Let me tell you a little about my wife.
I have been married for 37 years to a wonderful woman who I truly believe God gave to me. I frequently marvel at how a very average looking guy like me ended up with a beautiful woman such as I am married to.
But as they say, every blind squirrel finds an acorn sometimes, right?
OK, so that doesn’t sound so flattering to my wife, so I will add that she does seem to like me since I have always tried to be nice to her and treat her with respect. Also, when we got together, I fit her mold of “a thin, hippie looking guy,” which is what era the two of us came from.
But I am getting away from the story—something I easily do in this space every week.
As I said, I would like to tell you a little something about my wife, a woman who is so opposite from me in terms of attention, publicity, or being in the spotlight.
For that matter, I always have to tread a bit lightly when I talk about her publicly since she is very private, and not at all the guy like me who runs to every social, public, charity event that is going on in the parish!
We frequently laugh about how different we are in that regard. She most wants to be home with her children and grandchildren, playing the homemaker role that she has done so well, and I’m the guy who is now heading up two newspapers in St. Tammany Parish, and not only need to go to a lot of public events, but is asked to attend virtually every one of them.
So you can already understand a little about my wife from that intro, and know that she has not been a working, professional woman most of her life—nor does she have any interest or intent to be.
My wife is a homeschool mom. She really never planned it that way, but for us, it turned out that way—for 25 years.
It was barely a week ago when my wife’s career as a homeschool mom came to an end. I’m sure it is easy to understand how difficult that would be for anyone, coming to the end of a fulfilling career after 25 years.
I remember when it all started a quarter of a century ago. Our first child, Chrissy, was approaching the age to start school, so like all parents at that time in their lives, we discussed what school she would attend. We were attending a church where a lot of parents homeschooled, so my wife liked the idea of that and figured, “I can do this for a year or two, and then we’ll put her in public school.”
One year turned into two, then three—then 25.
The truth is that neither my wife nor I were any kind of great students. I barely graduated from high school and attended college for one semester before quitting. She also finished high school, but not exactly in the top 10 of the class. She was planning to go to college, just because it seemed like the next step in life, but then “Mr. Wonderful” came along, and yes, that would be me—so we got married after nine months of dating.
Unlike me, my wife actually did have an interest in learning, but once she was married and began working, college was no longer in the picture. I actually believe she would have gone to college if given more of an opportunity, but we didn’t grow up thinking much about that kind of future, much like other young people.
My wife became a stay-at-home mom after we had our first child, and since then, she taught our four children, all the way from kindergarten to 12th. All four got their GED’s, and two finished college, with a third about to start. Pretty good results, I would say.
My wife loved being a homeschool mom. She not only loved being with her children at “the table,” as they began to call it years later, but more than that, she loved learning. She frequently said it was her second chance to go to school, but at an age when she really, truly wanted to learn. And since then, she has always been a person who loves learning about new things.
As I said, about a week ago, she finished her homeschool career. Our son had his last year of high school, and is now preparing to go off to college in Oklahoma, so my wife is starting to adjust to life without “the table” being the starting point of every day.
I know this is difficult for her, as any of you could imagine. But she is slowly adjusting, finding new things to help her feel useful for, and now opening the door for any kind of opportunities down the road.
Just as there is a graduation ceremony for students, celebrating the fact they completed their schooling, my wife deserves a celebration as well. She deserves some public accolades for the job she has done.
I am proud of her, and I know my children feel like they got an education better than most—since it was filled with book learning, but also life learning, and Bible learning. To me that was the best we could do for our kids, and I thank my lovely, and still quite beautiful wife, for what she did.
Kevin Chiri can be reached by e-mail at kevinchiri@gmail.com.