School

PRESENT DAY AUGUST 2013 Sometimes things happen in life that make you want to cry for an hour. Sometimes things happen in life that only time can heal. When these things happen, you can remember everything clearly, clear as freezing ice on a cold October day. They aren’t anything extremely drastic, like a grandmother in the hospital, never to come out again, or one day being able to walk and the next being strapped into a hard metal wheelchair. They aren’t little things either, like a scraped knee or a balloon flying higher and higher into the sky, until it’s lost forever into the blue. They’re kind of in the middle of these things, suspended in between. They happen quickly. In a week or a couple of days. They’re sad and bittersweet. Cold and chilling. They shake you until you flop onto your living room couch, exhausted. But in the end, you emerge stronger. This is how it happened to me. *          *          * MAY 25, 2011 I ran toward my school as I heard the bell ring, signaling the end of recess. I had heard that bell for the past three years that I had been at Lincoln Elementary. I was in second grade at that time and was content with my wonderful friends, my school, and my teacher, Steve Cifka. Lincoln is different from other schools, and I like it that way. There were split grades (I was in a second- and third-grade class), we had a humongous organic garden, and students called staff and teachers by their first names. What I saw in the classroom surprised me It was late May and pouring down rain. I lived in Olympia, Washington, and people around here joke that summer doesn’t start until after the Fourth of July. Judging by that wet Wednesday afternoon, it was definitely true. I pushed open the door that led into the building and heard it shut with a dull bam. I noticed wet footprints on the blue-and-yellow diamond-shaped floor tiles. The halls were quickly clearing, and I had to get back to my classroom. I bounded up the three flights of stairs, which made my calves feel like they were going to explode. I pushed open our classroom door and hurried into the room breathlessly. My teacher, Steve, was standing in the middle of the room playing his ukulele. Steve was wearing his usual outfit: a brown-and-green plaid shirt that went down to his upper thighs with a white T-shirt underneath. He had beige pants with brown buttons for the pockets. He also wore brown Keen sandals with socks underneath, which I thought was slightly strange. He had a faded, light brown beard that was peppered with white. Steve wore glasses, and I thought he was in his late sixties. What I saw in the classroom surprised me. After recess, we usually had to work on our spelling words. But instead of kids working on spelling, I saw my classmates in a circle around Steve, who was playing his ukulele. I wondered what was going on, so I walked up to Steve. “Why aren’t we working on spelling?” I asked, trying to tease the worry out of my voice. Steve only shook his head. I sat at my usual spot at the carpet and thrummed my fingers nervously. When everyone was gathered in front of him, Steve told us that he was going to talk about something serious. Whispers broke out in the classroom. I thought about all the horrible things that could have happened. Did someone’s parent die? Did another school burn down? I considered the ideas in my head but knew they were not reasonable. I looked around at my classmates. Some had knitted eyebrows, and some had wrinkled foreheads. Others were staring blankly or whispering. I was worried. Steve started talking about retirement while still strumming his ukulele. I started to feel impatient. Why couldn’t he just tell us what he wanted to tell us and get it over with? I felt my stomach tighten like a squeezed lemon. I looked at Steve, and he was smiling. But underneath that smile was a look of sadness. Uh oh. I think I knew what was going to happen. Finally Steve said the words that would make me cry for an hour. I wished that these words were never in the English language. But they were. “I’m going to retire,” Steve said. Some people think that words aren’t powerful. They are. I felt as if I was struck by lightning. I felt as if I was buried in a pile of cement. I felt crushed. Lincoln School had mixed grades. Steve’s class was made up of second- and third-graders. I was in second grade. “Lucky me,” I thought sarcastically. I was looking forward to third grade for so long. A few minutes ago I could picture myself as a third-grader walking into Steve’s class and saying hi to my friends, learning how to knit a scarf for my mother, and running in the playing field to the fence and back during recess. Now all I could picture for third grade was walking into an unfamiliar classroom feeling sweaty and awkward. Steve started to talk again, his voice sounding warm, yet tired. “I’ve been teaching for over thirty years and I’m sad that I’m going to retire,” he began. “But I wanted you to know that I love this school, I love my job, and I love this class.” I felt as if I was falling. Falling into darkness and cold. I didn’t know what to think. I didn’t know what to say. All I could do was fall down, down, down. I heard a stifled sob from one my classmates. I felt like I was going to cry too. I looked up at the ceiling to keep my tears from falling. No, no, no, no, no, no, no, I was not going to cry at school. But my tears rolled heavily down