A long time ago in a teeny, tiny town far, far away...
...I taught at an elementary school. I think many of you already knew that.
It was the most rewarding job I ever had. It was also the most difficult. As much as I enjoyed working with children, the education system as a whole didn't work for me. After four years I left. That was twenty years ago.
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Early in February a name on a book's acknowledgements page jumped out at me. (Yes, I am one of those people who reads the acknowledgements.) The author's son had the same name as a boy I taught all those years ago. I wondered if that boy and the author's son were the same person. I had never met the boy's father. His parents had split up. The father was never mentioned. The author seemed old enough to have a twenty-something son, and he lives close enough to the teeny-tiny town to make the relationship a possibility. I was intrigued by the coincidence, particularly since I had met the author a couple years ago.
Because of this, and because I'm a generally nosey person, I decided to do some online snooping to see if the author was the father of my long-ago student. What I found was a memorial page on Facebook. My former student committed suicide in November.
I was caught completely off guard by how sad that made me...how sad it still makes me.
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When I think of my former students I think of them as they were. Each one, even the ones that didn't conform to the constraints of the education system, had some spark of potential. Occasionally, when I realize that my memories are twenty years old and those children are now grown up, I imagine that potential fulfilled. I imagine adults with dreams and careers and families. I imagine they are happy. Knowing that it was otherwise for this young man, particularly since I remember him as a bright, happy, smiling child, has left me feeling...
What I'm feeling is complicated. I feel sad. I feel like the world is a bit darker for this loss. I feel surprise at my emotion over a child I haven't seen in twenty years. This leads my to feeling a bit like a creepy stalker, though my common sense knows this is not the case. I feel heart-sick for his family.
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Today, when I took a break from writing this, I discovered that Rose-Anne of Life, Love and Food had written about suicide and those left behind in her most recent post. Her honesty and generosity humble me.
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I never did find out if the author and my former student were father and son. It seems unimportant now.
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