Editor’s note: This post is being written in the wake of Canada’s worst mass shooting involving children at a school which, in this case, was in a tiny town in the interior of British Columbia called Tumbler Ridge. As I write these words, the final details of the incident remain unclear, the motive of the shooter (also a teenager) unknown. What is known, however, is the enormous sense of loss that the citizens of Tumbler Ridge are feeling. Today’s post is dedicated to the victims and their families and to a community whose history has been forever altered by this spasm of violence. I am so sorry for your loss. Blessings to you all.
Being a child and attending school is one of the ways in which we, as a society and as families, mark the passing of time. When our children are first of age to go to school, we hold their tiny hands and take them to buildings filled with adults who care about them. We hand our children over to these people and watch as they take our children by their tiny hands and lead them inside for the day. Later in the day, we stand by the fence line like groupies awaiting the arrival of rock stars, beaming in recognition when our own child emerges from the inside of the school back into our arms again. In many cases, there are hugs exchanged. Backpacks are tossed to the ground. Freedom is at hand. It is time for everyone to go home. For parents, this daily ritual of dropping off and picking up our children becomes woven into the D.N.A. of our lives. However, in time, our children grow up and prefer not to hold our hand on this daily journey. We are allowed to walk with them but that granted permission will have to suffice. Soon, the kids will run ahead of us and forget to look back once they arrive at the school yard and see their friends already playing there. Eventually, we will be asked not to walk with them at all because to be seen with your parents is the ultimate embarrassment in the eyes of a child who is now a teenager. And so, we gradually let them go.
I am the lucky father of two beautiful, talented, funny, intelligent daughters. I took them to school each day until the time came when they informed me that they preferred to walk on their own. I was always proud to accompany my girls each day as they headed out into their version of the world. I was equally taken aback when the time came for that to stop because, truth be told, the act of dropping off and picking up was always as much for my benefit as it was for them. I did my best to see them safely to school each morning. As a dad it meant that I had protected them and kept them safe. Once I watched my girls safely enter their school building each day, I knew I had done my job as their father. Then at the end of the school day I would pick them up again, ply them with snacks and dad jokes and hear all about how they had spent their day. I loved this school routine.
I am also a retired elementary school teacher. I have been on both sides of the unspoken contract that exists between parents and educators. I have dropped my own kids off and picked them up. But I have also been the person who was entrusted by parents each day to look after their kids. I have been the caring adult who appeared in the school doorway each morning shouting words of encouragement to my students to pick up their backpacks and quickly line up so we could head inside and begin our day. And once everyone was lined up in an orderly fashion, in we would go. I would always give one last wave to the parents who had remained by the fenceline to acknowledge the trust that they were showing in that moment. They had ensured that their children had made it safely to school. My wave to them told them that I was on duty now. Their child was safe with me. I could take it from there. For now anyway, the parents were released and could go about the rest of their day unencumbered by the responsibility of parenthood. Even now that I am retired, I still watch other moms and dads from my neighbourhood taking their children to school in the mornings and I always marvel at this unspoken bond of trust they have with the caring adults in their child’s school. That bond of trust forms one of the pillars of our society. It is all good people and acts of well-placed faith on display. It is how our world should work on all levels, if you ask me.
Even though I had thirty consecutive summers off and was increasingly well-paid as my career went on, it was always the relationships with the kids that I consider to be the best part of being a teacher. Each year a new collection of shiny faces would appear before me. I would lead them into a virtually empty room and tell them that I was excited to be part of their school family for the year. I would tell them that next to their own real family at home, we would be the closest thing to a family that they would know for the next ten months of their lives. I would tell them that we would be in each other’s company so much that kindness mattered a lot, as did the courage to be their true selves in our presence. I promised them that I would always be fair in my dealings with them and, in return, I only ever wanted them to try their best each day and to be happy little citizens in the process. *(To learn more about how I created a positive learning environment at the beginning of the school year, click here to read a previously written post, the contents of which I have spoken aloud at two weddings of former students I have been asked to emcee.)
In any case, the students and I would start our school year in a relatively empty room and then, as we grew together as a school family, the work that they produced began to colour our room like exhibits in a gallery or a museum. The warmth and colours of their hearts and minds would surround us as we learned new things each day. It was in this world of public accomplishment that we would all begin feeling better about ourselves and what we had to offer the world. By filling our classroom space with the words and drawings and ideas of the kids, our formerly bare classroom came alive and became a living canvas upon which anything was possible. Our room became a mirror of who we were as a classroom family. It was our safe space. It was our home away from home. And then, just like that, we would look up at the clock on the wall and discover that our day together was coming to an end and it was time for me to return each child to their parents so that they could go to their real home. Sometimes our day ended with a hug or a high five but most often, it ended with the student racing out of the school building, backpack akimbo, into the waiting arms of their mom or dad or grandparents who had come to pick them up. I would wave again to those adults, sealing our compact. I had safely returned each child into the hands of those who loved them most. My job was complete. For the moment, I was released.
