What is Truth?

Our daughter’s fourth grade teacher recently became a “stone of stumbling and rock of offense” to us, giving us the gift and challenge of conflict. I don’t blame Miss Brown, although I see some facts about her behavior and think I understand the tenor of her words. Miss Brown’s life work so far has been teaching. She has many years experience and I’ve observed more good qualities in her than bad. I respect a lot about Miss Brown, and I see too that Miss Brown hasn’t been as fortunate as I, forged in the crucible of marriage and mothering. In short, I have compassion for Miss Brown because I see her struggle. But my compassion only goes so far. I am raising a daughter, here, and I see part of my role to protect my child’s spirit and personality intact.

After Miss Brown rejected the second school project in a week, I sent her an email. I like emails because they document what’s happening and our school administrators read them, too. I don’t mind having an audience for my mothering now that I’m old enough to withstand judgments, criticisms, and the unabashed awe that sometimes come my way. People don’t know what to make of me, and I like that. I don’t know what to make of myself, so I’m happy that I’m congruent.

I write notes to the teacher much as I blog. I’m sure that some teachers quail in their boots when they receive notes from me. My note to Miss Brown said in part:

Miss Brown, it’s not acceptable to us to have our child sent home with two failures in a day based on a subjective standard that is not clearly spelled out in your assignment material. “Reading the book” and “follows the rules of grammer, punctuation, and capitalization” and “spelling” are quantifiable. But “effectively accomplishes the task… as listed” and “Effectively demonstrates knowledge and understanding of the book” are subjective, especially when there is no list qualifying the child’s accomplishments. [. . .] requiring some poorly-defined, subjective standard that now has Juniper feeling the failure when she has above average intelligence and enthusiasm is simply not acceptable to us.

My husband and I would like to get some resolution and a working plan for proceeding this year. Please, let’s do that together. We would certainly welcome the involvement of any of the administration if you feel it’s necessary; otherwise, I look forward to hearing from you about our concerns.

This note resulted in an apology from Miss Brown, which read in part:

When Juniper brought her book report to me, I did not mean to make her feel like her work was being rejected.  I wanted her to finish the coloring and work some more on the summary.  She had very little on the summary of the book.  She admitted that she had rushed. 

As for the mobile, I may have been a little hard on her.  I did tell them in the directions I gave to them orally to not use all paper items.  I probably should have spent more time looking at it and discussing it with her.  I was probably too blunt.  Please excuse me.  It was a very challenging day yesterday.   I will discuss this with her today and see if I can help her some.

I considered this a good apology. Miss Brown is human and has bad days, too. She may take her bad days out on her students; any parent who thinks this doesn’t happen or is surprised about human behavior from a school teacher probably ought to examine his or her expectations about human beings.

One of the most interesting lines in the Bible, in my opinion, is when Pontius Pilate asks Jesus, “What is truth?” Reading Miss Brown’s note helped me to see that we had a problem of agreement about what was true. Miss Brown’s wrote that Juniper “admitted that she had rushed.” I personally witnessed my daughter’s work of more than an hour on her mobile. For a fourth grader, she put what I consider a great deal of time and effort into it. And yet, in the face of authority, my daughter quailed and “admitted that she had rushed.” What Miss Brown had asked was, “You rushed through this, didn’t you?” And my daughter had answered, “Yes.”

This is how the image of the false self comes to be: We see ourselves seeing ourselves, and we are who we think we are until others arise and tell us that reality isn’t what we perceive, but that reality is what they say it is. This happens in school, but it also happens in families and in the larger culture. In fact, I’ve seen it most often happen at home first, in that early seedbed of personhood, the mother-child dyad, and take root and flourish as it is nurtured by teachers, peers, professors, bosses, and later on by husbands and even children. We are always subject to the pressure of the Other. We are always at risk of abandoning ourselves in favor of others who are more powerful than we. Children are especially vulnerable.

Knowing Juniper’s childish vulnerability, I spoke with her about this, asking her what she considers a “good effort,” and what our standard has been within the family. She readily described a sustained, attentive effort of over 30 minutes as a “good effort.” When I pointed out that she had spent over an hour on her mobile, the light of comprehension came across her face; she saw at once that she had made a good enough effort. She saw, too, that only outcomes determined “good effort” in Miss Brown’s classroom. And I helped her to see the value of thinking carefully before speaking.

