Showing Up and Caring Hard

“Remove any sharp objects, electronics, loose change, food or drinks, cell phones, and smart watches. Sign in here. You can also take off your coat and bag. Once everything is in your assigned locker, you can take the elevators up to the third floor. Visiting hours are until 8.”

The air was stale in the way that hospitals tend to be. Everything felt clean in an inhumane way; as if this place wasn’t meant for people, for children, to be here fro too long. And in hindsight, maybe it wasn’t. There were two or three other people sitting in the blue chairs that lined either side of the rounded lobby. Beneath the florescent lights and against the cool October air that blew in in gusts from behind the glass doors that lead to the outside world, I wondered who they were here to see. I wondered what circumstance brought us all here. In that moment, as I packed all of my belongings into a blue, plastic and metal locker labeled 13B and turned the key in the padlock provided by the receptionist, I wondered and deeply evaluated the part that I had to play in this. I felt small.

Nothing prepares you to sit and wait in a children’s Psychiatric care unit. The elevator doors opened and I buzzed in through bullet proof doors. The attending nurse wore teal and purple scrubs and asked who I was here to see. I gave her my students name and was escorted to a room that, despite the brightly colored walls and low to the ground tables that said on their own “Hey, the is a space for children”, felt as equally clean and unwelcoming as the lobby three floors below. And then I waited. It wasn’t long, but long enough for me to realize that I had no idea what to say and long enough for me to fear that from not knowing what to say I might say the wrong thing. For teachers, you don’t get to say the wrong thing. 

Saying the wrong thing interrupts the flow. 

Saying the wrong thing means that thirty people just got the wrong information.  

Saying the wrong thing means that you didn’t plan thoroughly enough. 

There was no way to plan for this.

I saw the top of her head first. The nurse guided here down the hallway, but I could see the bows in her hairs through the windows near the front of the room. The same five braids and three pink bows that I’d seen her wear just days prior in class now looked a bit fuzzier and a little more slept on. Her skin looked dry and dark circles colored underneath her eyes, but she smiled from the doorway and bounced over to where I was sitting. 

“Hey, Mr. Pulliam!”

A hospital bracelet now accompanied the beaded bracelets that adorned her small wrist. Her mother came in moments later carrying a large brown paper grocery bag with food for the two of them. She’d been crying and looked as if shed hadn’t slept much, but smiled when she saw her daughter. Right now, it wasn’t the time for tears. 

For the next two hours, the three of us sat around the  drawing table and listened to Kalypso talked endlessly about how nice the nurses had been  to her and about how she was still doing her homework. Over fruit snacks and turkey sandwiches she asked about school and I did my best to express that her class missed her, her teachers missed her, and that everyone was sending their best to her. Soon, I realized that I’d stopped speaking. yet the moment was not lost. Kalypso laughed and held the conversation between mouthfuls of Boar’s Head and gulps of Sprite from a large styrofoam cup. Here, we sat beneath florescent lights and on hard wooden chairs within what could be a hopelessly somber existence amidst a city that can take the biggest people feels the absolute smallest; and yet there was a little girl who’d sat in my class days before that still saw a reason to embrace joy, to smile, to laugh.

Kids are brave

Black kids are brave.

Twenty-two years old and barley three months into the school year, this was my first taste of  truly showing up for my kids. Choosing to show up and choosing to show up often for my kids that first year would make all the difference. Whether it was battling comments about “those kids…..” at brunch on Sunday afternoon with adults who had never met my kids or in speaking up in a meeting against language used to describe a Black boy being a joyous Black boy in the classroom, kids know when you’re there for them. Because rarely are attitudes about Black children shown when children are in the room, but they will lie in waiting until the school day is over and the spirits of happy hour are flowing and will come from those who you work alongside, from complete strangers, or from a well-meaning Tinder date once you tell them that you’re a teacher.

So, show up.

Do it when it’s hard or awkward or when you don’t have all of the words

You’re kids don’t need you to be perfect, but the need someone who chooses to see them a full humans not exempt from mistakes and yet still worthy of love, respect, and care.