Due to the lateness of the evening, highway traffic was scarce on the way back home. This helped Mr. Jay arrive home sooner than usual. That was a blessing to him since he was somewhat anxious to tell his wife about what had just happened at the school.
Prior to returning home, his wife had been tending to their baby who had just fallen asleep. Mrs. Jay was happy about that.
This will give me a chance to finish setting the table for our dinner, she thought to herself. Earlier in the day, she had to finish some accounting work to meet the deadline for several clients, do some shopping for the house, and of course take care of their daughter. Being a career mom at home was not an easy task, but Mrs. Jay’s steady effort made her an incredible success.
“Hi, I’m home,” said Mr. Jay to his wife.
“Hey, you had a pretty long day, huh? How was it?” asked Mrs. Jay.
Before Mr. Jay said anything, the expression on his face gave Mrs. Jay a good idea about his answer. Even though she did not have an easy day herself, she still smiled with patient kindness as he sat next to her to talk.
“Well, it was busy as usual, except at the end I had an endearing conversation with Mrs. Chiding after the school buses left the school grounds,” Mr. Jay said with a smart expression on his face. Mrs. Jay also smiled because she had heard about her complaints many times before. Mr. Jay then began to explain his experience.
“Anyway, after that it started to get dark pretty fast, so I thought I would work on a little of my grading and other paperwork in my classroom. I noticed something on the floor that looked like a stuffed animal. To my surprise, it was my lamb from the stuffed toy shelf of my classroom. It was interesting to see that is was still clean, though surrounded by dirt swept all around. As I thought about that, I suddenly heard a loud crashing noise coming from my classroom. Since the door was slightly opened, I thought that possibly one of the custodians had dropped something. When I walked in, I saw that one of the ceiling lights had fallen down onto one of the desks. I could have been seriously hurt had I not stopped to pick up the lamb.”
After listening to her husband’s reflection of his late evening at the school, Mrs. Jay was glad that her husband was not hurt. When they finally sat down at the dinner table to eat, the grace they said before eating included thanks for safety and a request for understanding about the mysterious night.
When he finished eating dinner with his wife, Mr. Jay thanked her for such a delicious meal, then went into his study room to finish the paperwork that he had taken home. He had to grade the science and math worksheets that his students had completed earlier that day. Most of his students did very well on both assignments, which was Mr. Jay’s final proof that most of them really listened and learned!
This will be good news to tell the students tomorrow! Mr. Jay thought to himself as he got up to get ready for bed. He also thought about the fact that this long day did not give him a chance to kiss his baby daughter good night. So before he got ready for bed, he went into the baby’s room to do just that. When he got there, he saw that his wife had just finished changing the baby.
“She just went back to sleep,” whispered Mrs. Jay.
“I hope you can come home sooner tomorrow so that you can get a chance to hold her, feed her, and make her laugh. I know she missed you,” she added.
Mr. Jay smiled and whispered back, “I will really try to come home earlier tomorrow; I missed you both.”
After Mrs. Jay placed the baby gently into her crib, they both kissed her gently and whispered good night to her as they tiptoed out.