As a junior high teacher, it's my right -- nay, my duty as an American educator -- to lead the fight against its use. Axe is the pubescent attempt to avoid showering after gym class, to snag a date for Friday's dance, to blend in. It is desperate and overbearing and toxic. My school's hallways are clouded with it often. I now confess to having even used my locker key to confiscate bottles from a few of the worst offenders.
So it was with great pain and regret that four years ago, at the top of my father's Christmas list, sat my worst enemy: Axe Body Spray.
It did not make sense. My father was 68 years old. He'd been married nearly four decades. He is not overbearing or desperate. Why was this on the list, I demanded inquired.
To which my mother replied, "It makes him feel better."
My dad -- my beautiful, strong father -- could no longer shower himself. Often, he could not toilet himself. He had accidents. He was always sweating. And although the staff at his nursing home showered him every other day, he was ashamed. He would douse himself in his aftershave and deodorant, but to no avail. So he would wait patiently for his next shower day, trying to hide his embarrassment.
My mother had given him Axe after a trip to Dollar General one day. It was the only thing that could cover not only himself but also the smell of other residents and cleaning products. It was a change from the smell of sickness, old age, dependence. It shouldn't have surprised me that Axe was his antidote. It had erased all other living smells from my hallway and classroom for years.
It hurt. All my life, I could recognize my dad just by his scent. He smelled of Lava soap, Old Spice, the roll of Certs mints or cinnamon candy he always kept in his pocket, and just a hint of WD-40. "Just a dab behind the ears", I'd tease him. There have been nights in the past four years that I woke up, longing, heartbroken, for that scent. I can remember wondering what other kids' dads smelled like. Maybe fresh ink and paper, or expensive suits, or suntan oil and chlorine. My dad smelled like hard work. It was the smell of confidence and independence to me. I felt ashamed for questioning his choice.
So I begrudgingly gave in, buying him cans and cans of it for any occasion: birthdays, Christmases, Tuesdays. It did not matter. If it was what he wanted, it was fine by me.
Last night, as I stood next to my daddy's bed, feeding him ice chips, I took in the smells around me. Antiseptic, colostomy bags, uneaten hospital food, fever sweat. His eyes searched my face, questioning. His lips moving. His voice a whisper of visions and words I could not understand.
I tried to write this morning, but I just couldn't bring myself to do it. The weeks since I last saw my dad have been tense and sad. He was not in good shape, physically or mentally, and it's been difficult. It's funny since I've written about my dad and his illness several times here. (And here and here and here. Or here.). Far more often than I ever thought I would; I am a private person who shields herself with a loud and feisty public personality. In this way, yet again, I am my father's daughter.
But to untwist him from my life, to remove him from this space, would be damn near impossible. For the last seven years, his path has become my own. We wander hand-in-hand, lost in a world where we don't recognize ourselves. I have found myself there again today, but this time, I am alone.
My entire childhood, I feared the death of my dad. I thought it would be the undoing of me -- that I would wake up one morning, and he would suddenly be gone. Often, I would lie in bed, wondering how I would get along as if his absence would hobble me as if I had woken up to have my leg amputated or my eyesight lost. How does a little girl imagine life without her hero?
And then I would hear him coming down the hall, and I would wiggle my toes and open my eyes, knowing that the world was still on its axis.
I never stopped to think that there are things worse than death. Because there are. My dad is my hero still, but he has not been allowed a hero's death. Heroes die in battle. They die strong. They die with their wife's kiss and their children's names on their lips. They don't die inch-by-inch.
I woke up this morning with my dad on my heart. I pulled up old posts and pulled out old pictures. I thought a lot about when I was a little girl. I thought about his hands, so calloused and worn. And how he was old pearl-snap shirts and trucker hats before they were cool. And how he smelled -- like Lava soap, freshly-mown grass, WD-40, and Certs breath mints.
I waited until I knew that lunch would be over and the dining room quiet before I called my mom's phone. He doesn't hear well, and his booming voice is often barely a whisper. I knew she'd be there, visiting him at the nursing home because even if he didn't know it was Father's Day, she would.
When she put him on the phone, he didn't have much to say. Even in his prime, the telephone was difficult for my dad who so loved to see someone's face as he told them a story or reeled off his latest joke. Our conversation was stilted and one-sided as I asked him questions he didn't know how to answer.
When my mom got back on the phone, she confirmed what I had begun to suspect several months ago. My father didn't recognize my voice. She's also noticed that he's stopped referring to me by my name and instead calls me "Sister", the nickname my family used for me until I was 10.
I once wondered how a little girl loses her hero, but I never once thought to wonder how the hero forgets his little girl. Now I wonder how long I will live in his mind at all.
I've always thought that the cruelest thing that has happened to my father is not that he is dying but that he is dying in a trap. His body broken, his mind intact. But even that is no longer true, and I am devastated.
I remember when I was six, my dad tried to teach me to take a fish off the hook. I kept recoiling at it, claiming I couldn't do it, putting on my best scared little girl act. It flopped and fought against my hands, its gills fluttering and flailing for oxygen, and I asked why I couldn't just wait until it died to remove the hook. Surely it couldn't take much longer. "Because it's in pain" was his reply. I can still remember the crease in his eyebrows, the frown on his face, 32 years later.
