At the end of the day on Friday, they called the faculty together. Afterwards, I walked slowly down the hall. Someone was walking next to me, but we were both silent. I was looking at the floor. I don’t know who it was. And when I got to my room, I wasn’t sure what to do. I stood at my desk for a while. My head was in my hands. I stared blankly at the desktop and then turned on some music.
School was over. The kids were gone. I turned the speakers up, so that I might swim in the harmony, hoping that this might help, which it did a bit. After a couple songs, someone came into my room, and we spoke briefly.
R was supposed to come back soon. He hadn’t been in my classroom for a while, but he was coming back. I was looking forward to it, because he used to sit in the back and make direct eye contact and ask a good question every once in a while and sometimes even smile. Questions are a good thing. Smiles are better. I wanted him back.
But he won’t be coming back. Not to my classroom. Not to his friends. Not to his sisters or his mother or father. He won’t be coming back. And although the music helped me a bit. I can’t imagine how hard it is on them.