Thursday, July 16, 2015

On my heart and in my head...

I have sat down to write this post so many times over the past several days and I just never could quite make it happen. I guess I felt like that maybe if I didn’t put the words down where everyone could read them then maybe what has happened didn’t…silly I know.

You see I grew up with a dad who was a teacher and I always heard him refer to his students as his “kids.” I always felt like my dad gave a piece of himself to each of his students as well so they really did become his kids. He worried about them, he had hopes for them, he got frustrated about things they did, he watched and supported them through all their successes and failures. So I knew his students were really important to him. I also saw how upset he would get when something happened to one of his “kids.” After being around many teachers I am pretty sure most acquire a few hundred of their own “kids” over all their years of teaching.

I thought that since I didn’t teach I didn’t really have to worry about this. See I have high school and college students come to work for me each and every summer. Somewhere around 150 of them, I have the duty of hiring, training, and working with nearly all of them. Granted I work really closely with about 30 of them but I know nearly all of them. Still I thought that I was immune from the my “kids” phenomenon. That is until something happened to one of my kids, note I didn’t say one of my workers, I see these kids every day seven days per week some days  I spend more time with them than with my actual biological child.  

Last weekend one of these kids was tragically killed in a car accident. He wasn’t one of the 30 or so that I get to know really well but I knew him I knew his really white toothed smile that always looked like it was hiding a streak of ornery, his curly blond hair, and his kind voice. I knew all of these so well and when his chair was empty on Saturday morning a piece of me felt empty. I even got a little defensive because another kid sat in it on Sunday.

The thing that made me realize how much I cared for these “kids” is when I saw the others hurting. I had a boy on my crew who was not handling the news well at all. All I could do is hug him and cry with him. I told one of the other crew leaders that I think I now know what it is like to be a teacher. That when your kids are hurting you are hurting. I waited a day or so but I wanted my crew to know how much they really did mean to me. So I told them, I wanted them to know that they weren’t just my employees they were so much more and that they mattered to me.


I know this is a far cry from my typical blog, but I needed off my chest. I guess here’s the take away…if they matter to you tell them! 

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