Because

The past week I have been down, even more than usual, as I continue on a medication merry-go-round. But by Friday, I had just started to feel that I turned the corner, when all my personal concerns were rendered so inconsequential by the atrocity in Connecticut. Like most of us, I think, I don’t know how to process it. I have tried to steer clear of  the kind of knee-jerk reactions I saw across all forms of media. I am a teacher, in the same county/district as Columbine High School, and I have a friend who was there that day, hiding for her life; Aurora and its movie theater are also only a few miles away; and I have been a parent, and count close friends with young children. Having spent my past years in middle or high schools, now I am still teaching middle (7th grade) but I am in a K-8 school, and I see truly little children every day. A second-grade classroom is directly below mine, and if my overexuberant adolescents run or jump, the poor kids below think the roof is falling. I see the innocence in their eyes, their smiles… and even my own students may be older, but they’re far from grown-up. While they’re old enough to be aware of the evil in this world, they’re still young enough to believe there’s hope it can be vanquished. Even as my body may betray me and my mind is harried by doubt, I yearn that my soul can retain that best part of youth.

I am sharing a poem today. I was reminded of it last week, and it was one of the few truly happy moments I recall from a couple of dark days I was going through there. It’s been posted elsewhere but never on WordPress. It’s a kind of ode to what one human being can mean to another, and those are the kind of feelings and connections that are vital for all of us to remember in times like these.

Because

Because
You cared
Because
You listened
Because
You were there
When not for a moment
Did you have to be
But only because
You wanted to be
For me
Always for me
Though I don’t deserve to be
One for whom you’d care
One for whom your ears were ever patient
One for whom to make yourself
Ever present
But you are
And shall be
And silly me
Who has to know
Will ask why
Would you love me so?
And you will always reply,
“Just because, that’s why.”