As the volume of his voice grew louder, I forced myself out of bed with growing urgency. I had to get him out of his room, which is next door to our room. If he got to a full scream, he might get up Lucas.
I got about five hours of sleep. This wasn’t that abnormal. Ethan has been getting up earlier and earlier. The previous night Diana and I had been up late talking about her and what she meant to us.
I got ready for work with Ethan nearby. Sometimes he would whine for me to hold him, but this morning, he did find some things to play with, while he ate a snack of milk, and animal crackers outside the bathroom.
She was on my mind all morning.
I got ready to go and got Ethan breakfast. As I got Ethan fed, Ollie came downstairs and made him breakfast. I said goodbye to them as they ate, and then went upstairs to kiss Diana and Lucas goodbye. Lastly I pulled Buffy close to me as I left the house and kissed her forehead.
After my first class, Diana texted me:
We texted back and forth, speculating about when and if she was going to give a speech. Then I put my phone down, and went to teach my first class. Later that morning as I was prepping for my next class I got this text:
I printed out this message, and put the sheets face down on my desk, and heeding Diana’s warning, I went to my next class.
I did the best I could to focus on my class. It was 5th grade, and they did pretty well. There was some disruptive behavior, but I didn’t really have it in my to really let them have it so I acknowledged some of the silliness with a smile, which got some of it to stop. Other things, I simply let go. It was just not going to be one of those days. I had observers in the class, so for my sake and their own, I focused on enjoying my time with my students and for a moment, she left my mind.
After class I heated up my lunch and turned the sheets over and started to read. I was not alone in my shared office so I stopped after the first sentence, grabbed a tissue paper box and settled down in one of the small practice rooms.
I can’t remember the last time I cried reading something on a page. It’s happened before, and it’ll happen again, but it doesn’t happen very often. Some sentences I read very slowly trying to imagine her voice speaking to me. Other parts I reread over and over, trying to find the courage to feel deeper all that these words were bringing out Mytears were accompanied by emotions not logically combined: pride, sadness, love, loss, anger, and hope.
As I put the sheets down, I felt the silence of the room, and felt a return to this place, to this time, to this duty that I had to teach, as if her words had taken me to another place.
A short time later I found myself standing in front of thirty-five of my favorite musicians, my 6th grade band. Then I started class.
Hello, everyone, I’m really happy to be here. I want to tell something that I think some of you implicitly understand but what I want you to know is important enough for you to here from me explicitly.
I am privileged. I can walk down the street, easily without thought. Many people cannot. I have so many benefits in my life because my parents worked so hard when they came to America.
That’s privilege. I’m lucky.
I don’t have to be here. This job isn’t forced upon me. I choose to work here, and I chose to come here every day, because it is wonderful to teach all of you. I get to help you create wonderful music. I get to do that, and that’s a wonderful feeling.
I want to share a thought with you I read today. What we are doing in this room is right and it’s good. It’s righteous. We are creating beauty through music in the world that helps humans better understand each other and what it means to be human. And because what we do is righteous, when things get tough, we persist, because we know what we are doing is worth the effort. If you are doing something righteous, you don’t get up, you keep at it.
Let’s start, instruments up with me, and here we go...
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