The Po Show

Fourth Grade Morning

We have once again come to National Education Week, which at our elementary school signals the day that parents are invited to come into their children's classrooms to observe what they are learning (for a whole hour). So this morning I found my way to the classroom of the fabulous Mr. Russo, Tessa's fourth grade teacher (he really is fabulous: one of those teachers who was born to teach; who after decades of teaching is still so enthusiastic and energetic and obviously in love with teaching).

I let him know as I entered that I was going to have to leave a little earlier than our alloted time (since I had my weekly appointment with Matthew and his therapist). I sat down, and realized that Tessa was nowhere to be seen. As other parents filtered in, I figured that she'd gone to the bathroom or something, but after several minutes she hadn't shown up yet. Mr. Russo explained that we were going to observe the students in a listening/note taking exercise that will prepare them for the state ELA exams. This is exactly the exercise that Matthew's class was doing during my visit to his disastrous fourth grade year. Finally, Tessa showed up and took her seat, and we all started the exercise (parents were given a worksheet and expected to take notes on the passage as well).

After listening to the passage once, we listened again and took our notes, then we went on to writing exercises. The first was to list four significant elements of one of the story's main plot points. After a few minutes, Mr. Russo called on children to share what they'd written. Most of the responses were sort of vague, though he consistently tried to bring each comment around to a coherent idea and praised each child. Then he called on Tessa and she *nailed* the most pertinent, significant element of the reading. As always, I am dazzled by my child :).

It was particularly impressive because she was not feeling well at all. This morning she started to feel ill before school, but she didn't want to stay home. I told her that since I was coming to school anyway, if she felt badly I could take her home with me and cancel my appointments at Matthew's school. Later I found out that the reason she had not been in the classroom when I arrived was that she'd been in the nurse's office. Since she hadn't had a fever, the nurse gave her some water and some crackers to settle her stomach and she came back to class. I kept mouthing to her from across the room, asking if she was okay, if she wanted to leave. She kept making sad frowny faces and shrugging that she didn't know. Finally it got to the point that I had to leave, so during a break in the exercise, I signaled to the teacher and explained to him that Tessa hadn't felt well that morning and she wasn't sure if she should stay or go home with me. He assured me that she'd be fine, since the day was half over already, so I got up to leave. As I passed Tessa's seat, I told her that if she felt really sick, she could tell Mr. Russo and go to the nurse again and I would come get her. Her eyes filled with tears and she clung to me for a second, but then she let go and went to blow her nose. I left feeling perfectly awful.

All of this worry over Tessa being sick and miserable compounded how I had felt even before I had arrived at school, which was heartsick, emotionally exhausted, and utterly drained. Last night, just after the kids went to bed, I was on FB and saw a picture of our friend Mike tagged by someone we didn't know. The message attached to the photo said that Mike had passed away over the weekend. I was struck to the core.

He was our friend from Ross' grad school days at UCLA; they were in the same cohort. Over the years, we became very close, and by the time Matthew was born, he was one of our closest friends. He was so funny and kind, right down to the soul. He rubbed some people the wrong way, because he never held back from saying just what he thought, and he had a low tolerance for bullshit. He did so much for so many people, whether it was helping someone move or offering up his incredible garden for parties or driving people home when they'd had too much to drink. He loved to barbeque (he's the one who taught Ross how to properly cook really good pork tenderloin) and to tailgate at UCLA football games.

Matthew loved him when he was a baby. After me and Ross and Grandma, Mike was the first person Matthew loved. We thought that was funny at the time, because Mike had been an only child, had never had children, and hadn't spent a whole lot of time around babies. But he was enamored with Matthew and was endlessly gentle and sweet and patient with him.

I wanted to write more here about Mike, about some of my favorite memories of him, but as I said, I'm absolutely emotionally exhausted. I'm also still in shock and utter disbelief that he is gone. We last saw him and his wife Janet four years ago. He moved to Tucson to go to law school back in 2001 and had stayed there, so the only times we saw him after that were when he and Janet were in CA visiting her family. Ross had emailed him a couple of times in the past few years to let him know we were coming to CA, and got no reply, but he didn't pursue the matter very strenuously. I was FB friends with Mike, but he wasn't on much so we didn't have much interaction there. I missed wishing a happy birthday back in August, since his birthday was the day we left for CA for our summer trip and I missed the notification. I thought several times since then of writing to him to see how they were going, but I didn't.

We always think we have more time. We rush through our days bogged down by minutiae, necessary tasks and preoccupations that prevent us from doing those things that we think about, but neglect to actually do. We think there will time in the future to do them. Who on earth would expect that a friend who was a contemporary could lie down to take a nap during the weekend and never wake up? We should have told that person that despite the intervening years and the recent lack of contact, he was a cherished part of our lives and we love and appreciate him more than we can say.

Seize the day, and tell the ones you care about how you care for them.

I love you all.