I have to tell you, this has been one of the most difficult weeks of my teaching career. First, can I tell you how much I love your kids? To me, your kids become mine daily, for an hour, and due to the nature of the relationship they tell me about their lives, confide in me sometimes, share you and your families with me (don't worry, if it was anything bad I would have contacted you), and become a part of my life. I have been through too many funerals for students, but rarely has it become as personal and heartbreaking to me as it was this week. So let me tell you a little about my relationships with Gavin and Dylan.
Gavin: he came to me second semester of his freshman year. I didn't know what to expect of the "new kid" who wasn't new to anyone BUT me, but usually the newbies come in quietly, spending that first day just listening. Not Gavin. He entered with eyes sparkling, million dollar smile a constant on his face, and dabbing away to his heart's content; every day thereafter was spent with his energy and life adding exuberance to my classroom. Some days were a little difficult because of this, but I just couldn't help myself: I really liked the kid. And then summer came, and a vacation up north in the Traverse City area, and who walks into Cherry Republic in Glen Arbor? Gavin. I was delighted to run into him so unexpectedly; I really couldn't tell you how much, if any, delight he felt, but from there on out he was my vacation buddy. I have seen him in the halls frequently since then, and we often talked about how we might run into each other again since we both vacation up there at about the same time every year. So when I got the phone call last Sunday morning, shortly after I sent this out, my first thought was: never again. And a little piece of my heart broke.
Dylan: Dylan was in my classroom for three years straight. My class, to be honest, was definitely not his favorite class to take. I was sort of that necessary chore that he had to put up with in order to get to the parts of his day he loved. Yet he always offered me a smile, and his baby blues lit up when he talked to me, just like they did for everyone else. I loved having Dylan in my class, even if he wasn't thrilled to be there, and since I had both him and many of his friends more than one year, in many ways I thought of the group as "my boys." None of them have gone on to be English majors (at least to my knowledge), so I was never sure if they ever really thought about me or my class, but I think of them, and remember. So when I heard about what happened to him on Monday, I think I went into shock more than anything.
Past experience has taught me that most students want normality when we're in this situation. In the past, when I have asked what they want to do, they've told me to just keep reading: English romantic poetry,
Beowulf, it didn't matter. Just distract. Honestly, that's what I spent much of my time doing this week. When I heard about Dylan I immediately went back to my room and analyzed a poem to prepare for the next day. We spent the week reading
The Crucible, and Emily Dickinson, and for a little while we could think about something else.
Unfortunately, Friday afternoon came, and reality set in. My heart is crushed not just for each boy and their lost futures, but also for their parents, who are going through the unimaginable, and for your children. There's nothing I can do to fix this; there's nothing I can do to make this better. So I can only offer this: a hug, a listening ear, and my own grief. I watched my young boys cry, my 9th, 10th, 11th graders, and it broke my heart on Friday afternoon when I went to see Gavin for the last time. At Dylan's service on Saturday evening, the Deacon asked his friends to stand up, and my broken heart felt crushed and trampled upon as I saw my now-young-men stoic, crying, as they said goodbye to a friend too soon. As a mom, I want to comfort my kids and take care of them. As a mom, I can't imagine trading places with the brave moms who had to say goodbye to their boys.
So my heart is shattered, and I'm trying to move forward, but I'm having a tough time. Please forgive me for babbling on like this, and for not posting this week's schedule. I have things I have to do today for myself and my own children, but somewhere along the way today, I'll get the calendar updated. I do plan to take my children, my own boys, to a friend's house this evening so that they can watch the Superbowl; I need to be a mom to my kids today, both for them and for myself. And then life will resume tomorrow and we continue on, soldiering past the grief, the pain, and we enter another new normal.
If you need anything that I can help you with, please feel free to contact me, and please know that I love your children.
Love and Loss by Laura Stubbs is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.Based on a work at https://www.laurastubbs.blogspot.com.