I've always thought about that moment, seeing my father as the fish in that desperate fight for independence and dignity. But it's only in hanging up the phone and hearing my own ragged gasps that I begin to understand what it feels to be on the end of that line.
Normally, the last day of school is a pretty joyous day.
The students are usually all:
And the teachers are all:
And, admittedly, some of the teachers may do that dance, too. That's what happens on a "normal" last day. But today wasn't that day. This week just wasn't that kind of week.
In case you don't live in North Arlington or read newspapers or listen to just general gossip or speculation, you might not know what's been happening in my school. To make a long story short, we haven't met the standards set in place -- AYP (Adequate Yearly Progress) -- according to NCLB (No Child Left Behind). All those letters are federal standards, measured in accordance with state testing standards.
Now, you can feel how you want to feel and say what you want to say about standardized testing or how we measure student progress here in the good ol' U.S. of A. That's your business. And you may or may not realize that A) every state's measurement standards differ. Or 2) that once you're in trouble with the Feds, you're in it... and you have to prove you're worthy by making AYP two years in a row. So finally) a school could actually be seen as a top-perfoming school in the eyes of the state and still continue to be seen as a failing school in the eyes of the federal government (See: Nichols 2010).
But, as I said, you can feel however you want to feel. Mostly, I just feel confused by it all.
AYP also advances in stages. When a school first misses the mark, they are in Stage I. On a side note, it has never escaped my attention that the AYP lingo is the same lingo we use for classifying cancer. Stage 1 is sort of shocking, but fairly isolated and easily treatable. But Stage IV... man, watch the eff out for Stage IV. Ain't nobody got time for that. Stage IV is devastation.
There is no Stage V in the cancer world, but there is in AYP. And that, my friends, is where we've found ourselves.
This year has been especially difficult. We, as a faculty, have been living and working and teaching in a metaphorical pressure cooker. There are, I'm sure, many people who have decided that somehow we've gotten what we've deserved. They will say that we didn't work hard enough or that we didn't use the right materials. Or that we should have tried this. Or that we should have tried that. Or that we must not really care. Or that we're a waste of time or money. Or that we should be ashamed. Or that we don't deserve a voice in our own fate.
Don't laugh. Don't doubt. Those are actual quotes I've heard -- some whispered behind hands, eyebrows raised. Others voiced openly and publicly. Mostly by people who have never worked in a struggling school.
It's been hard to wear the Scarlet "N". But we've done it, and we tried to keep our heads held high. In many ways, I've done it my entire career. I've been on the end of the sympathetic head tilt many a time when I've told other district employees where I teach. They react as if I told them I had a dreaded disease. Like cancer, I suppose.
So this week, the decisions of some led to the leaving of many. Today, it was very hard to celebrate the end of the school year. It was hard to remember the success of our students, and we've actually had many -- just not those that are measurable with a scantron and a #2 pencil. And it was very difficult to say goodbye. I'm not very good at goodbye.
See, the greatest thing about being a Mustang is that you are always a Mustang. I have heard, time and time again, that there is something truly special and unique about our building. Teachers leave and go to other campuses or districts, and they always report that they might like their school, but it just doesn't feel like home. The Nichols faculty is a family. We may not always get along or agree, but we love each other. We support one another. Teaching in a struggling school feels like going to battle, and our faculty has been in the trenches together for a really long time.
While I will remain at NJH next year, seeing so many of my friends leave today was tough. Some were leaving by their own choice while others were not, but it doesn't matter how they left. They left. And we will all have a tremendous amount to rebuild -- within our school and within ourselves -- no matter where we all land in August.
I wore one of my favorite shirts today. It's the last shirt I have from the grief camp I used to volunteer for. (It didn't escape my attention that there are, strangely enough, five stages of grief). The camp's motto is, "We cannot choose the way we are hurt, but we can choose the way we are healed." We have been hurt. We will continue to hurt.
But we can choose to heal. And, God, I pray that healing touches all our hearts soon. I don't know how or when it will begin to happen, but my suspicion is that it will start with the smile of a student in August. Or a hug from a colleague. Or a parent choosing to believe in each of us. I doubt that it will start with a test score.
Just as I was about to go to bed tonight, I saw a video that made me think of my school family. It's the farewell speech from Conan O'Brien when he left The Tonight Show under much scrutiny and a highly publicized controversy. The first time I watched it, I just watched it. But the second time I watched it, I heard it. And it went straight to my broken heart and placed a tiny band-aid. It may not hold for long, but it held long enough to make me believe that amazing things will happen.
Amazing things will happen, friends. Not just at Nichols but wherever we all land. Amazing things will happen because of who we are and what we've learned from one another. Amazing things will happen because we struggled mightily and never gave up. And there is beauty, real beauty, in standing tall in a fight that no one else thinks you can win -- in standing up when all you want to do, when all anyone expects you to do, is stay down.
