You might know how much I enjoy just about every holiday celebration, and with what delight and deliberation I prepare an annual April Fool's prank for Jared. Nothing perilous or heart-stopping, but I have been known to send mail from the graduate school president calling for a rather uncomfortable meeting, for example. That kind of dreadful thing that I only allow to go on for a measured period of time; I don't make him suffer long. But it is fun because he falls for it every year and that lends enjoyment to the planning phase.
So this year, while still fairly fresh from evacuation I decided I still wanted to do something. My mischievous mind churned and revealed what would be an incredible prank: 1. open an email account remarkably similar to that of the principal of the school for which we taught 2. compose an email indicating that due to the war, the school was being closed and our teaching contracts were being immediately cancelled, with no plan for us to return to North Africa.
This would be an awful prank. So awful that compassion moved me to rethink the idea. It would be heart-breaking, even if only believed for a minute. I couldn't lead my husband through that shock, grief, despair, and confusion for a laugh; it just wouldn't be funny.
I was mulling this over in my mind when April 1st rolled around and I had consented to let this day pass without prank, marking the emotional difficulty we were in.
And then it happened. An email in our inbox; from our principal: the school was closing and our contracts were cancelled. They would try to atttend to our things, if possible.
That was it. Over. The dreaded thing had occurred and it marked a change in our evacuation. We were on the road with no contracts to return to; no jobs waiting for us. Just faith.
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