The Things I Get Told

These are things I hear these days:

Sadnesses:

 l don’t like walking by this house; it makes me sad. My grandpa’s friend died there. And I know for a fact this is true; this grandpa’s friends , very old and very drunk, froze to death right on his own doorstep a few Christmases ago. This story is gruesome  and sad enough to give any child bad daydreams.

Lies:

Look! We found these peppers just lying on the ground in your garden! Fortunately, or maybe unfortunately, I had checked my pepper plants only hours before this statement was made and recognized these as the same peppers I had seen hanging on the plants this morning. I didn’t react much; I let her know I knew she was lying with the Tiffany effect; I’m not sure she even noticed. This brings me to a moral dilemma: how should I react to a lie told me by someone else’s child who is just at my house for a short period of time each day? Should I tell her she can never come over again like other people in this town have done? Is that really morally correct? I am open to opinions on this as long as those opinions do not involve ostracizing a child for the behaviours she’s been forced to learn to cope with her life. 

Fears:

I hate Z*******. He scares me. He makes me sad. He says bad things to me. He [stalks] me on Snapchat. Does he hurt you? I ask. But she doesn’t want to reply.

Wishes:

Look, we wrote you a note! And the note begins, “Dear Mom and Dad.”

Trauma: 

[My babysitter] and I fought. We said lots of swear words. I’m really not supposed to tell anyone. You’re    a sweet little 8 year old. I wish you didn’t even have to know any swear words, much less use them to defend yourself against a screaming babysitter.

Insecurities:

 I’m supposed to stay home cos I’m grounded. I cleaned up my room but D***** [mom’s ex boyfriend] got mad Cos there was still stuff on the floor. More yelling by the adults in this girl’s life. And yet, in spite of, or maybe because of, all her caretakers yelling at her, she is so sweet and kind and will always make sure everyone else is happy and has whatever they need before thinking of herself. 

Advocation

 

The word sounds stuffy. It sounds more than a little authoratative. But tonight, thinking of the new school year that’s going to happen without me, of the students who get a brand new teacher this year, and of the teachers who will be teaching “my kids,” that was the word in my mind. 

I have been far from the perfect teacher. In fact, I haven’t even tried to be perfect. In one of the lectures I attended when I was preparing to become a teacher, a veteran teacher made our group of would-be teachers repeat a phrase several times in unison: “nobody does everything.” Whenever I have felt like a failure as a teacher, that phrase has been a comfort. Sometimes, though, knowing I was definitely not doing everything, I have wondered if I was doing even anything. Now, from the luxury of a tiny bit of distance, I can see one thing I consistently did: advocate. 

It isn’t something I tried to do; it isn’t a character trait I consciously cultivated. It’s just who I am. I know my school board has often rolled their eyes at me, sometimes even challenged me. I do have to say that they were always polite and always, at least to my face, respected me and listened to the requests I made on behalf of my students. Sometimes I felt crazy and dramatic next to their unbiased stoicism. I wondered if I had said to much, made a small situation bigger than it should have been. I sometimes felt like my heart got ahead of my head. I even felt embarrassed.

Now I feel relieved.  I know that what I did was for my students’ sakes and I know I did all I could to help them. The shameless begging to be heard and the countless times making a fool of myself may not have always brought the change I was looking for, but it did help. The school board may have gotten tired of my coteachers and I ranting about how no one in the upper grades had learned their multiplication as well as they should have but in the end they relented and got us an aide to practice flash cards with the kids a couple times a week and Now those children know their multiplication. My begging got me a very unusual paid trip to a meeting where I learned about different behaviour management and teaching techniques for children from hard places, and about teaching children with special needs. These ideas  made me a little crazier than the typical Mennonite teacher, but they helped  me understand all my students, not just the ones with special needs, better. Last year I took over advocating for a child who was approaching middle grades and couldn’t really read. Her teacher from the year before had been trying to get help for this child and not succeeded, but she continued to stand by me and support me in my quest for help. Neither of us ever really got anywhere with that; although we did get the school board to become open to giving this child the different program she needs, we could not convince the child’s parents. I failed, But at least I know I tried. Another child came to school with the weight  of a difficult home environment on her to shoulders. I can’t tell of the conversations with many people I had to try to get her the support and safety she needed to thrive. Often I felt like I wasn’t doing enough, or I was doing all the wrong things. I still don’t know. But I know I tried, I know I spent sleepless nights worrying and thinking of ways to make her life easier, I know I did my best. And becos she now trusts me and sees me as someone she can talk to, I can comfort myself that I at least did something a little right. Another student was struggling to deal with the loss of a close family member; when I finally, together with his parents, figured out what was troubling him, I could do some advocation in a different way: research. We came up with a way for him to remember and write or draw happy things about his grandma whenever his sadness got too much for him in the classroom. And this helped! (Would definitely recommend a interactive grief journal for a child who’s struggling with the loss of someone close to them.)

