The Cost of Loving

I take my job very seriously.

Right now, as the computer teacher of 1st-8th graders, I have students filtering in and out at 30 or 45 minute      increments throughout the day.  The positive about that is being in contact with and making heart connections with all the students in the school.  The negative is not really being able to develop and nurture the tight bond that is created by spending an entire year with one group of students.  

When I was the 4th grade teacher I recognized the importance of bonding with all my students.  Lets be honest here, some students are "easier to love" than others.  Some students have character qualities that would drive you mad if you let them.  

I had a special procedure to combat that possibility:
For the first 6 weeks of school, before I left my classroom to go home for the evening, I would go up and down my rows of desks, placing my hands on each individual desk, praying for that child, and thinking of one positive attribute about them.  It could be the same attribute every day or it could different ones...it didn't matter.  The goal was, to hone in on the positives and use those positives to develop a loving soul-connecting relationship with that child.   The interesting thing was, by the end of the year, the characteristics that I thought were negative at the beginning of the year, were no longer that obvious.  They were just all part of a child I loved.

I think teachers, effective teachers, have an unbelievably large circle of love.  Each year is spent pouring your entire soul into teaching, loving, and nurturing this child placed before you...every child placed before you.  And that love doesn't turn off just because they graduate to the next class...or the next, or the next, or the next.  

But loving has a cost.  And occasionally that cost involves pain. I found out yesterday that one of my former (sweet sweet) students, now a junior, is very sick.  And oh how I cried for her.  I cried for hours and still am brought to the edge of tears just thinking about her and the road she has ahead of her.  I cried for her mom and her dad...two of the kindest, sweetest people you can the privilege to meet.  I cried for her brothers who I also had the joy of teaching. I cried because I love her.  

We hurt so much because we love so much.  It's a cost I'll pay every day if I have to.   Because I don't want to live without love.