[img]1633|left|Audrey L. Stephens||no_popup[/img]Re “Getting to Know the Office of Child Development and Its Good Secrets”
If you ever have noticed wildly dedicated runners dashing down your street in the worst weather homo sapiens have endured – unlike the mailman, nothing impedes runners – you have an idea of how anxious Audrey Stephens is to return to her desk.
An hour from now, if possible.
Ms. Stephens was out sick today.
They have seldom written that line during the director’s 28-year career with the Office of Child Development, whose campus is adjacent to Farragut School
She is a trooper.
On the fourth day after Newtown, Ms. Stephens intended to be with her troops. After all, she is their leader.
“That is where I belong,” she said resolutely this afternoon, not home squirming, even though there is a dent in her normally good health.
“I would like to be visible with my families” at this critical time.
“I have left my post,” and Ms. Stephens’s eagerness to return rang through the telephone.
Suffering from sciatica, she said the constant pain has been exacerbated. “Something is going on between my fourth and fifth vertebrae. The nerves in my legs are inflamed. My doctor says it is all on fire, kind of like someone burning your nerve-endings.”
The precise order from her doctor read:
“Take a few days off. Stay off your legs. Give the medicine a chance to work. You cannot just keep going and going.”
Then the conversation took a turn for the coy.
Will Ms. Stephens adhere to the physician’s advice?
“Well, I am off today,” she said.
Yes, but…
She laughed over her inconclusive response.
Will she report to the campus tomorrow morning?
“I kind of live my life one day at a time,” Ms. Stephens said with a smile, meaning we will have to wait until tomorrow morning to find out.
(To be continued)