Miss Brown commented that in her directions she had told the children  “to not use all paper items.” She also failed Juniper’s project because it was “all paper.” But was it? No indeed, for the paper clips Juniper used were made of metal. Like many people who seek to support their own perspective at the expense of others, Miss Brown’s vision was skewed. There’s a proverb that says, “to the crooked eye, all things are crooked; but to the straight of vision, all things are straight.” Another proverb says, “one man’s case seems just until another comes and examines him.” The psychological corallary is that people see what they want, need, or expect to see, and dismiss or ignore conflicting information. As parents and pilgrims, we must learn to see clearly, and then we must help others to see clearly, too—others who are willing.

Miss Brown’s statement of fact, that the mobile had been “all paper,” was not accurate. But her statement was quite accurate at showing me some facts about Miss Brown. Her statement taught me that the teacher is a person who is willing to overlook facts to support her subjective standards. She’s willing to fail and label a child because she will not fail and label herself. When confronted with facts, Miss Brown brought out her own arsenal of facts that were not facts at all. Because her weapons of warfare were invisible, I knew that my real enemy was invisible as well. Miss Brown couldn’t see herself, and did not want to see herself. There’s nothing I can do about that, and if I continue to tussle with Miss Brown, I will lose the fight, because every power in the universe can and will be summoned to support an idealized Self, whereas the real self needs nothing but itself and God. The idealized self needs everything else.

the false versus the true self

The idealized self is very sure of itself, but not so the real self. One of my favorite Buddhist questions is, “Are you sure?” We’ve found in our family that, whenever we ask one another, “Are you sure,” very often the answer is, “No, I’m not sure.” But we catch one another acting as though we’re completely sure. And we laugh about it when we find one another out. We all do it; but it’s so lovely to have others watching our ways and helping us along.

The idealized self is judgmental because of its certainty. But passing judgment on others is a dangerous business because we so often are poor judges of anything, most especially of ourselves. This must be why Jesus instructed:

Do not judge lest you be judged. For in the way you judge, you will be judged; and by your standard of measure, it will be measured to you. And why do you look at the speck that is in your brother’s eye, but do not notice the log that is in your own eye? Or how can you say to your brother, “Let me take the speck out of your eye,” and behold, the log is in your own eye? You hypocrite, first take the log out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly to take the speck out of your brother’s eye. (Matthew 7:1-5).

asking for help

I remembered Jesus’ words the day I squared off against Miss Brown, standing there as she told me my child was the only child who had failed. I knew that I couldn’t beat Miss Brown, and that I needed the help of an administrator. So I got that help. I went to the vice principal in charge of administering such things, a mother who has a Ph.D. in education and has worked many years as an administrator. I first asked about moving Juniper to another class, which the vice principal was more than willing to do. In fact, she seemed to assume that this was my first choice, even though I clearly stated that I needed her advice and was willing to do what she thought was best. I asked her to tell me about situations in which children are moved, and situations in which they are not, and what she’s learned about moving children.

I learned a lot from the vice principal that day, but as I left I knew that she probaby assumed I wanted my child moved. I thought I’d better underscore my dedication to the Christian values we all shared, and my need for guidance via email, so when I returned home I emailed Miss Brown and the vice principal, and I said:

Miss Brown, I’m sorry our conversation about the mobiles this morning didn’t go very well. I did speak with Dr. Andrews, who will be discussing with you and the other fourth grade teacher what may work best for all of us. I rely on all of you to help us navigate the waters of fourth grade. As well, I trust God to “work all things together for good to those who love Him and are called according to His purpose,” which is who we are.

Mostly I wanted to write and say that in general I respect you, your many years of teaching experience, and your love and dedication to your students, including Juniper. I’m confident that we can resolve this situation with good will, whether that means Juniper going to the other fourth grade class, or remaining in yours.

It’s a blessing and comfort to me that you and I do share many of the same values and we both want the best for Juniper. I see your effort and care, and will continue to hold you in high regard. I hope you’ll forgive me my maternal quirks. I have as many of them as I have children.

a decision is reached

Late that afternoon, I spoke with the vice principal when I picked up my children at school. She had met with Miss Brown, who was emotional and weepy, but they had decided to keep Juniper in her class. Miss Brown would get another chance to redeem herself, and I would have to continue to work with the teacher who told me that my child was the only child in her class who had failed.

