Tuesday, August 03, 2010
cricket
Earlier tonight I crunched a cricket with a flip-flop after it flew in its crooked cricketly way, careened into a wall and crashed upon the floor.
I told you that so I could tell you this.
As you may or may not recall, my dear reader. . .
Two of my oldest and closest friends killed themselves in 2005.
During the 2008 - 09 school year I went to four student funerals. And yes I loved, cared and fought for each of those children with a love like they were one of my own. It's the only way to do the job really, just throw yourself 110% balls in. Anything less is insincere and you're in it for the wrong reasons.
An average year has two, maybe three student funerals. I'm about to start my eighteenth year teaching. You do the math. Last year was a good year, there was only one to attend.
Let me just say I have some unresolved grief issues and leave it at that.
I have been doing some light summer reading, Neal Peart Ghost Rider. He writes of the Freudian notion that in order to fully accept and come to terms with grief and loss you must first revisit and re-examine every memory of every moment with the lost one and of your life.
This reminds me of a portion of one of my favorite quotes, an excerpt from a preface Walt Whitman wrote for Leaves of Grass, ". . . re-examine all you have been told at school or church or in any book, dismiss whatever insults your own soul; and your very flesh shall be a great poem. . ."
Re-examine.
For the past couple of days I must confess to spending a fair amount of my vacation time strolling down memory lane. The cricket reminded me of the story that follows.
Or rather more accurately, that story that will follow tomorrow, as the hour is late and I grow weary.
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I told you that so I could tell you this.
As you may or may not recall, my dear reader. . .
Two of my oldest and closest friends killed themselves in 2005.
During the 2008 - 09 school year I went to four student funerals. And yes I loved, cared and fought for each of those children with a love like they were one of my own. It's the only way to do the job really, just throw yourself 110% balls in. Anything less is insincere and you're in it for the wrong reasons.
An average year has two, maybe three student funerals. I'm about to start my eighteenth year teaching. You do the math. Last year was a good year, there was only one to attend.
Let me just say I have some unresolved grief issues and leave it at that.
I have been doing some light summer reading, Neal Peart Ghost Rider. He writes of the Freudian notion that in order to fully accept and come to terms with grief and loss you must first revisit and re-examine every memory of every moment with the lost one and of your life.
This reminds me of a portion of one of my favorite quotes, an excerpt from a preface Walt Whitman wrote for Leaves of Grass, ". . . re-examine all you have been told at school or church or in any book, dismiss whatever insults your own soul; and your very flesh shall be a great poem. . ."
Re-examine.
For the past couple of days I must confess to spending a fair amount of my vacation time strolling down memory lane. The cricket reminded me of the story that follows.
Or rather more accurately, that story that will follow tomorrow, as the hour is late and I grow weary.
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