"You can’t keep picking people up; you have to stop them from falling." -Robin Williams
There have been a million topics in the last few weeks that I have felt compelled to blog about. So many things have spun around in my head. Amelia and I have had some amazing heart-to-hearts. Emerson and I have spent a lot of time together lately so she and I are also talking and I'm getting some good stuff from her too. The Seahawks have had us on an emotional roller coaster of a ride. My heart and mind have been on the students and staff at Olympic High School as Amelia and I coordinate the bracelet-making, and make bracelets into the night for the students that were tragically lost in a car accident. And through all of it, my blog has been silent. There are so many things to write about. So many story lines that roll around in my head. So many ideas from my children. And yet no words come out.
I have written before about the difficulty of blogging. That difficulty isn't about how hard it is to come up with topics, but rather how to weed through topics. How to consider my emotions, my readers' emotions, my children's emotions. There are so many things tied into the blog. And then, there is also my personal journey and where I am on my path. The progress or lack of progress I feel I am making has a definite impact on what I want to write, or even IF I want to write. Today? I want to write.
A few nights ago, Amelia and I were laying in bed together talking. It's our few precious moments of talking and prayer and just being together before I tuck her in and then turn out the light. Our "one more thing mommy" moments. We were talking about her day and she suddenly said, "I love our house! I'm so happy here!"
I smiled at her and told her I was so happy that she was happy and asked her what made her happy about our house. She said she loved it because it was big and safe and warm and because Emerson and I were here. And then, her little face got very serious and she said "And yet our house is also the most terrifying place in the world!" I try really hard to remain stoic when these conversations happen, and over the years I feel like I have gotten pretty good at keeping neutral facial expressions. My close friends will probably tell you how very wrong I am because I kind of tend to show a lot of emotion in my face. So I blankly stared back at my little seven-year-old as I worried about where this conversation was going to turn.
"What do you mean, Amelia?"
"Well, I love our house. But it's a scary place also."
"Why is our house scary, Amelia?"
She paused for a moment before she carried on. "Well, we have a lot of hard conversations together here. We talk a lot about bad things that have happened. We have bad dreams and my room turns into a horrible place at night. But the worst? Walking down the hallway at night."
"Why is that the worst?" I muttered as I was wracking my brain trying to figure out what she was going to say."
"Well, I think it's because at night when it's dark, I don't like to be without you in the back of the house. So I run super fast to try and get what I need quick before I really freak out. And then, when I'm doing that, I panic that I will trip and fall and hurt myself. And if I'm all alone, who will catch me?"
I paused for a moment to let this sink in. I smiled and told her that I thought I could fix that. "How about when you go down the hallway at night, I turn the light on and we walk down the hallway together?"
She smiled and said, "Well, that would make it better. Because the hallway might not be as scary. But it would be even better if you would walk with me and hold my hand. That way, if I trip, you can stop me from falling."
The very next morning, I saw the quote at the top of this blog from Robin Williams. He was a huge advocate for the homeless and insisted that extras in most of his movies were cast by people who were homeless or struggling. It was written into his contracts for most of his movies. When I read this I immediately thought of the conversation I had just had with Amelia. It's amazing sometimes how things just happen and how I can tie things together for a blog post.
Something else that has happened to tie this together is a shift for me at work. My babies at work need to have their hands held. They need someone to stop them from falling. I watch every day as kids pass through my office, or walk past me in the hallways. Kids who walk through life terrified, unsure of their steps, and just waiting to fall. Wanting so desperately to hold someone's hand so that they don't fall. And each day our jobs as educators get more and more difficult. We are supposed to teach. We are supposed to worry about Smarter Balance and test scores and intervention groups and meeting IEP goals. I read pages and pages of assessment data and therapy data. I plan activities and rework programming to make sure my paperwork is lined up and everything is exactly the way the state and the federal government want it to look. And in the meantime, my kids are stumbling, and I'm too busy with other pieces sometimes to notice that they are falling flat on their faces. And it's not because their paperwork is out of compliance. Or because I didn't write the correct goal for them. Their home lives are chaotic. They are coming to school hungry and tired. Moms and dads work overtime and are never home. They don't have jobs. They may not have homes. The kids are worried their parents are splitting up. Or their baby brother just died. Dad has cancer. They live in a two bedroom house with three families total. Mom expects the kids to take care of her. Dad is out to sea for most of the school year. And they are sent to us everyday to fix them. Teach them to read. Help them learn social skills. Push them to learn math when they cannot even focus on the paper in front of them. But make sure that they are not singled out. Ensure that a college won't find out that their kid had speech services. Don't give them headphones if they ask because we don't want them to look different. And they are falling. They are stumbling. Crashing and burning.
So, since reading that quote I have tried to apply it to my time at work. To know that I need to bolster these babies up and help them before it gets to the point where they stumble and fall. So Rice Krispie treats for the baby who never gets breakfast. Shampoo and lotion for the girl who is turning into a lady and needs to know how to take of herself. Cradling the little second grader as she cried because her mom and dad are fighting, and just spending her time with me talking and crying and trying to figure out what to do to help her. Taking a little extra time with a mom because she is scared and just wants to be listened to also!
It is so important to help others! And to help them before they get to the point of falling. Because it is so much easier to stop someone from falling than have to pick them up off the ground. Taking a little extra time to make sure they are solid and stable so that they can run the race themselves, confident in who they are and where they are headed. It's not easy. And it's exhausting. And you can't stop everyone from falling. But I try and think about my own girls and what they have been through. And as I send them to school, I try and think what is the important lesson here? Is it two digit addition? Or knowing that they are in a safe environment? Is it spelling lists and memory work? Or is it the comfort of having an adult in union with myself that will grab Amelia by the hand and tell her it's ok! Or having someone tell Emerson it's ok to be sad and things will get better.
Human connection is so important. And so many of the babies that come through my office door don't care that I'm teaching them expected behaviors, or the correct way to say their R sound. They care that I listened to them cry. They care that I handed them a tissue as they sobbed to me about their momma being sick. They care that they know they can run to me if they need me. And that is so much more important to me than progress on their IEP or what their score is on their evaluation.
So, be that person for someone! Be the one that holds them up in their time of need! Be the one that keeps them from falling. But, if they happen to fall, be there to pick them up and dust them off. Just try to open your eyes and see what happened, see why they fell. Because you don't know how many chances you'll have to help them up before it's too late!
