Can't Save Them All

I drove over the last big bridge on the way home last night in tears.  It was already dark if not very late.  It had taken me a long time to shut down my classroom for the holidays.  A week away is almost as hard to prepare for as a sub day.  Plants have to be watered thoroughly, all the electronics have to be unplugged, the minifridge has to be opened and a pan placed in to catch the run-off as the tiny freezer space defrosts.  Papers have to be gathered so they can sit in the big bag in the corner and be a source of guilt all week long.  Stuff has to be locked away in case somebody breaks in.  I finished it up about 5:30, packed myself up like a shuffling beast of burden, and made my way through the darkened and echoing halls to my car for that drive.

The day itself was what days before holidays always are, limited exercises in futility.  Schedules changed, emergencies arose, absenteeism was moderate.  None of that was what kept haunting me, eating at me.  The thing that kept driving steel talons into my soul was that one student in the middle of my day, the one who begged me with eyes so serious, so tired, and so adult not to make him write that day.  He promised to do it when we got back, but he'd taken his vocabulary quiz, and he was at the end of what he could do that day.

He struggles.  He does the very best for me he can, but he struggles with everything we do.  He breaks my heart.  I work with him, but sometimes I feel like I'm tracing my finger in a running stream, writing words in the water.  What can I do for him that will last? 

How can I give him something that will keep the world from grinding him into dust beneath its brutal, uncaring wheels?  What protection is there for the gentle ones, the ones who struggle, like him?

I have so many who can do it so well.  It comes completely naturally to them, so easily that they never think about it, never even think about valuing it or being grateful for the fact that they were born with this native gift, never push themselves to develop it because they can get by on what they have just fine.  The path of least resistance is plenty for them, will take them into the land of riches and comfort one day.

Then I have my precious little ones who strive and strive until they are just tired with so very little to show for it.   They will be the ones who have to fight for survival, if survival is permitted, and I wish, I wish I knew how to give them something, anything that could help them.  It seems that everything I have is not enough, that nothing could ever be, and it makes me grieve.