The school year has ended, and its closure has prompted me to reflect on the year. Without a doubt, this school year has been the most unusual year I have had.
While the year was great for me personally with the Nevada State Teacher of the Year award and the easiest and friendliest group of students I could ask for, there was a lot of sadness around me. Two different nineteen year-old men died. In my classes were each of their best friends and one of the boy's girlfriend. A colleague's boyfriend died, and one of my student's mother died on her daughter's eighteenth birthday. And of course, Steven and Keegan died in the spring. In all of my years teaching, I have never experienced this kind of grief around me. Watching my students suffer through their grief and guilt was incredibly difficult. There were many moments when I didn't know what to do or say.
There were far too many days when I wished I could have carried someone's grief, if even for a few minutes, to offer him a reprieve from his hurt, but alas, the world doesn't work that way. So while I packed my bags and headed off to Dallas to meet my STOY classmates and later to D.C. to meet the president, those around me were simply trying to get through the day.
The whole experience has reminded me how lucky I am to have those I love around me. The truth of the matter is that we are all going to die, and at any moment I could lose a parent, a friend or even one of my children. Life is fragile. All the more reason to take a moment to have lunch with my mom, to play trains with my son, to color with my daughter, to apologize to a friend, to listen quietly to a student telling me about her last conversation with her friend.
People matter, and they leave us or we leave them. What does that mean to you?
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