“They may forget what you said, but they will never forget how you made them feel.” - Carl W. Buechner

i've been in a blogging funk. hard to find time. feeling unmotivated. sometimes i feel like there's just nothing to talk about that's interesting. "to blog or not to blog...is that the question?" i guess tonight the answer is "to blog" so here's a post...please read it all the way through.

my job keeps me incredibly busy. i am on our building's four-person OISM team. it's kinda funny...bill (our principal) picked four pretty anal, thorough, no-nonsense chicks to head up this thing. we had to make a two hour presentation at our in-service a couple of weeks ago where we introduced a mentoring program ~ every staff member must mentor 1-2 "at risk" students. needless to say, we have some staff dissenters. one became very argumentative with me during the presentation, and i handled it well, although i must admit i broke down an hour later and lost it. public confrontation is not my favorite way to pass the time.

the two students i am mentoring are both currently on suspension. i have a wonderful relationship with them (i'll call them nick and marcus ~ not their real names) ~ and they treat me with the utmost respect. they are also brutally honest with me about their home lives. marcus's father is in the state pen serving a life sentence for murder; marcus said to me once, "mrs. gillen, he's just evil." scary. we have tried to talk to marcus's mother about discipline issues, but she said, in front of her child, that he "was our problem" and she "couldn't handle him at home." oh, but she keeps him fully stocked on his tobacco products.

marcus frightened me last week when he stated, point blank, "i'm just a bad person". as if that was his sole identity. i tell him each morning how much i love him (like a son) and that i am so grateful that i get to spend time with him every day. when he left to serve his suspension on friday, he voluntarily gave me a hug and then instructed nick to do the same.

i was talking to a behavior consultant about marcus and his family history and the disparaging remark he made to me about [him] believing he is a bad person. i discussed how afraid i am that he will wind up in prison like his father. the consultant insisted that i keep "feeding him", keep making him feel important, constantly praise his goodness. then she said, (in these exact words) something i will never forget: "jodi, you may not be able to keep him from breaking and entering. but you may be the one who keeps him from breaking and entering and then killing someone."

this past friday afternoon, the day that nick and marcus left to serve their suspensions, nick's father came in and i asked to speak with him. i praised nick and told his dad how bright and funny and kind he was. then dad asked me about the suspension which had been handed down (not by me, but by our principal), and i tried to explalin that nick had made some bad choices but that we would work on it. he then went on to explain how his wife had left him over 10 years ago and nick didn't have a mother that loved him and how he has to be at work every morning by 5:00 and there's no one there to get nick out of bed....and on and on he went. i told him i would be willing to call nick every morning to wake him, which he appreciated very much. he then took out the suspension paper, read it, crumpled it up, threw it on the ground and said, "m'am, you can tell your principal to kiss my ass". and he walked away.

later that evening, out of the blue, i receive a phone call from my principal. unbelievably, nick's dad had called the school after i left, told the principal what he had said, and asked him to pass along his apologies. i was shocked. what a small, but miraculous thing. (we can do no great things, only small things with great love...eh?)

this thanksgiving, i am grateful for nick and marcus. i am thankful that god has entrusted their care to me for a few hours a day.

i love those boys. i really do.