Resilience in Practice

I received some exciting news a couple days ago.  One of my students that has been battling Ewing's Sarcoma, has been told she is cancer free.  I remember saying that cancer didn't stand a chance against this kid in a Friday Afternoon video.  Knowing Piper like I did, I knew this was not a bold statement.  I knew she would beat her diagnosis and she did.

I lost a teacher to cancer several years ago.  If you have not been through this a school family, it is tough.  In a school setting you see students and teachers everyday.  You go through so many ups and downs that it bonds you.  When a serious situation like this happens, your school family takes it personal.  Our school and community rallied around Piper like they always have for others.  These are the moments that make you proud.  Everyone works towards helping the family and raising money for the path of uncertainty that comes with a cancer diagnosis.

I'm going to be a little selfish though and share what I got to see out of this outstanding young lady.  In my position you get to see kids do amazing things and make you proud to be where you are and doing the work that you do.  Despite all the craziness, she showed up.  She missed very few days of school and made the honor roll.  She only left school early when she could no longer physically stand during the day and still she could throw you a smile that would take your worries away.  One day she left early and I had just turned a young man away from wanting to go home.  He had a headache.  Sometimes I wish he had been there when she was in there to see how tough she was.  She was constantly showing resiliency and I hope the rest of our school family saw it like I did.

At Central, we say the word resilient all the time.  Did we catch it in practice?  Right under our noses we were getting an education, but did we know it?  I stole this picture from Jon Adkins' Facebook page because someday, I knew I would be telling her story.  Thank you to everyone that supported her, but most importantly I would like to thank Piper.  Thank you for your enduring spirit during tough times.  Thank you for smiling at my poor attempts at jokes in hopes of making you feel better.  Thank you for your example.  Thank you for inspiring others.  Thank you for being resilience in practice.  Now that you have beaten cancer, who knows what the possibilities are for you.  I know this 8th grader has left me with lessons I can teach to countless others down the road. 

Bearded Forgiveness

Warning: Personal post.

I grew a beard this year.  I'm not a beard guy.  I've never really had an opinion of them except to know that I would never want one.  My father wore a beard and maybe that's why I have such an indifference towards them.  I did not have a relationship with my father as I grew up.  It was a mild connectedness I would say.  I knew him.  I kind of understood what he did for a living.  I knew where he lived.  I was in his presence about five or six times that I can remember.  This was a far better relationship than I had with my mother.  I had never heard her voice until I was 40 years old.  I was raised by my grandmother (my mom) and I am happy for that.  I often remind myself of how lucky I am to have grown up in Marion, met the people I have met and ended up where I am.  Who knows if that would have been the same in Tennessee.

I saw him when my mom passed away.  It was a difficult time and it was tough way to try to reconnect with him.  As I left, we agreed to start over as friends and go from there.  At that point I was no longer angry with our situation.  I was grown, married and starting my life's work in the classroom.  I was happy to work on it with him, but we would have to take it slow.  I was a little optimistic that I would finally know him and understand my namesake.  My children would have a grandfather on my side to spoil them and some kind of normalcy might take place.  We never connected again until I visited him in nursing home care after a stroke.  He was non-verbal and struggling to stay alive.  He passed away a few days later.

It is a unique situation to be a dad that never had a dad.  My profession is mostly full of middle class folks with strong family ties.  Lots of conversations with them often start with, "my dad used to say..."  I never became bitter about my dad situation.  I just resolved to build my own family name from the ground up.  Then I was watching ESPN and Omar Epps was a guest on a show.  You may know his work in the 90's from the movies Juice and Higher Learning.  He later starred in the TV show House.  I liked his movies when I was in high school so his appearance perked my curiosity about his new book.  He had written about his experiences with the broken relationship with his father.  It was called From Fatherless to Fatherhood and I jumped on Amazon as quickly as I could to order it.

For me, this book was a page turner.  It was a stroll down hip hop culture's memory lane, but full of what life is like for a young man without a father in his life.  His mother was a school administrator so that of course scored points with me.  As he narrates his life and manhood struggles, he comes to a huge conclusion at the end.  He writes about the power of forgiveness and moving on.  He writes, "I stepped into a new level of maturity once I embraced the fact that my father was not my enemy.  He was simply a man, just as I am."  I grew my beard to show forgiveness towards my father.  It seemed like a harmless and removable gesture so I went for it.  I've never told anyone my motivation behind it and no one ever asked.  I just became some guy with a beard.

I had decided that I would wear the beard of forgiveness just for this school year and I was counting down the days until I cut it off.  Then, about a month ago my pastor does what he usually does and puts things in to perspective for me.  I'm not trying to recruit new church members, but if you have a chance to watch this sermon you should.  He didn't have the storybook relationship with his parents either, but still he honors his father and mother.  His message spoke to me that day and slowly, I started to reconsider cutting off my beard.  When I finally got up the nerve to do it, I asked my son if he wanted to watch.  I figured he would get a kick out of it.  Instead, he questioned me about why I was cutting it off and that I should leave it.  How's that for two signs that maybe I did a good thing?  The beard of forgiveness is still on my face.

Forgiveness is tough, but there are small ways you can show forgiveness to others.  As a teenager, I began to resent my father.  As I grew older, that resentment turned into indifference.  When I was a grown man and a father myself, I understood how to forgive him.  People are not perfect and now that he is gone, I can't try to understand why our lives were the way they were.  You have to move on and let others do the same.  I have no idea how long I will wear this beard.  Maybe one day I will feel like the gesture has been completed and I will shave it off.  Right now, I'm just a guy with a beard learning how to forgive.