BIRD BY BIRD is an original acrylic painting featuring vintage papers, color pencils, oil pastels & real shark’s teeth. In her book of the same title, author Anne Lamott explains how, in grade school, her younger brother found himself in a state of panic, unable to to begin a complicated report on birds (assigned some months before) that was due the next day. Lamott overheard her father, a professional writer, advise his son to begin ‘bird by bird’—an approach which has wider applicability. As a person who becomes easily overwhelmed, I’ve try to remember that any difficult task can be made more manageable if broken down into bite-sized chunks. Right now, I need this reminder most of all.
• • •
It’s Sunday night, and I was just stood up.
Again.
It’s embarrassing, continually putting yourself out there and getting kicked in the gut.
I’ve done everything I’m supposed to do: I’ve paid my bills, done my laundry, gone grocery shopping, painted, cleaned, tried to connect with people.
Everyone seems to have someone to keep them company.
Except me.
I flip on the television and see Groundhog’s Day is on.
I used to think the premise for that movie was clever, and I enjoyed waiting for Bill Murray’s character to finally have that one perfect day.
These days, I recognize the main character’s anguish.
Because having time on your hands without people to share it with is hardly a blessing.
It’s a curse.
What am I doing wrong? Am I making a terrible mistake by staying in Rochester?
“A girl from school wrote that she was going to kill herself on Facebook.”
Up until then, the leaves under our feet made swishy, dry sounds. But I stopped moving.
I needed to sit down, but he didn’t want to so I had to keep walking.
“She said goodbye and everything. I didn’t find out about it until after it happened.”
I held my breath as we passed the trees that had turned gold.
Tinker Park. Henrietta, New York. Fall 2012
“Is she okay?” I asked, praying hard for this girl who was suddenly with us like the wind in the trees.
“Her friends contacted her mother or something. She’s in the hospital.”
“Do you know her?” I shoved my hands in my pockets.
“Not really. I found out from a friend.”
We stopped at the water’s edge and found each other’s eyes.
“I want you to promise me something.”
My son looked at me. He knew what I was going to say. But I said it anyway.
“If someone threatens to hurt themselves or someone else on Facebook or in a text or in real life, you have to promise me that you will take it seriously.”
“I will.”
“No matter where I am. You have to contact me. I’ll help you do whatever we need to do.”
My son tilted his chin. “Sometimes you can’t answer your phone.”
He had me there. Because when I am teaching, I can’t take calls. Or answer texts.
The wind blew cool air though my sweater.
“You know what I mean. You can leave me a message. I can check messages. If there is an emergency, I can always make time.”
My son nodded.
The sun was going down as we turned down the mossy path.
As my feet moved, I thought about the girl’s mother. How terrified she had to be.
I thought of a car accident that occurred just a few miles down the road: how a young driver had been speeding through a residential neighborhood and smashed into a bus. They could have all been killed, but they weren’t.
I thought of my son who has been quiet lately. How we don’t connect the way we used to. How I don’t know what he does for most of his day. How he is going on a trip to New York City on a school field-trip in a few weeks.
I won’t be there.
And what if he needs me?
“Mom,” Tech called. He’d stopped to inspect something on the ground. “Come check out this bug carcass.”
I looked at my son. I thought he was going to say thank you. Or run over and hug me. Or tell me how glad he was that we had talked. I thought a lot of things. But he didn’t do or say any of the things he used to do and say so readily.
“Let me take a picture of you,” he said, holding out his hand for the camera.
So I posed for him.
“You okay?” he asked, a line creased his forehead.
I told him that I was fine, but it was a lie.
Because 8th graders shouldn’t be thinking about killing themselves.
They shouldn’t be thinking about dying.
Back at the car, we noticed our shadows.
“My shadow is taller than yours,” my son smiled. “I’m catching up to you.”
I looked at the red and the yellow and the green around me. I looked at my son in his maroon hoodie which will soon be too small for him. A gust blew some leaves off the trees. They soared over our heads and then fell on the grass, quivering.
I know time is passing, but is it so wrong to want things to stay like this for a little while longer?
I’m not ready for winter.
When is the last time you slowed down, unplugged and took a walk with someone you care about? Do me a favor, call someone you haven’t talked to in a while. Or write that person a letter. Do something to show someone you care about them today. What is one beautiful thing you can do to show someone they are important to you? Or (conversely), what do you wish someone would do or say to you today. Let me be that person.
Fall Semester 2009. Last year. He sat in the back row. In the only blue desk in a room filled with brown desks. He wore a button up shirt every day. He was quiet. Kept to himself. Initially, he was studious and handed in each assignment. His grammar was impeccable, his writing strong. He had a wry sense of humor and wrote about a time when he had worked in a Styrofoam factory. How the white stuff stuck to him, went up his nose, in his mouth, made him sneeze and sputter. He learned quickly he didn’t want to ever work in a Styrofoam factory. We all laughed when he read his piece aloud. Not at him: at his material. He was funny.
I expected great things. In fact, I was so sure he was going to produce great things, he kind of fell off my radar.
About six weeks into the semester, we hit the argumentative research paper unit, and he started to fall apart. He didn’t hand in his intentions for his topic, thus he never had a topic approved. I worried because he didn’t seem to be moving forward. While other students worked on paraphrasing and interview questions for their “experts,” he sat still in his blue chair, looking stiff and uncomfortable.
Finally, I asked him to stay after class. I went to his desk. I asked him if he had started the research paper. No. Did he have a topic? No. Did he need help selecting one, I implored. It was not too late. No. Could I help him? No. Would he let me know if I could help him? No. That was the one that stopped me. Chilled me, actually. No? I tried to look into his face, his eyes for something, but he was looking down, angry at being detained, at the questioning.
“You won’t contact me if you need help?” I asked.
“No,” he said.
I tried to explain to him that up until the research paper, he had an A — the only A grade in the class! He shrugged, underwhelmed. I told him he could still save his grade, the semester, but without the research paper, it would be impossible to pass, especially since he had not met any of the deadlines during the process. I told him I was worried about him.
“Thank you,” he said quietly. “I understand what I’m doing.”
The next day I received an email from Records and Registration that read:
We regret to inform you that we have been notified of the death of one of your current students (name here, and student number). We have noted this in the student information system so that all parties reviewing the student’s record will be informed.
Please make the appropriate notation in your records.
I was stunned. The appropriate notation? Was there a code I was supposed to put in my book? “D” for deceased? “S” for suicide? I knew I had to have been among the last to speak with my student. I replayed our conversation in my head endlessly. “I understand what I am doing” suddenly sounded much more ominous. I had missed it. I had missed a strong student’s decline from excellence into despair. Something was going on with him, and I had missed it. Maybe the better notation was “IF”: I. Failed. Or IF I had only known.
Later, I learned that my former student’s chosen method was to wrap his car around a telephone pole. He had been driving very fast. Very intentionally. He understood what he was doing.
Meanwhile, I was devastated. None of my students noticed the sudden absence of their classmate because students come and go all the time at community college. People drop out for many reasons: job or family obligations, financial issues, poor grades, poor attendance. I spent the remaining weeks of the semester staring at that lone blue desk amidst the sea of brown desks and felt desperate.
I have had former students die – through illnesses, accidents, even at their own hand — just not during the semesters I taught them. Last year’s experience was a first for me. I have long known that I cannot transform them all into English teachers (nor would I want to), but I guess I always thought out of all their teachers, I would be the one they might come to if they needed help. I would be the one they would choose.
Last year, I learned that was a ridiculous idea, and that I cannot save them all.
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