entry forty-three

Thursday, May 15, 2025

    Yesterday, a seven-year-old student told me he wanted to be dead. “…like my dead grandfather,” he whispered, without flinching. His words hung in the air like smoke—visible, heavy, impossible to ignore. I looked into his eyes, and what I saw terrified me. Not just sadness. Emptiness. A resignation no child should carry. It broke something open in me.

Because I know that feeling.

    I’ve been there—at the edge. I’ve looked down into that dark well, believing I didn’t matter. I’ve held my breath in the moments I wanted to leave this life. I’ve felt the shame, the silence, the weight of trying to keep it all together. I am here today because something—or someone—pulled me back, and I fought my way through. That fight changed me. I trained to become a mental health counselor. I promised myself I would never ignore a cry for help. I would never look away.

    Today, I still felt helpless.

    I contacted his mother and our school social worker. I followed all the steps. Inside, I kept hearing his words. His belief that he is stupid. That no one likes him. I felt a storm rising in me. Shame. Guilt. Grief. I questioned my impact. I wanted to hurt myself—for his pain. I didn’t. Instead, I made a conscious choice to care for myself first. I drove past my house and kept going. I went to a local farmers market. I walked. I cried. I let the air and sunshine hit my skin until I could breathe again.

    Teaching is often framed as an act of service, but rarely is it acknowledged as an act of survival. To teach, especially in special education, demands that I stay soft in a world that punishes tenderness. I carry the stories, the trauma, the ache. I carry it home. I carry it in my bones. I also carry resilience. I carry survival. I carry the deep, rooted belief that every child—especially the broken, hurting ones—deserves a champion. Some days, I don’t feel like enough. But maybe showing up, broken and breathing, is still something.  I don’t know what will happen next for this child, but I do know he was heard today. He was believed. And for both of us, that has to be enough—for now. Survival is a beginning. In that beginning, maybe we find a sliver of healing. Today reminded me that being alive is its own form of protest. Of defiance. Of hope. I’ll keep showing up. For him. For me. For all of us learning to live through the pain.

“The Quiet in the Hallway”

No one hears it,
but I do.
The silence after dismissal—
the desks still warm,
the laughter gone stale,
the breath I’ve held all day
finally exhaled like a prayer
that never reaches heaven.

They think we’re safe here.
In classrooms with color-coded charts,
and walls plastered with rules
that never mend what’s breaking.

He said he wants to die today.
Seven years old.
A baby with bruises
no one can see.
And I—
I felt it like a blade
sliding between my ribs.
Because I remember wanting that too.

What do I say
when his pain
mirrors my own?
When I carry my darkness
in lesson plans
and laughter
and hall passes
to sometimes cry in my car

at the end of a long day?

No, they don’t train us for this.
They train us to manage behaviors,
not grief.
Not the kind that’s still breathing.

Some nights I sit in my car
too long in the driveway,
wondering if I matter,
wondering if I’m next.

But I come back.
Every morning.
With cracked hands
and a stitched-up heart
and eyes that still search
for a reason to believe.

Because maybe
his voice
and mine
are both still here
for a reason.

Maybe the quiet
means we’re listening.

Maybe surviving
is the loudest thing
we ever do.