Category: grief
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There are drills, as there now are in every school. We call them “lockdown” but they might also be known as “active shooter” drills. I wonder about the missing pieces in the plan, such as how we cannot put full grown students in wheelchairs into cupboards to hide them. We can not silence students who…
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Yesterday, I looked up antonyms for “grateful”. I thought I must be feeling the exact opposite. “Ungrateful” was the first entry, somehow not fitting. I went down the list and found “dolorous”. Marked by excessive grief and distress. A word which sounds like the traditional name “Dolores” from the Latin, a name meaning “sorrow” which…
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The Japanese Magnolias, soon to be followed by the Cherry Blossoms, are here. Fleeting, time meaning nothing. When my son was younger he called the white Cherry Blossoms “Popcorn Trees”. Not because they looked like popcorn but because, he ascertained, they were popcorn. He also was certain the Dalmatian we saw at the playground was…
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School is over. Last week I watched some of my students graduate after turning twenty one, the maximum age for people with disabilities to remain in school. Seeing one of them receive an award brought me back to a class discussion a few years ago about a Kathe Kollwitz drawing. It depicts a person swooning, eyes…