Give Me Strength

Note: I wrote this post DEEP into my first year of teaching a program that school districts like to label Emotionally Disturbed. I was cleaning out some old drafts and decided to share it with you all. I've been trying to come to terms with what I've been up to since 2015 and I feel it's time to let go... and I do that by writing. So here goes....

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Sign from my E.D. Classroom

"What the f)(& am I supposed to do with him all day?" he screamed at me.

I was stunned into silence for 10 seconds. I was on the phone with the baby daddy of one of my students. Teen father to a now 11 year old troubled boy with a hair-pin trigger on his temper. Now I know he comes by it biologically.

I had called him early...before school started...to tell him that his child had tooth pain. I knew I had woke him up. He works nights. His mother who helps him raise his son raises the boy for him was out of town.

I finally answered, "He's your son..."

He released another barrage of  f bombs on me. "Doesn't that effing school have an effing nurse to give him some medicine?"

"Actually sir, we only contract with a nurse for services one day a week and today is not that day...and besides, we can't DRUG your child. If you get a prescription, you can..."

"What kind of effing school are your running there with a effing nurse one day a week? What a effing loser school. I guess I'll pick his a$$ up and take him to the ER?"

I interrupted him, "I'll have the paperwork ready to go in the office." I hung up stunned.

How can someone talk about their child that way?  This boy's behavior makes so much more sense. I see him elated every Friday. "Dad's gonna take me ___________ (motocrossing, skateboarding, to the beach, to a movie, snowboarding...)"

And come Monday, his spirit is dragging behind him on the sidewalk.

"What's the matter Bub... Dad had to work?" (Didn't feel like doing anything with you, lied to you, doesn't give a flip what he promised you days ago?)

"Yeeaah," he says deflated, defeated and lost.

I sobbed before I got the kids that morning. I hated to think that I had to send this boy home, away from the teachers and aides who love him and want the best for him to spend the day and weekend (and rest of his life) with his pathetic dad.

There are days I love my job. And there are days I wonder if I'm strong enough to keep it.  

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I guess, in the end, I wasn't!