My Student, My Hero

My parents have been married pretty happily for the past 31 years.  Divorce was never on my mind.  I am the oldest of 7 kids and we are a pretty tight group.  It is a little weird being 30 and having 2 brothers in the third grade, but I would never complain.  I am truly blessed to have the life that I have.

When Laurel Snyder asked for posts I divorce, I said sure, of course (I would pretty much do anything she asked me to do).  When I sat down to write my post  that night, I couldn’t think of anything to write about on the topic.

Laurel’s Request

I started thinking about the purpose of these divorce blogs, and I decided that maybe they are to show how children’s litterature and writing can help kids of all ages deal with the tragedy, that is divorce.

As a teacher I deal with divorce every single year.  I see how it effects kids. If it were not for childen’s litteratue I wouldn’t have a way into the minds of a  child dealing with this issue.  I don’t pretent to know what it is like, but I do have a small understanding of some of the things these kids are going through.

The book that dealt with divorce that I fell in love with as a child was Hatchet.  If you are reading this post you have probably read Hatchet.  If not, read it next. A fourth grade boy in my classroom a couple of years ago had gone through a divorce.  He was a well adjusted and amazing young man.  After reading Hatchet he decided, on his own, that he would write about divorce.  I have inserted his story below.  If you are familiar with Hatchet you it may be obvious to you that he read that book before writing HIS story.

“Where’s Dad going?” I asked as I put my head on the headrest.

“Daddy’s going to live somewhere else,” she said, keeping her
eyes locked on the road.

Why is Daddy living somewhere else? I thought, but before I
could say it aloud I knew the answer: Divorce. The most hatted word on earth.
Now I knew why we were moving away. That hated, word was the answer. I never
thought this would happen to me. I always thought it would be us four, but now
that hated word divorce entered our family, it split is up, divided us.
Separated us. Now I knew all the answers. I lunged toward the window, watching
my dad’s truck turn away.

“He’s gone,” I said quietly to myself as I sat back in my
chair.

“He’s gone, my mom said, sounding like she didn’t care.  I wiped the tears off my face as I feel asleep.

I awoke to the sound of the car coming to a stop, hoping that
the divorce was all a dream, but it wasn’t. Then I heard my mom call, “John,
 John,” so I slowly lifted my head up, lazily unbuckled my seatbelt, walked out
of the car thinking welcome to my new home, welcome to my new life.

After he read the story the class sat in stunned silence.  After the longest 10 seconds I have ever experienced, the class stood and clapped for that strong young man.