Choosing Hope: Moving Forward from Life's Darkest Hours

by Kaitlin Roig-DeBellis

  My personal life had also taken a happy turn at about that time. Two weeks before school started, my boyfriend proposed to me. I’d never been that girl who went wedding-dress shopping before she ever met her future husband, but I did know I wanted to be married and have my own children someday. I’d met Nick, by chance, three years earlier and knew right away that he was the one. Our first meeting was, in so many ways, a fluke. Or was it fate? I’d like to think so.

  It was August 18, 2009. I’d planned to meet my former college roommate and one of my best friends, Lisa, for dinner on that Tuesday to talk about training together for the Boston Half Marathon. As it happened, the restaurant we chose was closed on Tuesdays, so Lisa and I had settled on a place nearby called John’s cafe. I’d reserved a table for two outside, for 6:30, I thought. Lisa thought the reservation was for 6:00. When I got there, thirty minutes after she did, I found Lisa sitting at the bar, sipping a glass of wine and chatting up the bartender. I didn’t know it then, but Lisa had told the bartender how to spot me. “She’s blond, she always smiles, and she’ll say ‘Hey!’ as if she isn’t late,” she’d said.

  “Hey!” I said, smiling my best smile as I strolled in and joined her at the bar. “Hey!” Lisa said. “Kaitlin, meet Nick. Nick, this is Kaitlin.” I soon learned that Nick’s brother was the chef at John’s. Nick was between jobs as a country-club superintendent and bartending there, but only on Tuesday nights. He poured me a glass of wine and the three of us started talking about, well, just stuff. I told him I’d graduated from the University of Connecticut. He’d graduated from Rutgers. He coached football and played golf. I like long runs and spending time with my family and friends. We discovered our hometowns were only ten minutes apart and we had some mutual acquaintances. Talking with Nick was so natural, so easy. By the end of the evening, we were Facebook friends.

  The next morning I found a Facebook message from Nick saying how much he’d enjoyed our time together and asking if I’d like to have lunch the following week. I didn’t hesitate with my response. “Of course!” I wrote. Nick and I shared everything after that. We traveled to Miami every August and December. We celebrated Thanksgivings with his family and Christmases with mine. We took vacations with friends to Cape Cod and Atlantic City. We hiked up mountains, jogged along beaches, cooked each other’s favorite meals, ate out at our favorite restaurants, and made each other’s friends “our friends.” My dad had always told me that when it came time for me to choose a life partner, it should be someone who treasured me (the way he has always treasured my mom), and I had found that in Nick. Three years to the day after that first meeting, he proposed.

  Nick is such a romantic that a simple “Will you marry me?” wouldn’t do. He’d put a lot of thought into how he would ask me to marry him. I’d run in from the gym that day and found him sitting on the bed, looking at his iPad. Months earlier, he had compiled a timeline of photos from our courtship and turned it into a slideshow with Journey’s “When You Love a Woman”—our song—playing in the background. It was quite a keepsake, with photos of us on early dates, and on vacations, and celebrating the holidays, and birthdays, and other special occasions. We never tired of watching it, so I wasn’t surprised to see it on his screen. “I added some photos,” Nick said, patting the bed for me to sit down. I was sweaty from working out and just wanted a shower, but Nick insisted I sit, so I did, admittedly a little bit annoyed. (That’s how it always is, right? I had no idea what was about to come.)

  We watched the same slideshow of the same photos I’d seen a million times—until he got to the last picture. It was of a beautiful engagement ring, a gold band with a bright yellow citrine stone in the center. Once I caught my breath, I turned to look at him and he was already down on one knee. “I’ve been waiting a long time to do this and I know you’ve been waiting, too,” he said. “Will you marry me?” In anticipation of my response (a tearful “Yes!”) Nick had invited our closest friends for a celebratory brunch at our place that same afternoon, which he prepared himself. My parents were thrilled when I called to tell them we were engaged. In a wonderful gesture, a few weeks earlier, Nick had taken my dad to play golf and, unbeknownst to me, asked for his permission to marry me. He’s old-fashioned that way, and so is my dad.

  That same day we decided that the wedding would take place the following August. The sixteenth, a Friday. Even though it was a year away, I began planning immediately. Within a month, I was headed to New York City with my mom and my best friend, Casey, to buy my dress. I had already chosen it from a picture I’d seen in a magazine. An attentive saleswoman who aimed to please greeted us at the Vera Wang bridal shop on Madison Avenue. “What are you looking for?” she asked. “I know exactly what I want,” I replied excitedly. “I would like to try on the model called Gemma.” Trying to be accommodating, she pulled a half-dozen or so dresses, including the one I’d requested, for me to try on. I slipped on the Gemma first. It was strapless, with a fitted bodice that was wrapped in French tulle, and it flared at the knee with layers and layers of silk organza. I couldn’t imagine a more beautiful dress. “Okay! Wrap it up!” I said. I watched as the saleswoman’s mouth dropped. I have no doubt it was the quickest sale she had ever made. From there, Mom, Casey, and I went to lunch in the city and toasted the future with champagne. The countdown had begun. I couldn’t wait to tell my class.

