The Lessons

It's not the lesson we hoped Connor would be learning in second grade, but it's an important lesson all the same. Stay by your partner's side; Let people know you love them; Live a life of compassion; and All living things will one day, die.

This afternoon, parents of students in Connor's class received news that the primary teacher's husband had died. The email noted that news was spreading fast and advised parents to take the opportunity to talk to their children in the evening, so they weren't surprised at school the next day. I was going up to school in a few minutes to pick Connor up anyway, and everyone in the office (faculty, staff, parents) were grief-stricken.

So sad.

For the school auction, the children all wrote essays about what their life would be like in 20 years. I volunteered to scan the essays, and because I have a very slow scanner, I was able to read through all of them during my task. The teacher contributed an essay and the whole thing is about travel she hopes to be doing with her husband. When I first read it, I was nervous - knowing that her husband was ill, but now my heart just breaks in two.

Life is so precious.

Tonight, after we came home from the baseball game and a visit to a new yogurt store, got jammies on and whizzed through homework, Ed held Connor as I told him the news. Connor sobbed. And we took a moment to talk about what a wonderful thing his teacher had done, being by her husband for so much time, even though she missed her class dearly. We talked about how we can send a note to the teacher and if we don't know what to say, we can just write "I love you". We even talked about how even though we did not know her husband, we are still sad for her, because we love her so much. We briefly covered the ground that people sometimes die after being sick for a long time, hoping to avoid anxiety over the next minor illness that Ed or I happen to contract.

May today's rains bring tomorrow's beautiful flowers,
Elaine

Updated April 5:
P.S. This morning, Connor wrote his teacher an "I Love You Mrs. [name]" in a rainbow of colors. On the back, he drew these flowers.