The Widowhood │ The First Days Back

I had my first contact day with students today. It felt like slipping into an old glove. For the first time in years, my professional life felt good and like I was where I belonged. It made sense.

I stood up in front of over 100 kids today and began setting up what my classroom was going to be like with them in it. It went well and the kids responded positively to me.

I had one student in my morning classes stop me from speaking and told me I was a beautiful soul. That touched me deeply. Sometimes I think that as we grow older, we become so jaded that we can not see or speak of what we see freely. It is something that kids, of all ages, I have felt hold onto and you will get these little quiet moments with them beyond teaching and learning that just hit you right in your heart.

I held onto that for most of the morning until my final class when another student who is severely disabled raised her hand to remind me that God loves me and has a plan for me, and that there is love out there for me that will forever change me. Another sweet moment that was totally unprompted that makes me stop and reflect on my life and day. I am in a season of wondering what God has in store for me and for my kids and sometimes I think he works through people to remind me that even though I do not have it all together, that I am where I need to be and that the hand of God is always near.

For now, I am enjoying the quiet in my life as lonely as it is most days. The quiet also gives me more time and focus on my own kids and things that I am passionate about like creating art, reading and teaching myself how to knit socks on my new loom.

That all said, I have enjoyed sharing segments of The Widowhood: A Semi-True Story of Surviving Widowhood Without the Fairy Tale Ending. These segments are smaller pieces of a larger manuscript that I am looking to publish next year, so be sure to stay on the look out for it!

For now, I am picking up the pieces that were left of myself following having my husband die in front of me only to find out he was cheating on me and then to try for love again with a man that decided to simply leave one day, which was something I always feared because I always felt my kids and I were at the harder side of risk than he was. We had suffered a traumatic loss and were allowing someone in again, he was a single man with nothing to lose. What if it worked out, he would say to me when I would talk about it, but in the end he did just that. The hardest part of it was when I had to tell my kids and I sat them down and said how he had chosen to not be a part of our family. My younger two were upset, my younger son even saying, “But I wanted him to be part of our family.” And I did too.

I am very lonely and I am sad quite a bit, but my new professional life and my children are what keep me going and the hope that somewhere out there is a man who will love me completely, my children included. I think the saddest part of my story is the reality that my younger two will have no memory of their dad and my eldest will only have some fuzzy ones. If God does have a life partner out there for me, he would ultimately be their dad and I think that is what keeps me hoping beyond my shattered heart that there is someone out there because they are great kids who deserve to have a dad that loves them beyond measure.

Until that day comes, I find my happiness in being their mom and looming socks.

Dr. Katherine Kuzma-Beck Hart1 Comment

The Widowhood │ The Hand of God

     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.

Dr. Katherine Kuzma-Beck HartLeave a comment

The Hart Home│Religious Freedom is Under Attack in NJ

This Thursday, December 12th, the assembly in NJ will be making a decision concerning religious exemptions in New Jersey for families who do not vaccinate their children due to deeply held religious beliefs but send them to public school. Until now, we have had the freedoms to make the choice to protect our religious beliefs by not vaccinating our children and we were able to send out children to public schools. Schools that we fund with our ever-growing property taxes.

Now, NJ democrats are trying to get this in around the holidays hoping that people will be too distracted to notice that they want 35,000 of NJ families who are currently using a religious exemption (about 2.5% of the population in NJ) to have their children removed from public education.

This disgusts me on so may levels. First, as a public educator, it is my job to ensure that my students receive an education that is free from discrimination. However, this will not be the case for many families who refuse to vaccinate their children. They will be forced to home school, but I am sure, much like California, once this passes they will be moving towards forcing even homeschoolers to vaccinate and submit documentation.

As a catholic woman, this further disgusts me because I live in the United States of America where I have constitutional rights to practice my religion freely. Further, as a catholic I am completely pro-life and I do not believe in the killing of anyone, but in this instance I do not believe it is God’s law that babies are aborted, killed, so that these scientists can get immortal cell lines to grow these vaccines to then inject my son with fragmented DNA from dead children. This violates God’s law in that he shall not murder and it also violates his word that we must keep our blood pure. Vaccines are biologics. You are injecting your children with much more than just a weakened infection.

And as a mother, this disgusts me because it makes big government dictate to me how I am to raise the child that God has given me. It violates my deeply held beliefs and seeks to put me against my God. It is disgusting that NJ government can even entertain the idea that they have any right to do so.

This bill is just the beginning of what they want to do to New Jersey. Up next? A bill that would mandate the HPV vaccine which is killing, paralyzing and sterilizing kids for NINE YEAR OLDS. Why does a 9-year-old need to be vaccinated for a disease that is only spread through sex? There is no logic behind it and I could go on about the deep seeded corruption in government and how their hands are deep in the Big Pharma pockets, but I won’t because this week, that is not at issue.

This week is about how NJ wants to strip me and my son of our constitutional rights to practice our religion freely and to not inject ourselves with DNA from dead babies. By doing so we are complicit to the murder of innocent lives and we are not right with our God. I am praying hard for NJ.

Call to Action:

IF you are just as appalled by all of this, like I am, you need to contact your senator and really, any NJ senator and express your concerns about your religious freedoms. You need to show up at the state house annex in Trenton on Thursday and express your disgust for this totalitarian bill. YOU need to FIGHT for YOUR RIGHTS. You can not be complicit. This is not about being pro or anti, it’s about keeping YOUR RIGHTS to YOUR KIDS.

Dr. Katherine Kuzma-Beck HartLeave a comment