A Thin Veil and a Stained Glass Cross

Last year was one of the most difficult years of my life.

I had finished three years of educational consulting with the school board. They didn't want me back for a fourth year. I thought I'd be printing resumes, putting on a suit and doing interviews. The board owed me a job, but I thought I'd have no control over where I landed. I was told this when I started my three years as a consultant. Still, after nearly thirty years of teaching, the prospect of landing in a really hard school and/or driving for forty minutes to and from work in my last year before retirement wasn't a thrill. And I have to say, at the time, the rejection stung.

Unbeknownst to me, the last school I taught at had to take me back. The principal called and told me she received an "obligation memo" -- if I wanted back in, they had to take me.

I took it. In September of 2015, I was back at the last school in which I had taught prior to my consulting gig. I did a five year stint there as the head of English from 2007-2012. I had the privilege of being in the same school with my youngest two children. I taught my daughter twice (along with nephew and lots of friends' kids).

On another positive note, after being rejected by the board, it was cool to spend my last year as a teacher in the classroom with no responsibilities as an educational coach or a department head. I had had better classes over my career. I had had worse. But as far as a year's worth of classes goes, these ended up being the six nicest I'd ever had.  In the end, I feel that the school board did me a favour by not wanting me back as a consultant.

Back to it being one of the most difficult years of my life. It had nothing to do with teaching and everything to do with my health. If you've followed my blog, you'll know that from June 2014 until November 2014, I did six months of intensive chemo for Non Hodgkins Lymphoma. In February 2015, I started what was supposed to be two years of maintenance treatments. After four of eight session, I was suffering from chronic neutropenia.

One hospital stay and much research later, my wife and I weighed the risk of staying with a perennially low white blood count against the benefit of sticking with maintenance treatments for a second year. We stopped maintenance treatments.

The middle of this journey brings us to my last year of teaching. I had just spent a week in the hospital while on vacation in August. As I said, although I had taught at this school for five years, by the time I had returned, yes, the school and most of the staff were familiar to me, but the students were all brand new. For those of you who are teachers, you'll understand that dynamic of students mistrusting/testing the new guy.

Add to that the large question mark hanging over my head with a dangerously low white blood count; at the risk of stating the obvious, it was a stressful beginning to a school year.

Regarding the neutropenia, let me give a bit of context. A normal range is 1.5 - 8.0. I was hovering at 0.1 for the better part of a year. In plain English, some kid sneezing on me could've easily landed me in the hospital. At the risk of sounding overly dramatic, worst case scenario was: get an infection, don't get it treated quickly enough, contract sepsis, die.

One final embarrassing detail. I had IBS -- a side effect of the chemo.  On most days, during the fifteen to twenty minute car ride to work, I'd have to stop to go to the bathroom -- this, after already having gone two or three times at home before leaving for work. More gory details?  On most days, I'd barely pull into the parking lot and have to a rush to a toilet before having to go again. The male teacher staff bathroom was, fortunately, ten metres down the hall from my room. Before noon on most days, I'd make another two or three visits.

My wife tells me, there's no way I would've been able to teach at the elementary level. I'm not sure how I made it at the secondary level.

As I've already said, I'm glad I spent my last year before retirement in the classroom. But given everything I've described above, there were many many days that I wanted to pack it in -- go on long term disability and ride off into the sunset for a June 2016 retirement. I was told that I had more than enough cause to ask. But, call it pride, call it whatever, that's not what I wanted for my last year in a career I've had to privilege to thoroughly enjoy.
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There were many evenings where I could barely make it until 8:30 pm before going to bed. There was such a night in late November of 2015. I remember driving to work the next morning battling many thoughts. Do I know what I'm teaching today? Am I prepared for period one? Will I make it to the bathroom? It's nearly December... I have seven months to go. Will I make it? Should I just pack it in and take an extended sick leave?

While I was having these thoughts, I was approaching the last turn which would've put me about a kilometre away from my school. I was a few cars behind a city bus as I approached this last turn. The bus slowed and I slowed along with it. Why was it slowing? Ah, bus stop. The one or two cars in front of me pulled past the bus as it approached its stop.  By the time I tried to pass the bus it had stopped to pick up passengers. I checked blind spots and was just about to go by the stopped bus when out of the corner of my eye, I caught something. Then I felt and heard a thud. I had hit someone.

Unless you've hit someone with a car, you can't imagine the sick feeling. Your first thought is, "Oh dear God, I've just killed someone...."

I pulled the car over onto a bike lane on the other side of the street. By the time I got to the girl whom I'd struck, the bus driver and people with cell phones were already there. I heard someone say, "Where's the guy who hit her? Did he take off?"

Someone else replied, "No, he pulled over there. Here he is."

The immediate good news that greeted me was that the girl I had hit was not dead. In fact, my initial impression -- which turned out to be accurate -- was that she was not seriously hurt. The girl was needless to say, however, visibly shaken. She wanted to get up, but one of the bystanders, who turned out to be a nurse, convinced her not to.

In no time, the police and paramedics arrived.  Everyone's -- including the girl's -- stories jived. She tried to make a mad dash across the road without looking.

I gave my statement and got the reporting officer's card. I called him later. He told me that the girl was taken to the hospital and was released soon thereafter with minor scratches and bruises. X-ray revealed nothing was broken.

While I was waiting to have my statement taken, I called my principal to let him know what had happened and to give him the heads up that I might not make it for period one. Being the good man that he is, he told me to not worry and take as much time as I needed.

The two predominant thoughts as I left the scene to go to work were I hope she's okay and I can't do this anymore. I'm taking at least the rest of the semester off. 

As it turned out, I arrived at school with about ten minutes to spare. When I got to my room, another teacher was sitting at my desk. He was there to cover for me in case I was late. Said teacher had heard vague details of the accident and was concerned. As I was filling him in on the details and sharing how this was the bad cherry on top of a really hard year, a period two student walked in.

Not unlike many fifteen year olds, she was oblivious to the intense adult conversation that was taking place as she entered. She had something that needed doing and she was focused. "I brought you a Christmas present," she said, as she put her backpack on a desk in front of us and started unzipping it (her backpack, not the desk :). As she proceeded to take out something wrapped in tissue paper, she said, "I don't normally give presents to teachers. Only to the ones I really like. The ones who have had an impact on my life."

Brian, the teacher who was there, looked at the student, looked at me, looked back at the student. I think our mouths might have gaped open at what emerged from the tissue paper. It was a stained glass cross which the student had handcrafted at home.

The student left. There was a beat of silence and then the warning bell sounded indicating that period one would start in five minutes. "Oh my God..." Brian said. "Someone's looking after you." He put his hand on my shoulder and left.

Several years ago we heard a sermon on heaven and a reference was made to the "thin veil". It's a moment or a place or an interaction or a memory where you sense eternity. We live, eat, breathe, exist mostly in the mundane. But occasionally, our senses -- spirits -- become acutely aware that there is something beyond the pedantic. Maybe angels become more present. Maybe invisible tongues of fire warm us. Echoes of Pentecost.

I don't know what that feeling is when you encounter something like that -- the ephemeral presence of the divine -- but I think  the poet William Blake was onto it when he penned this verse:

To see a world in a grain of sand
And a heaven in a wild flower
Hold infinity in the palm of your hand
And eternity in an hour.
-- William Blake