Un-Quitting Through the Tears

“You know what? I quit.”

I couldn’t do this. This was too hard.

Throwing down my pencil, I watched as it clattered down onto my desk and rolled slowly off, and onto the chipped and stained tiles of Mrs. Lingot’s 7th English class.

Next to me, Grace, my best friend, picked up the sharp yellow pencil and handed it back to me.

“Here you go,” she said, smiling at me.

I sighed and took it from her.

“How do you do this? This is so hard!” I exclaimed in frustration.

Grace adjusted her colorful headband in her curly black hair. “How do you do what?”

“This! Everything! How do you just ‘write a story’? There’s no rules, no formulas, I... it’s so hard!”

“But that’s what makes it so fun Jenny,” Grace answered. “You just get to write. Try, just writing down your thoughts and feelings and see how it molds itself into a story.”

“Yea, it’s really fun!” Bob, my other friend said from in front of me. He turned around to look at me, while adjusting his blue glasses. “I’ve already written five pages!”

I rolled my eyes and slumped down in my seat. “Good for you Mr. Smarty-pants.”

Bob looked a little hurt, and he said, “Oh, I’m sorry I...”

“It’s fine,” I interrupted. “Just go back to being brilliant at everything and leave me to fail again. It’s ok.”

Bob turned back around and continued writing without another word. I could tell I’d hurt his feelings. Hurt his feelings a lot. But I didn’t care. I couldn’t. Ever since ‘the accident’ had happened, there was no more feelings. No more feelings except pain, and hurt, and regret. I couldn’t bring myself to care that I’d hurt Bob’s feelings, and I couldn’t bring myself to mind that my grades were dropping heavily. Dad had called it ‘slacking off’, and ‘I just needed to work harder’. But I didn’t have anything left to give. When she died, she took everything I had with her. I was so mad, I just...a single tear dropped down onto my blank piece of paper, and I quickly wiped it away. I was furious with myself for crying. In the middle of class too!

But I couldn’t help it. Two more tears rolled down my cheeks. I sniffed and hid behind my wavy auburn hair. Nobody could see me crying.

Just then, a comforting hand was placed on my shoulder, and a voice whispered in my ear, “Jenny, why don’t you and I step out into the hall for a second?”

I kicked myself. Of all people, the teacher had seen me crying! And now she was going to take me into the hall and ask me about my feelings and then send me to the nurse or the councilor, or both, which would make me even more miserable. But I had to obey.

Standing up reluctantly, I tried to ignore the whispers that engulfed the classroom as I followed Mrs. Lingot out the door. Great. Now I had the whole class’s attention, and the teachers.

Mrs. Lingot shut the door and turned to face me. But instead of giving me a reprimand or something worse, she simply wrapped her arms around me and squeezed me into the tightest hug ever. This was too much. Nobody had hugged me since...a huge lump formed in my throat and I desperately tried to swallow it, but it seemed determined to come out. A huge, shaking sob racked through my body, and I clung to Mrs. Lingot as big fat, ugly tears streaked down my face. What was wrong with me? Why couldn’t I control myself? But it felt so good to cry. I’d barely cried at all since she had left me. Since she had torn our family apart by leaving this world. Our world. Mrs. Lingot was hugging me tighter and whispering soothing words into my ear. But they weren’t words like, “Everything is going to be ok,” or “Don’t cry, it will be all right.” She was whispering words such as, “I know it hurts,” and “I’m here.”

When the tears had subsided a little bit, she pulled back just enough for me to see her face. I was shocked to see there were tears in her eyes too.

“Oh Jenny. I’m so sorry,” she said, sniffing a little.

I was confused. Why was she sorry? What did she have to be sorry for? There were a lot of people in my life who needed to say sorry, but Mrs. Lingot wasn’t one of them.

“What for?” I managed to ask.

“For not noticing sooner,” she replied, handing me a tissue.

I blew.

“I should have seen your hurting. It’s part of a teacher’s job! I just assumed you were struggling with this unit or something, but...oh never mind. The point is that I know now, or at least, I know some of it. Do you want to tell me?”

