Grief Is The Price We Pay For Love

 I am not sure why we thought that the kids in Mister Lynch's fifth grade class would be able to withstand grief any more effectively than your standard adult. All week long I had mood swings and moments of emotion that threatened to spill over the professional dam I had believed was so firmly in place to avoid just such an emergency. 

A parent made a very insightful observation. Staff members had gone in, yours truly included, to try and straighten up the room as well as possible to try and mitigate the signs of their fifth grade teacher who would not be coming back. This mother pointed out that we had cleaned up and "removed his smell." Initially this seemed a little crude, but upon further reflection, it made critical sense. Trying to scrub all traces of the man who had been with them since the beginning of August was not the caring chore we had set out to do. 

How does one prepare to never see a person again? There are plenty of examples of fifth graders who, upon being promoted to middle school, never darken our doorstep again. This is definitely the exception. The number of kids who come back in those first couple years after leaving elementary school is substantial. Being able to tag off on those little chairs, those tiny bathrooms, and all those people that had helped them along the way to the adventures outside of Horace Mann: priceless. 

I tend to experience this from the position of the curb out in front of the school when one of our former students comes bopping along. "Hey, Mister Caven! You're still here?" And I take that as a badge of honor. 

Yes I am. I'm still here. The list of folks who have gone to that big teachers' lounge in the sky continues to grow. Don't think for a second that this hasn't caused me to imagine the day when a passing teen asks for Mister Caven. And someone will have to tell them that he doesn't work here anymore. 

I don't know why I couldn't have imagined how complex the grief for everyone concerned would be. I still miss my dog. 

I probably always will.