I keep a pair of shoelaces with me at school. The
laces are not for use. They are there to remind me of something. To keep me
grounded. Like the string on one’s finger, they are a string for my poor,
corrupt, beady little black heart.
It all started one year as I endeavoured
to teach grade two phys ed for the first time. The class was generally moving
along without too much confusion or strife. A few fits of crying here and
there, but hey, I soon learned how to control my tearful emotions. Yet there
was one little lad that rubbed against me as nails on a chalkboard. A typically
energetic youngster who, to speak with simplicity, didn’t get along with me. At
all. Things were rough between us.
How one deals with struggles is different
for each person. Especially for young children. I’ve seen children handle
problems by remaining silent, by screaming, by literally running away. I’ve
even seen some try to hit their head on a table. Well this grade two boy whom I
taught was a shoelace cutter. He would cut and shred his shoelaces if frustrated. I’ve
seen it before. I’ll probably see it again. There’s no judging here. Only
observation. He cut laces. Maybe I would too if I had to be taught by this phys
ed teacher of his. Needless to say, our relationship as teacher/student was
rocky. Nothing would crack it. It seemed relentless. That’s the thing with our
troubles in life. Sometimes it seems we’re in an unending hole. There is no escape.
No hope.
Christmas came and went. It wasn’t until a
gloomy winter day soon into the new year where things came to a head. My young
friend was running his warm-up laps in the gym when he tripped end over end and
slammed hard onto the floor. There he was. I went over and saw, quite
evidently, mangled shoelaces which clearly would have tripped even the most
dexterous of professional athletes. I sighed loudly in great frustration. This
was it! This was too much! This boy and I had to have it out, right now. I can’t imagine what I was about to say.
Call it a moment of grace, but for an
instance I looked on him and saw everything differently. I no longer saw my
phys ed adversary, but rather a child who just needed something else. I stopped
the rest of the class and had them carry out some harmless activity away
from the scene of the fall. Then I sat down beside the student in question. We
calmly talked about whether or not he was hurt, as I patiently untied his laces
from his shoes. A moment of grace indeed. With the laces off I went out to the
hallway and stopped a nearby teacher. I asked the teacher if he had any spare
laces. The kindhearted teacher dropped what he was doing and raced back to
class to get a pair which he had kicking around. A smart looking set of orange
laces. The student and I sat together and laced up his shoes. Finally, I helped
tie them up, and phys ed class continued.
That moment was a definite turning point.
Everything changed from then on. Sure some days we still rubbed each other the
wrong way, but it was all so different now. We chatted. He shared his
excitement with me. I gladly exclaimed how happy I was with his work. It was
new life for both of us. Sometimes I would ask him how his shoelaces were. This
was not a literal question; it was a reference to how he was doing. Were things
ok? They were. When I would go for a jog in town often I would see him run out
of his yard and wave wildly to me with a smile the size you’ve never seen. Life
was good. One day a magician came to our school for a presentation. Evidently
the student was wowed by what he saw. We chatted the next recess. He bubbled
with excitement. He especially loved the juggling. I told him that I knew how
to juggle, and that I would gladly teach him how. His eyes lit up! We arranged
to make it happen. I shook my head in disbelief. What a great kid. He was
teaching me how to be a teacher.
Later that evening I was jogging by his house, but he did not run out to wave at me. In fact, I never saw him again. Who knows what terror was unfolding in his trailer house then. This young lad, along with his mom and two sisters, were brutally murdered by a step dad.
A couple of mornings later, in the midst of the shock and chaos, I slipped into his
classroom before school. I went over to his desk and looked down at his shoes.
There they were. Those sharp looking orange laces. Perfectly intact. Perfect as
the day they were first laced up. In the darkness of the situation, there was
a little ray of sunshine. The past couple of months he had been by far the happiest I've ever seen.
