It was the last day of school. Well, technically, we still have to turn in a checklist tomorrow and enjoy a board of directors' lunch and graduation for the seniors. But, the kids are gone and that's what matters. The last final was this AM and the youngsters are one year closer to whatever their futures may hold. On the last day of the first year I taught, I told our principal, Mike Roller, that I wished the next year would start the following Monday. I no longer take that point of view. Back then, I didn't have summer plans and the accumulated physical and emotional toll of teaching and coaching had yet to appear. I'll be ready to go again in August but I need a break as do my colleagues and as do students all over the country. I just hope the millions and millions of parents are prepared!
I spent most of the afternoon cleaning up Room 258 which is complicated by pennies left to count and a small mural being painted to celebrate our Honduras and Haiti project. I removed post cards and pictures from the wall and collected push pins in a cup. I gathered the dry erase markers to be stored for the 2019-2020 year and began packing what I need to move back to my apartment. I'll finish around noon tomorrow and get my form signed so I'm officially released for two and a half months. But, there's one part of our room I haven't touched yet. After each of our tests, we make cards, a tradition my classes have practiced for decades. This year, I posted the names of those we wrote on our door as reminders. (We touch LUKE 18:1 as a reminder to always pray and never give up, to quote the teachings of Jesus!) Some of the recipients were celebrating retirement or the birth of a first son. Some were grieving deaths and some needed encouragement. One was a stranger to all of us and one was my first cousin. Many are members of my congregation. Their rejoicings and heartaches happened to coincide with our studies of Jesus since August and I hate to pull down those strips of basketball tape etched with my clumsy block letters in Sharpie script. I noticed one of my players when she left my room each day would run her hand up and down the fourteen names as a reminder to herself. That's the kind of example teachers need from teens. I'm sure there will be residue when I succumb to the inevitable but I have a picture as proof of the history of the year. Lord willing, we will start again in three months and Lord willing, it will make a difference.
Education is nothing if not a cycle. Not long before I left for the day, four of our elementary kids, children of two of our teachers, came in and helped me sort money. While they were discussing the coins, three of my former students stopped by to say hello. Now in college, they made an effort to come see me and I was touched. I like the quote of the day because of the trio and all the rest of us who've experienced that separation from a vital time in our lives. I thanked them as they left and I hope they stop by again next year. Not long after that, my four little helpers left, too. What they were oblivious to, at least two of them, was that their name was on the door, due to the death of their grandfather. Someday, they will understand the loss their mom is going through, the loss many of us know all too well. A piece of tape can't last forever but the memory of a loved one will until time stops for us on this side of eternity. Then, the real celebration will commence with no more beginnings and endings or checklists. The tests will have ceased and the everlasting rest prepared since creation becomes real. And the tape strips on the door will be just a faded memory. Lord ,come quickly.
Applicable quote of the day:
“There was a time we laughed at the old guys up on the hill. The ones who graduated a couple of years before us, and who would hang around the school and the ballpark still, and would sit on the hoods of their cars and tell us how when they were seniors they did it better, faster, and further. We laughed, because we were still doing it, and all they could do was talk. If our goals were not met, there was next year, but it never occurred to us that one day there would not be a next year, and that the guys sitting on the hoods of their cars at the top of the hill, wishing they could have one more year, willing to settle for one last game, could one day be us.”
God bless,
Steve
Luke 18:1
E-mail me at shawley@westburychristian.org
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