When I returned home, I told my husband what had happened. He smiled wryly and said, “That’s not the easier outcome, is it?” We laughed, because of course it was not. It would have felt so much better to be able to direct my energy toward building a new relationship with the kinder, gentler, older other fourth grade teacher with her smiley face and her many happy students. But I had been willing to yield, and peaceable, knowing that I don’t know everything and that perhaps my daughter had landed in Miss Brown’s class for a higher purpose. If I am mindful of my daughter’s spirit, might not God help us all to grow as human beings through our conflict and differences, if we try to actively walk out our Christian faith?

I hope so. But I’ll admit that many times since last week, I’ve questioned my decision. Though I prayed and trusted God over this, I still ended up in the hands of others.

It’s funny how the hands of God are so often made of flesh and blood.

School Daze

After over 20 years of home schooling most of our children, this is the first year we’ve enrolled them all in school. Although I feared that the adjustment might be more than a couple of children could handle, the fact of the matter is that the adjustment has been almost more than I can handle!

miss brown, my nemesis

Everything would be perfect except for this one teacher. She-Miss Brown-is the only person in the universe standing between me and Nirvana. She stands there with her beady eye fixed upon my youngest daughter, Juniper, and she says, “She’s the only one who fails,” and “Not good enough,” and “You put no effort into this!” She is everything I feared, and I’ve tangled with her, and it hasn’t been pretty.

Juniper is a bright, lively, beautiful child. She’s what I call “twitchy,” and has a hard time being still unless she’s immersed in something that interests her. She speaks without thinking and interrupts others during conversation. She raises her hand and blurts out answers in her eagerness to please. And she loves to please. She’d do anything for anyone and is a willing and able student. But I feared more for her this year than for any of my other children, for she is a square peg and the holes are round, and I worried that her teacher would be a hammer.

And she is. Miss Brown is most definitely a hammer.

Dear, dear, Miss Brown. Middle-aged, unmarried, and childless, she is dedicated to her class. She demands neatness, cleanliness, godliness, and perfection. She seems a little off-kilter, but this isn’t always a bad thing in a world that is not perfectly spherical, anyway. So, in spite of the 12-page instruction hand-out for how to do fourth grade book reports, my husband and I sucked up our concerns and started the school year optimistically.

But Juniper’s problems didn’t begin with book reports. Alas, religion class mobiles were to be her downfall. “Make a mobile,” Miss Brown instructed, “out of two sticks or a hanger, and hang symbols or emblems of what God means to you off it.” So Juniper came home full of excited optimism and went to work on her mobile. I saw no sticks and no hanger. “What’s this?” I queried, watching Juniper cut up a Crayola Crayon box and get into my paper clip dish.

“Miss Brown said we could make a cross and hang things off of it. I’m going to do mine like this, have a cross and on each arm use a paperclip to hang a symbol off it. I’m going to use a heart for God’s love, a peace sign for God’s peace, a smiley face for his joy, and the sun for Jesus and for light.”

This sounded good to me. So, in spite of the fact that she was using the innards of a Crayola Crayon box as the basis for her funky cross mobile, I remained silent and restrained myself from getting my fingers on her school project. I’d already graduated from fourth grade; I had no plans of returning. And at the parent meeting for the other grades, they’d told us in no uncertain terms that parents were not to do their children’s school work. “If you’re tempted to do their crafts,” one teacher warned, “just make one for yourself. But keep your hands off. This is their assignment.” I had been warned; I knew my place.

While I cooked dinner that afternoon, Juniper worked diligently at her project. Finally, after almost an hour and a half, she presented her project proudly. It was complete. It had dangly symbols. It expressed her relationship with God. And it was really tacky looking, resembling something a 9-year-old would do all by herself, using resources she could gather by herself and embodying a concept that she alone approved. I praised her for her industry and creativity, and that was the end of that. Or so I thought.

in which my daughter fails

The next day, Juniper returned home downcast. “My teacher said my mobile was tacky, and that I hadn’t put any effort into it,” she reported. “I have to do another one, so I threw the first one in the trash.”

The narrowing of my eyes and the grim line my mouth made belied a storm system that was beginning to brew. I pondered as Juniper fretted out loud over what materials she would use this time, since we had no string. I picked up the phone and called my daughter Ivy, a fourth grade teacher at a different parochial school. She’s my consultant when it comes to all things institutional, for she knows how schools work and she’s got my back and those of her siblings. She would steer us in the right direction, just in case my advanced degrees and experience as a mother weren’t enough for handling Miss Brown.

