Elated Despair

It's done. As i walk out the the school gate for the last time, i don't know if i should cry or shout for joy.  I have dreamed of this moment for a long time, i just forgot the part where i have to say all the good byes.  Some of these kids i didn't ever want to see again, that sounds awful but they, at times made my life hell, but for some reason i am saddened by the fact that i didn't get to say good bye to every single one of them.  This has been the longest but also the shortest year of my life.  I am not sure I can even bring to memory some of the challenges that I have faced purely because I didn't want to ever think of them after they happened.  But these kids are faced with challenges a hundred times greater than mine ever were this year. 

Today  I whispered I love you, to a little boy, who I am not sure has ever heard those words spoken to him.  He looked shocked, and i watched as his lips fumbled the sound of the word love out of his mouth.  It fell out sounding like phuv.  he grabbed me in a hug and sprinted off.  Had he ever said or heard the word love before?   

I went to the 8th grade graduation last night and as i watch some of these kids and i look into their eyes, i can see a depth that goes deeper than some adults that i have met, purely because of some of the things that they have experienced in life.  

I listened to a teachers prayer over her students as she has graduated them out of grade-school, "Lord you know the challenges these kids face, the abusive unstable homes with grandparents trying to fill in as parents because the parents are to broken to be parents to their own children." 

I watched a young mans face radiate embarrassment and disappointment as his own drunken mother came to his graduation with a bottle of beer in her hand.  These kids aren't ready for academy, emotionally these kids are stunted, they've been cheated, wronged.  Life is already breaking their spirit, their belief in their selves, their heart has been broken, disappointed, lied to....and they are only 13 or 14 years old.  

       

I still don't know what to feel right now.  elated despair. That's the best i got.