MARLENE

Yesterday I celebrated with many others the life of Marlene Politzer. She was the first teacher at Jacob's school Bal Swan, and was still actively working at the school until she passed away at age 80 on Tuesday April 5th, 2011.
There are so many who knew her much better than I did, but she still made a huge impression on me over the last couple of years as I took Jacob to Bal Swan.
She would always pop out of her office to greet Jacob, and make sure he was doing fine. She would talk to him, and give him one of her big smiles. She always had a nice word for us. She always wanted to make sure we were doing fine. She always ended our conversations with "tack så mycket", which means thank you very much in Swedish. She loved when I told her her pronounciation was good!
As Bal Swan filled up with people from all of Broomfield community yesterday, you could feel the love for Marlene. The therapy room had turned into a scrapbooking room for remembering Marlene. The gym had turned into a huge dessert feast. People shared stories about her. Many calling her their mentor and coach. The staff and teachers being a bit nervous on how they would feel to be back to work Monday morning without Marlene.
Bal Swan is much more than a preschool. It is a community you want to be part of, and Marlene was the soul of that community as she mentored and coached the rest of the staff to guide and teach with your head and heart. Letting interactions between children be the guide of education - for anyone - healthy children, special needs' children. They were all the same to her, and she quickly realized that both type of kids can learn from each other.
If you want to read more about the celebration of Marlene's life:
http://www.broomfieldenterprise.com/ci_17809545?source=most_viewed
I am glad I made it to her celebration as I am tonight back at the Children's Hospital with Jacob. He stayed home for 5 days...I am not even sure, if Jacob got over his virus from last week before the next one hit him. Poor little guy.
This time around, Jacob has a fever, so the big gun IV antibiotics are on the table. My gut feeling is that we'll be here for a few days, at least until we know if the blood culture is positive or negative.
Jacob has had a good winter, so it's hard to get back into the hospital routine after a couple of good months. With spring around the corner, hopefully we're at the end of respiratory viruses...so Jacob can go back and finish up his school year at Bal Swan!
Love, Maria.