The Things We Carry

Behind me, a child was shouting my name with urgency.

I stopped mid-sprint, and turned to respond.

“Happy holidays to you, too,” I answered him. Now, to my car.

I literally sprinted across the parking lot. I heard kids calling behind me, “Ms. W! Ms. W! Happy Hanukkah! Merry Christmas! Happy New Year! Happy Holidays!” I waved and shouted it back, and finally, to the last call, didn’t even turn around, just joyously waved and shouted, “I’m free!”

Three days later, I stood at the Kotel, the Western Wall in Jerusalem, ruefully admitting that I am not.

The Kotel is all that we are allowed to access of the Temple Mount, and millions of people around the world gather there to pray. On the way down to the Kotel plaza from the Rovah, the Jewish Quarter of the Old City, I always find myself whispering the iconic words of the recording we have from the ’67 liberation of the Temple Mount: “Har Habayit b’yadeynu! The Temple Mount is in our hands!” As I brush past the American and Asian tourists, and thread between seminary girls in long skirts and yeshiva bochrim in various degrees of kippot, I ignore the people in favor of the place.

Standing in the women’s section (my sister: “it’s bigger!” me: “Nope. Same pathetically small deal compared to the men’s”), after pushing through the larger thoughts in my mind, I always come back to the people not standing there with me. My family, of course, and those friends who need to be especially thought of. And then, like a dam breaking with just a trickle of water, I thought of one student, who will both give birth and pass her classes this spring, if all goes well.

It opened the floodgates. So much for being on vacation, on a different continent, free. Three hundred children were pounding through my mind for attention, to be thought of, just briefly, at this special place. These are the things we as teachers carry with us:

The child who is failing her senior year of high school and refuses to speak to her mother.

The child who emails me every other night for extra work because she never makes it to class.

The child who has had to leave our school, and the IB program, because her house, for some unexplained reason, is no longer safe for herself and her family.  

The child who told me, “it’s coming up that time again.”

“Christmas?”

“Yeah. And the other anniversary.”

“You and…?” I nodded towards his girlfriend across the classroom.

“No. My dad died a year from tomorrow.” Oh.

The child who is a lapsed drug dealer, who suddenly exploded in class because he didn’t have a pencil with which to write (my stash is long run out), but who wouldn’t tell me what’s wrong.

The seven children of mine from last year whose names appeared in the list of suspensions after last week’s gang fight.

The child of mine from last year whom I just found out is in jail for the foreseeable future.

The troubled child from last year whom I connected with and haven’t seen since October.

The child who always greets me with “Hey, W in the house!” and whom I’m personally cheering on towards graduation this year.

The child who only shows up in my class every other week, and only understands less than every other word of the foreign language of English.

The child who talks freely of her jail record in class, who has learned so much in her short life but still has so much to learn before she will be a productive, safe member of society.

I pressed my thoughts of them against the stones of the Kotel, asking for I know not what… I don’t believe that G-d will change anyone’s path without their own input. But I prayed for them anyhow, for all the little lucks and moments of fortune that He can throw in their way, and for strength for them when they ask for it, and myself and the other teachers when we need it, too.

As I backed away from the kotel, and began to climb the slippery worn stone steps back to the Rovah, I heard gunshot after gunshot from East Jerusalem. People startled, then continued about their business. Same in America; same in Israel. Some things need prayer and people both.