Ivy told me it was unacceptable to tell a child that her best individual effort meant nothing and was a failure. She recommended I ask for a rubric that specified what was required and how the project would be graded. And so I did; I emailed Miss Brown and asked for a rubric, all the time wishing for something weightier than a rubric, wanting instead the Rosetta stone of fourth grade education to guide me as I navigated what were proving to be treacherous waters.

By the next day, Juniper’s project was one day late. She returned home with a failing grade on her book report cover, a separate assignment, because it was “too messy,” and also with a ball of brown string and a lame excuse for a rubric: A small note that said, “2 sticks; path-paper; + truth; bread in plastic bag; water in a plastic container; prayer card-praying.” This was the only rubric Miss Brown was giving us, and she responded to little else in my email except to apologize for being grumpy with Juniper.

Juniper was quite discouraged. The book jacket cover she’d done on her own and which I had approved with a “good job!” because it was entirely her work and was exactly what one would expect from a 9-year-old doing her own work had been rejected now, too: two rejections in a week, and we were only in the third week of school. This was clear evidence that 9-year-olds doing their own work were going to have their work end up in the waste bin, and parents were all going to be returning to fourth grade if they wanted their children to make good grades in Miss Brown’s class.

I took a deep breath and my inner dragon breathed fire.

While I fumed, Juniper fretted. Her fretting continued through the dinner hour, where the family took time to examine Miss Brown’s note and the string, everyone giving opinions about Miss Brown and her project. But Juniper is a dogged optimist and decided that she could do the work on her own. My husband, who works with projects all day but not with children, thought that she could do it, too. So I had Juniper get her materials together and demonstrate how she would do the mobile. It was clear that she didn’t have the tying skills or the knowledge of her materials needed to succeed. For instance, she wanted to color the hangers with a crayon, or use poster paint, neither of which would adhere to plastic or metal coat hangers. She was unable to manage the string very well, and the silly idea of putting bread in a bag to represent Jesus, the Bread of Life, threatened to send us all into paroxysms of eye-rolling. As we watched her struggle to do what her teacher said she should be able to do, I grew more and more upset. What is wrong with this woman? I wondered. She’s grading these children on their parents’ work! And I wasn’t going to be one of those parents.

in which I go to fourth grade

I decided to go to the school the next morning and look at the mobiles myself. This was a relief to Juniper, who simply wanted to please both teacher and mother. When I entered the room and saw the mobiles hanging from the ceiling, it was immediately apparent that few or none had been 100% child created. It appeared to me that 90% of them had been done mostly by parents. One mobile, for example, had a two-tiered round wire frame with perfectly-balanced and tied stained-glass symbols, clearly the work of a parent. Others admittedly looked a little tacky, but none looked as tacky as the work Juniper had done.

Miss Brown approached me and as she spoke, my mind was running over the options the family had discussed the night before. It was apparent from looking at the mobiles that Juniper couldn’t compete unless we did her work for her, or “with” her (i.e., did the work as she sat and watched). Finally, my decision made, I asked Miss Brown to grade Juniper’s original but trashed project, as tacky as it had been. “Although you said she’d made no effort, she actually did put a lot of effort into it,” I explained, “working over an hour on it. We’d like you to grade what she did and move on. Even if you give her an F, we are ready to move on. We’re all upset about your failing her twice this week, so let’s just make it official and go on.”

“She can do this,” Miss Brown insisted. “She needs to do the mobile.”

“No,” I argued, “she can’t do this on her own, and we’re not going to do her work for her.”

“I don’t expect you to,” Miss Brown explained, “You can just help her tie the knots.”

I looked Miss Brown right in the eye and firmly said, “No, Miss Brown, I am not going to ‘just help her tie the knots.’ Any help we give her will still not be acceptable, because nothing but a mobile with substantial parental work is going to pass muster, which is obvious by looking at these mobiles. You’re not grading the child’s effort, you’re grading the child on the work of the parents, and that’s a philosophical difference we have that isn’t going to be resolved today. Please grade her original project.”

Miss Brown leaned forward, hands on her hips, and with narrowed eyes spat, “Mrs. St. John! Your child is the only child in the class who failed at this project!”

My heart leaped into my throat, for this is the attitude I suspected but so hoped would not be evident in Miss Brown. I took a deep, shaky breath and said, “Thank you, Miss Brown, for singling my child out as the only failure in your class. I’m going downstairs to speak with someone in administration about this now.”

