A year ago, the last day of school brought me to my knees, sobbing uncontrollably in my classroom after the students all left. While I would miss them, my tears and my grief were for my husband and the very uncertain path ahead of us.
This year has been the most tumultuous year of my professional career and I hope I never experience anything like it again. For the past eighteen months, my heart and mind have been torn between the needs of my husband and my students. My students have lost that battle more than they have won.
Today, I face the last day of the year once again, this time knowing I do it without my husband to greet me at home or to spend my summer days with. I now know the outcome of our journey. But even more importantly, I now know that those moments when I am on my knees are just that – moments. They aren’t where I stay. I get up again. I re-engage with the world, I try to figure out my life without him.
Last week, one of the students I share with my co-teacher lost her baby sister in a devastating car accident. The tragedy has taken me back to those deep dark days of early grief, but they have also reminded me that we all walk a path laden with heavy burdens. None of us are immune to life’s tragedies.
So today, I will continue to make notes about ways to improve professionally next year. I will make the last day full of laughter and reminiscing with my students and send them off into summer vacation with book lists, memory books and a sense, hopefully, that they are capable of doing hard things. I will leave the building without participating in the bus-loop goodbye, knowing the trigger it is likely to be. I will head home to an empty house with long summer days stretching out in front of me. But there, on my porch, looking out over my farm and thinking about my path ahead, I will remind myself that I, too, am capable of doing hard things. This year is proof of that. I still don’t know the road ahead for me. I still don’t know what challenges are yet to come, but I know that if I can survive this, I can survive anything.
Teaching at 3am 