Since my return from Bali, I have been a bit consumed by Hiraeth.
A homesickness for something you can never return to or have again. Even, at times, for something you have never had.
While primarily centered around all things Molly, I have also missed a lot of my Walker School Days. I spent fifteen years as a part of that community. My Walker School Family saw me through two marriages and two babies. A departure from my life as a competitive runner and my entrance into the world of coaching.
Family.
So what’s with the picture of the bowl full of plastic bread fasteners?
Well, for starters, collecting them has been a necessary and helpful habit for me since 1990. Teachers often used these as “chips” to reward good behavior. Massive behavior modification technique.
Molly hated this sort of thing. She saw that not everyone had the capacity to earn chips equally. (Which if course is not necessarily a bad thing to learn.) However, being the one with the least amount of chips was not a fun reality.
The two fourth grade teachers at Walker School when I started teaching there used these chips on the daily. They wore carpenter aprons with pockets that were full of these fasteners. All of the teachers in the school brought them in.
We were a team!
As tough as it was for those who struggled to earn the chips, and as tricky as the classrooms could often be, (special education was still an evolving reality in the 1990’s) these two teachers were, for the most part, loved by all of the students. They did a theater program called Walker Theater, they had sayings, call and response, (the title of this blog for example!). Along with a strict routine day to day was a whole lot of love.
Joanie St. Germain and Naomi Charest.
Two of the best from a time that no longer exists.
Joanie had a rough time with those hyper active learning disabled children that I loved so much. I was a resource room teacher so it was a “pull out” model where groups of children came to me in my classroom for reading and math instruction. Joanie and Naomi were scheduling whizzes. They looked at 4th grade as a whole and divided up the grade by thirds.
We each had a group.
What I loved about this was the fact that I had a lot of “non-identified” studens in my groups along wth those having an IEP. It took some of the stigma away. Every once in a while I would ask for a switch, we would spend a week teaching another group so we all say what was going on abive and below where we were teaching.
But that is not why I am writing this blog. It is the hiraeth that makes me write.
My time at Walker School preceded Aimee and Roy. It was before Gene Connolly and Chris Rath. It was long before my job loss and Molly’s death. So it represents a time when I saw only happiness in my future.
It has been a long time since I have felt that way.
I miss it.
Hiraeth.
So I still collect these plastic bag fasteners. The above picture was talken today, January 15th, 2025. Almost two decades have passed since Joanie and Naomi taught at Walker School. A place that no longer exists. Yes, the building is there, thank God, but all that once took place inside it’s walls is a memory only.
So much of my life feels this way. It is a constant balance for me, to live in my “Molly is dead” and all that goes with it reality and the “I am fine, everything is fine” inner voice that allows some measure of peace.
When asked “how do you do it?” I typically reply with “by allowing what ever feelings surface to be experienced, shared, and validated.” When new grievers reach out for advice I tell them essentially the same thing.
Follow your feelings.
Do what you need to do to get through the day.
Avoid people or situations that try to tell you how to feel or act.
(The number of pople who told me “just be happy” or “you need to move forward” are too many to count. Moving along, as I call it, can only occur organically and that is different for every griever.)
So today I am missing Joanie and Naomi. I am missing Clint Cogswell. I am missing all that my life was and what I thought it would be during those years. I think of those who I know have moved along to heaven. I think of those I follow on social media. I think of those I still see.
And the students. I think of them the most. Our experiences. How they have grown and developed. All of it. I think of , and ache for all of it.
Still.
And in an odd way, it comforts me.I can wrap my past around me like a blanket.
And like a cat I am not allergic to, caressing this part of my life slows my heart and lowers my blood pressure.
Hiraeth.