“You just do that,” Miss Brown hissed.

in which I go to the principal’s office

And so it was that I came to be sitting in the principal’s office, my hands folded in my lap as my innards shook and quailed and my heart ached for my bright, darling child whose teacher could see no beauty in a happy effort.

And isn’t this just exactly what the worst days of school were like for us when we were trapped in the classrooms of rigid, sour, unhappy teachers who relentlessly pounded every square peg into a round hole, pounding, pounding, pounding as bits of us flew here and there, until we were well pounded and finally fit, some years later, into the role called “me,” the idealized me that we spend the last half of our lives shedding so that we can be the selves we were born to be? Was school not a seedbed of rejection of what precious little we had that was uniquely, wonderfully, and wonkily ours, belonging to no one else but ourselves?

And suspecting this, knowing it, what’s a mother to do?

Tomorrow, I’ll tell you what I did. And you can tell me what you think about what happened next.

Images from the Global Children’s Art Gallery

Family Tree Assignment

I’m feeling a little blue lately. The spring is a time of anniversary reactions among my traumatized children, some of whom coincidentally had their biggest traumas, including the first big trauma of birth and separation from their birth mothers, in the spring.

It’s also a time of anniversaries for me. My daughter Olivia went into crisis and physical breakdown between February and August one year, with her birthday falling in April. But her biggest crash, the one that we would later see heralded her entrance into hospice care, happened in March. I remember how beautiful the weather was the day I realized I could go crazy with anguish.

My son, Bram, also has anniversary reactions that last from the first hint of spring in the air until early June. He recovers after his birthday passes, but until it does he is a mess of unconscious reactions, self-hatred, longing and emotions. I can identify in some ways, as I have my own birth traumas I’m carrying in my body, somewhere. Add to this the assignment his history teacher gave the class last week, which was to do an entire book on his origins, and you have a recipe for disaster.

Sometimes I feel exhausted.

In this assignment, first, he was supposed to draw his family tree. He has a wry, sardonic sense of humor, so when he saw this first step he debated with himself about the merits of using his Korean birth certificate, which says simply that he has no mother and no father.

“You’re a god, Bram!” we joked, “You have no beginning, and no end!”

He agreed.

“Bow down to me,” he demanded, and was hit in the head with a dinner roll.

The school project only grew worse. He was supposed to write a story about the day of his birth. And then he was supposed to write a birth announcement for the newspaper. And then tell funny stories from his childhood.

“I wonder,” he mused, “what funny and amusing stories I can tell about the orphanage? Or maybe I should tell a joke about being restrained in the hospital bed.” Our humor turned dark at the dinner table that night, as we all offered ideas that would be sure to wow his teacher, Miss Smith.

Twice he approached her and told her he didn’t feel comfortable doing the assignment, and asked for an alternate.

“I’ve had another adopted child in my class before!” she snapped. “Just do the assignment, or take a zero. Use your adoptive parents and their family tree; they’re your real family, anyway.”

Since Bram had already appealed to his teacher twice, I decided that it was time to go up to the school and have a little visit with the teacher, being the real mom and all.

Privately, I told my husband I wanted to go kick her ass.

This felt so great to say that I repeated it that night at dinner, “Hey, guys, I’m going to go up to the school and have a nice little talk with Miss Smith, and after that, I’m going to kick her ass!”

How politically and parentally incorrect is that? How’s that for training one’s children to respect authority figures?

Of course, I didn’t kick her ass when I met with her. In fact, it was one of the most pleasant meetings I’ve had with a teacher with whom I could not see eye-to-eye initially. By the time I left, I think she had the idea that not every adopted child was adopted as an infant, and (believe it or not, Miss Smith!), not every adopted child has gooey, happy, warm feelings about THE DAY OF HIS BIRTH!

/bangs head on school desk

Well. Anyway.

Only three more months of diffuse sad feelings and morosity (that must be a word, mustn’t it?) while the rest of the world is blooming, twittering, and rejoicing.

I don’t feel that a resurrection is coming, frankly. I miss Olivia. I miss the boy that my son would have been, had ne not suffered so much. I wish that people would just think sometimes, before they snapped at children or assumed that adoption is such a great thing. I wish that people could look at me and see what I see, which is that I’m damaged and weird from losing a child and always will be. I wish they could see that everyone, even a kid as great as my son Bram, everyone has griefs and secrets and wounds inside. Well, if not everyone, most people. I think most people have suffered, and those who haven’t suffered much yet will suffer before long.

