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
May/June 2014
My Eyes of Sea
My eyes are the color of the sea at night, when the sun goes down and the moonlight shimmers when the first star twinkles and the sky echoes the hue of the sea that is when my eyes are drops of ocean Elina Juvonen, 13Berkeley, California
Teetering on the Edge
I wipe the tears from my moistened eyes and look at the photograph I lie on my stomach, my elbows standing to support my heavy head, my thin navy-striped cotton shirt the only thing that separates my skin from coming into direct contact with the torn and uncomfortable rough beige surface of the old couch. Tears cascade effortlessly from my glazed, pale blue eyes, the saltwater creating a trail down my colorless cheeks and chapped lips and making a tiny puddle on the couch that then slips onto the olive carpet as I move. My ruffled, stick-straight, long dark brown hair is an annoyance; it comes into my eyes and I push it away, wishing that I had a rubber band to tie it all back. I lift my wet face up to the small picture that hangs crookedly in a rusty brass frame on the tawny wall with the word “Family” inscribed into the metal. I wipe the tears from my moistened eyes and look at the photograph. A little girl plays in a plastic red sandbox, her chubby toddler legs in bright pink shorts and tiny sparkly purple sandals on her miniature feet. Over her curly brown pigtails she wears a pink plaid sun hat and on her little baby-blue shirt is a pink smiley face that matches her rosy cheeks and humongous sparkling blue eyes. A thin, lanky eight year-old kneels behind her, his green shirt wet from swimming, his dark blue bathing suit dripping onto the grass, and his golden bangs catching the sunlight and falling into his deep blue eyes. There is a big gap where his two front teeth should be, but his smile is still bright, his dimples are dents in his long oval face as he leans close to the baby. They’re happy. Who would have that thought that the little girl’s curls would turn into straight dark hair, that her chubby frame would grow to be freakishly taller than everyone else in her grade, and that her scrawny older brother would become a tall muscular nineteen year-old. Who would have even considered the possibility that when he turned eighteen he would tell his parents and younger sister that he wanted to join the U.S. military. * * * I let my mind wander and don’t stop the few tears that spill from my damp eyes. All the memories of Randy creep into my consciousness and I replay them. I can still remember the day we went to the carnival like it was yesterday. It was a sunny summer day and the wind blew through my long mahogany hair and pulled on my thin pink T-shirt as we walked past the endless rows of games and breathed in the intoxicating scents of hot dogs and cotton candy. Children ran around us, squealing with joy, and their parents chased after them. A giant Ferris wheel loomed over all the other rides. It was made of white metal and creaking colorful wooden planks. The seats looked unsafe as they treacherously swayed back and forth. Randy saw my fearful expression. “Come on,” he said, a smile creeping up onto his acne-covered teenage face, “we’re going.” “What?!” I yelled, my eyes growing wide with fright. “No, we can’t!” “We’re going, Anna,” he declared, locking his blue eyes with mine. “You can’t be afraid of a Ferris wheel!” He grabbed me by the hand and dragged me through the crowd of people with only a couple “excuse me’s” as he pushed past children and old people until we got to the horrid ride. Randy took out some pink paper tickets for the ride and handed them to the ticket taker. The ticket taker waved his hand towards a bright orange seat with chipped paint. We sat down and I could feel myself shake with dread as the silver metal bar was pulled down, locking us inside. Randy smiled with a relaxed expression and sank back into the colorful seat. I could hear the gears turning and our seat slowly began to ascend up to the clear blue sky. As we climbed higher, my fear slowly subsided; I realized that there was really nothing to be afraid of. I was amazed as we slowly descended back to ground level and then up again. Randy could see my smile and, satisfied with himself, muttered, “I knew you would like it!” I was happy, and when the Ferris wheel ride was over, I suggested that we go on again. Randy’s blue eyes were lit up with pride as he gave the ticket taker two more tickets, and we both squealed with joy as the ride began again. “I knew you would like it!” I smile to myself now, thinking of how Randy made me overcome my silly fear of Ferris wheels. He was always doing crazy stuff like that as a teenager. When Mom and Dad weren’t home we would make crazy deserts in the blender, pouring in anything from chocolate to canned tuna to make a crazy, disgusting-tasting treat and then cleaning it up before they got home. He taught me how to skateboard, strapping me in elbow and knee pads and buckling a helmet tightly on my head and then pushing me down the empty street until after thousands of falls I managed to stop myself. Of course we had fights. He didn’t want me in his room and didn’t want me to talk to his friends. I didn’t like his annoying rock music pounding in my ears and vibrating the floor while I played with my Barbie dolls, or when he hogged the computer for hours at a time. We argued over whose turn it was to do the dishes or the laundry, who had to take out the garbage, and most of the time, who started one of those arguments in the first place. * * * It was a warm day in May when he told us. We were sitting around the honey-colored kitchen