Once the holidays are here

B'H
It is the end of the non Jewish year again and this time it is different to what has gone before. I will have worked for approximately sixteen weeks of the year and feel so much better for it. When I left Deniliquin High School in 2006 I felt as if my life, my training and my self worth was at an all time low. In other words, I felt completely and utterly rejected as a person, as a mother, a human being and indeed, I felt that people were waiting for me to do something drastic like take my own life because it would fulfil their expectations of my dire and nasty future. They hated me for being older and a mother. They hated me for being a single parent. They hated me for being a Jew and not accepting JC. In fact a part of what they did to me, alienating themselves from me and trying to destroy me psychologically was to get me to become a 'christian' because then they would be able to say to the world, 'see the blood of JC will save you'. The fact that I did not even attempt suicide must have been an awful blow for them and a bit of a slap in the face. It was only for the brave actions of a few of my teaching colleagues and the fact that I had a couple of good friends in Melbourne who knew and believed in my worth as an individual that saved me.
They made dire predictions about my son because I was an older single parent of a boy and in the words of a principal who said to another staff member and probably others, 'what right does she have to have a child at her age when most women are grandmothers'. My son was given no chance of a normal life because I was female, single, older and a Jew. Only in a Christian community who would take my son 'off my hands' would he have chance. That again I will prove wrong. I saw a woman who was a widow with five kids who had a breakdown after her husband's tractor rolled on her. She was pregnant with a fifth at the time. She had no support from family around as there was no one apparently and these pigs watched as she had a nervous breakdown and recovered in a sort of way. I felt for her and I admired her. She turned up to sports days, a rough looking woman of pride with raggedy clothes and barefoot. Teachers and townspeople made fun of her. I watched from the sidelines and seethed at their insensitivity towards this woman and her kids. She brought her kids up alone while grieving. She is what real Aussie battlers are made of. Not these self indulgent wretches who want to party all the time, watch videos, get drunk and want money for doing very little or nothing. This woman ran her farm with the help of the elder children and did it through sheer hard work and gritted determination. Some Australians make me sick today and we need to change our attitude.
I am looking forward to finishing a book for a friend, doing some craft work, excursions with my son and then starting my book on bullying.