Why Does Start Healing Together Focus on Educators?

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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 that I could not get the surgery for another week, I still attended work the next morning, grieving and still experiencing morning sickness. I was a new hire, and I was afraid to take any sick days. 


Losing my father

I learned about my father’s death on a Wednesday evening. As my husband drove to my mother’s house, I spent the entire 45-minute drive sending text messages and emails about work. I told my husband that I had to ensure that my classes were taken care of so that I could truly focus on my family over the next five days. 


Losing my son

We lost our son, Richard, after an emergency delivery just shy of 34-weeks along. I had to stay in the hospital for five days, and I had no idea how to fill my time. I tried to read books, but nothing seemed to make any sense to me. I tried to watch TV, but I could not focus on the plot lines. Instead, I turned to what seemed to be the most “normal” at that time: grading. I graded assignments on Google Classroom from my hospital bed. 


My daughter in the NICU

We anticipated an early delivery with our youngest daughter, but it was still surprising when we learned she had to be delivered at 34-weeks. As she lay in her bassinet in the NICU, unable to be held, hooked up to countless monitors that beeped relentlessly, I sat in a chair nearby with my laptop. I read an email that began with a congratulations about the birth of my daughter and then followed up with a “but…,” and I looked up at my daughter. I closed my laptop and did not do any work for the rest of my maternity leave. 


I wish that I could say that I reprioritized my life after my miscarriage, or after my dad’s death, or even after losing my son. Instead, it was not until I watched my daughter, hooked up to oxygen, that I realized I needed to make a change. I wished that I had taken the steps to take care of my physical, mental, and emotional health first, but I did not. Instead, I gave everything I had to my teaching career because it is what I love. It is what I have always dreamt of doing. It is a huge part of how I define myself. And I know that I am not alone in this. 


Start Healing Together supports educators because they will always put others before themselves. It is time that they are taken care of as well. 

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