These are only a few of the ways I advocated for students. There are many small ways I advocated, most of which I can’t even remember. The above are just examples. 

Weeks have passed since I wrote this. After  feeling kind of cheap about posting this becos it makes me too vulnerable, I’ve let it languish in my drafts for a month. After a Sunday Dinner Table Conversion where I argued with a closed minded white person and (too?) loudly advocated for a brother in law of mine who has fasd, I remembered this unposted writing about just that topic. And, again I realized that advocation is something I do without thinking of it. Do I do it enough? Too much? I don’t know. But is it ever a bad thing to advocate for someone who can’t speak for them self? 

(Someone does it for me.) 

Right Now.

 I now have long days now with almost zero commitments or responsibilities other than basic housewife stuff. And that’s kind of hard for me. I worry about being alone. I worry about being a useless member of my community. I worry about being so wrapped up in my nothing life that I won’t notice that there are other people in this world. So I did what I’ve done before. I asked God to send me some kids who needed me. It was almost an accidental thing, not something I spent any time contemplating, and  then, after I whispered those words, I wondered if I would regret them. I’ve asked God to send me children before, and they haven’t always been who I’d imagined them to be. Once when I did that, I ended up becoming a school teacher at an independent school in rural rural rural rural Saskatchewan, which, honestly, was not a plan I had ever envisioned for my life, although I did end up rather loving it. And now I did it again.  

And just like that, four little girls came knocking on my door. Actually, I really wasn’t expecting that to happen, and certainly not so soon; I really am so faithless. And this time, its been exactly what I wanted. So far. Also, I guess there was one other child-who-is-not-a-child scenario that was probably also a result of my wanting to be useful: my mil ask me to  accompany my 19yo brother-in-law (who is struggling with living with both diabetes and fads, a combination no kid should ever have to deal with) to a doctor appointment one day. Which wasn’t exactly what I wanted. Much less glamorous and fun than a group of little girls. But that’s not what I was focusing on. And that was only one day. Back to the little girls. 

These girls have been at my house often before. Last fall and winter they’d run out to give me a hug or a high five as I walked home from school, but they didn’t come over a lot then becos, after dealing with a room full of kiddies all day, I really didn’t have enough mental or emotional energy left for them. In spring, when their school abruptly shut down, they spent some afternoons in my backyard social distance gardening with me. Two of these girls went away for the summer, but the other two brought their baby brother to see me, and one of them liked to put this little brother in a stroller and accompany me on my daily walk. But they never came that often, and becos the weather was nice they would soon be off to another adventure in another deserted part of this town. 

But now these girls have come and found me again. Every day after school. ‘We came to see you,’ they say and smile sweetly at me when I open my door. 

They are fascinated by whatever project I am working on. They fell in love with the apple juice I was working on making several afternoons. 

Yesterday they admired the scrunchies I had just made. I had a different plan for those, but their admiration made me change my mind, and I gave them each a pink velvet scrunchie. Coincidentally (or not?) I had made the exact right amount -one for each of them. 

Today they returned and told me their friends at school had admired their scrunchies and couldn’t believe they were homemade.  T also had something else to tell me: ‘I just feel very special to have gotten this from [you],’ she said. ‘I feel like this is from God, that He gave this to me from you.’ That’s when I made the connection of my request for kids to love and those daily knocks on my front door.  

They asked me a couple times to help them make more scrunchies, so I introduced the older two to my sewing machine. They were so proud of their handiwork and couldn’t wait to show it to BTT when he got home. 

These girls often come hungry. ‘Do I feed them every day?’ I asked my husband, secretly hoping he’d tell me I didn’t have to. I’m selfish. I don’t really want to make them sandwiches or slice them cheese every day. Or let them spend half an hour stirring sugar into their own bowl of freshly made applesauce and taste testing about 100 times until they get it perfected. Or watch them eat all my ripe tomatoes before I get a chance to use them and then cut the last big beautiful red tomato into fourths so they all get a piece. His response was, ‘If that’s what they need, then do it.’ So I have. 

‘You’re like a mom,’ they said to me one day. ‘You know how to take care of kids.’ Sadly, it appears like their actual moms don’t always know how to take care of them. ‘I like it here,’ another one said; ‘it’s feels like a happy place. I feel like I could live here.’

  

This last week I’ve wished I could just have one quiet supper with my husband. (That wish actually came true today, Friday. The girls left early.) I’ve wanted to hoard my precious apple juice I worked so hard for instead of pouring out jars-full into blue plastic cups. I’ve wondered when the last time the hand snitching ham and cheese from my cutting board was washed properly. I’ve sighed as the supper I had made for BTT and me disappeared into 4 little girls’ mouths in a couple minutes and I had to make another supper. I’ve crawled on hands and knees to collect each piece of my precious LEGO-from-Sapphire-and-Rosie when the girls had to leave in a hurry and didn’t get it cleaned up. 