  There isn’t much I don’t share with my first-graders, and the news of my engagement was no exception. I planned my announcement for Share Day, a time we set aside to talk about something that had happened in our lives—taking a trip to the zoo, or seeing a movie, or visiting a grandparent, things like that. Or, sometimes, on Share Days we’d have themes, such as a favorite thing to do, or a family activity, or show-and-tell. Afterward, the floor was open for questions and comments for whoever was sharing that day, and everyone was encouraged to participate.

  When it was my turn, I announced to my brand-new first-grade class that I was engaged. During questions and comments, one of my little boys, who, no matter what we were discussing, was always curious for clarification, raised his hand right up.

  “Miss Roig?” he asked, pushing fringes of hair away from inquisitive eyes. “Does engaged mean you’re getting married or you’re getting divorced?”

  I couldn’t help but smile. “Oh!” I said. “Engaged means you’re going to be married.”

  The boy took a deep breath and blew it out. “Whew!” he said. “I was worried there for a minute.”

  And so the school year began, as sweet and enchanting as ever. How could I not love what I was doing?

  First Grade Is . . .

  Learning the difference between tattling and telling.

  Being excited about every little thing, because everything is new.

  Going to the bathroom several times a day.

  Three and three-quarters inches, fifty pounds, gap-toothed smiles.

  Wanting to help, with everything.

  Asking questions. Who? What? When? Where? How? Why? Why? Why?

  All about routines. (Pity the poor substitute teacher: “That’s not how Miss Roig does it! That’s not where we put that! That’s not the right way . . .”)

  Having no filter. The truth is the truth is the truth. (“You look so tired!” “You look beautiful!” “Why are you wearing those silly shoes?”)

  Being impulsive. (They do what they want, when they want.)

  Runny noses, untied shoes, constant reminders to “Cover your mouth when you sneeze.”

  Learning how to be a friend.

  Learning to say “I’m sorry.”

  Learning that your actions after you’ve said “I’m sorry” are what really count.

  Learning to tie your shoes.

  Talking about “those baby kindergartners.”

  Not having naptime anymore (even though they could use it!).

  Repeating everything you hear (including arguments
between your parents!).

  Having boundless energy. Going. Going. Going.

  Learning to sit for longer periods of time.

  Exploring. What can I get away with? What won’t work?

  Learning to tell time, to count to 120, to spell 100 words, to write a complete sentence.

  Seeing things as right or wrong, good or bad, with no middle ground.

  Learning to walk in the hallway. (“Voices off!”)

  Having to be told to “Keep your hands to yourself.” Regularly.

  Learning about personal space and staying inside of it (crisscross applesauce, hands in a bowl).

  Celebrating every holiday, including the one hundredth day of school.

  Believing your parents and your teachers are real-life heroes.

  It’s a magical time for children, and for their teachers. It really is a year of “firsts.” The first weeks of school are for students to get familiar with the lay of the land. It’s their first time spending the whole day at school (and learning how not to take an afternoon nap the way they did in kindergarten) and it takes some time to get them used to the routine. I always took my students on “guided discovery” trips, to places like the cafeteria, where they could explore the offerings, and outside to the playground, where I demonstrated how to use the slide, the swings, and the climbing bars.

  Back in the classroom, I showed them things such as how to hang up their backpacks, and where to find their book bins, and the process for signing up for the cafeteria lunch. (I learned an important lesson about that during my first year of teaching. The entire class signed up for the school lunch, but when we got to the cafeteria, where the food had already been prepared and waiting for us, I discovered that most of my first-graders weren’t buying at all. They had brought their lunches from home. They had just been so excited for an opportunity to sign up for something—how grown-up!—that they all signed up. Needless to say, the lunch ladies were not happy.)

  Watching my students experience so many firsts never got old. Those first weeks were, as always, wonderful (and tiring) times. The kids reveled in things such as learning to spell three- and four-letter words, and reading the face on a clock to the nearest hour, and remembering one another’s names, and memorizing the classroom rules:

  Take care of everything in our class and our school.

  Take care of myself.

  Show other people respect.

  Always try my best.

  We were really starting to come together as a class.

  But September became October, and that rolled into November, and then December 14, when everything came to a numbing halt.

  For my students and me that day began like most days. I had just finished playing a recording of “Oh, What a Beautiful Mornin’,” the Rogers and Hammerstein classic from the musical Oklahoma!, and the cue for my first-graders to gather at the front of our classroom for our morning meeting. Morning meeting was one of my favorite customs, fifteen or twenty minutes at the beginning of class time when we acknowledged one another with a special greeting and got to know and care about one another. It was a great reinforcement for our number-one classroom rule, the Golden Rule: do unto others as you would want them to do unto you.

  When I allow my mind to drift back to that memory, I imagine us as a Norman Rockwell painting. There we are, Miss Roig and her fifteen little pumpkins, giggly girls with freckled noses and ponytails tied with bows, and squirmy boys with cowlicks and scraped-up knees, all sitting “crisscross applesauce, hands in the bowl” in a circle in a cozy corner of our classroom.