I opened my mouth to say that, “No, I did not care to share, and that I would like to go back into the classroom and pretend that none of this ever happened.” But instead of that very firm and cold reply, I found that different words came tumbling out of my mouth. So fast, that I couldn’t stop them. They came in a torrent, rushing out of me, and as I talked, more words came, and more, and more, until I was telling her everything. How my life had been perfect with Mom. How she had actually understood me, and listened to me, instead of just brushing me off like Dad did. But then how she had gotten sick, and how it had ripped me apart, watching her die slowly, slowly, slowly, until there was nothing left. And she was gone. How thoughtless it was that she hadn’t even said goodbye. That she had just left in the middle of the night, not even leaving a note or a meaningful item. And the shock and horror that came upon us as Dad woke up to find a dead body lying next to him instead of Mom. And how he had screamed and shouted and ran off to some bar, and come home drunk, and still screaming and shouting. How Jack, my older brother had begged and pleaded with Mom to come back and even done CPR in an attempt to get her breathing again. But none of it had worked. None of it had brought her back. And how, as I had sat alone in the room with that dead body, I had felt all of my emotions empty out of me, until all that was left was pain, and fear, and anger. So much anger. I was angry at Mom for leaving. I was angry at Dad for not taking proper care of us. I was angry at Jack for not telling Dad to stop thinking about himself and to focus on us. I was angry at the doctors for not doing a better job. But most of all, I was angry at myself. I was angry that there was nothing I could do to bring her back.

When I finished, there was silence. Mrs. Lingot said nothing, only wrapped me into another big hug.

Finally, she spoke. “I’m sorry Jenny. I’m so, so sorry. I know how it feels to lose someone you love. It’s hard, and you just feel so angry and sad at the same time.”

“Yea,” I nodded grabbing another tissue.

“But guess what?” Mrs. Lingot tucked a stray piece of hair behind my ear. “Just because she’s gone doesn’t mean she stopped loving you. Just because your separated from her doesn’t make your love for each other lessen. And even though she’s gone physically, she’s not gone. She still lives in you. And she lives in your family. And she lives in everyone who loved her and who she loved. Oh Jenny, she’s not gone, in fact she’s even more alive than she was before she died. Because now that she’s gone, everyone begins to realize all the helpful, and kind, and sweet things she did for everyone, and their love for her grows even more.”

I took a deep breath and nodded slowly. It was hard to wrap my head around, but I was beginning to understand.

“I’ll still miss her a lot though.”

“Of course you will, you won’t ever stop missing her, but through the pain you can decide to become stronger. You can let the brokenness shine through, and I know it looks ugly right now, but in time this grief, this sadness, will soften into a glow. A glow of remembrance and a glow of hope. There’s a Bible verse that says, “For I know the plans I have for you, declares the Lord. Plans to prosper you and not to harm you. Plans for a hope, and a future.” Do you believe in God Jenny?”

“Yes,” I sniffed. “At least I think so. I... I’m not so sure anymore.”

“God’s not finished Jenny. He has a plan for your life. And He will help you through this struggle. I know it’s hard. But you have a chance to let God help you and to turn this grief into a message about Him.”

I nodded and let a slow smile creep onto my face.

“Thank you, Mrs. Lingot.”

“As for that writing,” she chuckled. “I know there’s something in there, Jenny. You just need to find it. And maybe this helped, I don’t know.”

“Oh, it did Mrs. Lingot. Thank you so much.”

“You’re welcome, Jenny. And if you ever need to talk, please let me know.”

“Thank you.”

And with that, I turned and walked back into the classroom. Sitting down at my desk, I knew exactly what to do.

“Bob?”

He turned around slowly. “Yea?”

“I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have gotten angry at you. It’s not your fault I was struggling. I took out my anger on you, and that was wrong. Can you forgive me?”

A smile burst out on his face. “Yea Jenny. Thanks. Do you need help on your writing?”

“No, I think I got it.”

Turning to Miriam, I said, “Miriam, I’m sorry. I was so caught up with my own struggles that I didn’t think about you at all. Thank’s for being patient with me even when I was complaining.”

She reached out to give me a hug. “It’s ok Jenny.”

Turning back to my work I picked up my pencil and wrote, ‘You know what? I don’t quit. And God hasn’t either.’