Heart of spring

It’s simply astonishing to watch the transformation. Darkness creeps in later these days, its staying power diminished in the pull of a spring sun. Tree buds explode in the gathering light and splash color and scent across neighborhoods. Change abounds in the heart of spring; it all seems so new.

But the reality is that what we see is not newly invented—just transformed. What we see, smell, and even hear has not been created, but uncovered.

Educators, always primed to recognize transformation, sense even the slightest change in the air. Last semester I received a message from a boy I taught years ago. I saw him in my mind, recognizing the dark eyes and brown hair painting his long face. Using the proper educational euphemisms, I remembered him as challenging and spirited.

Trouble just found this boy and he embraced it like a hometown welcoming its returning soldiers. It seemed he was comfortable in discord. Reveled in it. But his eyes held a worried look as if he knew he was on the wrong path but didn’t know how to find a new one.

My predecessor, Father George Tribou, counseled him relentlessly and made the faculty aware that the boy remained teetering on the edge. “Coax him back over the rail,” he’d say. “Push him with compassion, pull him with accountability, do whatever it takes to make sure he falls on our side.” The boy was having none of it.

I remembered that he involved himself in gangs and came to school with evidence of fights dotting his face. He back-talked teachers, a mortal sin in any school. As time went on, he became rougher and had interactions with the police. He was given opportunity after opportunity to try again, to improve. The boy’s 14-year-old mind wouldn’t allow it. Finally, the chances ran out and expulsion erupted. He left for good.

As my mind ticked through these memories of him, I realized that the boy was no longer a youth anymore. Teachers have a way of trapping their students in time, considering them always as the students they taught instead of the adults they inevitably become. The boy had to be in his 40s now, I realized. No longer a boy at all, but a man experiencing middle age. What could he possibly want?

I picked up the phone and dialed the unfamiliar area code. A voice sounding raspy from cigarettes answered. The picture of the long face framed by dark hair, the little kid who had a chip on his shoulder, evaporated. We exchanged pleasantries and short memories until he got down to the reason for the call.

“I just wanted to tell you what I’m doing right now. When you last knew me, I was on a terrible path. You probably remember that I was fatherless and my mom wasn’t around much either. I got involved in gangs and was doing every bad thing I could. The police picked me up and they called Fr. Tribou. He gave me a chance, but I wasn’t ready for it.”

The man sighed deeply and continued. “I had teachers who challenged me. I’ll never forget this. One said, ‘Why don’t you actually try on this test? Let’s see who you really are.’ See who I really am? I thought. Show someone the real me? That was a novel idea, but I bit. You know what happened? I scored the second highest grade in the class and the teacher announced it. Announced it to everyone. For the first time in my life, I was proud of myself. But I wasn’t ready to be who I really was.”

I listened quietly, occasionally filling space when he paused with “uhhuh,” and “right.”

“So, I kept down that wrong path and ultimately you know the rest of the story. I got expelled. I remember walking out of that school and sitting on my backpack on the sidewalk and crying.”

I felt bad listening to the story. So many times, teachers see only the symptoms and never get the chance to focus on the actual wound. His wound devoured him.

“So, I moved out of state and my rough time continued. I got in more trouble. Moved around a lot. But I kept hearing those words from my freshman year over and over again, ‘Let’s see who you really are. Let’s see who you really are.’” He paused for a long time.

“Today, I am an architect and I’m doing pretty well for myself. I have a 10-year-old son. I fought like hell to beat cancer. And I think about that boy who cried on the sidewalk in front of school a lot these days. I just … I just wanted someone to know that I’ve come a long way.”

Educators are master gardeners, sensing even the slightest temperature variation, the tiniest change in the air. It’s not unique to one school, but universally available across the profession. The good ones instinctively know when to plant and how to fertilize. They just know. Over time, what they planted will find the surface.

Looking out my window in the heart of spring, I remembered that phone call. It came during the bleak months of winter and the dark months of the pandemic. Now, the landscape is transformed. Once again, I’m reminded that what is so obvious before me did not have to be created, invented, or imagined. It just had to be uncovered.

“Thank you for taking my call,” the former student had said. “Let me know if I can ever help a student like me. I’ll drop everything I’m doing and hop on a plane to Little Rock. And please tell my former teachers I said hello. Let them know that after a lot of digging, I’m finally proud of myself.”

He paused. “I found out who I really am.”