Chapter One

My wife, Sandy, was a teacher. No, not just a teacher, she was an educator in the truest sense of that word. She cared deeply for her students and went far beyond what was required of her to make sure that they had the support and direction they needed as they moved from childhood into adulthood. It was a pleasure to hear her talk about her students and to see her in the classroom, on the playing fields, and in their everyday lives.

She gave to her students the kind of love and attention she gave to me as her husband and to our two children as they grew up and as they became adults. No student or family could ask for more. Despite only a one day notice, and in the midst of a terrible ice storm, over three hundred parents, teachers, students, and friends, many coming from long distances, braved the storm to attend her visitation. It was humbling and heartwarming to see just how much she had touched the lives of others.

We developed early in our marriage a "rules of thirds" for our life together and while this was only a very rough plan of how we wanted our lives to go - and we found lives never go as planned - we were fortunate how much did work out for us. Our plan, if given a full lifetime, was to spend the first third getting our education, the next third raising our family and working at our careers and hopefully earning and saving enough to enjoy the last third of our lives. The final third we hoped also to divide into three parts as well with one third spent with our family and traveling and enjoying each other, one third managing our financial affairs, and one