They will happen. I believe it. I believe it in my heart, broken as it may be right now. I have to. And I hope you believe it in yours as well.
So, good night, my Mustang friends. But not goodbye.
There is a song I once sang, at a camp, not so long ago. Its opening lines are:
"It only takes a spark to get a fire going, and soon all those around will warm up to its glowing."
It's a song we sing to celebrate the love of God, but, for me, it's also about celebrating the warmth we find within one another. The friendships we form and cultivate. The knowledge and guidance we provide to one another. That's what camp does -- more than any other place in the world. The light we find in each other, even those of us who may be old friends, grows within us and begins to change us. And it burns so brightly we feel as though the darkness may never creep up upon us again.
But it does. It always does. And it threatens to snuff out our joy, our hope, our light.
Last night, one of my camp family, Matt, was killed in a car wreck. This morning, one of my most precious and joyous friends, Jarrett, called to tell me. The pain in his voice and in his tears, the confusion and loss, cracked my chest open with grief.
Matt was a wonderful young man, and in the short summer that I knew him, I found him to be quick to smile but long on patience. He always seemed to be just off to the side, watching first, but wherever he appeared, he brought a calm and a peace to the situation. He had a quiet air and a quick wit, and to sit next to him at dinner was the prime spot to catch one of his quick jokes. As his supervisor, I cannot say I knew him well, but I know that he was well-loved by his friends and well-respected by his peers. And if you were to know them, you'd know what a fine compliment that is.
All day, I have grieved and worried. I have felt that darkness, so familiar an old friend, scratching at the door of my heart. When I heard Jarrett's voice on the phone, I felt my light flutter, and I worried. I worried about how these kids -- my kids -- will mourn Matt, the toll that grief exacts on people so young. How the unfairness of a life gone so quickly, so abruptly, can burn a hole in your spirit and rage uncontrollably. I worried -- I worry -- that it will engulf them.
I thought about Matt all day, and I thought about those closest to him. The more I thought about him, the less I cried. I even began to smile as the sun set before me. Because while he is gone, he will not be forgotten. The light of Matt, that spark I saw 2 summers ago, won't be snuffed out. It can't be because it burns on within each of us that had the privilege to know him. And it burns strongest in those who loved him best.
The SFA crew -- AJ, Matt, Jarrett, and Destiny
Matt, at home on the range.
And they're not the type to let it flicker out. They will pass it along -- sharing his smile, honoring his life. I know this much to be true.
This one's for you Matt, and for all those who loved you, from the very first week you were a part of our camp family. Thank you for your spark.
It's been 24 hours since I learned about yesterday's tragedy in Connecticut. Given 24 years, I don't think I would still be able to find my words to register my true feelings about what happened. It's been 11 since September 11th, and I still don't have any for that either.
Grief is a funny and terrible thing. It stalks you, hanging around just until you think it's gone, and then it rears its head once more. Now, our country grieves again. When I think of our nation's most mournful times, I see incredible things. Heroes emerge. Kindness appears. Strangers connect. And in those moments, the impossible seems possible, and change can happen.
Yet so often, it doesn't. Or at least it doesn't happen quickly.
All over my social media, there are shouts and rumblings. And blame. There's always blame. Fingers point at the other side, and arguments occur. Gun control. Second Amendment. Republicans. Democrats. Right-wing. Left-wing. The absence of God. God's will. Your fault. The President's fault. The shooter's fault. His parents' fault.
Let's get real, people. It's our fault. And it will continue to be our fault as long as we, as a nation, refuse to meet in the middle. It will continue until we all stop needing to be so right that we are all wrong.
But I don't know how to change a whole nation. If I did, believe me, I'd tell you. The trouble is, I don't know if anyone would listen.
I do know this, however. God is in our schools. You can't take God out of a school anymore than you can take him out of your home or your heart. He is in my basketball team as they pray for the health of a fellow teacher's mom -- our #1 fan. He is in my students as they refuse to break Fast for even the thrill of a Snicker's bar won on a correct answer. He is in my moment of silence each morning as I pray for the health and safety of those I hold most dear. He is in the mouth of the child who told me, "I'd never let anyone hurt you, Miss Naz."
I get it though. It's easy enough to blame the absence of God when tragedy strikes because how could God let it happen? But tragedy is a continual undercurrent of our entire history. The atrocities that one human can inflict on another are a daily, moment-by-moment occurrence. And I don't always know where He is. Admittedly, He and I have always engaged in a cosmic version of Hide-and-Seek. My only hope is that He's with those who have been left behind, giving them the strength to survive now and live later. Those are two completely different things, you know. Surviving and living.
I also know that the answer to school violence isn't by putting a gun in my hands or in my classroom, as a few have advocated. To be honest, I can barely find my own keys most days. I'm not sure I'm cut out for the vigilante lifestyle.
The only answer I have is to love one another. Listen when someone needs help. Ask for help when you need it. Let go of your platform and have a conversation. Seek out beauty, and, where there is none, leave some.
And, maybe, just this once, we use our hands to help or to pray or to hold... but not to point.