  I wish I could have frozen that snapshot in time, those precious moments of us, a young teacher and her class of first-graders—little boys and girls whose biggest worries were what their moms had packed for lunch, or what Santa was bringing for Christmas, or when a loose tooth was finally going to come out—that sweet morning time just before a twenty-year-old local man, cloaked all in black, and carrying a Bushmaster semiautomatic rifle, blasted his way into our school and went on a killing spree.

  One minute, I was deliriously happy, with a career I loved and a man I cherished. The next minute, I was crammed into a bathroom stall with my terror-struck first-graders—boys and girls, most of whom had yet to even learn to tie their shoes—mourning the future we would never have and listening in horror as the teachers and first-graders on the other side of the wall were being massacred, the whole time thinking that we were next. I could hardly grasp what was happening. It couldn’t be. Not to us. Not in Newtown. But that’s how life is, isn’t it? It can change in a blink.

  When I finally got home on that mournful afternoon, dazed by the madness of what I had witnessed, thinking about the children and educators who had lost their lives so senselessly and cruelly, I couldn’t imagine my students or me ever knowing “normal” again, ever feeling true happiness or joy after knowing such maliciousness and evil. How does a child recapture that wondrous view of the world they had when they’ve witnessed the very worst of humankind?

  I was so angry for them and for me that my tears tasted of bitterness and my hands balled up into tight fists. The monster had taken our friends, ripped away our ideals, shaken our faith in humanity, and blunted our optimism. I was overcome with feelings of resentment and loathing. The stranger had destroyed the fairy tale. Still, I prayed for my students and for me that one day we would find a reason to smile again.

  I hoped I could figure out how.

  The Common Denominator

  A couple years back I read a column in The New York Times about a first-grade boy who was struggling in school. His home life was turbulent and his schoolwork suffered so much that he was eventually placed in a class for slow learners. The boy decided that if his teachers had such low expectations of him he might as well “live down” to those ambitions. In fourth grade, he moved to a different school district. His new teacher cared enough to engage and encourage him, and—what do you know?—he began to enjoy learning. Lo and behold, that young boy wasn’t “slow” at all. On the contrary, his IQ was so high he was eventually placed in a gifted and talented program and went on to become valedictorian of his high school graduating class.

  Charles Blow, the Times columnist, was that little boy. Reading about how a teacher named Mrs. Harris changed his path really hit home for me. I can’t help but wonder how different Mr. Blow’s life might be had he never gotten the opportunity to work with a teacher who cared enough to believe in him. What a huge responsibility we, as teachers, have to inspire and encourage, and what a tremendous impression we can make on our students’ lives when we do our jobs the right way.

  Our job is to encourage our students, to believe in them and inspire them to want to learn and be the best they can be. That is what good teachers do. They light a fire under their students with the goal of leading them to be intrinsic, lifelong learners. Learners who can find knowledge on their own, explore, inquire, and still have a yearning to know more.

  During my years in the classroom, I witnessed countless stories of teachers who identified the hidden promise of students and worked tirelessly to instigate learning to help them reach their potential. Teachers are often maligned, and I know there are some out there who should probably be in different professions, but in my experience, most are wholly devoted, caring, competent people with the altruistic goal of sharing their knowledge to engage children in learning. I can think of no nobler cause.

  Someone recently asked me, “What would the world be like without teachers?” Without hesitation, I replied, “It wouldn’t work.” Teachers are why the world works. I have always believed that. They’re the common denominator in our world. Everyone starts in school—doctors, lawyers, athletes, business moguls, cancer researchers, and presidents. Think about Anne Sullivan, the “miracle worker” who devoted her entire adult life to helping Helen Keller become an intellectually productive human being. The thing about teachers, the
really good ones, is that their passion for what they do awakens young minds to the joys of learning, and after that, anything is possible.

  Good teachers plant seeds and help to cultivate good and thoughtful people.

  It’s not enough to make an impression on one or two of your students. You strive to instill self-confidence and a love of learning in every student, but you have to love what you’re doing to want to put in the time and effort it takes to accomplish that. It’s kind of like an actor who performs for the same audience every day and still has them wanting to come back for more. That kind of passion is contagious and the audience catches it.

  Some of the most influential people in the history of the world were teachers. Think about it. Confucius. Aristotle. Albert Einstein. Henry David Thoreau. Booker T. Washington. They shaped minds and cultures. Barack Obama famously said during his first run for president in 2008, “The single most important factor in determining [student] achievement is not the color of their skin or where they come from. It’s not who their parents are or how much money they have. It’s who their teacher is.” I couldn’t agree more.

  A good teacher wears many hats: educator, supporter, nurse, counselor, mediator, listener, sometimes even parent. You intervene when your students aren’t seeing eye to eye. You encourage confidence in those who may be struggling with self-image. You build a caring community within your classroom so that everyone feels as if they are part of the team.