Getting Schooled
I was a burned-out mental health professional. And then my teen son killed himself. In the wake of that knockdown, I needed a career shift. The school where I’d counseled for years and the second home my children experienced for grades 4-9 said I could do something else.
Reading and writing fuel me. I entered the classroom.


During the first year, I read The Fourteenth Goldfish by Jennifer L. Holm aloud to the class. Goldfish features 11-year-old Ellie, who’s not psyched about moving up to sixth grade, and her grandfather, Melvin, a scientific researcher. He discovered how to reverse aging and is a grumpy and opinionated old man in a teenage body—HIS teenage body. Melvin and Ellie attend school together. We learn Melvin’s beloved wife died, and Ellie never really knew her grandmother. In the end, Melvin heads out on a cross-country road trip he and his wife always meant to take together.
Melvin and Ellie are reunited in The Third Mushroom, the book I read to my class the second year after I started teaching after my son died.
It was a new year for Melvin and for me.

While Melvin was away, he created a blog and read all the romance novels his wife left behind.
The previous summer, I’d published my first essay about losing Owen. I’d launched a website about grief, teaching, and hope.
Melvin is a ravenous teenager. Ellie draws inspiration from her grandmother’s recipe box. Melvin is transported to the past by taste and smell, with Ellie’s versions of banana bread and quiche. The first time I made buldak (a.k.a. Fire Chicken), Owen wasn’t at the table. I knew it would go into the rotation of family recipes. A menu of AFTER.
Melvin talked about being destroyed by his wife’s death from cancer. He was frustrated that his decades as a scientist and two PhDs couldn’t save her from a “few” malignant cells.
I was steeped in mental health knowledge. Tragedy happened anyway.

I took notes on Melvin’s bereavement and the ways he folded the loss into the fabric of his life, designing a special lesson to wrap up the novel.
“I’m so glad we’re talking about this!”
“My ________ died.”
“So, wait. Did you go through grief?”
“Shut up! Maybe she went through growth.”
I told them about Owen, when he was a sixth grader, his gifts as a magician, and how he rode a horse named Bo. I explained he liked to wash dishes and unicycle, but not at the same time. We discussed ways people memorialize their loved ones. I mentioned the slide next to the winding staircase in the new performing arts center, a special feature funded through donations. A plaque displayed at the top tells everyone how Owen found wonder and delight climbing trees, skiing, rock climbing, and hiking all over campus.

The entryway is called The Heart Space.
I felt an opening. I decided to launch a school-wide presentation about post-traumatic growth.

In all my research to help students connect with books, I knew they needed windows (perspective) or mirrors (validation). My story could be both. I gave it a shot one November, covering all the bases about changing the question from WHY? to WHAT?
What NOW? What NEXT? What FOR?
I told them the things to do in those jagged initial months: eat, sleep, drink water like you’ve never heard of it before, and shower. Get outside. Activate your senses. Stretch your body. Then, make lists: What’s important? What can you let go? I talked about purpose and meaning. I’d made my lists. I couldn’t be a counselor anymore. I re-trained my brain to step into teaching, writing and publishing personal stuff, and sketching. I landed on the importance of protective factors: people and places to nurture your healing. If you don’t have them, seek them out. I offered resources, like books in our library about resilience and therapeutic interventions to target trauma. My colleagues and the kids nodded. Some hugged me or each other. We all had to get to first period.

Owen’s death is the biggest thing that’s happened to me. It’s huge, like a boulder dress I wear every day.
I’m also fortunate. I don’t have a pile of wounds to toss around. The favorite bachelor uncle at parties? He rolled up five-dollar bills in his hands and asked us children to choose a closed fist. No one ever lost, candy followed, and then nothing. No secrets. No tickling. No one had to touch anything other than a knuckle. He doled out his stash and then retreated to the kitchen to socialize with adults. I grew up in the only house on a long rural road with my brother and sisters. We tended a few goats, pigs, and later, a horse. Our English-teacher dad read The Chronicles of Narnia aloud at bedtime. Our mother cooked a pot roast and baked sour cream apple pie, taught us how to calculate percentages, and championed anything we did or wanted to do. My siblings and I played together every day riding our banana-seat bikes or racing each other on sleds down the iciest hill on our property. If anything got beat up, it was a pair of snow pants. I hold a master’s degree and married a similarly educated feminist who’s also a talented carpenter. We’ve built a life.
I will never not think of Owen. I feel his absence every day, and I will keep changing the question. I’m a student of grief and growth. I will always have homework.