"Old", yeah I guess so....I mean I am no longer 23 years old with a 24 inch waist and it would seem that were I a cat I would be down a few lives, not because of the company I keep or the risks that I take but because life is like that. "Old" as in 'former'...most definitely, I moved from "The Valley" in *ahem* 1981.  Honestly I thought some of my experiences up to that point were the worst things that could ever happen to me: having my tonsils taken out on my 7th birthday;  in the 6th grade while riding (my sisters) bike to school I was struck by a car; my parents (somewhat) sudden divorce when I was 16 then moving to Colorado and away from my lifelong friends to a place I had never seen. But that is the stuff life is made of and I have learned through life and through photography that there is beauty to be found in virtually everything, one just needs to look.

One never knows the beauty that this old door may contain.

The 'Life Lessons of an OLD Valley Girl' project began as a simple little gift book I wanted to make for my daughter, to give to her upon her graduation from college, but the more I jotted down in my notebook the bigger the project became and now, well I am testing the waters, so to speak, to see what others think.

The impetus for this grew out of the events of the past 14 years of my life and what I have learned and tried to pass on to my children.  My mother always told me that "attitude is everything" but as a child  I never truly understood what that meant, so I worked on trying to have a good attitude about everything, to find joy, to embrace happiness, to love and to forgive, to have empathy and to always work hard. Sometimes that worked well for me and other times it bit me in the butt.  My 'aha!' moment came as I was trying to get through an exceptionally bad day in the weeks that followed the shooting at the school where I worked (Yes, I Work at Arapahoe High School) and I ran across this quote by John F. Westfall, "If we knew all the answers and had everything figured out, life wouldn't be an adventure-it would be a commute." Well this year's adventure began with the school shooting on Dec 13, 2013, followed a month later by my father-in-law's massive heart attack and then the diagnosis of ovarian cancer for my mother-in-law and it is this quote that now graces the back of a "chemo quilt" I made for my mother-in-law to keep her warm during her treatments.

The single most important thing I have learned over the years is that if you love someone then FORGIVE (because we are all imperfect creatures).  Admittedly I wish I had learned this when I was much younger, but it is never too late to put it into practice. It was as my father was dying and unable to speak that this was made perfectly clear to me, you see when he died ,at the age of 59 and I had just turned 30, I had no recollection whatsoever of him ever having told me that he loved me.  Yet, I reached down and touched the top of his foot (which was strapped to the hospital bed because they thought he was being combative when in reality he just wanted to die at home in his own bed. Indeed he did sneak out of the hospital, walked 5 miles home, and broke into his own house and eventually died in his own bed). As I touched the top of his bony foot which bore a strong resemblance to mine (minus the red toenail polish) I simply said, "I love you Dad," and with that tears ran down his face.  I knew he couldn't speak, in fact he was incapable of any show of emotion on his face thanks to a tumor that had damaged his facial nerves, but his tears spoke volumes.  Forgiveness...he was not a perfect father nor I a perfect daughter, but at that point it really didn't matter.  Five years later I was diagnosed with that same tumor, but that is another story and list of life lessons, yet therein is another Life Lesson of an OLD Valley Girl: If you love someone TELL THEM!

This "Old" Valley Girl has learned plenty, at one point I was thankful for everyday I woke up on the green side of the grass, and believe me I still am, but I also feel that the Creator did not bring me this far to have me just fade away.  Look for more "Life Lessons of an OLD Valley Girl" in the coming weeks and months.  Maybe even a Facebook page or perhaps I will write that book I promised myself I would and give it to my daughter.

Daddy photobomb...its a family tradition!

Confession time-I am, or was, a news junkie.  One of the main reasons I suppose for so many years I loved to watch "The News" is because my parents watched it every night; I grew up watching Walter Cronkite...and in LA it was "Sexy" Stu Nahan on the local ABC affiliate.  After leaving LA and moving to the Front Range of Colorado I found that watching the local news helped me to learn the names of all communities and where they were,  keep up with the local buzz and generally feel more connected to my new home.  Once married we moved around considerably with the US Navy and corporate jobs, and in each location I would quickly find a local station I could trust for news and weather. When we lived on the islands of Guam and later Oah'u, as well as the coast of South Carolina, the weather forecasters became fundamental during typhoon/hurricane season.  In Central Indiana and Central Oklahoma accurate tornado forecasting and reporting could be a life saver. Yes, there was a day in Oklahoma that I had Gary England on the TV as he was tracking a tornado that was headed straight for our town, as the kids came home from school and the sirens went off I put my son, his friend and one of our dogs in the bathtub of the innermost bathroom of our house.  My daughter, the other dog and myself went into the bathroom under the stairs, all the while I could hear the tornado sirens as well as Gary England's voice...and I knew when it was safe to come out when Gary gave the all clear for Stillwater. My daughter is a student at OU in Norman, OK and I watched Gary live streaming on the internet the day Moore, OK was hit...so I knew when she was in the clear.  Yes, "The News" proved to be a lifeline!

