~for those times when the tears sneak out~
I remember well the day I cried in front of my first graders at Olathe Elementary School in the mountains of southwestern Colorado. It was noontime and while they were at lunch, I got the message that all women hate to receive as they wait for the results of their mammograms to come back. My doctor's office in Montrose had called to tell me that my long overdue yearly test, the one that was nearly 5 years past due, had shown signs of a suspicious area in the left breast. I needed to come back in for a different kind of x-ray to determine what the problem area meant and if further tests would be warranted. I had only one thought in mind as I settled in to read my students a story after lunch.
Could it be the beginnings of cancer?
Visibly shaken, I should have taken the advice of my two sweet friends and teaching cohorts to just go on home for the rest of the day. Those two women would have gladly taken my kids in with theirs. I declined and said I'd be fine, but in reality I was not. Mike and I had only been married for a short while when it happened. In my mind, things could not have seemed worse. As tears snuck out of the corners of my eyes, those little 7-year olds couldn't help but to notice. I went ahead to explain to them that I was fine, but I had just received news that made me sad for a while. I told them not to worry and thankfully I didn't have to end up being concerned about it either. I have never been so glad to hear the words benign fluid filled cyst in all of my life!
My 2nd graders at Grandfield, Oklahoma saw me cry on the January day in 2018 when my brother-in-law Wes was going to be taken off the ventilator after suffering the effects of a heart attack, pneumonia, and sepsis. The doctors felt there was no more that could be done and we were heading north to OKC to be with him before the ventilator was removed. I had only lost my sister just a few months prior and to think of also losing my brother-in-law was an unimaginable thought. As I sat down with the kids prior to taking out for the hospital, I drew all of those 7 and 8-year olds around me to explain why I was leaving in the middle of the day. They knew all about my sister Sherry and how she had passed away only 6 weeks before school started that year. I had mentioned to them that Mike and I had been keeping an eye on Wes as I had promised Sherry that we would. Now he too would also be leaving us soon and once again those tears started to spill out as I looked at their sweet faces. There was no way to stop them from falling. For as long as I live, I'll remember one sweet 2nd grade boy whose little hand began to pat me softly on the back as he tried to comfort his teacher in the only way that he knew.
And yesterday it happened once again with my fifth graders here in Ponca City, Oklahoma when secretly they began passing around a piece of paper that proclaimed their teacher to be "the best teacher" according to the whole class. One by one they signed their names to it and when it was presented to me Friday afternoon, it was simply more than I could bear. I sat down in a chair and began to speak to them in a way that I have found myself speaking to children quite often in the years following my original retirement from teaching and the subsequent return to the classroom after only a few months of being out.
Tears streamed down my face as I looked at them one by one. My throat felt like it had something in it that wouldn't allow me to speak and overcome with emotion was a pretty good way to describe how I felt. I told them how happy I was to be their teacher. I reminded them that they talked too much in class, sometimes didn't clean up their messes before they went home, neglected to plug in their Chrome books and stow away their headphones properly at the end of the day, and some days spent way too much time arguing with one another.
And then I said this, the most important thing of all.
It's no secret at our house. My personal bucket is drained dry and has been for many weeks. It has been so empty as of late that I would have sworn there were holes in the bottom of it. What water there has been in it has been given away to others because I was sure they needed it worse than I did.
I was wrong.
I needed it more than I could have imagined.
What my students did yesterday through their simple act of human kindness brought the water level in my bucket up to the top once again. I felt it just as soon as the swelling in my heart started to arise. It was as if the bucket ran over and the only place left for the excess to go came down in the form of tears on my face. We have spoken many times as a group that sometimes people cry when they are sad or hurt. There are those who cry in anger. Yet in other moments, tears are shed in joy and happiness with simple gratitude for an act of kindness that is totally unexpected, just as mine were yesterday afternoon.
As I approach the end of my career in the field of education, it will very soon be the time to take what I guess to be a well deserved rest. It's a mystery to me what "rest" feels like but perhaps I will find it out there somewhere. I cannot even imagine not having to make lesson plans, no longer needing to grade papers and place scores into the record book, or hoping that I do well enough on an evaluation to keep my job for the next year. I accept the fact that I probably will never have been known to be the teacher who produced the highest of test scores over 40 years worth of time, yet it would have never been for lack of trying. I have tried my best every single day in the classroom. One thing I will never regret, not in a million years, is teaching kids about the lessons of life and what it takes to be a decent and kind human being in this great big world of ours. That just has to count for something.
Somewhere out there today is another teacher just like me whose personal bucket has run completely dry. Chances are good that they are not telling anyone about it either. They are burning the candle at both ends as they work long hours before and after school. They are desperately hoping to reach every single kid and prepare them to be successful in their lives, often times against some pretty insurmountable odds. Do me a favor? Find that teacher and lift them up with words of encouragement and thanks for what they do every single day. Educators endure more than you can imagine and they do it every day because that's what they signed up to do when they proclaimed these words in the first place~
Could it be the beginnings of cancer?
