Teach
Care, Love, Hope
I am in pain. I have never lived a life of fear, yet it is my reality. I fear for the lives of souls who didn’t know, who didn’t deserve. I fear for the lives of those on the front line, doctors, first-responders, nurses, grocers, truck drivers, pharmacists and maintenance workers and many others who deserve better. I fear for my family and friends. I fear for those who refuse to embrace our reality, grasping instead for the time that used to be, risking it all.
To go from a world where having choices gave a false sense of control to one where losing track of time, hearing depressing news, wondering when it will all end, having few choices consumes every second of every minute.
Yet and still, there is tranquility in these times. A silence that is deafening, an air that is crisp, water unstirred. So many thoughts go unspoken. Losing over 47,000 souls should be deafening. It’s not. It is silent. It is remote.
All that I’ve learned in school didn’t prepare me for this. The stories that my grandmothers and grandfathers told never hinted that this could happen. What would they want me to do? How would they want me to respond?
When all is said and done, if we go back to life as we knew it, we would have failed. Too many lessons keep pointing to the importance of peace, care, compassion and love.
What will you change? How will you care? How will you love?
Hope lies in these answers. Hope also lies in our students and children. What lessons do you want them to learn? How will you prepare them for the future? Their pain is like no other. All that was supposed to be, isn’t. They are observing the best of us and the worst of us. Take the time to guide their learning, for it will happen anyway. Their fathers, mothers, uncles, aunts, grandmothers and grandfathers mean the world to them. They were often the ones who told them their very first stories and sang their very first songs.
Guide their learning, guide their grief, guide their compassion for others. Guide their paths. Be a beacon of hope to them. For in this time, we are all teachers. Teach.
