How It Feels

I didn't go into politics - or even business, for that matter - for a reason; one that, if you know me, you probably already know: I do not have a poker face.  I am not at all good at, as they say on Saturday Night Live, strategery.  I don't like office gossip or sneakiness or favorite-playing.  The way I prefer things to be in my work place is when, as my dad used to say, it is what it is - because what else would it be??

Unfortunately for me and for a whole lot of other people who live and/or work in the same school district I do, though, we have been involuntarily drawn into a situation over the past couple of years that has come to involve a lot of the undesirable aforementioned things.

As a result of the citizens of the city voting to give up their school district and the resulting imposed adoption of that system by the county school system, people in my area are talking about budgets and politics and outsourcing and other things that have regrettably become a very large part of the equation in public education.  One thing I haven't heard much talk about in meetings or in the media, though, is how it feels to have been swept into this maelstrom.

This has been the most difficult, most stressful year of my nineteen-year long career with the county school district.  I am proud of the efforts of many of my coworkers as we've entered into what can only accurately be described as a battle.  At times, I've felt sure that I want to do everything in my power to stay with the district, to continue the work I've started, and to try to control what I can in hopes of protecting my coworkers and friends - and ultimately, the students.  But, at other times, increasingly as the actual date of the change approaches, I feel as if I am in danger of going down with the ship.  Like a lot of my coworkers, my health and my personal life - and my overall happiness - have suffered a lot during this past school year because of the impending "merger" - a term, by the way, that really gets to a lot of us on the receiving end of the punches.  To merge means to join forces, to unite, or to team up, and to me that implies that an action is taking place between two roughly equal bodies, a situation which, in my opinion, this is not.  Always a fan of running metaphors, I liken what's going on here to a runner that has dropped out of a race who later asks an accomplished runner if he can train with the better runner.  One of them needs improvement; one doesn't.  One needs help; the other was fine on his own - and, in fact, is likely to be slowed down if the less skilled runner joins him on training runs, even though the faster runner may still be willing to take on the job of coaching the slower one.  It isn't a merger; it's more of an adoption.

In the district of people who did not get a vote in this decision, our leaders and our administrators are scared for their own jobs, for their livelihood actually, and it feels like there's an "every-man-for-himself" mentality that I have never before felt in this job.  Watching the process unfold in slow motion over the course of this school year has felt a bit like Chinese water torture, and in many ways I am glad to see the year come to a close, although I feel a distinct sadness at the same time that my job and this school system - both things that I have loved and have put my heart into since I was 25 years old - will certainly never be the same after end of this school year.  

Everybody knows that educators in this country generally don't make a lot of money.  They don't win Oscars or Pulitzer Prizes or get big raises or promotions or even get much recognition by their bosses or their "customers," unless, of course, a scandal of some sort is featured in the media.  The rewards we get come quietly and often only if we are looking hard for them, but most of us are lucky (and diligent) enough to see them, and we are glad to have this as our chosen career.  We realize that there is no other profession that would allow us to have such a part in shaping the minds of children in this way and to impact their future on such a personal level.  Teaching is about so much more than teaching - and I don't mean politics and jerrymandering and elbow-rubbing; it's about the power of relationships.  It's about the connection that can be made between one person and another person or between a person and a lesson, a link that can only be developed when the learner knows that the teacher cares about him or her.  When a mutual respect has formed between the teacher and the student, that's when the best kind of learning occurs.

But in an environment when educators are scared for their jobs, when school staff members know that they and/or their coworkers and friends may end up on the chopping block at any moment, when program cuts aren't a "maybe" but a "when," it's hard to be positive every day.  It's hard to focus on the lessons that need to be taught - and on the children who are the most important part of the equation.  From either side of the argument about what's fair or who deserves what from the limited funding available in the district now, one thing is for sure: teaching and learning have been hindered, and that doesn't feel good to any of us.

This is mostly a blog about grief and perspective, but I guess it's also about enduring and overcoming life's challenges, and I guess that's what has to be done in this situation as well.

What I Have Come To Believe - Part 1

There are some things that I've started to think about since my dad died that leave me with feelings of uncertainty; the more I ponder those things, the greater the lack of clarity I experience.

