Life is interesting. It’s a lot like a baseball pitcher. Sometimes it throws you knuckle balls. Sometimes it throws you sliders. Sometimes it throws you curve balls. It’s the curve balls I have to learn to hit. Being Type A and of German descent, it ain’t easy. But God, nice Guy that He is, keeps giving me plenty of chances to hit them. Like last fall. One particular November day, my handsome husband of 25 years was in the driveway playing basketball, when he fell and completely shattered his left forearm, and I mean all of it! The short story to this long tale is that, for some yet undiagnosed reason, one of his four surgeries left his arm completely paralyzed and his other arm impaired. And just like that, one curve ball left the whole family standing with mouths agape. He was forced to go on disability, he lost his job, and he had to endure months of excruciating pain and what seemed like centuries of physical therapy. Life in the Thayer household would never be the same. In the midst of this, God allowed my mother’s cancer to return and called her home within two weeks of her going into Hospice Home Care. I have to say that this was tough. My husband was out of commission, and I was losing my mom—fast. I spent those few days torn between attempting to properly grieve the loss of a great mom and worrying about and grieving for my husband’s own loss. Thank the Lord I was a veteran homeschooler by then. If I had been a newbie, I would have had just two options: putting our remaining homeschooler immediately back into a traditional school or having a nervous breakdown by trying to complete a heavy seventh grade curriculum in the midst of chaos. I do confess that I did have a mini-breakdown, but it wasn’t about the homeschooling. So, I did what any sane homeschooler would do in an insane moment. I threw half of our son’s curriculum into the virtual trash can. In went science, history, art, and religion. I didn’t even think about it. “Do you really think those subjects are unimportant?” you ask. No way, no how. I just figured science would get covered by learning about his dad’s paralysis and helping him with his daily at-home therapy. A good chunk of it would be covered by doing the manly chores his father used to do, under his dad’s expert tutelage, that is. History could be read in the summer months–maybe. Art would definitely have to wait, unless our son wanted to dabble on his own. As for religion, it was going to get covered by simply existing in our home because man-oh-man were the prayers a flyin’! So, what did we keep? The only four subjects we had paid money for: math, English, music, and Latin. And the best part was that our son had a student-teacher ration of 1:2 because my loving husband–good provider and wonderful dad that he is–offered to take over all the math and most of the English once his pain was better under control. Having him do the math with our son was a definite plus because–I can hear the groans of our children now–math is power, don’t ya’ know? Okay, so I confess. I’ve got a 12 year-old son running around Earth with only half of seventh grade in his brain. The lesson here is that sometimes less is more. More time with Dad, more time with family, more time with God. And more time at the plate trying to perfect a swing that will hit a curve ball over the fence.

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