{"id":10192,"date":"2019-08-18T23:21:00","date_gmt":"2019-08-18T23:21:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/?p=10192"},"modified":"2026-10-02T01:35:04","modified_gmt":"2026-10-02T01:35:04","slug":"the-hardest-day","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/?p=10192","title":{"rendered":"THE HARDEST DAY"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">This has been a difficult week -A week ago, I was bringing Caleb and Sarah back to Indiana from a whirlwind trip to Philadelphia for Kacie and Mikken&#8217;s wedding. Melissa, freshly returned to Haiti a few days earlier due to Director responsibilities, was facing one setback after another, both at the house and at school. Sarah and I had six hours in Indiana to repack and say goodbyes before Grandma Trudy took us to the airport at 4:00 am Monday morning. Samuel and Hannah, old enough now to fly on their own, stayed behind to finish up summer jobs and take another stab at the SAT. As for Caleb \u2026 well, I continue in denial even as I compose this next sentence: Caleb stayed behind to start his college career.So by Monday afternoon, half the family was in Haiti, thoroughly exhausted both physically and emotionally. These transitions under even the best circumstances are not ever EASY.We came back to dear friends and coworkers \u2026 and spoiled food, rats and electrical issues at home and a second floor construction project at school which was not as far along as we had hoped for. Most of our attention and energy this week has gone toward readying the junior high and high school classrooms even as ten construction workers are finishing plastering, painting, tiling and hanging doors. They have done beautiful work, but every shelf, desk, chair, and book now needed to be wiped down and returned to its proper place. And this involved a lot of stepping over and around each other.EVERYTHING had been jumbled in the science lab:<\/p>\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/08\/20190813_125843-1.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"1600\" height=\"900\"\/><\/figure>\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">A portion of the books returned to my room, ready for wipe down and sorting: (Time consuming work, but just LOOK at that beautiful new floor!)<\/p>\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/08\/20190815_112514-1.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"1600\" height=\"900\"\/><\/figure>\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/08\/IMG_20190817_135430_121-1.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"1600\" height=\"1028\"\/><\/figure>\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">With Sarah at Independence Hall in Philly&#8230;<\/p>\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/08\/20190808_133727-1.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"1600\" height=\"900\"\/><\/figure>\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Running through a fountain in Philly&#8230;<\/p>\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Back in June, Melissa and I with Caleb on the edge of Wabash College.<\/p>\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/08\/20190628_171418-1.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"1600\" height=\"900\"\/><\/figure>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>This has been a difficult week -A week ago, I was bringing Caleb and Sarah back to Indiana from a whirlwind trip to Philadelphia for Kacie and Mikken&#8217;s wedding. Melissa, freshly returned to Haiti a few days earlier due to Director responsibilities, was facing one setback after another, both at the house and at school. [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":10193,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-10192","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10192","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=10192"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10192\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":10201,"href":"https:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10192\/revisions\/10201"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/10193"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=10192"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=10192"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=10192"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}