However, there are other things that I have become completely clear about, sometimes because I had never experienced or considered these particular issues before - and some things that I had come across but about which I hadn't had this particular perspective previously.  

Here's one of the things I know for sure:  I know that the world is different without my dad in it, but it's probably not as different as I judge it to be, at least not in a general sense.  Personally, I see the world now in a totally different light than I did before Dad got sick, and I've developed a view that is perhaps less naive, perhaps more jaded, or maybe both.  Every time I hear or read the statement "What doesn't kill you makes you stronger," I want to argue: from my perspective, this could not be further from the truth.  If we can keep from allowing it to break us down completely, we are not left stronger;  if we are lucky and diligent, we are left transformed, metamorphosized, different.

I search for consolation for the rest of my family and for the other people who knew my dad and who still say to me "I just can't believe he's gone," but I am unable to find anything of comfort for them since I have yet to find it for myself.  Time has passed; some of the sharp edges of grief have moved into more of an aching pain, but the sorrow and all of the other emotions that come along with the mourning are still there, with no end in sight.  I am different from the person I was before my dad got sick; I live differently, I think differently, and I believe differently.

I know this grief won’t end. It will only change and lessen. We will not get over it, but we will learn to live beside it, hopefully more efficiently and more gracefully than we have been able to do so far. We will hold our memories in our hearts and rely on the promise that the thoughts that now make us mourn will one day be overshadowed by the ones that make us smile.

In Search of Comfort

In the hours, days, weeks, and months after my dad went on ahead, I became aware of a phenomenon that I hadn't ever been in a position to notice before, and that was one of feeling as if I myself were the source of pain each time I had to tell someone else that my dad had gotten sick and that he didn't make it. I felt guilty and somehow responsible for the shock and the sadness that I witnessed descending upon each person as soon as the words left my mouth.  I felt as if I should be able to comfort them.  I wished I could spare them having to know what had happened and I wished I could explain why, but I couldn't do either.  Instead, I had to stand by and witness their pain, their sadness, and their grief, while I was deep in the midst of those feeling on my own. 

If I'd had to guess before I had any inside knowledge of one who has lost a loved one, I would have said that the worst would be when someone didn't know what had happened and I had to tell them.  But what I discovered was that the hardest thing to get through was when I knew someone knew how sick my dad was or even knew he had died but then they said nothing to me afterwards.  It felt like they didn't care, like it didn't matter to anyone except those of us who were so deep in our grief that we could barely function.  It was like salt in a wound; it was like watching and not be able to stop the waves from washing up on the shore and wiping out a one-of-a-kind sand castle in the process.

About six weeks after Dad went on ahead, my husband, my mom, and I attended a business convention that my dad had been a big part of for decades.  Everyone at the convention knew (had known? Damn I hate having to change that verb tense) my dad; he had known many of the people who were there since I was a child or longer and had served as a mentor for many of them over the years.  

The last time any of those people had seen my dad was one year ago, ten months before he died and eight months before he got sick.  They still thought of him as being the picture of good health; he was the guy who was the life of the party, working the crowd and cutting up on the dance floor at night and then heading up a meeting after an early morning run the next day.  People asked what had happened, and I didn't know how to respond. I could hardly have finished processing the series of events over the ten weeks.   Most of the people there had heard about Dad's illness and his death, but it was like they couldn't process it or accept it until they showed up at the convention and saw that he wasn't there for the first time in decades. His absence was blaring, to put it mildly.  In the midst of their shock and in what I guess was an awkward attempt to process the news themselves, several people told stories about other people they knew who had gotten some serious kind of cancer and had survived.  That didn't make me feel any better, and I don't think it served that purpose for them, either; actually, I think it only fueled their sense of disbelief.  We heard a lot of "I'm sorry's" but it seemed like mostly what was said was "I just can't believe it."  Yep, me neither, I said.  What I guess I wanted them to say was that sucks and I'll miss him too.  I wished they had something that would comfort me and my family; I wished I had something that could comfort them - or myself.  But there was no protection, and there was no comfort to be had.