Siu Mai and Snowmen

My collage is made up of papers that all crossed my path this week:

• innocent coffee was my breakfast date last Saturday
• frederick buechner, who was part of my reading and creativity (photo and quotes)
• the plumeria flowers were on the mauna loa bag of macadamia nuts that I finished off
• across the street at spicy court for dim sum lunch was my date this Saturday
• the joys of winter with cute snowman was off my coffee sleeve today
• black and white wrist band from one of my gym days
• I cut apart  the window envelope that brought me my December VISA bill

This week I was comforting a student in the classroom cloakroom. Not one to usually show emotion, he was sullen and I could tell he was holding back a bother. Someone had alerted me saying that she didn’t realize that in a recess game she had destroyed his snow- a big ball on the gravel field left over from the snow last week. I explained this to the boy, who nodded to let me know that this was indeed what he was upset about. I tried to console  him by reminding him that it will snow again. And that’s when the tears really started rolling down his cheeks. He exclaimed in a broken voice, “But it was my first snowman!”

It was so innocent. His pain was so real. There was such a finality to his declaration. There was nothing more I could do or say but a gentle, “I’m so sorry.”

So I’m glad the snowman got into my collage this week. It will remind me of the what I learned this week: to try to understand the very real issues that some of my students go through. To my eyes, it may not seem like such a big deal. But if I try to see it through their eyes, maybe I can understand them better and give them space to grieve their smashed snowmen that will never be again.