Last time I witnessed the ripple effect was during the strike at Illini Bluffs High School. As a teacher on the line I felt like the rock that had disturbed the smooth surface of the water, and from my unique vantage point, I watched from the center as the ripples widened, floated away from me, and disrupted the placid indifference of my adopted community. We continue to tread water at Illini Bluffs, but today I find myself in a new position. Today I'm floating, unnerved and unbuoyed, in a new set of ripples.
The past week has been a slow goodbye to one of our own. For the second year in a row, I stood in front of my students and delivered the heart-breaking news that we'd lost another member of our family. I have done my best to comfort students; I've cried with them, and I've sat in classrooms full of teenagers who have been shocked into silence as they learn how to navigate their grief. As teachers, we watched as another piece of their childhood eroded away, and it has left us heartsick. As a mother, I have wept for the lost child and for his shattered family who are left behind to find the strength to make all their pieces fit together again.
In the ten years I've been involved in my school's community, I've found that there are two cliches about small town life that hold true: Word travels quickly, and it seems that everyone is related by either blood or marriage to everyone else in town. You would be hard-pressed to find a community member that isn't touched in some way by the death of Austin Nau, and in the immediate wake of the tragedy, I've watched ripples of comfort turn into waves of support.
Schools from around the area wore orange and black, observed moments of silence, and sent pictures to our school as evidence of their empathy and support. Facebook became an open forum of grief and served as a make-shift support group, available 24/7 to those in need of a human connection. Inside my school and out, I've witnessed students, past and present, protect, comfort, and sustain one another, and it is a remarkable sight that has left me overwhelmed by a mixture of emotions. I am so proud of the people my students have become, and I am humbled by their strength. In the past two years they've been forced to grow up too quickly, and my heart aches for them. At our school, as we work to right our ship once again, we find ourselves in new roles. There have been moments in the past week when being a teacher felt a whole lot like being a parent, and other times when students became unwitting teachers, their examples illustrating lessons about the fragility of our lives and the power of community.
As we prepare to say our final goodbyes to Austin Nau, I am acutely aware of the impact his death has had on our school and the members of this community, but I am also inspired by the legacy he leaves behind. I have heard first-hand accounts from his friends about how Austin helped to positively change the direction of their lives. Through organ donation, there are now multiple families whose children will have a more certain future, and while this can't bring Austin back, it certainly keeps him going. The ripples of Austin's legacy have the potential to reach far beyond his tiny community, and they will be visible for generations to come. It is my most sincere wish that his family and close friends, the ones at the center of this tragedy, will find peace and solace in that fact, and I hope that all of his loved ones will continue to be upheld, comforted and enveloped by the concentric circles of support that will continue to surround them here at home, Nau and forever.
Schools from around the area wore orange and black, observed moments of silence, and sent pictures to our school as evidence of their empathy and support. Facebook became an open forum of grief and served as a make-shift support group, available 24/7 to those in need of a human connection. Inside my school and out, I've witnessed students, past and present, protect, comfort, and sustain one another, and it is a remarkable sight that has left me overwhelmed by a mixture of emotions. I am so proud of the people my students have become, and I am humbled by their strength. In the past two years they've been forced to grow up too quickly, and my heart aches for them. At our school, as we work to right our ship once again, we find ourselves in new roles. There have been moments in the past week when being a teacher felt a whole lot like being a parent, and other times when students became unwitting teachers, their examples illustrating lessons about the fragility of our lives and the power of community.
As we prepare to say our final goodbyes to Austin Nau, I am acutely aware of the impact his death has had on our school and the members of this community, but I am also inspired by the legacy he leaves behind. I have heard first-hand accounts from his friends about how Austin helped to positively change the direction of their lives. Through organ donation, there are now multiple families whose children will have a more certain future, and while this can't bring Austin back, it certainly keeps him going. The ripples of Austin's legacy have the potential to reach far beyond his tiny community, and they will be visible for generations to come. It is my most sincere wish that his family and close friends, the ones at the center of this tragedy, will find peace and solace in that fact, and I hope that all of his loved ones will continue to be upheld, comforted and enveloped by the concentric circles of support that will continue to surround them here at home, Nau and forever.
2 comments:
Beautiful. Heartbreaking. Perfect.
This is the best thing that I have ever read. Thank you Mrs. Coulter for writing this, I have read this time and time again since his passing and it is an awkward feeling between tears and being proud of Austin and my friends.
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