When we lived in Washington DC, in the early 1990's there was always a "murder count" on the news...that's right, a daily tally of the number of people killed by acts of violence within the Washington DC boundaries.  I found this to be disturbing on many levels, yet I would faithfully watch "The News" every night.  

Although the evening news reports on car crashes, fires, assaults, Amber Alerts, impending weather doom, and the occasional feel-good story, they rarely tell the whole story or what happens after the story airs.    I know this first hand... and although I don't want the whole world to know what happened "after" the story, I think the viewing public should try to understand a few things in order to show empathy or at least be a little better educated.

In my blog Thoughts About a High School Shooting I gave my account of the events of that day. That was just my account...everyone who works or goes to school there has their own story and along with their story is another separate story of pain, fear, anger, and stages of healing.  This is what "The News" doesn't tell you.  "The News" does not tell you about the sleepless nights or the nightmares; the panic attacks or sudden outbursts of anger; how the children of the staff members who were so scared even after they found out Mom or Dad was OK,  or those same children who witnessed a parent breakdown from the fear, stress, exhaustion, and are now struggling to figure out how to reconcile seeing their childhood 'hero' with this person who is sobbing uncontrollably because of the evil that entered their life, are now struggling too.  "The News" doesn't tell you that well meaning people will try to comfort you with shallow platitudes and cruel people will tell you that you have "no right" to be anxious because you were not the one being shot at (as IF we knew that at the time). No, "The News" doesn't tell you that, unlike the common cold, this would take a long time to heal...it is a marathon of healing.

There was reporter from a local news affiliate trying to get into the church where so many of us had been evacuated to, doing everything possible to get "the real story" yet even after I told her in no uncertain terms, "NO!"  she still resorted to pulling out her cell phone and getting a video capture of cold, scared, worried parents standing in line to get their children, that was her job, to cover the breaking news. Thankfully in the days and weeks that followed reporters were kept at bay, giving us a respectable space.  The only ones they spoke to were the ones that sought out the media.  What "The News" doesn't tell you is that there are people who have begun to laugh, some who walk through the hallways with a smile on their face.  Kids who, on Dec 12th, were virtually unknown by many are now befriended by others they met and perhaps shared a blanket with on that horrible day. The Sheriff made a comment about how evil entered the school that day, but I can tell you that goodness has taken it's place.

What "The News" doesn't tell you is probably uninteresting in a world which revolves around social media...and most of the information on social media is inaccurate at best so perhaps what they don't tell us is probably best found out with an actual face to face conversation with someone who cares.

It was just a Friday...sure it was Friday the 13, which this year meant an early payday because of the upcoming two-week break.  I had joked with teachers and staff that the kids were a little squirrely with the impending finals week.  Everything else seemed pretty normal.  The bell rang for the end of 4th hour and I walked from the Science wing on the west end of the building to the teachers lounge on the east end to get some ice for my water bottle.  My week had been stressful for personal reasons and I relished the thought of a quiet "off" hour, so I filled my bottle and headed back to the DHH (Deaf & Hard of Hearing) office.  There was a lot going on in the cafeteria/commons , cleaning up after the lunches, folding up the tables and stacking the chairs, I even had to chuckle at one of the vice-principles who had stacked the chairs very high and then pushed them across the floor to get them out of the way.

When I got back to the office I bumped into our office-mate and a student who were headed to Starbucks for a treat, they invited me to join them but I declined.  Earlier in the week I had suffered a bout of the stomach flu so honestly the last thing I wanted was anything other than water in my tummy.  So off they went and I plopped down at the desk and pulled up the internet, probably checking email but honestly I don't remember.

I heard the gunshots, but I did not realize they were shots at first, I thought something in the cafeteria had toppled over, perhaps one of the stacks of chairs, but then I heard another shot when I ran into the hallway to see what was going on.  There were a few teachers in the hallway, looking around and thinking the same thing I was; that wasn't a sound that you would normally hear in a school.  Then one of the secretaries ran down the hall, her high heals clicking,  yelled, "Lock it up!"  My blood did not turn "cold" and I did not hesitate, I did exactly as we have been instructed.  First securing the door then turning off the lights, then hiding under a desk.  I did grab my cell phone too.  Soon after that I heard the announcement that we were in full lock down.  At that point I texted my husband who happened to be subbing at a school north of Denver, I wanted him to hear it from me before the kids said something and as it turned out he got my text shortly before the students in his class found out.

