Trauma

I’ve seen some people start this way – so ‘trigger warning’ – this is about violent death and loss.

I found out this morning that one of my former students was murdered by a family member Monday night. His uncle shot him and he bled out in his own home. I’ve been carrying this all day and have just been on autopilot. I just broke down. I lost it when another former student, one of his friends, shared with me she had taken in his dog – and she doesn’t know what to do because his dog is looking for him.

Monday I started my 16th year at my school. 16 years of working in a small community where I am starting to see the children of former students make it to my classroom. 16 years of crazy bullshit, where I have stayed year after year because I love my kids.

As facts are being released by local law enforcement, I just cry more. All I can think is he must have been so scared and in so much pain.

All I can think of is his smiling face. The depth of his kindness. How much he gave of himself to help his friends. How every time he was near the school he’d stop by to tell me “hi” and give me a hug. Watching all of his friends, also all my former students, share their pain virtually throughout the day was hard – we are all together, and at the same time so very alone, in our grief.

He is not the first student I’ve lost to violence. Last week marked 3 years since another of my former students “went missing;” his older brother confessed to his murder. He said that he did it because my kid was going to testify against the older brother on drug charges – in a drug haze, the “brother” bragged about killing him at the local bar, bragged about hiding his body where no one will ever find it in the woods – then this man who called himself his “brother” left the bar and committed suicide. Our community is so remote, so rural, his remains will never be found.

I see the crosses on the road for every kid I have lost to car accidents. Years ago I wrote here about a fucking memo my then principal sent out when I told him that one of our kids died at the hospital after an accident. I see his cross on the side of the road every day I go to school, and I start to cry. I drive so slowly on the part of the road, watching for cars pulling out like he was, watching for speeding semis. That was my second year teaching. And I still think of his sad face when he told me the year before that he believed he would die before he was 20. It was less than a month until his birthday.

I stare at the bus stop where another of my kids would wave to me every morning. He had nothing and his family struggled so much, but when he found out that I didn’t eat breakfast, he was so worried about me he started bringing me something from the little country store that was his bus stop. I started eating breakfast because I didn’t want him to spend money on me – and I started bringing extra for him and we ate together when he had my class 1st period that year. He came to check on me every day, even when he didn’t have my class. He passed away in 2016, he had a heart attack in his 20s due to an undiagnosed condition. He had just gotten engaged and had been texting me about his plans for their future together.

I’ve met and worked with educators who someone else described as “wearing their student losses like a badge of honor.” – Like it was “Oh, you think that is bad? I’ve lost X students to violence” – like it’s a damn competition. What this is is trauma masked as indifference.

I can’t mask my trauma. I curl up and cry so hard I stop breathing. I can’t “act indifferent.” I wasn’t indifferent when they were in my classroom asking for my help, asking me to see them as people, to help them, to care about them. I couldn’t be indifferent when they were really just asking to be loved.

I’ve loved them all as a parent loves this child. I have told them all for years that no matter where they go in life, no matter how old they get, they will always be one of “my kids” – and I think they are okay with this based on the number of them who stay in touch, who invite me to weddings, who share first baby sonograms with me, often before their own “parents.”

In many ancient beliefs, a person is not dead until they are forgotten. I live with these memories pretty much every day, of all the good moments and these tragedies.

I see their faces every day and I don’t let go. I can’t. They were my kids.