I left a job I love today. Before pushing the one-way lock and walking off the campus, I saw a former student, AnnMarie. She said, "Hi! Ms. Keeble!" her braces sparkling through her frosty lip gloss. She asked me a question about next year. I let her finish, then said, "Ohhh, Ann Marie, you know I'm not gonna be here next year." Her eyes bucked, she opened her mouth wide.
"What? You can't."
"I'm sorry, you didn't know?"
"You should have made an announcement."
"I announced it on facebook. I thought that would be
enough."
"But I love you Ms. Keeble. You're my favorite teacher!" Now the lump in my throat is messing with my eyes.
"I love you too, Ann Marie." We hugged. I snapped back. "But dang girl, you only had me for about a month! How do you think I felt when you left for Fresno?"
I remember the day she abruptly departed. She dragged in with a white sign out sheet. I asked her what it was, and she said she had to leave, her mom was sick. I hugged her, gave her a grade, wished her good luck and turned back to continue with the lesson I was teaching. I remember the sadness I felt seeing her walk out the door. This scene repeats all year long, at least five or six times. Students come, then they go, often with no notice.
"I know I left," she says. But I came back!"
"I know."
Damn it. I'd almost gotten away clean. But not really. I am stuck. Nailed. I haven't a clue what to do with grief. What to do with guilt, the guilt of causing grief in others? I am reminded of something a psychiatrist once told me when I asked him how to get through a task I saw as completely impossible. I guess you just have to do it. Though battered by fear, apprehension, anxiety, and dread--I guess you/I just have to do it. When faced with moments that we'd rather avoid altogether, including making decisions that we know may lead to grief, the challenge has always been and continues to be--to stay in it. Make the best decision and feel the consequences. Don't run. At some point the running has to end.
To deny ourselves the splendor of the wide open spaces before us because we prefer our current mitigated comfort over the promise of future unmitigated grief is to deny our own human frailty. The double-edge is unavoidable. I cannot sit with what I know doesn't satisfy my internal life because I fear the pain of loss. But doesn't it hurt? And isn't the pain inevitable? Of course. And accepting that frees me to live with a peace that is also inevitable. I can't know one without knowing the other. I forget that most days. I seek comfort when pain arises. Comfort in the form of homemade chocolate cake or endless games of chess on the Internet. My brother Kofi, the Chessmaster, tells me to study to become better. I say to him, "Kofi, I don't play to get better, I play for entertainment." I really play to distract myself. I used to have a drink after work. Now I play about four or five games of chess. Guess which one people find more impressive. A former partner and I often talked about how we both took up compulsions that society tends to reward: games of intellect and hours of sharply focused work. Both are admired by society, and both tend to leave those with whom we should be most intimately connected feeling neglected, shut out of our focus zone. Unfortunately, simply acknowledging our failings doesn't save us from their consequence.
Some of us are required to monitor our comfort seeking. We watch for where we turn away from pain. Where do we turn toward pleasure? We mark it, for therein lies the nature of avoidance-driven addiction. We practice sitting with the discomfort we so naturally wish to avoid. Pema Chodron says "there are so many ways we have dreamt up to avoid the moment, soften its hard edge, deaden its impact so we don't have to feel the full impact of the pain." (When Things Fall Apart)
Yet the pain is unavoidable. It is inevitable. And in the end, it is moreover, valuable.
During my daughter's naming ceremony, her father placed on her seven-day old tongue milk, salt, honey, and cayenne. Each drop was meant to prepare her to be able to handle all that her life would offer: boredom, difficulty, pleasure, and tragedy. And considering the woman my daughter has grown into, I can say I would recommend such a ceremony to all the mothers I know. I have watched her face, without blinking, without running, so very many losses.
