i woke up on saturday morning in a sweat. drenched, my pajamas glued to me, my heart racing. mere moments before i had been in the classroom where i taught at dillard drive middle, surrounded by my second period class of algebra I students. there is gunfire down the hall and it's getting closer and i have twenty-five pairs of eyes looking to me for direction.
what do we do, mrs. mann? they ask me. i frantically whirl around, from the windows to the door and back again to face them.
should we make a run for it? should we hide? if we hide, where do we go? i don't know how to answer. think. THINK. my classroom is at the end of the building and there are woods about ten yards away. but i'm not sure we have enough time to get there. in a split-second decision, i herd them all into the bathroom just like the brave heroic teacher at sandy hook had, whose interview was the last thing i had seen before falling asleep on friday night. and it is only at this point that i realize that you can't squeeze twenty-five teenagers into a bathroom. you can't stick them on top of paper towel dispensers and sinks. they're too big. panic sets in as the door won't shut and the gunfire draws closer. my students' eyes grow wider as they look to me for reassurance. and all i can do, as we know we are about to draw our final breaths, is to tell them that i love them. just like that heroic teacher at sandy hook had.
because no child is ever too big for that.
this tragedy has rocked me to my core. even in the midst of a weekend four hours away from home for liam's indoor soccer championships, it was all i could think about. chris would gently, from time to time, suggest that i stop reading about it. but i couldn't. i still can't.
i won't pretend for a moment that i have anything of any importance to share, especially since it seems every person on this planet has already weighed in with their own thoughts that are usually far more eloquent than my own. but this has had such a profound impact on me that i feel a need to document it for myself.
i think that i have been so affected by this tragedy for several reasons. one, i am a teacher. in most aspects of my life, i would define myself as a mother before i'd define myself professionally -- but when i first heard about newtown, my first reaction was one as a teacher.
what would i have done? i asked myself.
how would i have protected my students? how could i have kept them calm? that nightmare that i had on friday night has repeated itself every night since. and it's always with the same class of students -- my second period algebra I class of 2001. the class of students who watched with me, in horror, as the events of september 11 unfolded on the television screen in the corner of my classroom. i can name each one of those students to this day and tell you where they were sitting. i'm sure it's no coincidence that they are the ones i'm trying to protect in my nightmare.
it was only after introspection that i realized that i've also been so shaken because of the mental illness piece of the story. i have seen, up close, what mental illness can do. i have witnessed how it can change someone, how it can make them violent and frightening, and how as much as you are inclined to blame them for their actions and hold them accountable, you have to remind yourself that they are
ill. i have seen close family members struggle with caring for someone with mental illness, and have seen just a glimpse of the heartache and agony and frustration and time and energy and medications and counseling and special programs and money that go into helping make this person better. i thank God over and over again that this person is getting the help he needs. because we know what can happen when people don't.
but the obvious part speaks the loudest: i am a parent. and not just any parent, but a parent of a first grader. a parent of a child who is the exact same age as the children who died at sandy hook. at 9:30 on friday morning, susanna was likely doing the same kind of activity that those twenty fellow first graders in connecticut were doing -- maybe a math puzzle in a small group, or circle time on the carpet with the whole class. she opened up her lunchbox in the cafeteria to eat the same kind of lunch as their moms had packed for them that day. she was probably wearing the same size shoes as many of the girls and wants the same american girl doll as likely many of them requested for christmas. she will open that american girl doll on tuesday. they will not.
as soon as chris returned home on friday afternoon with liam and susanna from school, i had to hold them. i hadn't felt that deep, physical need to hold them in years -- i felt like i was almost going to be sick if i couldn't wrap my arms around them. i sat there on the floor of susanna's bedroom, rocking her in my lap, her soft cheek buried into my chest, her heart beating next to mine. she seemed to know what i needed without saying a word; we just sat there, silently, our arms wrapped around each other.
and i wept.
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