Start Healing Together

  Dear Kindergarten Teacher,  You are missing a little boy from your student list this year. He would have light brown hair, dark brown eyes, a nose like his father’s, and hands like his mother’s. He would be wearing a Batman t-shirt, often with a cape attached, zigzagging down the sidewalk, in a rush to fight bad guys.  There will be an empty cubby that should have his backpack and lunchbox haphazardly stuffed together. The lunchbox would likely always have some sort of sticky residue - grape jelly or applesauce, perhaps. But I know you would try your best to keep his things organized, reminding him to neatly place the papers in his backpack.  There will be an empty desk that should be labeled with his name: Richard. He would have a hard time writing his full name because it has so many letters. The “R” would likely be backwards, and the “a” would look more like an “o.” But I know that you would have been patient with him, hovering over his desk, encouraging him to practice some more.

By nature, the teaching profession is about self-sacrifice. Although our workweek is around 40 hours, we work far more than that. Between planning, grading, tutoring, mentoring, attending meetings, and completing paperwork (among so many other duties), it is impossible to get everything done within our contractual working time. Instead, we arrive early, leave late, and lose chunks of our weekend to work.  For my entire teaching career, this has been me. As much as I try to find a healthy balance between work and my personal life, I have yet to do so. As I work on Start Healing Together, I do a lot of reflecting on my personal experiences with grief, and it has made it abundantly clear why I have chosen to focus on educators.  My missed miscarriage I attended an evening appointment for an ultrasound to check on the growth of the baby. It was at this appointment that my husband and I were told that the pregnancy was no longer viable and that surgery was my next option. Despite knowing th