“The day finally arrived. The doctor opened the door, popped his head in and said, ‘How about Monday?’ I glanced over to see her expression. ‘Sounds good!’ On the inside I was doing a full-blown happy dance. My thoughts were screaming, ‘That’s MY birthday!!! His birthday is going to be MY birthday!’”
‘Zane got a call from a fellow soldier. He knew a young woman who was expecting a baby. She wanted a loving family for him. ‘We might be getting a baby!’ I was stunned, ecstatic, and terrified.’
‘I didn’t think anybody would miss me if I was gone.’ Her daughter planned to commit suicide. She left goodbye letters. She was ready to leave the world.’
“As her mom sat across from me, we both had tears streaming down our faces. I asked if I could write my student a letter to be delivered to her at the hospital. ‘My daughter would love that,’ she said. I wrote cards to every one of my students, over 100 of them.”
‘Please come pick up your son. He isn’t a good fit.’ He was there 3 hours before we got the call.’
“A good fit. I’ve rolled the words over and over again in my mind. In a matter of one conversation over lunchtime, they determined him ‘unfit’ and ‘too much’ for their school.”
‘My principal emailed me. She added another student to my roster. ‘But come talk to me when you get a chance. I have to tell you her story.’ Rewind 7 years.’
“She saw the terror in my eyes. The office lady leaned in to whisper, ‘The guidance counselor will be in shortly.’ He just stood there. Looking up at me with his big, empty, chocolate eyes. In that moment, I could peek into his soul. I knew I was in that classroom, at that moment, for him.”
‘How many times are you going to wear that outfit?,’ one of my wife’s 4th graders asked her. She then gave her a smug, twisted-lipped look. It made me rage.’
“I’ll be honest, this story gave me pause for a few reasons.”
‘His teacher suddenly jumped on the desk. He started walking across each one, to make sure every single eye was on him.’
“I’ll never forget when he had them throw their history books on the ground and tell them how they got it all wrong that day, and made choices that would come back to haunt them.”
‘She had less than 25 words in her vocabulary when you met. You said to give her a chance. When others doubted her potential, you advocated.’
“She had round cheeks and two tiny, wispy pigtails that you tell me you remember like it was yesterday.”
‘I couldn’t keep any food down. I had lost 25 pounds. Something serious was going on, I could feel it in my bones. And I was pregnant.’
“I remember saying to him that something must be brewing for us because our life had been too easy! The rest was a blur of grief and anger. I have a lifelong disease—one that will never be cured. One that was caused by IVF.”
‘It was the middle of the night when I got this call. I sat in the basement, frozen and in shock. Please tell me this is just some virus that will go away next week.’
“We also noticed he had a bruise on his back from one of his Nerf gun battles that wasn’t going away. Nothing crazy, nothing that made us extremely worried at the time.”
‘Rather than give me nothing, this student took the time to take every marshmallow out of her cereal to put in a bag—for me.’
“You see, 100% of my school is on free/reduced lunch. They also get free breakfast at school every day of the school week. This kiddo wanted to get my something so badly but had nothing to give.”
