The Holes Don’t Go Away
by Amber Harrison
I’m grateful to live in a neighborhood where I can lace up my sneakers and head for a peaceful and safe walk. Regular neighborhood walks are something I like to incorporate into my daily routine. While it isn’t my ideal nature walk, it is a way for me to keep my serenity. Working with teenagers, and raising children of my own, it has become important to me that I am taking care of myself, too. In a world where I am the adult, the one developing minds are looking to for guidance, my mood sets the tone. I need to be intentional to do my best to help set the tone I want to see in my classroom and home.
Recently, on this particular walk, as I was nearing the end and returning back into the home of my 16-year-old son hooting and hollering with his friends on video games, and my youngest son snipping and clipping away at crafts at the kitchen table because his desk didn’t make it in our last move, my eyes started to get a stinging tingle in them. I was trying to hold in the tears…like I do.
Better-Than
I met Jennifer in 2016 when I moved to Oklahoma. She was also a teacher for a rural school. We became unstoppable. We would visit each other unannounced or run errands as needed for each other. Furthermore, it seemed like we owned the nearby nature trail because we’d go for walks regularly after school and on the weekends. Jennifer was a better-than-a-best-friend friend. We talked about how we were going to be the change education needed to see.
Jennifer died in December of 2020 – suddenly – just a few days after Christmas. I don’t know what I would have done if I had to go to school the day after finding out instead of fortunately having one more week of winter break. The district sent an email a couple months prior to that, stating bereavement was for family only. I don’t think I ever cried so much in my life. I had to make rules for myself: don’t drive while crying; drink more water; take a shower; eat something.
Jennifer was a mom, which means her children went to school, which means teachers and other students had to face the unknown of what to say and do.
It’s Okay to Not Be Okay
Jennifer’s oldest daughter, a senior in high school, who I never had in class, wrote her final English essay paper for her Senior Literature class naming me as her most influential teacher ever. Her reason was because I was the only teacher that would check on her at school from time to time throughout her last semester of high school after her mom died.
Jennifer’s youngest daughter, now a freshman in high school, sits in my English class. There’s a picture of her, her mom, and me that her older sister gave me nearly four years ago that sits on my bookshelf behind my desk.
But, Jennifer’s youngest daughter isn’t the only one in my classroom finding a way to live life with that gaping hole of grief that never goes away. Other students in my class have lost parents or siblings to illnesses or cancer many years ago.
Grief doesn’t go away.
At the end of the last school year, one of my students lost her mom to bullet wounds to the head. There are students in my class whose friends died by suicide.
Grief doesn’t go away.
There are students in my class who are immigrants from countries facing war and distress. There are students in my class whose parents are incarcerated. There are students who are abused.
Grief doesn’t go away.
It was all of these students and my own griefs which crept up on me and started making my eyes tingle and sting when I was walking in the neighborhood to keep my peace.
I want to come here today, in this space, to say, it’s okay to not be okay. The power in that statement is overwhelmingly acceptable and inviting even if the hard feelings are stronger. One of my 2023 graduating students who lost his mom a couple years beforehand wrote a statement on a piece of paper he wanted all incoming freshmen to have as advice: “Make new friends and allow your emotion be valid and be able to express them.”
I’m a high school English Language Arts teacher and yet, every year I have incorporated more writing into the lives of my students because I have seen the value it adds to their lives. I learned this because I found out the more I write, the more value it adds to my life in times of grief. It creates a space for us to explore thoughts and feelings. It creates a space for us to use our voice and share it with others. It provides an opportunity to read the voices of others who can inspire our writing. Through reading and writing, my students and I have learned to connect, to build, to grow, to remember – to learn to live a life on this side of grief.
Oklahoma English Language Arts standards include that students will write for publication. Incorporating contests that organizations host for writing has been that little piece of needed air in the times when the drowning grievances of life show up.
Get Messy
I received this message from a student a couple years after he graduated, “You’re such a big improvement on my life! You made me a better writer!! I thank you, and only you!!!” (I reminded him to give himself credit because all I did was lead him to water, not make him drink it.)
The Oklahoma State Department of Education links to lists of writing contests, maybe your state department of education does the same.
A few of my favorite organizations with writing contests for students:
Author
Amber teaches English Language Arts at Grove High School in Grove, Oklahoma. She is also an instructional coach for the First Class Teacher Induction Program – virtually engaged in coaching cycles and conversations on classroom management and instructional practice with early-career teachers across Oklahoma. Amber promotes life-long learning for all people.
Jennifer, thank you for sharing such an important message. Writing is an incredibly powerful tool when processing grief. Your students are lucky to have you.
Awe, thank you. Jennifer was an amazing teacher. The year she died, her district named her teacher of the year. She also had just finished all of her coursework for her masters and only needed to report a few hours of practicum, so the university awarded her her masters, too, even though she died. What a legend she was for me.
— Amber
Amber,
As I read this post I thought about my own father’s death when I was in high school. No one suggested I write about it, including my teachers. I like to think we educators do a much better job teaching students the power of writing through grief, even as we acknowledge it never goes away.
Grief will never go away. Writing helps. And that is a tool students can learn to have for the days they really need it. Because we know…grief will creep up in the most expected times and its nice to have a way to lean into it softly.
Amber, thank you for reminding all of us that we all go through tough times, and it’s important for us all to remember that our students do, too.
Our students hurt, too. This allows us to empathize.
Thank you for your words today, Amber. They mean more than you know.
Oh, Mo! I’m so touched to hear that. Hugs, friend. Hugs. That is all I can offer, because nothing takes the grief away.
Incredibly moving post. Thank you.
Our high school students are grieving one of their classmates who lost her battle with cancer this week. I will share your post with our teachers.
Oh man. I am truly heartbroken to hear that. This is a battle that will be with them moving forward every day from now.
Amber, I love this post! I also love your vulnerability in telling your story. I teach 8th grade ELA, and my kids write daily; it’s such a healer. Thank you for sharing the moments in your life that cause your eyes to tingle, and face the reality that there is life on the backside of grief. Thank you for sharing.
Jessica, thank you for this. Writing is powerful.