Too Hard

I just returned from a memorial service for a remarkable young woman, an 11th grader at our school.  As is typical for me, I knew the girl, I knew the name, but I didn't have the two firmly bound in my mind.  I neither taught nor coached her, so she was like many other students who come through our school.

So, at first, I was weeping in the abstract, and I was weeping.  Here we - as a community - were confronted with the worst possible news: the death of a child.  If she had been ordinary, even somewhat anonymous, it still would have been crushingly sad.  She was not.  She was extraordinary.  To be a teacher is to believe in growth and possibility.  We are, by nature, optimists, dedicating ourselves to the spring of young people's lives so that they may reap a full autumn harvest.  We live over our student's horizons.  And Zoe will not cross any more horizons.  And that is devastating.

At the end, after some tearful remembrances, they ran a slide show.  And it was the combination of pictures that reminded me of the specific person that we lost.  I did know her, though not well.  She was luminous.

To some degree, I hold students at some distance.  I do it, because every year they leave.  We stay and they move on.  If I remain aloof, it's because graduation can hurt too much if I don't.  I am a rank sentimentalist.  Every May, I have to strap on my armor.

I am lucky, because young people like Zoe are a part of my life, even if she herself wasn't.  It is a privilege to nudge and guide them towards honorable adulthood, and a tragedy when their time is cut short.  Far too short.

Afterwards, I came home and hugged Thing One, who was home because once more his round peg could not fit into a square hole.  He is a damaged and flawed and wounded child in some ways.  But he is also full of love and moments of great kindness and joy.  I heaved with some sobs as I hugged him, and he asked what was wrong.  How can I explain?  Grief in the specific?  Grief in the abstract?  My fears for him?

I suppose in the end, there is only the embrace that I can offer him.  It isn't a cloak or a shield.  Love doesn't protect the worthy or unworthy.  The world isn't "fair".

All we can do is hold on to each other.