Missing

Yesterday afternoon this girl, Rebecca, went missing after school- she was last seen at Trask, then nothing.  Her parents, friends and police are looking for her- everyone wants her back home and safe.  I hoping that she will be, that all will be well, that it was a misunderstanding or a simple wandering away or mixed up plans. I am extremely grateful that she has people to look for her, to care- and I worry about those who do not.

High school is not like what I experienced~ even though I disliked (I'm being polite) high school, it was firmly in the comfort zone of our time and place.  Everyone had parents, lived at home, and any shenanigans were covered up discreetly.  There was a safety net of... I don't know what to call it- standard practices? That dictated the response to any perceived indiscretions-  pregnant girls vanished (but I don't recall anyone even getting pregnant when I was in high school.  Obviously, we were teenagers and not exactly prudish, but babies?  Was it because so many of the kids were Catholic and ingrained in no-sex, or because of birth control, or what?),  there were drugs around of course (I avoided them.  It's funny, because when I talk about the time I grew up in, and living in California, people jump to all sorts of assumptions.  But no, I was not wild. At all.  Just the smell of regular cigarettes made me queasy, and I just didn't care about doing things to fit in.  Drinking wise as well- even back then, drinking was no big deal, because I was taught to appreciate wine with dinner, the adult ritual of 'cocktails', and learned very quickly that bad beer just isn't worth it. I just never got in to the partying scene.  Even at college, I 'tended bar'- poured the beers- rather than drinking much myself....bad beer sucks.)  Anyway, back to high school back then. (For frame of reference, I graduated in 1981, went to college 81-83 for the first time...then moved to California.)   I don't remember anyone running away... of course we had our quiet scandals.  One girl (older than me, also named Rebecca) who was 'sent away' to 'boarding school' because she was anorexic.  A beauty queen (literally- a pageant winner, back around 1977) who became pregnant by the physics teacher- but *after* she graduated and he was a very young teacher...so it was acceptable. Sort of.  A death in a car crash attributed to pills and drugs.  But mostly we were stable, in our stable lives and things that weren't were kept private.

It's different now, it's even different since I began teaching 15 years ago, even since Grendel went to school.  Part of it is context- instead of the upper middle class area of Westmont (we were a bit of an anomaly- we did ok, but most of the students at my small school were the kids of doctors, lawyers, company men) - is that we live in a rural Southern community, where money and jobs are hard to come by and often impacted by the variables of weather and economy.  Part of it is the changing morals of the country, which is a good/bad thing-  in my heart, I know that everything under the sun has always gone on, and was most likely buried away in the land of 'things-not-to-talk-about-in-public'.  Dirty laundry, skeletons in the closet, party line gossip.  It is good now that people discuss these things, and better even that they find the strength to get out when life is toxic.  Sometimes it is said that these generations do not try hard enough to stay married, stay committed to a job or relationship or what not- but what they do have is the wisdom and power to escape and survive.  That can be a strength.

What has happened though at the high school level is that many of my kids are constantly lost- they are in fractured families, drift from home to home, try to live on their own.  While there are many good foster parents around, foster kids- especially teenagers- are seen as a kind of 'cash crop' during tough times.  They are taken in and traded like playing cards, some move every month, some just as soon as they begin to settle- especially those that are 'aging out' of the system.  Many, many of our students live on their own- they may be staying with a friends family, or in a camper, or tent or car.  They may be someones 'boy/girl friend' just so they have a place to stay, food to eat.  It sounds desperate and it is- and there is absolutely no safety net for these kids once they graduate.  The smart ones join the military, or scrape up enough financial aid/ scholarships to go to college (blindly, like Grendel and I, hoping for a miracle to wipe out student loans).  A few of the lucky ones snag jobs in high school and hold on to them, or take advantage of some of the certifications they can get in school~ there is always a need for nurses aids in the city.  Sometimes they just drift off.

The girl that is missing is not one of these- she has a home, and parents, and friends.  She does well in school and- at least on the surface- everything seems ok.  People love her, care about her, noticed her absence right away....and we are all hoping praying wishing for her safe return.  It doesn't matter if she chose to runaway or was taken- right now the importance is that she is missing and needs to be found, she is someones child and is loved.   I hope though that this care would be there if others went missing- the lost ones- that someone would notice their absence (they tend to be frequently absent) and raise an alarm.  That is another reason that I let kids find me on facebook, have my text number- so they have *someone* to check in with, or that checks in on them, someone who they could call if they really need help.  I am not the only teacher that does this- not by a long shot.  We have become another kind of safety net, something that, though invisible, is there.

I wasn't at school yesterday.  My head started Monday afternoon, and I cam home early and went to bed- it continued on through the night and into the wake-up time....about 4 am the manz convinced me to call in and go back to bed, where I stayed all day long.  It is an infection of some sort- head and ear, my balance is shot, I'm hearing all cotton clogged and echoy with ringing- and last night it moved down into the tummy region and the bathroom became my best friend.  Today I am up, keeping my coffee down, must go to school- am going to be out a week for the NYC trip and cannot abandon the students more than that...work waits on no one.  I am fortunate though because I have someone who cares, someone who looked after me from Monday night until now (and is continuing to) bringing me hot tea and toast, lovely cool Mexican ice creams, checking on me constantly. Calling the doctor and will make sure I go (today after school), taking good care, worrying over every small thing.  And I know that the world would not end if I stayed home today- I am still queasy and dizzy, it's like being car sick- but I also know that going to school isn't likely to be fatal, and I will feel mentally better if I go.  So I will.  And I will talk to the students, check in on my lost ones, find out what I can, hope that all will be well.