Learning to Breathe Again

I was in Jeanette’s kindergarten class singing Christmas songs today. There is no better way to understand the influence of music than to watch kindergarteners sing. Let’s just say it engages them. I also noticed how much they watch their teacher. They try very hard to meet her expectations, especially in the way they treat others. But they also watch her interact with her colleagues and today, even me. It is so easy to forget as a teacher – and as a parent - they are always watching. I used to spend a great deal of time trying to plan lessons with specific outcomes in mind, only to discover the most important learning had little to do with what I planned. It took me a long time to accept that reality, especially as a father. We are sometimes so focused on the what, we lose sight of the who and why. My youngest daughter recently made this truth clearer in a powerful way.

Over a decade ago, Jeanette and I were involved in a terrible car wreck. It disrupted our lives and made that July very difficult. Like many families dealing with a crisis, Jeanette and I – especially Jeanette – worked hard to try to keep life normal. As things slowly improved, we left that time behind and moved on with our lives. Occasionally, we might laugh about some embarrassing moments or the kindness of friends, but we never really talked about that July. I thought it was history. Then Cassie wrote a poem for my birthday last month entitled July. She used poetry to reveal her truth about those days. While her Mom and I thought we had kept our worries away from our eleven-year-old daughter, she was busy making sense of things on her own. The timing here seems especially appropriate. While Christmas can sometimes become commercial and frivolous, at its core it reveals the grace that keeps this world. I hope your Christmas is filled with love and gratitude. Here’s Cassie’s poem.

July

 by Cassie Danielson

 Hit at an intersection by a drunk driver,

Their dark green Trail Blazer rolled, then rolled twice more into a farmer’s field on a warm July night.

That summer our refrigerator filled with lasagna,

A man, a stranger, came to my front door with a box of soda in glass bottles. I thought

It must be special.

The late afternoon sun on his face,

The way he fumbled for words.

A nurse prepared me for the blood on the floor.

Hi Sweet Pea, with the grin he had given me all my life.

Hi Dad.

The helicopter whisked him away.

I was going into the 6^th grade.

Mom came home first. When her friends planned a night at our house, I remember

The nail polish Laura painted on my fingers,

Blue polish with a white design on top,

The kind that use those little pieces of tape.

The silver moon shone through the crescent window in our living room,

I heard him say,

If I knew it was going to hurt this bad, I would rather be dead.

He did not know I was awake.

My dad would not say that if he knew I was listening.

In court the driver’s family cried next to mine.

His sister – or mother – handed me a Kleenex.

I wondered what she thought,

What he felt.

My mom’s skin healed over shards of glass that gradually lifted to the surface years later.

I learned a body could do that.

I found comfort in the sound of my dad learning to breathe again.