Dear Teacher Who Keeps Showing Up,
Wouldn’t it be something if loneliness and loss could be measured on a Richter scale like an earthquake?
It would be wild if a tool could register the seismic divide of a heart split wide open or quantify the crippling agony of missing the touch of another person.
If such a device existed, I wonder what we would do with the empirical data?
If we could see an isolated grandmother in a frayed recliner with a half-completed word search measuring at say a 10, would we pick up the phone to say hello?
If we could see a daughter mourning the unexpected loss of her father measuring at say a 20, would we make every attempt to do something- anything, even if it was the wrong thing?
A wise person once told me that the issue today is not that we have an empathy problem but rather we have a connectivity problem.
This person was right. In an era when we're “supposedly” more connected than ever, we are, ironically, incredibly disconnected.
It’s an elementary definition for sure, but to me, connectivity is a mere showing up for others each day. It’s saying, “I’m here. What can I do?” This is what teachers do so well.
They show up. On good days, bad days, cold days, hot days, sad days, wet days, sick days, scary days, fun days, even boring days, they keep showing up.
In a year dipped in the ink of anguish, the unwavering presence of a teacher is a huge comfort to a teenager grappling with the stamp of uncertainty on every front.
It’s the very reason he begins to sob uncontrollably at the first glance of his teacher in the greeting line of his mother’s funeral.
Without a single word, her presence alone teaches him the greatest lesson he will ever learn. Love is merely showing up.
Teachers, this year is hard. You’re tapped out, frustrated beyond measure, even scared. You don’t know what to tell kids about the civil unrest in our nation or the cruelty of sudden loss. You don’t know how to help them fight their demons or save them from destruction. You can’t muster up the willpower for another motivational speech of futility, and deep down you wonder if maybe something inside of you broke this year- the ability to feel deeply and not grow calloused to the tremendous suffering all around you. You’re not alone.
In this uncertain world, I think we need to give ourselves permission to feel whatever we feel without apology and understand that it may morph into a hundred different emotions by night fall. We need to be okay with not having the answers. Nobody does. Fortunately, I don’t think kids need, want, or expect their teachers to have the answers right now.
Could it be that the empirical data reveals their greatest need is simply having someone who keeps showing up?
-CDB