That daily exercise in trust between parents and teachers would go on all throughout the school year. Then we would arrive at the final month of school. By that time, we were a very real family. We had shared a great many experiences together and learned so much about each other and ourselves that it almost seemed like there couldn’t possibly be anything left to uncover. It was very satisfying to have helped to successfully complete this portion of their journey with them. And so, just as we began our time together at the beginning of the school year in an empty room, the final week or so of the school year became a time when we began to process of taking everything down. Each day of those final two weeks or so, we would take a few minutes and clear off one bulletin board or shelf. We would talk about the memories that we had created together that each story or painting or experiment represented. Little by little, we would replay our year as a school family and celebrate our accomplishments and personal and collective growth. Little by little the room would empty. Finally, on the last day of school for the year, we would share our final moments together, have our final laughs and head out into the warmth of the summer sun, at which time I would thank the parents for trusting me with their children for the year. We would wish each other a happy summer. Then they would turn and toddle off happily. I would turn and head back into the school and to our classroom which now was just an empty room. I would sweep up in the quiet of what our shared space had become. The desks would be pushed to a corner and stacked so that the custodians could give the room a thorough cleaning during the summer months. Eventually there would be nothing left except the sun in an empty room. I would pack up my things and head home, too. My job was done. I, too, was released again and everything in my world would become really, really quiet.
“Sun In An Empty Room” is a song by a terrific band out of Winnipeg, Manitoba called The Weakerthans. *(I have written about The Weakerthans in a previous post that you can access by clicking here). John K. Samson is the lead singer and songwriter for the band. He is truly one of Canada’s great poets. “Sun In An Empty Room” is based on a painting of the same name by well known artist Edward Hopper. Hopper has produced many famous paintings, including the iconic “Nighthawks”, sometimes referred to as “Boulevard of Broken Dreams”. One of his most famous traits as an artist is his obsession with light and shadows. Many who view his paintings come away with a sense of sadness or loss and, as such, Hopper has become known as one of the foremost authorities in being able to visualize the feeling of loneliness and emptiness. His painting “Sun In An Empty Room” is no different. Much like my classroom space after the children have left for the summer, Hopper shows a cold, bare room that has sunlight pouring into it. Whether this sunlight is creating any warmth is hard to tell because the only thing we can see is shadow. When it came time for John K. Samson to write the lyrics to today’s song, he did so by talking about empty spaces and the memories of those who had once been there to fill the place with their energy and their love. To get a sense of Samson’s poetic take, here are the closing verses:
Know the things we need to say
Been said already anyway
By parallelograms of light
On walls that we repainted white
Take eight minutes and divide
By ninety million lonely miles
And watch his shadow cross the floor
We don’t live here anymore.
I like the closing verse, in particular, for the imagery it contains of a ray of sunlight traveling all the way across the solar system into a home, only to arrive to find the home empty and everyone gone. The futility of such a wasted trip.
“Sun In An Empty Room” by The Weakerthans was deliberately written in such a way that its message remains ambiguous. Some have taken it as being a song about divorce and the separation of two people who once shared hopes and dreams. Some view it as a song about the death of a loved one and the void that their passing creates in your heart. In the official video for this song, the message seems to be one of a changing way of life for one community of Samson’s native Winnipeg. As with many cities and towns, economic factors have given rise to boom times but also to times of decline and urban decay. This video and song, when paired together, talk about that kind of transformation and the effect it has on the people undergoing said change. To have the rays of the sun shine upon you and not be able to feel their warmth is the emotional message that this song conveys. “Sun In An Empty Room” is poetry, pure and simple. It is also the closest a song has come to capturing the feeling I always had on the last day of school after the kids had all left and gone home and were never coming back to be with me as a school family. The sun may have been shining but the silence was all encompassing. It always ended for me with a heart filled with memories and a room filled with ghosts.
To say goodbye to my school family on the last day of school is one thing but to have members of that family killed in a senseless act of violence is something that I can not even begin to comprehend. It is my worst nightmare as a father and as a teacher. That daily trust exercise that plays out between drop off and pick up times at schools in communities all across our country is a sacred exchange that we all often take for granted on both sides of the compact. However, as events in Tumbler Ridge clearly show, those everyday moments when we let our children go so matter-of-factly bear a bitter harvest when the worst case scenario comes to fruition. The only thing that I can say for sure about this incident is that I know how quiet it must be in Tumbler Ridge right now. Devastatingly quiet. Sadness has a sound and that sound is silence. Sadness has a look, too. It is the look of sun in an empty room. No warmth. Just shadow. God Bless everyone affected by this tragedy in Tumbler Ridge, B.C. My heart aches for you all.
The link to the video for the song “Sun In An Empty Room” by The Weakerthans can be found here. *Sorry but there is no lyrics version for this song.
The link to the official website for The Weakerthans can be found here.
The link to the official website for painter Edward Hopper can be found here.
The link to the official website for the town of Tumbler Ridge, British Columbia can be found here.
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