By the time that Violet was born, I was losing my mind at the idea of having to go back to my job in the Capital City. I wanted to be home with my kids or at least able to be more present for them. However, I never seemed to be able to get something closer. When we lived at the shore, I never got an interview and then when we moved, I would get to the final interview and then not be the candidate. It was a difficult time and I was terrified about how I was going to be a mom of three and go back to a job that because I had been identified as a good, strong teacher would often be given the hardest kids without much support.
Into my lap fell a long term substitute position at a bougie district that would have kept me paid for the rest of the year and would have turned into a tenure track position. I was ecstatic and so was Phil, I would have an under 10 minute commute to work and I would be present for the kids. I would actually be able to teach kids who wanted to learn my subject. My days would not be spent on mitigating behaviors and getting to some of what I wanted to teach. The relief was palpable in our house. I resigned from the Capital City, I was board approved, I was ID’d and I was being given an email. I left to go to ShopRite and pick up overpriced cheese for Phil and I to eat with the kids as a celebration of my new job and for our wedding anniversary.
I went to Kohl’s and spent too much money on new clothes so that I could look the part of the English teacher who worked in a more well-off district. I was so excited that I would be able to get my eldest from school. I remember how the day felt like change and newness and I was looking forward to getting to see my new room. I was pulling into my driveway when I saw the school’s number come across my car dashboard. I eagerly picked it up.
“Hi Katherine, this is Sandra Fellows. I am so sorry to have to tell you this so late on a Friday, but they decided to make this tenure track so you won’t need to report on Monday.”
I was too shocked to speak. “Wait, what?” I manage to choke out.
“Your interview stands. I am going to have to interview some other people, but you will hear from me soon.”
She hangs up and suddenly I am just sobbing in my car, wondering what I was going to do because I was now at the end of my maternity leave and was depending on getting a paycheck. I couldn’t fathom the idea of having to go back to the Capital City even though I knew that was what was going to have to happen and since they never responded to my resignation, it was probably going to be easier said than done.
I cried harder at the idea of not being able to get my eldest from school and then got myself together enough to go inside and tell Phil. I remember walking inside and going straight for a drink and sitting down in my recliner with it, sobbing and telling Phil through broken sobs about what had happened.
“And you need to be drinking,” he interjects, not at the right time.
“Seriously? SERIOUSLY,” I am about to lose my mind. He walked away. He never liked when I drank and would judge me for it exponentially.
Phil never took care of himself unless I made him. He would make promises about working more or getting a better job, but it never came to be and when it came to paying for our house or for caring for the kids like making sure everyone had health insurance, I did not want to put that into his hands even though I was beyond burnt out from having three kids in four years and working 16 hour days and taking care of him on top of it because I knew he would mess it up which he would ultimately do later that year when I let him have the summer.
If I could pinpoint a time where I would say it was where I began to hate my husband, it was in that moment. How much more could one person take on for everyone else while they drowned and their husband allowed it? The loss of this also hit my ego hard and I began to believe that the best I would ever be is overworked in an inner city school that was happy to leave me in an unsupported position as opposed to giving me something that better supported me. I began to believe that this was just going to be my life.
I never got a phone call again from that principal, just a form letter a week later that told me I was not selected for the job. I went back to the Capital City, full of rage and hatred for my marriage and for my job. I was very much over it all and after the 16 hour days ended, I would sit up with a baby and apply to anything I was remotely qualified for that allowed me to pick up my kid from school. It ultimately would lead to my job with the state which would give me the one skill I would add to my resume that would make me stand out to the public school I would ultimately leave the state for. That decision would lead me to be sitting next a woman in a training at the new job that would pick up on our connection to the bougie school district. It would turn out that she had left the same school that had hired and fired me within a week and she knew about the events that surrounded that event in my life.
“I was there when that all went down. You were replacing a guy that grabbed a kid and then all of a sudden they pulled a long term sub from another building to be you but she left already. The entire district is out of money and everyone is leaving, be thankful it fell apart for you. You had someone up there on your side because you would have been cut either the next year or this year because the principal that hired you died suddenly and she was the one that was stopping all of it from happening. Once she was gone, the district came in and gutted everything,” she explained.
My jaw was on the floor. Had I not lost that job, I would have either been struggling more leading up to Phil losing his job or would have been a fresh widow dealing with Phil’s financial mess he left me with and no job to save us.
You would think that with all that has happened to me in the last two years of my life, that things like this wouldn’t be so shocking to me, but it still surprises me when I learn about the hand of God in my life. The first time I truly saw the hand of God was the morning that my husband died. He died in our back yard, out of the house. He died an hour before I wouldn’t have been home and he would have either been at home with the kids by himself or worse, he would have been driving them in the car to what they had planned to do that day. He would have died and potentially killed the kids with him along with whoever he hit in the van that he would no longer be in control of. However, the hand of God protected us.
Then by keeping me in my old position, I was afforded time off to get my family together after my husband died before I went to the state. I think God delivered me to the state because it gave me almost two full years after Phil died to recover. The state was less work than what you do as a public school teacher and for awhile, I enjoyed the break before it was clear it would be in my best interest to return to public school. And in came the hand of God, delivering the position to me that I ultimately took. I do not think God does everything for you, but I think if you are working hard at your life, he has a way of directing you to where you need to be.
After meeting a new friend in training, I went back to my new classroom and began to unpack the bags of things I have had sitting in my garage since the spring from the state. I came to the bag of things for my desk and found the pictures of my kids and one of me and John. After setting the ones of my kids on my desk, I sat back in my chair a little teary eyed and ran my hands over the edges of the brown frame that had the picture of me and John on our first date. I began to wonder if his choice to leave was also another moment where the hand of God was involved. Was it all to lead me to whatever it was that was supposed to happen in my love life? I started to think about what I did not like about John. I did not like how he would be so intensely with me, but at the same time so distant with his own life. I also didn’t like how he would sometimes do things carelessly and when I would react, I was ultimately wrong and selfish for doing so, like when he really hurt me when I brought up a future and then had avoided talking to me about what our life would look like for two weeks and then just decided to throw us in the trash overall. It was beyond hurtful.
With a heavy sigh, I wiped my tears on the back of my hand and put the picture in the bottom drawer of my desk. I laugh when I see the name on the drawer. Apparently, this desk used to be Mr. Love’s. How ironic that a Dr. Hart is replacing a Mr. Love. This was a new beginning and wherever God was leading me, I told myself it was time to trust in the hand of God and build a beautiful classroom for my new students.
Katherine Kuzma-Beck 
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