We Were Made to Endure

I don’t know how often you’ve visited the ocean.

It doesn’t matter which beach.

In stores or on TVs, you’ve seen the big conk shells. Legend says that if you put the conk shell to your ear, you can hear the ocean.

With the child inside each person, how many of us have held the conk shell to our ears?  Did it bring back the childhood euphoria of when you played telephone with cups?

Then, did you wonder why you could never find the beautiful conk shell when you walked on the beach?

Instead you find smaller shells with colors of pearl white, purple or sunset. Some are in almost perfect condition, but most shells are broken pieces.

In a way, we’re all like that. None of us are the conk shell even if we try to become one.

As the prayer I learned in childhood goes, “Forgive me, Lord, for I have sinned.”  In so many ways we are the pretty shades of shells with broken pieces around us. We all have truths we wish to bury, like small crabs, in the sand. 

but

We are not a fixed person.

We are not forever defined by our failures or the mistakes made in the broken moments of our lives.

We are not static, undeveloped characters in a 1950s’ comic when Stephen King writes “zest” was a popular word, but a poor choice for writers.

More often, we are the seashell shades of pearl, purple, or sunset.

truth

We were made to endure. 

We were made to step out of the sand rather than be stepped upon in the sand. 

I can tell you my family and I have faced this in different ways through the years. Where we have experienced far more joy, we’ve lived the moments where we were made to endure.

Support

The more I read about other parents who have loved and lost their child,

or those who dream of or yearn to become parents,

or the doctors and nurses who yearn for support and understanding during the COVID-19 crisis,

or teachers, like me, who long to be heard,

or the child or teen aching for something better,

the more I believe we need to build a world of support instead of one in which we pick up stones and throw them.

A Story

The five-and-a-half-years of Corrie’s life filled me with some of the happiest memories, and the moments of my greatest professional and personal struggles. In April 2019, my doctor said:

“If you weren’t switching schools, I’d tell you quit.”

She warned me that if I had chosen to stay at my previous school I’d either be in the hospital or possibly dead. My experience at my previous school wasn’t just that I endured trauma and depression that I battled at every step as I tried to maintain a healthy marriage, raise our children, and be a part of the autism community for our son.

In April 2019, I had Shingles for the third time in one school year. I had a viral infection that refused to go away because my immune system was severely weakened as my body reacted to the stress I was under … The stress, anger, and depression I could not reason.

I loved my school with my entire heart. In my writing, I call my former school Luska Road. It was the school that made me the teacher I am, and challenged me to rise to higher standards of STEAM and project based learning.

It was also the environment in which my health faltered, and my parents and husband said over and over I would not make it another year.

They weren’t just concerned about a mental breakdown, but my physical health.

In April, I took off a week. There were days where I could barely walk. I watched teachers from my state march in protest for the treatment of teachers and students in our state. Offices long held by men who sent their children to private schools or whose children were grown never understood the realities our public school teachers faced. I could not join the teachers for the very reason that my position at the time had deteriorated my health.

In the 2018-2019 school year, I did everything to battle the depression and anger I felt. Yoga got me from November 2018 to April 2019, and I stuck with the Mediterranean Diet. My students even said, “There’s a glow on you.”

But, these tactics were not enough.

My immune system was breaking down. During one week, my mother begged me to eat. She said she’d get me anything, but I just pushed food away. I’d later realize she was looking at me with the same eyes I’d have when I witnessed my daughter’s death.

When I returned for my second steroid shot, the doctor reiterated that I would face a hospital … or worse … if I did not get out.

In the space of one week, I lost eight pounds. It was not from my diet or Yoga, although those had helped me lose my post-Corrie weight. I could not eat. My appetite vanished. The Shingles spread to the left of my chin.

Some nights I woke up screaming. Sometimes screaming for a student’s name to know if he or she was safe. Sometimes visions of events that had happened haunted me, and I could not differentiate between the reality and the nightmare.

Corrie often got me through the day. She said earlier this year:

Mommy, remember when I would hug you because your old school made you so sad?

Corrie

Why Share?

At first, I didn’t want anyone to know what I’d faced. As a third generation teacher, I did not want to be viewed as weak or a failure.

If my body and spirit were breaking down in the space of two years, imagine what children and teens who grew up in adverse environments thought and felt.

Imagine you understand the anger.

The story I share is one of many in which people are suffering. They feel the moments when they are crabs digging into the sand or broken pieces of seashells no tourist wants.

With social media, people are sharing their experiences now more than ever. We can learn new languages of sensitivity of others. We can remember everyone has heartbreak.

When I think of the couples who dream of becoming parents,

or those parents with a child in the hospital during the holidays,

or the students I adored and taught for two years at Luska Road,

or the students I never got never got to say goodbye to at my new school,

the more I believe we can show our best sides to each other. We can hold the conk shell up to our ear, and listen to something someone needs us to hear.

We can support.

We were made to endure.