others can read the message imprinted on these benches and know that the members of the Morningside family will remember her forever.

I would like to thank the members of the Morningside staff as well as the Morningiside and Williams Elementary School PTO’s for contributing to this memorial

I would like to introduce Steve Forfa Vicki’s husband.

I have mentioned other times in my blog that it isn't always obvious why a certain song can appeal to you. Sometimes it is the music or lyrics. other times it could be the memories that are attached to it, like what you were doing the first time you heard it. Sometimes I think the notes just reach deep inside of you carrying a message that is translated by your experiences, memory...soul! The song "How to Save a Life' by The Fray was, and is one of the songs that really brought out my tears after Vicki's death and I could truly feel it reaching deep inside me. I went to YouTube to try to upload the video to this blog and could see that the song is truly spiritual and meaningful. Unfortunately it is not a video that can be embedded in this blog, so I am pasting the link to to it here. PLEASE! CLICK ON IT AND WATCH THE VIDEO!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TmFi2snLr7o

A second song that is very new and off their new CD called, I Found You is a great song and again shows the spritual angle that The Fray brings to their songs. The lyrics include a particularly meaningful section for me...

Losing her
The only one who's ever known
Who I am
Who I'm not, who I wanna be
No way to know
How long she will be next to me
Lost and insecure
You found me, you found me




Actually, the music video is so good I'll paste the link since it cannot be embedded!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=obhdTlImFBo