As mad as I get about issues, politics, taxes, differences of opinion, misunderstandings, the meanness of people and their small hearts, I am never too far from thinking that most of what people fight and argue about is not about life and death. But death occurs, and then our chances to do well are over. Our chances to hold someone’s hand, to say, “I love you,” to smile into that person’s eyes, to do well by them, to be kind–are all over. You don’t get a do-over once a person has died.

strands

This is all jumbled up inside me, in two strands. Strands of sadness over what I’ve lost (selfishly speaking), and strands of sorrow over what my son has lost. No one can restore what he has lost to him. He has suffered a lot of physical and emotional pain. Sometimes I look at this beautiful young man and I think I’m seeing a vision, a miracle.

And then some fool like Miss Smith comes along and defiles what is holy.

Oh, it outrages me.

And then, I’m sad.

don’t you know, miss smith?

And then, I think and think, talk and talk, pray and pray, and I march myself out there and I go to war. I go to war and I carry a banner, it’s His banner (His banner over me is Love). I take that love and I go and I do what I have to do for my child. But as I sit there and I think about all my son has gone through, it is all I can do to keep from breaking down and crying. I want to take Miss Smith by the hands and plead with her, and say, “Oh, Miss Smith! Don’t you know that this young man survived years without a mommy and daddy to hold his hand when he was a little boy? Don’t you know that doctors cut his body open over and over again and it hurt him, and he didn’t know what was happening, and there was no mommy there? Don’t you know that he had multiple caregivers, and lived in a sterile, cold orphanage with other handicapped children, and nobody thought he was special, and he never had his own toy until I sent him one from America? And then his damn short-term foster mother, the one who kept him only for two months, she kept the teddy bear that he loved?”

“Miss Smith, when you look at my son, can’t you see that his heart was frozen and hard as a tiny little pebble by the time he got a mother? Can’t you see that he had fallen in on himself? When my son makes his A’s in your class, can’t you see what that A cost? He wasn’t nurtured, he is a miracle of the grace of God! Can’t you see that God and prayer and love brought him here, and that it was only by miracles that he’s even still alive? And can’t you see, Miss Smith, that when you force this beautiful boy to look back at his horror, it takes all the strength he can muster to not break down and cry?”

“Miss Smith, maybe for you every adoption is a blessed event. Maybe for you this miracle happened because of adoption. But, Miss Smith, that’s not the way we see it. We think the miracle of recovery and healing happened not because of adoption, but because of the grace of God, and that it could have come by any vehicle at all, because our son is strong, innately strong, and God loves him and adoption was just one way for love to get into his life? But not the only way.”

“Miss Smith, pardon me for saying so, but I want to just kick your ass for being such an insensitive twit over this. I feel so angry that you showed such disrespect for my son by telling him to do it your way or take a zero. Don’t you know that he already felt like a zero? That, to himself, he has been a zero his whole life? And it hasn’t helped that he’s been rejected again and again for one reason or another, and that he just kept rejecting himself after that, it became such a habit. And now you’re just helping him to feel different and alone, once again.”

“Miss Smith, that’s why I’m here. I’m here to tell you that my son is not alone in this. He has a family, and, yes, we are his real family. But his ideas about his birth, adoption, and life are his own. He has a right to not want to do this assignment, and how hard would it have been for you, raised and tended by loving parents your whole life, to have had a little mercy on someone who started out with so much less than you, and to have asked him what he wanted to do? If your goal was to help the class get to know one another, is there some reason why you couldn’t give these kids options–especially the ones who never had any options, but just had life handed to them in the most difficult way?”

This is what I would have said to Miss Smith, in part, had I been able to say these things. But I would have broken down and cried, wringing her hands and my own, and snot would have run down into my mouth and off my chin, and I’d have had to leave the school with big splashes of tears and snot on my blouse.

I don’t think that would ultimately be a very good image to leave with Miss Smith, much less with my son Bram.

So, as Mary treasured up everything said to her about Jesus, so I treasured up in my heart my real feelings and thoughts about my son Bram and his family tree assignment. I went up there as a diplomat of this adoptive family, and I did my thing. And it worked.

But it’s still spring, and I still feel kind of blue.

And I still hate those family tree assignments. It’s 2008, for God’s sake. Can’t you educators give assignments that are relevant to this century?

Art by Ruth Palmer.