June is hard for me. As the season changes and the weather brightens, I find myself every year in a bit of a funk. My dad died in June, the day before Father’s Day, fourteen years ago, and I still grieve his loss. We all know, Americans don’t do death well, and I am an American. I’m also an introverted feeler. And while I can, based on family lore, trace my ancestry back to the Puritans, I did not inherit their general stoicism, nor ability to channel it like Jackie Kennedy, when her shock-frozen face, behind her starched black veil, and her emotionally stuffed demeanor was lauded in the press as a model of the perfect widow.   Keeping a “stiff upper lip,” as it were. That’s not me. My partner and kids know and joke about the fact that I can be brought to tears by, well, just about anything. I also have one anonymous student who commented on “Rate My Teacher” that I was a good teacher, but I cried a lot. I can probably count on one hand how many times I’ve cried in class and still have enough left over to make change, but the sentiment isn’t lost. And there is a lot to cry about in teaching. The standard litany of gripes could bring anyone to tears. Let alone, for me, the schedule of sleep deprivation when I have to be “on” by 7:40, but am not really fully awake until 9; the pace of teaching when I often realize I need to use the restroom early in the day, but can’t remember by 3pm if I have done that or not; the number of decisions I make every day (see my previous post for the shocking number!); and the gravity of the responsibilities of the job.

So I am emotional. And I continue to grieve the loss of a parent, especially, but not uniquely, on the anniversary of his death.

But June brings about another grief that we don’t often talk about. As a teacher, I greive the loss of 150+ relationships every year.

“Good teachers,” Parker Palmer says in his seminal book, The Courage to Teach: Exploring the Inner Landscape of a Teacher’s Life, “possess a capacity for connectedness. They are able to weave a complex web of connections among themselves, their subjects, and their students so that students can learn to weave a world for themselves.”  There are also numerous studies that connect the student-teacher relationship to the achievement levels of the student: authentic, nurturing relationship = high achievement. Seems like a no-brainer, right? The more a teacher cares about a student, and the more a student feels cared for, the better the student learns. This has everything to do with feelings of safety and security and the biological programming the Commission on Children at Risk (a consortium of doctors, research scientists and mental health and youth service professionals) outlined in their groundbreaking study that illustrates how human beings must have relational connections with others to survive. Babies not connected with an adult do not thrive and even die. It’s about chemicals like dopamine and serotonin in the brain, and how the brain functions and grows and develops as a result of social interaction. It is overwhelming how much a human’s brain grows in those early years of life. And the growth is not just about learning language and how to think.

Most living things are born knowing their purpose in life. It’s called instinct. Animals know how to survive and thrive from early on. Childhood is a blip in time. Quickly each species maturates and simply knows how to find food and eat, how to make a safe shelter, when to mate, how to raise offspring, etc.   No one tells them to do this. There is no What to Expect When You Are Expecting or Men Are From Mars books to educate them. They instinctively know their purpose and function. Humans, for the most part, are not born consciously knowing what their purpose is (Gaia.com). They learn that in relationship with others. They are taught. They follow role models. They date. And eventually, hopefully, they come to some understanding on what this life means and what their gifts and obligations to it are. According to the Commission’s study, this learning and brain development takes place well into the third decade of life, with considerable changes continuing in the prefrontal cortex (the center of emotion and executive functioning) that leads to critical emergence of conscience and moral reasoning happening during, but also well beyond when I see students in their teen years. When I think back on my own life, that totally makes sense. Of course the need for strong relationships continue past childhood. I’m still learning. And my job as a teacher and a mom is to provide all of my “kids” safe and authentic relationships — the love and support they need to grow and learn and thrive. And I wouldn’t have it any other way.

But there is a cost that people don’t really talk about when you give your heart away. At first is it vulnerability and anxiety. September means learning 150+ names, pronouncing them right, getting to know a flock of strangers, setting the right tone, planting the seed. Falling in love. Not like that first moment you see your child. Nothing compares to that. But a love that grows of intention and planning and patience. I intentionally fall in love with my new 150+’ers. They become my kids. When I talk about them, I say, “my kids.” People ask me all the time who I’m talking about, my children, or my students. They are all my kids. And like my own children, the love isn’t always easy. I don’t get to choose whether or not I love my children. I do get to choose if I love my students. So I choose. Even when they don’t choose back. When they skip class or roll their eyes or don’t do their homework or goof off or engage in any of a million buttheadedry actions. It doesn’t matter. Because I believe there is good in everyone. And I believe they deserve it. And I know it makes me a better person.

Through the months, the love grows. By June, I’ve seen so much aspiration, pain, growth, joy, all of it. We have shared a journey. And then they go. For the last two years I have taught only senior classes. So in a couple of days, all my kids graduate. In a frenzy of celebration and craziness, they walk down the isle and out of my life. I may see some of them again. Two or three come back to visit once or twice. One or two may friend me on Facebook (I have a strict policy of not friending until after graduation, and even then, I’m pretty selective.) I have maintained true friendships with 3 students from my 26 years of teaching. So out of 150 X 26 years, I am friends with .07%.

How many times can the heart divide? Create room? Does the heart expand to fill all new love? Can it ever run out of space? The part of my heat I gave to my dad is his and his alone, but the love he gave me created new space in my heart–parent space—for my own children. I think about my former students, the one who almost took her own life, whom I sat with for hours just listening, the one who nearly died in a tragic accident, the one who did die, the one who went to MIT, the one who went to NYU, the ones who became teachers and mothers and fathers, healers and sages and leaders, and the ones I have no idea about. If you cut me open right now, would their names be visible on my ventricles and aorta?

So I sit in my grief and I wonder. And steel myself for the end of the week. And a part of me turns, already, to next year when the new 150+ will arrive. My late friend and mentor Rachel Kessler talked about the typical stages of grief as having three distinct parts: Protection, Feeling and Healing. Right now I’m a bit in protection, denying I will be standing in line ugly crying goodbyes to my kids as they run past me into their futures. Next week, when they are gone, and I am here cleaning and organizing and stacking the chairs, I will feel sad they are gone. I will be a bit lost as I transition into summer and out of the teaching routine, but over the summer I will move through acceptance, and in late August, I will arrive at hope for a

new year and new opportunities to love and ache and feel it all, all over again. But that’s two (not three) months away. To get there, I will go through the coping strategies I have become familiar with and which are recommended:

• Talk with friends and family about my feelings.
• Keep elements of my routine in place or modify, but stick to a routine.
• I will sleep – not too much, but sleep.
• Eat a healthy, well-balanced diet.
• Avoid too much alcohol or alcohol too often.
• Count my blessings (I added this one.) Each and every face that has blessed me with their life for a semester or a year.

So, congratulations, graduates! I’m proud of you, I love you, and I will miss you!

WARNING: It is natural to move through the three stages of grief, and each person moves through them at their own rate. If you do not feel able to cope with the emotions, the intense emotions are not subsiding, you are not sleeping, have feelings of depression or anxiety or problems with sex, accidents or normal relationships, or if you are caring for someone who is having a hard time coping, please seek professional help. Your GP is a good place to start, or you can call or text the CRISIS line at 1-877-235-4525