Visibly shaken, I should have taken the advice of my two sweet friends and teaching cohorts to just go on home for the rest of the day. Those two women would have gladly taken my kids in with theirs. I declined and said I'd be fine, but in reality I was not. Mike and I had only been married for a short while when it happened. In my mind, things could not have seemed worse. As tears snuck out of the corners of my eyes, those little 7-year olds couldn't help but to notice. I went ahead to explain to them that I was fine, but I had just received news that made me sad for a while. I told them not to worry and thankfully I didn't have to end up being concerned about it either. I have never been so glad to hear the words benign fluid filled cyst in all of my life!
My 2nd graders at Grandfield, Oklahoma saw me cry on the January day in 2018 when my brother-in-law Wes was going to be taken off the ventilator after suffering the effects of a heart attack, pneumonia, and sepsis. The doctors felt there was no more that could be done and we were heading north to OKC to be with him before the ventilator was removed. I had only lost my sister just a few months prior and to think of also losing my brother-in-law was an unimaginable thought. As I sat down with the kids prior to taking out for the hospital, I drew all of those 7 and 8-year olds around me to explain why I was leaving in the middle of the day. They knew all about my sister Sherry and how she had passed away only 6 weeks before school started that year. I had mentioned to them that Mike and I had been keeping an eye on Wes as I had promised Sherry that we would. Now he too would also be leaving us soon and once again those tears started to spill out as I looked at their sweet faces. There was no way to stop them from falling. For as long as I live, I'll remember one sweet 2nd grade boy whose little hand began to pat me softly on the back as he tried to comfort his teacher in the only way that he knew.
And yesterday it happened once again with my fifth graders here in Ponca City, Oklahoma when secretly they began passing around a piece of paper that proclaimed their teacher to be "the best teacher" according to the whole class. One by one they signed their names to it and when it was presented to me Friday afternoon, it was simply more than I could bear. I sat down in a chair and began to speak to them in a way that I have found myself speaking to children quite often in the years following my original retirement from teaching and the subsequent return to the classroom after only a few months of being out.
Tears streamed down my face as I looked at them one by one. My throat felt like it had something in it that wouldn't allow me to speak and overcome with emotion was a pretty good way to describe how I felt. I told them how happy I was to be their teacher. I reminded them that they talked too much in class, sometimes didn't clean up their messes before they went home, neglected to plug in their Chrome books and stow away their headphones properly at the end of the day, and some days spent way too much time arguing with one another.
And then I said this, the most important thing of all.
"I wouldn't trade you all or this experience in the fifth grade for a million dollars, and that's the truth! I love each of you and I want for you to succeed."It was so quiet as they listened to me that you could have heard that proverbial "pin drop" all the way down the hall at our end of the building.
It's no secret at our house. My personal bucket is drained dry and has been for many weeks. It has been so empty as of late that I would have sworn there were holes in the bottom of it. What water there has been in it has been given away to others because I was sure they needed it worse than I did.
I was wrong.
I needed it more than I could have imagined.
What my students did yesterday through their simple act of human kindness brought the water level in my bucket up to the top once again. I felt it just as soon as the swelling in my heart started to arise. It was as if the bucket ran over and the only place left for the excess to go came down in the form of tears on my face. We have spoken many times as a group that sometimes people cry when they are sad or hurt. There are those who cry in anger. Yet in other moments, tears are shed in joy and happiness with simple gratitude for an act of kindness that is totally unexpected, just as mine were yesterday afternoon.
As I approach the end of my career in the field of education, it will very soon be the time to take what I guess to be a well deserved rest. It's a mystery to me what "rest" feels like but perhaps I will find it out there somewhere. I cannot even imagine not having to make lesson plans, no longer needing to grade papers and place scores into the record book, or hoping that I do well enough on an evaluation to keep my job for the next year. I accept the fact that I probably will never have been known to be the teacher who produced the highest of test scores over 40 years worth of time, yet it would have never been for lack of trying. I have tried my best every single day in the classroom. One thing I will never regret, not in a million years, is teaching kids about the lessons of life and what it takes to be a decent and kind human being in this great big world of ours. That just has to count for something.
Somewhere out there today is another teacher just like me whose personal bucket has run completely dry. Chances are good that they are not telling anyone about it either. They are burning the candle at both ends as they work long hours before and after school. They are desperately hoping to reach every single kid and prepare them to be successful in their lives, often times against some pretty insurmountable odds. Do me a favor? Find that teacher and lift them up with words of encouragement and thanks for what they do every single day. Educators endure more than you can imagine and they do it every day because that's what they signed up to do when they proclaimed these words in the first place~
I am a teacher.
My teacher memory bank will always be full of the best of times. These sweet 2nd graders were part of my teaching experience in the southwestern Oklahoma community of Grandfield. More than half of my years in education have been spent with 1st and 2nd graders.
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