Comments:
I went to George Washington University from '71 to '75. I moved to Arlington, VA for the next three years. I had met my husband at GW med school in my senior year of college. We continued a three year relationship while he interned at GW Hospital and I commuted to Laurel, MD where I was employed as a self-contained Resource Room Teacher for grades 4, 5, and 6. In 1978, I married my now, ex-husband and we remained married until 1997. While teaching, I attended Johns Hopkins where I received half of my credits needed for an MBA; however, in 1982, my husband (Joseph Harhay) and I moved to the Jersey shore, near Atlantic City, where he joined an orthopedic surgery practice with my brother-in-law. Initially, I worked at the Winchell School which exclusively serviced children with multiple and severe physical handicaps. After one year of service there, I retired as my first son, Michael O. Harhay was born in August of 1983. I stayed home for the next ten years, and during that time I gave birth to my second son, Jason S. Harhay in February of 1989. In 1993, I returned to teaching in a private school for the next 9 years. I taught math and science to 5th and 7th graders, as well as drug education. I taught at a charter school for two years in the town of Pleasantville, but then stayed home for a year as I moved out of my home from marriage and made the transition into a smaller home and alternately took care of my aging mother who had moved into a wonderful and supportive Assisted Living Apt. in DC near my brother. I returned to teaching for the Child Study Team at Northfield, NJ and remained there for five years. I ended my career at another charter school in Atlantic City where I was laid off after the 2008 financial crisis leaving me without a job. It's been a tough time not having a job or structured time. It's become second nature and now with both boys out of the house, life has taken a new path for me. It's been an adjustment for me, but I know (at least in my heart) that we raise our kids so that they can enter life with good coping skill and make in the world independently. I hope to adjust to my new found independence and continue to be just as happy as I was before the empty nest. It's been a tough journey through the years since I left high school, but they have been laced with many happy occasions, the joy of the birth of my sons, and left me with deep admiration and gratefulness for my son's company through the rough times, and always for their unfettered love for me.