(It was not this bird)

Friday, my supervisor said that he does not think that I care about my students. I care enough about the material that this does not matter. To him, this is not a bad thing. I do not become burned out because I am not attached. I leave my facility behind me at the end of each day. He struggles with this.

I didn't agree with him. I do care about some of my students. I do not universally care about them -- some are proud, serial child rapists -- but I treat them all as though I do. I want them to be more successful after leaving my care than they were going in.

The next day, I get a notification that one of my former students has died. I had not seen this boy in years. He may have revocated once, though it may have been that I remember him being there long enough to like him. He was never cross with me, when it is usual that a kid has cursed me out at least once. He was sweet and easygoing. He did his work as far as I remember, a solid B student. His original charge could have been drug related. He wasn't violent or gang affiliated. I doubt he fought, even when his classmates were obnoxious and might have deserved it. When he was with us, he had a child on the way and took parenting classes. He told me he wanted to be the sort of father he never had. (Though he added that he intended to smoke up with his child when they were old enough.) He had dark hair, so thick that he needed to dry it thoroughly after a shower or it would be damp all day.

It was a traffic accident. Something stupid. He was on a dirt bike. They were in a car. He did not have on a helmet. Physics was not on his side. The driver of the car was uninjured and will face no charges.

I won't be going to his funeral because I don't have any business there. I will go to work Monday, and it will be a story we tell among ourselves, but there won't be mourning behind it. Another rumor. Another sentence in our history.

It would be a breach in confidentiality to admit that he was my student, not that the article about his death is more than "CAR HIT BOY. HE DIED." I don't know that there is anything more newsworthy to the event.

He deserves mourning, my first student to die while working in this facility. (Two students from Poughkeepsie High School died, one in a traffic accident, one from a domestic murder.) He was one of the ones whose names I chose to remember. If you gave me a lot of my former students’ names, I would struggle to put a face to it. His comes easily, alongside a dozen others, at least half because I liked them. The habit is to refer to the students by their initials, a trend started by using these for privacy over the radio, thereafter spread by convenience.

There are students whose deaths by drugs or violence would be regrettable, but not a surprise. This student's death is a tragedy because he was on the right side of life. He had things to live for. He had a reason and the potential. But a car hits him and it doesn't matter that I liked him, his essays, his attitude. He dies in the street while those who will never do half as much, or deserve it, will prosper, taking it for granted.

When I return Monday, I am right. He is a story that the staff is already moving past. An "it's a shame" before talking about sports. There is no acknowledgement that we knew and cared for this boy and he was struck down. I have never been here when a former resident died, but I expected more and am uncomfortable without it. There is an incessant buzz about "dialectical behavioral therapy" and "trauma informed care," but it is nothing but words. When there is a trauma that should be facility-wide, it is shrugged off. Last summer, one of our cooks died of heart issues. No one bothered letting me know until I arrived back in September, by which point they were all over it.

The following day, I see a tiny songbird, its feathers an emerald sheen, dead on the sidewalk. I immediately tell the bird I am sorry this happened. There does not seem to be any injury. It is just dead. I ask maintenance if they care, but they say I am welcome to deal with it outside their interventions.

I gather the bird in a paper towel, looking it over to confirm it wasn't bleeding or broken. It is light beyond reason.

I carry it ten feet into the woods near the facility, whispering narration to the bird as though it might be scared.

"We're going to go into the woods and find you a nice place to be buried, okay? Do you like this tree? I think it seems nice."

There is a rock the shape of an axe-head, which I use to scrape away the moss and dirt between roots. The bird is so small that it doesn't take a minute, though I get it a half-sobbed eulogy to this creature I never met before nor have now, because this is definitely about the bird and nothing else.

I return to the education wing to ready myself for a day of teaching.

Soon in Xenology: Writing. The End of the World. Soulmates.

last watched: The Dark Crystal: Age of Resistance
reading: Fierce Invalids Home From Hot Climates