i am being ballsy. something about holding your weeping daughter and hearing her fear of not being in school with her friends anymore because of the flood can really get you going. my kids go to school in lyons, colorado. yes, the one in the news. the one that has totally flooded. it's not that the school isn't there, it's that you can't get there from here. the roads and bridges are out. i mean gone. washed away. wreckage. the town has been decimated. it's heart wrenching.
so, i wrote the district superintendent. i told him about the grief of my daughter and of her friends. i talked about how they need to be together to process and cope. and he wrote back and said that his goal will be to keep the staff and students together. i cried. my daughter told me to thank him.
then, i wrote to the board president at my school that wanted to get back to business as usual sooner than the rest of the district. i can't tell you how amazingly flooded our city is. words don't describe it. so many people are going to need help. 7000 homes were evacuated. We aren't a huge place. People don't have power. And water. Bridges are washed away. Roads are raging rivers. And even when the water goes away, there will be loads of clean up. I wrote and said that i thought that we should teach our students to be good citizens and help out with all of that rather than saying that our building is ok so we are going to go back to normal and let the rest of you sort out your problems. it really upset me. a lot. so, i wrote. to the whole school. troublemaker? maybe. but lots of people were whispering about it. nobody was just saying, "are you freaking insane?"
the kids are all grieving. so much loss. of stuff. of a sense of safety. of having what is normal. my daughter has wanted to be at her school for two days. she feels lost. my son in his own way as well.
i was ballsy. i did hard things. brave things. i stood up.
i'm proud.
so, i wrote the district superintendent. i told him about the grief of my daughter and of her friends. i talked about how they need to be together to process and cope. and he wrote back and said that his goal will be to keep the staff and students together. i cried. my daughter told me to thank him.
then, i wrote to the board president at my school that wanted to get back to business as usual sooner than the rest of the district. i can't tell you how amazingly flooded our city is. words don't describe it. so many people are going to need help. 7000 homes were evacuated. We aren't a huge place. People don't have power. And water. Bridges are washed away. Roads are raging rivers. And even when the water goes away, there will be loads of clean up. I wrote and said that i thought that we should teach our students to be good citizens and help out with all of that rather than saying that our building is ok so we are going to go back to normal and let the rest of you sort out your problems. it really upset me. a lot. so, i wrote. to the whole school. troublemaker? maybe. but lots of people were whispering about it. nobody was just saying, "are you freaking insane?"
the kids are all grieving. so much loss. of stuff. of a sense of safety. of having what is normal. my daughter has wanted to be at her school for two days. she feels lost. my son in his own way as well.
i was ballsy. i did hard things. brave things. i stood up.
i'm proud.
No comments:
Post a Comment
Go ahead. Make my day. Leave me a comment.