Despite what all the administrators believe and even what some said into a microphone, the professional development leading up to the start of school each year does not leave me energized or excited. I don’t remember it ever getting me pumped up or causing any increase in my positivity levels or optimism about the upcoming year. This year, in fact, I set my sights only on survival; knowing that at least the first day of seeing colleagues would be difficult. There would be those who know who would, perhaps, want an update and there would be those, who would engage in conversations blissfully unaware and while I wasn’t sure which might prove more emotionally challenging for me, I didn’t look forward to any of it.
Today was the third and final day of meetings and seminars and I was hopeful that the busyness of the day would help me keep my mind on improving my professional practice and not giving my heart much time to wish I was at home with my beloved.
And, to that end, I was doing fairly well. I may have had to become very conscious about my breathing a time or three, like when the motivational quotes projected to inspire and encourage educators before the keynote speaker struck a more personal chord with me with messages like, “Sending love to everyone who’s trying their best to heal from things that they don’t discuss.” Or when a colleague I haven’t seen in a long time stopped to offer me a hug and her prayers, or even when someone inadvertently set my tears to rolling by just complimenting a writing I had done. But by the time I was to meet another colleague for lunch, one who had heartbreakingly lost her own husband just a few months ago, I felt steady on my feet again and up to the conversation.
We sat on the grass and talked about the hard things. What she has been through, and even our own diagnosis. We talked about the support of people around us, from the healthcare professionals to our own administration to our friends and families. I said, more than once to her, that it is a terrible “club” for us to be members of together. And while we agreed, we also felt relief at being able to share our grief and our journey with someone else.
As we stood up to return inside, to find our way to the next presentation room, to set our minds back on our professional year ahead, she said to me, “I sure hate the word, ‘widow’, though.”
As I walked the crowded high school hallway alone to my next chosen session, the word reverberated in my soul. It doesn’t even describe me yet, but I hate it as much as she does. She had said it lightheartedly, from a different vantage point of this excruciating journey. As I walked I found myself struggling to breathe, struggling to think, struggling even to distract my mind. “Widow,” kept repeating in my head, stabbing at my heart. “Widow.”
The session I had chosen to attend was on building vocabulary in writing and I was late to the presentation. The room, was overcrowded and I slipped in long enough to set my things down next to a co-worker but then slipped out just as quickly, retreating to the nearest bathroom. I found myself in the stall, holding on to the door, crying like a high school sophomore who had just been broken up with. I was mean with myself, just like I expect that high school-self to have been, telling myself to pull myself together and get back to the classroom. There was no time for tears right now.
Back in the room, I found a spot to sit in the back, on the floor against the wall. A dear friend was sitting there already, and when I saw her, I lost all the strength I had pulled together in the restroom. She is a widow herself and I felt like it was a word and reality I could not escape from.
So, while the presenter talked about ways to help our students expand their vocabularies, while she wrote “Cats have whiskers,” on the board, I leaned against a wall and silently cried. I would have left, but people would have looked at me and I knew I would fall to pieces if they did. I thought about my breathing and I tried to listen to her words and move my focus and attention to what she was presenting but it was like a dam had burst and there was just no stopping the flood.
She talked about using a picture and a word bank to prompt writing and my mind raced to pictures I didn’t want to see and words I didn’t want to think about. Loneliness, fear, abandonment, death. She showed an example of a “scribble drawing” and I wanted to grab the nearest marker and blacken every page.
The room behind me gets loud. They are “turning and talking” and I try to get lost in the noise. 25 more minutes and I can leave this session with only one more to go before I can make my escape to the car. 25 minutes but she is talking about having a “Word of the Day” and all I can think is my word for today seems to be “widow.”
I make it through the rest of the session and even the session after that. I somehow manage to dry my face and avoid eye contact enough that no one that talks to me seems to realize what a mess I am. Or at least they don’t say anything. And God bless them all for that favor.
When I finally push through the doors and race to my car and climb into the driver’s seat, my face is soaked and my breath is short and I cannot see to drive for all the tears.
Tomorrow, in therapy, I will ask her again how to get a grip on things – enough so that I might get through a day at school without having to do such hard battle with such persistent emotions. And I will continue to pray that I will find such joy and distraction within my classroom walls this fall, that I am able – at least temporarily each day – to set aside my home life and give the kids as much as I am able.
I will, however, also let these tears and this flood and this lack of control to serve as a tangible, personal reminder of what our kids in trauma might feel like some times. I will let this sorrow serve as experience to help me better help those kids who cannot focus on their reading, or who cannot stop the harsh words from flowing, or who cannot even physically remain in the classroom at times. I am a person in trauma. I pray that this pain at least helps me (if not now, down the road) to empathize better with others during their dark and difficult times. I hope I can build and model and teach and foster resiliency. And to that end, I need to find a way to make peace with this pain and to let joy become the word of the day, my mantra for living, again, despite the circumstances.
Teaching at 3am 