Always In My Heart - Remembering Martin and Brian

Last Christmas break I left for vacation never imagining I wouldn’t see one of my students again; he was killed the day before we were to go back to school.  As this Christmas vacation draws closer and closer, and the one year anniversary of his death grows near, I find myself remembering last year, and thinking about him. 

Martin was a person who was so ALIVE, it is still difficult to think of him as being anything but. He was so vibrant, so happy, so always full of joy.  Even for an 8am class, when most of the class was half awake, or in a semi-comatose state, Martin was wide awake. He walked in to class every day with a pep to his step. Sometimes with some sort of design shaved into his fade – his football number was one I remember, but always, always, always with a smile on his face.  Our last conversation was so insignificant – about college applications or his future plans – but like all “last” things, it took on greater meaning after he was gone. 

Mine was the first class faced with the reality of his death – he should have been there at 8am that Monday morning.  It was one of the most difficult days of my life.  What do you say to a class of high school students when they’ve just had a friend die? When they are suddenly faced with their own mortality?

Several years before Martin died, another student of mine, Brian, died after a tragic sports related injury. Brian was in my class his junior year and again his senior year.  Brian once wrote a “love poem” to the girl sitting across the aisle and got caught passing it to her. At the class’ urging, I read it out loud to the class, much to their mutual embarrassment. I still have his poem, posted on my Wall, a fond memory of a likeable kid and a funny moment in class. Our last conversation was filled with joking and teasing – Brian had just gotten a new “grill” and I was teasing him about it, never imagining that he wouldn’t be sitting in my class again the next day.

 Although I am a person who feels emotions very deeply, it is very difficult for me to express them.  I don’t know how to put into words what I feel – and I very rarely show emotion (and if, and when I do, I am very embarrassed). 

One fact that I have accepted is that my students are much more important to me than I am to them.  It is my JOB to pay attention to them, to read what they write, to listen to them talk, to discuss ideas and philosophies with them.  I am paid to know them as individuals. And I take that responsibility seriously.  But the fact of the matter is, it’s not always a two way street.  I remember as a junior in high school I was completely surprised when my high school History teacher saw me at a sporting event and knew my name. It never occurred to me that my teachers might know me outside of their classroom walls; it never occurred to me that they might actually care about me. Now that I’m a teacher, I see things differently.

When I was in high school, I had a classmate die in a car accident.  I had just moved to the area, and though I didn’t know her well, she was one of the few students at the school who was friendly and nice to the “new kid.”  One day shortly after her death, in our English class, my teacher had a meltdown  and kicked her empty desk over.   Our class was horrified mostly because we felt that he had desecrated her seat, which was sacred now that she no longer sat there.  Until Brian and Martin died, I didn’t understand his violent, emotional reaction.  But after Brian and Martin’s deaths … I understood completely.  Nothing is more real and harsh than the reality of that empty desk sitting in the classroom. The desk that had once been filled with the light and life of a student you cared about … now an empty reminder of the light and life you lost.  

I hope this Christmas you remember to cherish those who surround you with life and light and love. Because, although it may be cliché to say, life is so short and you never know when your last moments with them will be. Say the words you need to say before it’s too late – forgive, be kind, show love.