May 7, 2013

On May 7, 2013, I stayed after school for over an hour talking with a student about God. He told me he didn't believe that God existed. Through our conversation, it seemed more like he was angry with God for all the deaths he had seen in his young life, and he didn't understand how so many dishonest people called themselves Christians. I told him that, for me, God exists in the love that people feel. I told him that I alone couldn't come into that school building every day without some feeling that there was something bigger than me to get me through. I am too flawed to do this on my own. It was an incredibly powerful conversation, and an amazing insight into what a 14 year old who grew up surrounded by violence feels. I cried in the car on the way home.

 On May 7, 2013, I went to Chipotle because they were giving teachers free burritos. I saw a former student there. He was one of my original babies who caused everyone so much grief, but I loved him with my whole heart. He was there with his teacher. She said he had been voted Most Likely to Succeed. He was going to college. He was amazing and she couldn't believe all the stories of his middle school antics. Gang life? No way! Not this guy. He stays late for study help, he leads his classmates to do the right thing. I cried in Chipotle.

 On May 7, 2013, one of my babies was murdered. He had been middle school best friends with the student I saw in Chipotle. He got involved in gangs and he never got out. I saw what was happening to him but I didnt know how to save him. It's like watching somebody drown but no matter what you do you can't get out there to throw the rescue line. 

He was funny and he was smart and he sang to me on my birthday and they didnt even put his name in the paper. He was just a 19 year old shot on Greenmount.

 He's the one that, if you didn't know him, you'd say he's a thug and he chose that life and good riddance, or some other nonsense. He's the gangster that sells drugs and robs people and does all of those awful things. But before that, he was a sweet little boy in my 3rd period class who brought me candy and cried in my room when his father died.

 Sometimes the sadness is so overwhelming that I can't cry.