Ciao ciao

"Maestra, someone shot my dog" little Kinder Jay told me solemnly. He was out of his chair. "Shot your dog? Who told you that?". "My dad. My dog ran away. Then someone shot him". "I'm so sorry, Jay. I'm so sorry". "My mom got her arm cut off". "What? Got her arm cut off, what happened?" I asked. "She doesn't want to have any more babies. So she got her arm cut off". "Come here, honey, let's help Billy" I said, shifting toward my cognitively wrecked student that had been staring at us with his knees drawn to his chest. I put Jay between Billy's table and myself and wrapped my arms around him while we did Billy's search and find puzzle for him.

"Who's got a February birthday?!" the parent called out into our morning meeting. Several kids rose. I noticed they were some of the stranger kids. Gilbert, who deliberately cut the legs of her paper man. Adam, who stares at me with a spacey look in his eyes and then starts jumping up and down rapidly. My birthday is in February too. They are my peers.

So he's out. Released. Alejandro has been released. It happened on my birthday, though I didn't really find out explicitly for a couple of days. It would have been a nice gift. I had a good day anyway, even though I found out that my boss is really trying to fire me and destroy my ability to work as a teacher in the future the evening before. I shook it off. He's free, probably on a glitch in the system. I am watching him fade away, like Leo and Rogelio and Pedro and Julio and all of the men like him that I have intensely come to know in a short period of time and through extreme circumstances that leave you to wonder the whole rest of your life what ever happened to them. I'll remember him. I remember all of them.

"The spider is not in the boy's bathroom anymore" Kinder George mentioned randomly in the hallway. "Really?" I asked, as if I had been abreast of the situation for some time. "Nope. It's gone. Coach Halloran killed it. Smashed it dead". Good to know. GOOD TO KNOW.

"I'm moving to Shanghai," Anna announced "my last day is Friday". What? No, really. What? She was the first kid that liked me at my new school. During dismissal, she asked me to walk her outside, EVERY DAY, even though she knew the way. She would hold my hand. There's always a first one. I remember the child named Sir. Standing in the hallway on the Friday of my first week as a teacher, I watched the 2000 student strong sea of humanity file out of the school, a frazzled smile pasted to my face. I felt a pat on my shoulder, a genuine, encouraging shoulder hug. Sir smiled at me happily and walked out the door. He was the first one to like me there and Anna, here.

I don't want her to leave. But I will remember her.