When my grandad Sam died, I didn't really know what to do with myself.
I had spent the whole day with my family, hoping against hope that he would pull through against the cancer that was burning through him. Me and my brothers sat around my mom's house that whole day, telling stories and remembering all of those moments that we might have taken for granted at the time. My mom came back from the hospital, and we popped in Mr. Hollands Opus, one of my moms favorite movies and the running theme of a blog post I wrote last year. As we all sat watching Mr. Holland fall in love with teaching and make a lasting impression on an entire generation of kids, I remember saying to my mom that the movie was a whole lot more impactful once you have stood in front of a group of kids, and tried to teach them something.
By the end of the film, when Mr. Holland gets to see his opus, which was not his symphony after all but the children who he taught over the years, we were all crying. Not sad tears, it was those tears you get when you see a baby walk for the first time; the kind you get at the end of a truly perfect day.
A few minutes later we found out that Sam had passed away.
Until that moment, I didn't know that a "broken heart" was a literal expression. For the next 24 hours I walked around in a haze. I wasn't ready to live in a world where the man who had taught me so many things, a man who gave me a Libertarian Party membership card when I was 8 years old, wasn't going to be around to talk to anymore. I emailed my coordinator and coworkers to let them know what was going on, and made arrangements for the week in case I wasn't ready to go to work the next day.
As I trudged through that day, the longest Sunday of my life, the only thing that motivated me was my students, the kids who I teach every day. I truly love seeing them, talking to them, teaching them english and helping them get through the struggles that 16 and 17 year olds see as the end of the world. They don't know it, but they helped me get through one of the worst days of my life. I have gotten to know them well over the last 8 months and I am 100% honest when I say that I don't have to go teach every day, I get to go teach every day. I went in that Monday to school, and when the first student asked me why I looked upset I could barely hold it together. I told the girl that my grandfather had passed away over the weekend, and the look on her face told me that I made the right decision to come in to work that day. She cared and wanted to make sure I was ok, just like the rest of her classmates. The kids helped me heal, and for that I am ever grateful.
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I made a good call when I became a teacher. I remember being 16 and saying I would never teach, but then again, how often are 16 year olds right about anything? I can see myself in a classroom for the rest of my working life, teaching kids the craft of writing and the ways to love literature. I am almost done with year 1 of a 30 year journey and I already know this: no matter what happens over the next 29 years, teaching has already put me in the positive. The classroom helped me mend my broken heart. For that I am ever grateful.
