God bless us. Everyone. #edcmooc – Sunset Observer #24…by Whitney Farmer – Un Pop Culture | @MDWorld

December 19, 2013 Whitney Farmer 0 Comments

Her message read, “Pray for safety. Something going on at the high school! c”

And then, “Prayers please. Possible shooting at the high school…”

“Anniversary of Sandy Hook…”

Followed by, “We think it’s over. I don’t know the details but we’re still in lockdown. Safe at Franklin but don’t know yet about Arapahoe HS. Deaf kids are there…”

And finally, “You all probably have more information than I do about what happened but so far all my kids (past and present) are safe and accounted for. Teammates safe too although it was close for a few of them. Thank you for your prayers, I love you all!!”

Cydney is a teacher in the Denver Public Schools system whose work is concentrated with students who have hearing impairments, communicative disorders, or some type of speech pathology. She has been in lockdown before, the last time when a cougar began strolling down the banks of a canal on the way to her school. He was planning on fast food in the suburbs but caught nothing for his trouble.

But Cydney had also been on lockdown during Columbine. At the time, she was just beginning her career in that district and was available to substitute at all of the schools. That day, she wasn’t teaching at Columbine. But she had before. For awhile, our family didn’t know where she was. I worked in mortgages back then, and I remember looking at the televisions in our offices in North Seattle and watching the live news feed that had superseded the market updates that ordinarily were so important to us.

She also wasn’t teaching at Platt County HS in 2006 when the hostages were taken and the murder/suicide unfolded. And our niece and nephew had already graduated from there before then, so they weren’t there either.

Cydney would later say that she was grateful this latest time because they had just practiced lockdown procedures in the school the previous Monday. The territory was still familiar and most of the kids – because no information was available to them – were more interested in hearing about the cougar incident. Their imaginations unrolled scenarios wherein the predator would crash through the window, leap into the room, and eat a kid. Cydney let them scare themselves and enjoy the thrill of it within reason, all the while carrying her cell phone and waiting to respond to worse nightmares if it came to that.

I don’t know if she found out about the attack at the high school through our brother-in-law in Huntington Beach or from her husband Buzz who is a rocket scientist and was out of town in Alabama preparing for another launch. All of us were texting each other what we knew.

I do know that some kid with a smartphone or who had snuck in some access to the internet came down the hallways and yelled to her that there was a gunman at Arapahoe. The kind and even-tempered Cydney stopped short of telling him to ‘SHUT UP’, but she did order him to ‘ZIP IT’ like a battlefield general, without any cushioning in her vocabulary.

After the gunman was dead, the victims were transported to the hospital where some years ago Cydney had been for two weeks during the Christmas season after a routine surgery went astronomically wrong. To cheer her up, we had camped out with her in rolling beds, and Asheley put a flashing neon ‘OPEN’ sign in the window of her seventh floor intensive care room. It looked like a bordello from the parking lot, but inside we were watching “Mary Poppins” on VHS. That Christmas, our prayer as a family on Christmas Eve was for Cydney to live, and for her to not lose her beautiful leg. Both prayers for us were answered. Now she even walks without a cane. If she lived here, her famous legs would be tanned golden.

On Saturday, she and Buzz arrive for Christmas and New Year’s. I have some decorating to finish, and I have some Ebenezer Scrooge moments to shake off from work…I have more time because I didn’t go on our church’s trip to Tecate which was cancelled due to death threats to one of the churches we were going to work at there…Costco ran out of bows, but I found some at the 99cent Store which will work…The French Gypsies are in town, but in the true Gypsy Way, they will be in Vegas, Baby, to fête the No?l. There is just a boat ride to coordinate for them before they hit the road in their rental van with Alaska plates…It’s raining today finally, and twenty degrees colder than it was two days ago…Mom didn’t have to go back to the hospital again after last week and is instead back battling against her regular insomnia demons. But her pain is fading…I am overdo for a dye-job, but have zero time. At least the little white dogs got groomed…For Christmas Eve dinner when Holley and Jaime arrive from New York, I might make timpano if I can get off early enough from work. My car was dirty and I couldn’t figure out when to wash it. But now it has rained. God took care of it. He took care of everything…

Alleluia.

NEXT TIME: Get Ready. Get Set. GO!

Photo of a note from Cydney from her last USPS mail to us that Mom put at her computer to cheer herself up, from my cellphone.