3 Years Ago…

We interrupt your regularly programmed sarcastic badassery to bring you a very real, very raw message.

3 years ago to the day, one of my students died unexpectedly. If you want to read how I felt in the months following that tragedy, you may click this link.

To be frank, it sucked ass. There’s no other way to slice it. I went into the weekend having 8 students in my classroom and came back for a new fresh week with only 7. That’s not right. For a really long time, I struggled with a great deal of anger. I was incredibly upset that a God I had believed in my whole life would let this kind of shit happen to a 9 year old. I’m not super religious, but in incredible times of sadness, it’s really hard to not have anything to lean on so I found myself talking to “the powers that be” in my car about my feelings. I cursed. I hit my steering wheel. I cried. At one point, I even called a priest. I asked him why, if God exists, does he let shitty things happen to good people? I don’t know what I was expecting to hear. There’s literally no answer that would have ever sufficed. The priest told me that my anger was normal and that it was okay to be mad. But that didn’t really make me feel any better.

And I’m still sitting here, in the same classroom, at my same desk, 3 years later, wondering why the hell Ben had to die when there are murderers and assholes running rampant in this world.

I didn’t like feeling angry. I still don’t. But, our grief takes all kinds of forms and we can’t really control that. I’m less angry than I was 3 years ago. Most of the time, now, my grief takes the form of incredible sadness. Sadness that Ben would have been in middle school this year. Sadness that Ben would probably have been a rockstar hockey player in the “Squirt” league by now. Sadness that Ben didn’t get to experience the heartbreak of the Green Bay Packers losing Jordy Nelson (he was a big Packers fan).

Amidst sadness, I always try my hardest to find whatever TINY sliver of silver lining exists. Last year, I was asked to speak at a function for Ben. I’m going to attach a snippet of my speech because it rings true today just as it did last year:

“I was supposed to be his teacher. And I did teach him…Ben made amazing strides. He learned how to start advocating for himself when things didn’t quite make sense. He began to take tests and quizzes independently. He graduated from reading only Fly Guy books at home to some other stories and books. He wrote paragraphs with topic sentences and concluding sentences. But amidst all of that, Ben was just as much my teacher as he was my student. He taught me an invaluable lesson about life. He lived with such passion and excitement. If you were lucky enough to know him, then you know exactly what I’m talking about when I say he lived with ‘Benergy.’ The off button didn’t really exist with Ben. He was full throttle all day and he had a magnetic personality. You wanted a kid like Ben in your class because he was a natural-born leader. He was genuine and inclusive and had the drive to always want to be the best version of himself. I sometimes am heart broken when I think about what substep Ben would be on in Reading now. And what kinds of things he’d be writing about in his journal. But I am comforted in knowing that anyone who knew Ben is forever changed because of him. We will live the rest of our lives trying to adopt the same kind of zest for life that Ben had. And in doing so, we will honor his memory and legacy on this Earth. Ben would be proud of that.”

So, today, on this shitty, cloudy, gloomy April afternoon, take this message with you. Live your damn life and live it WELL. That means different things for different people. If your version of living well means skydiving and bungee jumping off a cliff, DO IT. If your version of living well means parking your rear end on the couch with your loved ones and binge watching a series of Netflix with a vat of butter popcorn, DO YA THANG. We only get a short time here. Do what makes you happy.

Thanks for sticking with me. This post was all over the place. But then again, so was Ben 🙂