March On Sunshine

This morning I learned a former student of mine stabbed a female companion in the Home Depot parking lot.

She survived.

He did not--not after the police chased him to his trailer where he emerged, knife in hand, and charged the officers. Shot dead on his front step.

I knew him as an elementary student, a boy from a trauma-infused home, the protective older brother, older than his peers in what he'd already lived through, in what his no-longer-child eyes had seen.

And the sun still filters through the clouds that arrived yesterday afternoon like the sails of wooden ships floating across an ocean of sky. 

Clouds after days of brilliant March sunshine.

I remember wanting to save every child that walked through my school counselor's door. Especially the ones with nursery tales so much more harrowing than mine. Tales of complex trauma compounded over generations of poverty, of systematic racism, of colonization, tales of empty refrigerators and nights left home alone. 

I remember the 4th grade girl whose dad asked me to talk to her about the birds and the bees. No mother in her present story, I gave her as much information as I could but not enough to keep her from getting pregnant before she completed high school. I couldn't protect her from the life she lived-- I'm not nearly as powerful as I blamed myself for failing her to be.

I eventually learned not to take it all so personally. And tried not take all my students home with me.

My mantra became: All I can do is love them. To no longer own their home lives, their decisions, their behaviors as mine to fix but to love them as deeply and openly as I dared--especially the least lovable ones, the students who most needed an adult to see them.

To truly see them, without blinders, in all their beautiful flawed complexity.

Snow and rain may return by evening, despite the sun's persistence to shine a filtered light on this soggy ground, to push through the cumulous layers, sending rays of resistance down upon the brown grass, the puddles, the crusty piles of dirt and snow.

I cried this morning when the police released the name of the young man shot. I know him.  I knew him as a boy. Just a kid absorbing how to be a man from those before him, those around him, from the messages he received watching shows and playing games in his over-crowded living room.

I have so many fewer answers than I once did.

My soap boxes turned into shelves for storing questions. My cape re-hemmed as a blanket to lay upon when the weight of the world makes me crave sleep. The deep dark silence.

I misplaced my crown.

And yet across the world, on Saturday March 24th, youth rose up in mass and spoke for me, their crowns, capes, and soap boxes fully in tact.

Whatever our political leanings, we lose our humanity when we fail to listen to children, when we stop seeing them and holding spaces for them to rise.

We can't save them all--but we can easily hand over our microphones. We can listen without bias and let the children be the ones who shine.

 

Comments

[Valerie Demming]

Christy,
My mantra as a school counselor was to just help one kiddo each year. If I could positively help one see life just a little different it was a good year. So sorry for your loss. Valerie

[Lynette Sumpter]

Wow, Christy! So powerful!
~Lynette

[Christy]

Valerie, thank you, I have always learned from you. When I started I wanted to help them all and felt like it was my responsibility to turn all their lives around. This almost burned me out within my first year. When I adopted the mantra of love them fully when in front of me, it sure helped. I like the idea of positivly impacting one, reminds me of the starfish story: "I made a difference for that one."

Thank you Lynette! Hugs to you!

[Kate]

Christy, beautifully put as always. I struggle with all of these same issues in my work with patients. Trying to find the balance between what I can do for them and what they must do for themselves. My question for you is do you miss that work now or not? Sometimes thinking about pulling back and pouring energy elsewhere but then I worry I will miss it. So sorry to hear what happened to this boy and the woman he hurt. Thinking of you and them and all the ones who've come before and are yet to come.

[Crickett]

I'm so sorry Christy. Knowing the size of your heart, the room you made for your students, I can only imagine. At least, for a brief moment he had you to provide some light.

[Christy]

Kate, I didnt miss the work last year, my first year off, it took almost six months to de-stress and for a while I couldnt imagine returning to counseling work. Now I find myself missing being in the thick of a school setting at times. I started working part time as an Advocate at a resource hub for people with disabilities and I'm liking the lower stress levels and still being able to help people, mostly seniors, and use some of my counseling skills. And yet I will always have part of my heart with children and adolescents and within the framework of schools.

Cricket, thank you my sweet role model counseling friend!