So there I sat, alone in a dark office, I could hear yelling, I could hear people running, someone rattled the door to the office...who was trying to come in, the shooter or police checking to be sure the doors were locked?    The fire alarm went off and I wondered, "is this an 'all clear' or is this a ploy by the shooter to get us all in the hallways?"  We all have been trained since kindergarten to evacuate when we hear the fire alarm, and every fiber of my being told me to leave, but I waited and listened.  An announcement was made to stay put "we are still in lockdown." The fire alarm went on for what seemed like an eternity, kind of like having a migraine while someone is trying to pound a nail into your head. We were all fighting the instinct to exit the building yet everyone did as they were told and stayed. I cannot express just how hard that was to do. As I later found out the shooter had lit the library on fire.

My phone was going off continuously, mainly texts but there were phone calls too.  I texted my husband again, "shots fired" I texted my daughter in Oklahoma to "start praying."  More texts.."do you have Suzi-student?"..."Where is Suzi-student?" ...and the answers all the same "no"..."she is not with me..."  ..."Where is she...?" 

This can't be happening, I thought.  I prayed...

Finally the police began evacuating us. Had it been 20 minutes, an hour, or was it two hours? I had lost all track of time. I grabbed my cell phone and car keys, I had my school badge around my neck.  We were instructed to walk fast with our hands in the air as we exited the building...all the while SWAT had their guns trained on us. UNREAL!  I was going as fast as I could but students were running by me, almost tripping me or themselves.  Once we got in front of the Starbucks we were instructed to keep moving, back to the King Soopers parking lot then into the store itself.  But I was in full Navy-wife mode, all business because there was a task at hand....I had to find "Suzi-student".  I looked everyone in eye as I scanned the growing crowd.  I spoke with students and teachers asking if they had seen "Suzi"...no one had but everyone knew where my desperation was coming from.  You see "Suzi" is profoundly deaf and without an interpreter or someone that knew how to sign she would not know what was unfolding.  My deepest fear was that a police officer would shout instructions to her that she would ignore.  I had to find her... no time to cry, I would cry later.

Finally we ended up at Shepherd of the Hills Church, they filed us in and again I searched the room.  I had them make an announcement...no one had seen "Suzi".  I went to the head of the crisis management team and introduced myself as the interpreter and let him know we were missing a deaf student and that I had also told everyone else with a walkie-talkie to be on the lookout.  He then told me to stay with him by the front door.  I did.  I did not leave my post. A local reporter showed up with her camera going trying to get in the building, filming the parents who were waiting in the cold to find their children, I told her under no uncertain terms to "LEAVE!" She stated that she wanted to get the "real" story out to the public and once again I told her to "LEAVE." She did but not before filming more parents on her way out. 

Phone batteries were quickly running low, not good.  Students and parents began showing up in fits and starts.  I remained by the door...man I wish I would have grabbed my jacket, it is so cold!  I noticed kids with blankets and soon realized that King Soopers had been giving out brand new fleece blankets to the kids who were cold. Folks from King Soopers began showing up with bottled water and donuts (donuts??? I thought), but because I was standing by the door and had my Arapahoe High School name badge and security tags on people looked to me for guidance so I showed them into the kitchen.  More water...donuts...cookies...fresh fruit...kleenex...it just kept coming until I heard someone say the store was running out.  No sooner did I hear that then I saw people from Albertsons bringing over cart loads of the same type stuff...the manager looked at me as asked, "What else do you need?"  My reply, "Phone chargers!" She made an immediate call and told the person on the other end to "just take them off the racks and bring them over." 

Shortly before the chargers showed up and before my phone battery died I received a text stating, "Suzi is OK, with her mom." Whew! As it turned out a hearing boy who knew "Suzi" is deaf ran back into the school and grabbed her arm leading her out of harms way.  What a huge relief, now to let the crisis team know that she had been accounted for. Ok...now what...I remained on high alert but texted my husband to come get me.  I do not recall much about the ride home other than there were more emergency vehicles with lights flashing than I have ever seen before.  It was like being in an Arnold Schwartenegger movie; lights flashing but no sirens, it was oddly quiet. Everything seemed to be moving in slow motion, people crying, some coming up to me and asking questions that I had no answers to, "when can we come get my son's backpack?" "When will we be able to pickup my daughters car?" "Tell me what happened." "Did anyone die?" A woman who was crying just came up to me and gave me a hug.

I have not fully processed all that happened and my guess is that will take a while.  There are far too many people who acted as heroes to mention. There was not one person who did not step up to the plate to be sure that every child was accounted for and safe. It was an extraordinary day with extraordinary people responding.

I have but two simple requests: There will be many more stories in the coming days so when you hear them please just listen and please lets heal... let's not turn this into a political pedestal. 

If ever there is tomorrow when we're not together, there is something you must always remember. You are braver than you believe, stronger than you seem, and smarter than you think. But the most important thing is, even if we're apart, I'll always be with you.-Christopher Robin

In the words of the Arapahoe Nation, "Warriors Always Take Care of One Another."

Thank you,

Paula