Friendship

Lucas and Max Kindergarten, Spring 2012

Lucas, Max, and Josie at Luc's first birthday: May 2007

I have been talking to my high school students about what it means to be a friend. The daily grind of the public school can really get to me after a while. I have so many students with problems at home, at school, in their heads, in their uterus's (2 pregnant right now, one is 14) that I lose focus on what it means to be truly blessed. I have to force my perspective in a different direction, and when I do that I look home of course!

My children are just my favorite thing in the world and I love looking around at how much they have changed and grown. Max's teacher sent home these pics of he and Lucas at their class's trading card/ice cream party as a testament to how much Max has grown over the year. One year ago he would have shied away from the camera, but look at that cheesy grin now! Luc and Max have their ups and downs and back and forth, but they are really buddies right now and right now is what counts.

I wish some of my students were fortunate enough to have such a great friend as Luc has in Max. Or even that they had been given such a great start in life as we have found in Lucas's wonderful school. Mostly I just wish for a million dollars so I could leave the woe's of other people's children behind for a while and spend my days carting my monky's around and letting them drive me crazy instead of test scores, teen hormones, and the dreaded "fate of the arts in schools" stuff that haunts my daily life. Woe is me right? Life could be harder I realize, believe me I REALIZE! And that perhaps is the real gift my job gives me, I am constantly aware of just how good I have it. That is the true blessing underneath it all.