I’m reaching out here because I feel like you all will understand. I’m trying to put my own feelings aside and focus on what I need to do to support this student.

But this is the first time I’ve experienced anything like this. I only started teaching in 2021. He was in my first class. He was in 4th grade at the time. He was a wonderful kid. So positive and happy. However, he’d fall asleep a lot in my class. When I’d wake him up and ask him why he didn’t sleep the night before, the story was always the same - I was taking care of my younger brother.

I would later find out his younger brother is a special needs child.

The story is, he woke up first and saved his two younger siblings from the fire. It fits. But it was too late for his parents.

I was told about this mid class today. I carried on like normal until recess. I normally walk around the playground during recess to exercise. I hate sitting down. This allowed me a moment to feel. I was able to blame the tears I couldn’t hold back that was spotted by one observational student as a result of the cold.

I’m not prepared for this. You don’t go into this thinking about the trauma you are going to see the children you love experience. You just think about loving the children. But I also don’t want to focus on or even acknowledge my own pain right now because my student is the one really suffering. I need to be focused on action to support him and his family.

But I also experienced a similar trauma around his age. I lost my cousin, who was more of a sister because she practically lived with us, around the same time of year: New Years 1995/ 1996. She was just a year older than me. My best friend. Taught me how to ride my bike when my dad had long given up. Died of a gunshot from a gun that fell from a closet as she pulled blankets out to make a fort.

What’s more, we both went to the same school, my cousin and I. And that school is where I teach now. And that building, which is the last place I saw her before we left on Christmas break in ‘95, only has two weeks left to be a school: we’re moving to a brand new building after this Christmas break.

So to hear of my first year student experiencing such personal loss at this time of year as I reflect on the experiences I had in this building which will be rubble before long had me reliving long lost moments of that awful time.

I want to be there for him. I want to use what I experienced as a tool to help him. But I’d lie if I said I wasn’t experiencing a grief that had been buried for almost thirty years.

I hurt for him. And I want this to be about him. But I’m also hurting and I don’t know what to do other than follow the steps I need to follow to support him.

Has anyone else experienced grief like this?