Being a servant isn’t always fun. Loving and caring for kids even just for an hour or two in the evening isn’t always fun. But when they ask for a hug before they leave my heart is happy. 

This is what my mother says in reference to needy children or needy people that come into her life: Right now they need me. Maybe they won’t next year or next month or even next week. But now they do. And if I can be there for them, I will. 

I sometimes dread that daily knock, but I know this is not forever. Right now they need me -to feed them, share my precious LEGOs with them, give them a safe and happy place to escape for an hour or two, listen to their school stories, to their life stories, to their stories about their tumultuous families, basically just to love them. And if I can do even one of those things for a sad or hurting child, I will. 

Changes.

A few new things:

• I changed the layout of this blog just slightly. 

• You will notice a new, colourful look 

•I finally figured out how to put a subscribe button on here for those of you who have been asking about that. 

•Posts have been appearing a lot more regularly due to changes in my life (namely quitting my school teaching job and having a slower paced life due to Covid-19 restrictions) 

••••Thank you to all of you who read my haphazard ruminations and also thank you to everyone who has sent me positive messages about them. After sharing this blog sparingly for the first few years, I’ve grown marginally braver with letting other people read my thoughts, but it still scares me.••••

Wiping off Shadows

They don’t come off, these shadows. 

I scrub at them, hard. 

They’re part of me. 

I kind of get used to them. 

They're Forever? 

I’m okay with that. Maybe. 

Their grey bruises my luminescent skin. 

I brush harder; 

They get under my skin.

I hardly notice. 

Their darkness is unavoidable; unless: 

I Walk into the Light. 

This was inspired by an  accidentally wise phrase from my dad: “It's hard  wipe off shadows.” He was speaking literally, but [typically] I had to think about it as a sappy metaphor.

My sister must’ve thought this shadows thought was cool too. Check out her thoughts Here.

Beginning (or at least trying) to Let Go

 Day One of the new School Year that’s beginning without me:

Is it crazy to regret a choice I know was a good one, maybe the best one, maybe not?

Is it selfish to feel jealous or even resentful of the New Teacher, my Replacement, worse yet, possibly my Better? 

Is it useless to resent March (and last March in particular) and its impossible decision thrown at me, us, to make 6 months before the new school year? 

Is it betraying myself to accept that i am not a teacher right now and even be a tiny bit relieved? 

Is it okay to spend a day (or 4) mourning this stage of my life, the stage when I was a Teacher, when I was a valid member of my community, when I was Needed?

Is it optimistic to hope that sometime I will have the chance to return to the Children and the Red Brick School I love so much ? 

Is it okay to cry for the children that are now someone else’s to love? 

Looking, at the trees

I’ve been. Looking, at the trees.  Watching their sudden, flamboyant burst, into neon. Mustard, gold, fire. 

I’ve been.  Musing on these trees. Pretending it’s 3 weeks from now, October, maybe. These same trees are sans their shimmering party clothes. And, now, They’re visible only in their very essence: branch, bark, drab. ( I wonder if they ever get tired of spending half the year shivering without their leafy outfits?)

I, am not an autumn lover; although I recognize and acknowledge the beauties, I mostly spend time whispering sad farewells to the birds who seem to be in a hurry to leave, dreading the loss of the long summer days, missing the sunshine, fawning over my plants that are slowly, and then all at once, curling their shrivelling leaves, and inhaling the pungent smell of their decay. In short: mourning summer. The trees are the saddest and the most dramatic symbol of fall, though. I’ve always thought about the leaves: they  work so hard all summer: to stay green and healthy, be a haven to any bird or child or animal who lands among them, shade the ground beneath them, feed insects and birds and animals and people, and then, suddenly: one day, the tree decides to stop giving 

 them life, they have no choice but to merge into the brightest shades in the rainbow before dropping and withering to nothing. I know these leaves have been linked to life, death, the whole human experience, by more writers and lecturers than I can know of, and it’s a nice thought. But what if there’s another way of looking at it. 

Forget the leaves’ POV, Think about the tree: basic green, then party clothes, then nothing, over and over and over, year after year after year; are people like that? Do I have seasons, every year/month, 5 years/months, 2 years/months? Or maybe that’s me every week; this thought is sort of strange, a new one to me. Are there times in my life where I’m routinely green, growing, feeding, sheltering, shading and suddenly something snaps, I get really bright, maybe good bright: extra generous, full of kind words, glowing with goodness; maybe bad bright: anger often, anxious, cruel. And then I am exhausted, and wilt and all those bright leaves fall away. And I rest, empty, drab, with only the bark and branch essence of myself, the real me, with  no leaves to hide behind, getting ready to put on all those green leaf traits again. Maybe humans aren’t as routine as trees; maybe this doesn’t happen to us as often as it happens to them, But maybe it does, Happen to us.