Stand Up

Eduardo's mom waited at the top of the hill again.  She started asking about a paper, a yellow paper.  Again, I had no idea what she was talking about. Thankfully, Eduardo's sister stepped in and yanked the yellow paper from her book bag so that I could explain it to her mom.  
I wished the other walkers and parents a good weekend as the school buses roared by.  Kids jumped up and down and screamed my name out of the windows.  I waved.  I slapped Eduardo on the shoulder, because some of the kids were trying to wave at him, too.
"A los estudiantes, te aman...."  Eduardo's mom said, a huge smile on her face.
I laughed.
"Son locos."  I responded. 
"That kid just waved a book at me that I have been trying to get back from him for months."  I said, laughing, while narrowing my eyes at Rafael as he lifted the offending book in his hands so that I could see it through the bus window. 
"He loves you, too."  She said motioning to Eduardo.  Her voice shifted a little.
"Dice: la quiero."  she continued, an almost mocking laugh coming out.  I glanced at Eduardo.  His face was a mixture of defiance and humiliation.  I mentally begged her to stop.  
"He told me he wants to come up here in the mornings before middle school to visit you!"  she continued, the strange harsh laugh coming out again.

I looked back at her, shifting uncomfortably.
"I hope he can visit."  I responded.  

They turned and walked up the hill, no one looking back.  

I've been walking, with my face turned to the sun

Weight on my shoulders....

School disintegrated quickly into days of no one teaching anything.  It started earlier this year, me entering classrooms to get my kids, only to see a movie on and students playing games on their Chromebooks.   I spent almost an hour one day in a classroom with some bizarre movie playing that featured a talking egg that had a face like an old white man, while simultaneously watching Danny and Eduardo build homes on Minecraft Education.  

"Mira,"  Eduardo mentioned.

"I built my slaves a pool."

A cat in the movie started playing flamenco guitar.

"Esta música es suave." he continued, eating an apple with two hands, his eyes darting from the movie to Minecraft.  

I brought my Jenga and Uno cards, not willing to be the one bucking the system, but unable to sit through another day of talking eggs and digital overstimulation.  

Before the sun begins to shine

We're going to start movin'

Towards that separating line 

I'm wadin' through muddy waters

Uno can get pretty heated.  

I dropped a +2 on Eduardo.

"¡PUTA MADRE!!!"  he shrieked, laughing.  

"Cállate." Pway instructed, with a little eyebrow raise.  

"Mira, pendeja."  Danny said with satisfaction, dropping another + card.

"Chúpamela."  Eduardo responded.

"A la bestia."  Rafael mumbled.  

"No tengo nada."

"Maybe you should take UNO."  Pway mentioned with a little smile, handing him a card. 

Pway laid down a few more bad cards and beat all of us.  She and Mya were playing as a team, against me and the Spanish-speaking wild men.  

"¡AYYYYYY!"  Eduardo howled, before running around the table, slapping my hair out of the way, grabbing my face and kissing me really hard on the cheek.  He had a look of pure joy on his face and everyone was laughing.  

Although it sounds insane, it was a really great time and I was so glad that they were happy.  

We stood outside of the trailer, watching a huge truck lug another old trailer up to the back of the school.  

"How are they going to take one of these old trailers away with that other old one hooked up to the back?"  someone asked.

That is when we realized that the old trailers were just being replaced with others that were equally old.  Identically old, and that ours didn't even qualify for a new old trailer.   My kids and I climbed through the construction to get to our clubhouse.  

I stood in the cafeteria while a pre-k teacher husseled her class in for lunch.

"Not ready for kindergarten!"  she called, when the kids started getting wily.  

"Girl, fifth grade ain't either."  Reynold mentioned, shaking his head.  None of the tables were set up and he was sitting there, randomly, in a chair, eating his lunch.  

"Reynold, where you supposed to be?"  Ms. Rainier asked.

"I don't know, they told me to wait on the principal."  he responded, putting another french fry in his mouth.  

I looked at Rainier, shaking my head.

"Reynold can wait anything out.  He can have the meanest teacher in the school screaming over his shoulder and he will still have that shit-eating look on his face."

We both started laughing.  

"THEY FRIENDS NOW!"  she responded.

"Yeah, after she starved him out and then started giving him food again.  Stockholm Syndrome."  I said, shaking my head.

"Yeah,  I saw a docuseries about that."  she responded, eyes wide and shaking her head.  

"On the last day of school, you gettin' a hug, Ms. Wagner gettin' a hug but Mr. T, no hug."  Reynold called across the cafeteria.  

"He funny.  We gonna have to look him up now that he's going to middle school."  

While the clouds roll back and the stars fill the night
That's when I'm going to stand up
Take my people with me
Together we are going 
To a brand new home 

Far across the river.....

I did Award's Day this year.  I usually refuse, because all of my kids are awesome and I'm not selecting one that is the best.  I found out that some of the kids, especially fifth grade, wouldn't even be able to attend the ceremony or invite their parents because their grades weren't high enough.  So, I ordered a bunch of gold certificates from Amazon and invited all of my kids' parents to the ceremony myself.  Like, all of my kids, in all of the grades.  I put on my best version of fancy clothes and stood up there, calling my kids up, one by one, saying their names correctly, while their parents smiled and clapped.  I do not like speaking into microphones or standing on stages.  But you know what?  I did it anyway.  Ku wore his ceremonial tunic.  Eduardo wore his court clothes.  Baby Gustavo wore a suit.  Danny put gel in his hair and wore a jacket.  Rafael put on his elasticized bow-tie.  Albinus looked super fresh in a cute button-down and jacket, with leather sneakers.  Eduardo's sister wore a princess dress.  Ariel came in, for the first time in days.  She had new hair, with pink attached to the ends, and a pink tweed jacket. Her mom came up to me, and told me that she thought I was the only person that cared about her kid in that school and that they were out.  Mauricio slicked his Mexi-fro down and parted it.  His grandmother was in town.  His mother later told me that they recently had been able to get her in the country and that she hadn't actually seen her mother in seventeen years.  I stared at the woman, dressed formally and the Honduran grandfather stood up and hugged me.  

Every year, the Chorus-kids sing a song during these ceremonies.  It's usually a current song, one that they learn.  This year, they chose one from the Harriet Tubman movie.  I gazed across the room, listening to children sing about standing up, taking their people and crossing rivers.  I looked at the faces of my children, that I knew had done just that.  I looked at Lupita's mom, that still doesn't have papers and thought of what her journey must have been like.  At Baby Gustavo's parents, who I know crossed in the at least two decades ago.  

I read my fifth graders names.  

When I finally got to the last one, my voice cracked and I started to cry.  

*Lyrics, Stand Up, Cynthia Erivo