My family is an avid sleepaway summer camp family. My beloved, late father was an iconic, legendary director of a few renowned camps. We all grew up going to camp. This summer was my youngest daughter’s last summer as a camper. When the bus arrived, bringing her back from her last session as a camper, she and her friends got off the bus exhausted with puffy faces, clearly after having had a long deep cry. This is a monumental moment in her life, in all their lives. They got off that bus older and younger, small and big, sad and happy--all at the same time. There is something about a face after it has cried that is so incredibly tender, vulnerable, and in my eyes, absolutely beautiful. It’s a combination of caring, pain, love, and rawness– all at once meshed together. It is incredibly human and so intensely real.
In one of my classes, there was a woman sitting in the corner whose face looked just like the kids getting off the bus, puffy eyes, red cheeks, but here there was a deep sadness that was far beyond what my daughter and her friends were experiencing. I didn’t want to embarrass her and ask anything during the class, so I waited until the end of class. As she was walking out, I asked, “Is everything okay?” Sometimes when you hold pain it’s like a dam. All you need is for someone to touch it and it will come bursting out. In this case, I could tell that this one had already erupted, and she was just exhausted.
“Everything okay?” I asked again. “Yeah, Ms., I tried. I tried so hard and the fucker judge didn’t give me back my kids. I know I did wrong, but I am doing so good. I am clean. I got me a place. He just said it ain’t enough. Ms., how am I gonna make it enough? Fuck me if I know how!”
I don’t usually see the grief on their faces. My students are fierce and hold their masks tight. They tend to show all their emotion and none of their emotion at the same time. Usually, it is the fury and anger they show with no hesitation. The hurt and pain not so much. There was so much pain. “Ms., you think that judge will ever see me?” Fuck! I think to myself. I cannot be anything but honest with my students. They smell bullshit miles away. I wouldn’t dare say anything I don’t know, think, or believe in. “I don’t know,” I say. “I am sorry,” I add. “Why you be sorry?” she asks. “Cause I see you are sad, and I am sorry for that,” I say.
She is confused. “Why you sorry if I am sad. You did nothing.”
“I am sorry cause I know you are trying really hard and I know you are disappointed.”
“How come you see shit the judge ain’t seeing?” she asks.
“Well, he has in front of him things that I don’t. He is looking at your file, your priors and a lot of things that influence his decision.”
It got very quiet. She started to nod her head. “Ms., if he looks at that shit, he will never look at this.” And she pointed at herself.
There was something funny about the way she said that and we both laughed.
“Well,” I said, giggling, “That’s his loss.”
I don’t have a lot of power in these cases. Actually, I have almost NO power. I can write a letter. I can testify. I can believe. Sometimes the distance between who my students used to be and who they have become is too far for systems to catch up with and then do the right thing. The fight they have to do to prove themselves is exhausting. Everyone wants to see change. I really don’t think people understand how incredibly hard and how much you need to do for change to happen.
“You cannot change the past or what that judge is looking at. You can keep doing what you are doing,” I say. “Hope and pray for the best,” I add.
“You pray, Ms.?” She asks me.
“All the time,” I say and continue. “I pray for big things. I pray for stupid things. I pray for things I should pray for and things I should not pray for. I pray for my kids, for people I love. I also pray for people I don’t like. I also try to make deals with God. Give me this for that. I tell God, I do this so you really have to do that.”
She looks at me a little perplexed cause I babbled for a little too long and lost her in the middle.
“Girl, God don’t work that way. You’re asking too much from God, and you are all over the fucking place. God ain’t doing no deal with you. You gotta do it all by yourself.”
And there was the answer right there.
You can cry a river and beg God for this and that, but you have to do the work.
Period! Full stop!
I looked at her, and at her beautiful, sad and disappointed face.
“You are doing the work. You are doing the work so diligently and with intention. I know that God sees that.” I feel a little too woo-wee when I say that and feel like that means nothing.
She looks at me and laughs. “I’m not like you, Ms. I don’t have long conversations with God. I’m good with God. It’s the fucker judge I need to work on.”
We laugh and hug.
When I get into my car, where I typically do all my praying, I ask God to please do me this favor and make sure that that judge sees my beloved student.
