elizabethlevett

I walk into a sporting goods store, looking for a new pair of running shoes. Everything is clean and in good order. The salesperson is friendly and helpful. I sit down and take off my shoes and begin to paw through a basket for some socks that will fit like the ones I wear when I run. Just then, the young manager approaches me. “Ms. Levett! Hi! Do you remember me?” Of course, how can I forget this lovely young woman? Even in this moment I can see the bright six-year-old from El Salvador who was one of my first graders. “Alicia,” I say, “Look at you! You’re all grown up and gorgeous.” In the best of all possible worlds this happens all the time. It’s like the morning when I got on the bus and the driver said, “Hey there, Ms. L. Did I tell you C graduated from Georgetown? She’s a nurse in Redwood City now!”

But this is not always the best of all possible worlds. I guess it’s down to the law of numbers. You win a few, you lose a few. Sometimes terrible things can. And we are helpless. Helpless is the worst of all possible ways to feel. It’s the way you feel when a nine-year-old suddenly dies of an excruciating brain aneurysm. At three she had lost her mom and watched her father try to cope while raising three daughters. She seldom had clean clothes that fit and often seemed tired and hungry. But she had a beautiful smile and a generous heart.

J went away for the weekend with her sister and some other kids one July. It was a chance to get out of the city for a few days. She would be safe. She would be with teachers. When she started crying, then screaming. When she became unconscious, the grownups had her airlifted to a hospital where she quickly went into a coma and died. Those of us who knew and loved this child were at a loss. How could anyone so innocent experience this kind of suffering – how could she possibly be gone from us so young? When you spend your days with young children these are the things that you don’t dare imagine, the things you pray will never touch these brilliant and brave little souls. But these unimaginable things do happen. And this terrible knowledge must make them that much more precious, must make us more aware – must move us to be there for them when they need us.

Some years later, the unimaginable took place in a small city in Connecticut. On a Friday morning in December, nine a.m., eastern time, a young man shot his mother and took some of her guns to the elementary school where she taught. Next, he shot a bunch of grown-ups. Next, he shot twenty-nine little kids. The children were six and seven years old. At nine o’clock eastern time, it was six o’clock our time. At six a.m., our time, I had just finished my coffee, and had put some crunchies out for the stray cat that hides in the shadows. I was getting in the shower and thinking about my kids—somebody else’s kids, really. At six o’clock our time my kids were still asleep.

But it was nine o’clock eastern time. Twenty-nine little kids had gone off to school, had said bye to their grownups, put their coats on hooks, put their backpacks and lunches in their cubbies, and said Hey to their buddies. They had lined up, said the pledge, and quieted down because their teacher told them to. They wanted to play, make snowflakes out of paper, practice a winter song, and think about hot chocolate and staying home, and getting presents. They wanted to be good, have fun, color pictures together, eat lunch, go home at the end of the day, and grow up to be cool. They hoped their teacher would be nice to them that day. But at nine o’clock eastern time a young man took some of his mom’s guns and drove to his mom’s school to shoot people.

When I got to work, someone in the staff room told me what had happened in Connecticut. At first, I just kept moving. That’s what teachers do at schools early in the morning. Keep moving, all the while asking myself so many questions. The news said that the young man had taken SOME of his mom’s guns. How the hell many guns did she have, anyway? They kept saying he had a personality disorder. Why did anyone think it would be a good idea for him to know how to use an automatic weapon? Why does his mom have automatic weapons in the house? I had to stop myself from thinking about it anymore. Back to my photocopying, back to my plans, back to my coffee, back to the day.

Once I got home, I found out the children who had been murdered were first graders, six-year-olds. Six years before this day somebody made a wish and it came true. For six years these little kids had been somebody’s little loves. Now they were gone. Their teacher couldn’t help them. The principal couldn’t help them. (“Principal, main, chief.”) She threw herself on the armed man and got shot. And when horrible things happen to children, and grown-ups can’t make it go away, it is the worst, worst, worst thing ever. And it keeps happening.

So what do we do? How do we teach hope in a the not-best of all possible worlds? Spend a few more minutes in the running shoes store not thinking about running shoes, just marveling at what a dark-eyed six-year-old can grow up to be. Keep an eye out for the young man in the back of the bus whose sister is a nurse in Redwood City. Cry sometimes, pray, go to sleep, have nightmares, get up, feed the cat, drink some coffee, go to work, realize that, yes, horrible things can happen to even my kids. I mean, somebody else’s kids. See them and our time with them as absolutely irreplaceable. Remember that at six o’clock our time, nine o’clock eastern time some little kid was hoping his teacher would be nice to him. So no matter what else you think about—making copies, reading stories, breaking up tussles, or tying shoelaces—be nice. Just in case. And no matter how busy we think we are, chances are that most of these little ones will be helping someone pick out new running shoes or graduating from Georgetown or even teaching other people’s children someday. At least, in the best of all possible worlds, the world where nobody takes an automatic weapon into a school. Ever again.