A Loss for Us All: Teen Suicide and the Need for Your Heart Vibes

There are staggering statistics that can be shown to depict the devastation of teen suicide. You and I can easily find those numbers and try to imagine our way into awareness. The fact is, numbers like that; stats and figures, only lend themselves to the unfathomability of the tragedy. Philosophy has coined the phrase "hyperobject" to depict numbers and realities so immense, so abominable, that we cannot wrap our minds around them. The consequence is indifference to outcomes. Examples include fast fashion, environmental abuse, human trafficking and global starvation. We read about them, watch news about them, and go about our lives as though we cannot do anything about them. 

Our community's summer started with another loss of teen life to the hands of suicide. This young man, whose age is planted between that of my two youngest children, took his life last week, just as the emptiness of summer loomed. His loss of life is not lost on this mom-heart, and so here I am to say out loud what I hope others are feeling and thinking. These children are not a statistic to be tossed around as a hyperobject that is unattainable and unintelligible. These are our children who are hurting and suffering a sense of non-existence, non-purpose, non-importance, severe destitution, whatever you want to call it...they need us. I am not trying to pretend to know what could have helped this young man. I am sure and certain that his family and friends loved him dearly and wanted to spend the rest of their lives doing so...with him by their sides. I also do not pretend to understand their devastation. What I want is for those of us still walking this earth to understand and hold in our hearts the care and love of each individual we encounter. 

No encounter is unimportant. No amount of time you spend with anyone is frivolous. I like to imagine that our hearts have invisible but energetic vibes that reach out to the hearts of others with unexplainable power and passion. I often tell people that I will be "sending positive vibes" when they have a challenge to face or when they are being called to live the mundanity of everyday life. My heart reaches out and connects in ways I don't always understand, but I know it happens because I can feel the energy being sent; the energy necessary to fuel all that my heart has to give. Your heart has the same power. We all do, so don't think you are immune, and please, don't keep it in! We need to connect and we need to care. Care for each other, care for our families, care for those we love and those we don't, care for the waitress, the cashier and the landscaper, everyone...E.V.E.R.Y.O.N.E. with whom you share this journey. Your heart vibes can be the string of hope that someone needs. It's not unfathomable, its just a consequence of humanity.

This young man's family and friends have set up a "Go Fund Me' page that I would like to share with you. Their hope is to create a memorial bench in the lake community where Michael lived, where he spread his heart vibes and where his family will undoubtedly find him as they travel the rest of their lives without his physical presence, but carrying his heart vibes in theirs. Please consider joining me in helping them feel that we are "sending positive vibes" in this time of great loss.

https://gofund.me/9f4133c7

Flexibility and Flowers

Maybe it's my nature to want to care for living creatures, and with parenting moving toward enjoying the emerging adulthood of my children more than in finding ways to keep them from personal destruction, I've found that I am bringing more and more plants and flowers into my home and yard. With the new variety that surrounds me, I have needed to research and learn varying approaches to caring for these new additions. It never needed to occur to me that plant care is more than just "don't forget to water". Some plants need a lot of water all at once, then days of non-watering while others need consistent water, but not a deluge at any one time. Some plants need full sunshine while others require shade, and still others thrive in a balance of the two. Then there's the soil, the ph, the fertilizer, the container, etc...you get the picture. There is a lot more involved than my ignorance knew. Yes, I have had to research, but I have also had to relax my mind into accepting that there are many different ways to care for plants, and unless I am willing to change my "one-size-fits-all" attitude, I will have a lot of wilting and withering on my hands. 

Flexibility in thinking is challenging for many of us. Admitting we don’t know things is often even harder. My friend and I shared breakfast this morning before she was going to be stretched...at a stretching place…called Stretch-lab...by a Flexologist.  Having never heard of such a thing, I asked for an explanation, and could not help but see the relationship between flexibility as our physical need and flexibility as our mental need. My friend goes to be stretched and this has helped her to alleviate other physical ailments, as well as reduced her physical discomfort. By moving her muscles and joints in new ways that she would not be able to do on her own, the Flexologist is making a positive impact on her life. 

How great would it be if this service were available for our mental state?!? Who stretches your thinking? Who removes your one-size-fits-all mental attitude? Who makes sure that you move from knowing only one way to care for, respond to or relate to plants (or family, or work) to accepting various ways depending on the species, the people and the situation? How much happier would we all be if we allowed our mind to be stretched and flexible in tolerating and maybe even accepting varying points of view, decisions, methods and paths? So often we remain content within a safe space where others all think as we do. We cultivate only geraniums when there are Zinnias and Roses and fields of other possibilities, if only we are willing to be flexible and learn about them and what they need in order to not wither and wilt. 

Summer is a great time to let go of our rigidity and consider that there are different ways to encounter our world. Consider this a message from our Mental Flexologist: Your/My way is not the only way. Our point of view is not everyone's point of view. Our path is not everyone's path. Let's open our minds to being stretched and experiencing flexibility to see what others see, and maybe even try to understand why they see it that way. Our gardens will be a plethora of color and possibility, as our mental flexibility increases. 

Faith is sliding your foot into your slipper...

...knowing how much centipedes like small, dark places.

What is something you have complete faith in? The kind of faith that would make you stand steadfast even in a barrage of discontent or discord. 

Faith...true unwavering faith...is not borne from habit or experience. And this kind of faith is not easily found or held. It holds on even in the face of contradictory experiences and outcomes. It bounces back from setbacks and rebounds from regret.

As an educator or parent, did you ever stop to think how much faith you have in your world and surroundings? Your faith is immense! Your faith in the world...the people around you...the systems to which you contribute, is there and serving you even on the days you feel the most doubt. It is the children in your life who prove it. Let's take a look.

Questioning our faith in things is a natural side effect of human intellect. Basically, we question because we know too much. When I watch my dogs exude excitement each morning even before food is presented or poured, it is evident that they have faith that I will deliver their next meal. The busyness of squirrels in my yard indicates their faith that the abundance of the earth will provide for their needs as well as the needs of their new babies. We all have faith each morning that the sun will rise, so much so that we rarely, if ever consider its possible absence. Some might call these indicators of faith, taking things for granted. And while that might own a certain extent of truth, I like to think that it is our faith that allows us to take for granted that with which are endowed. How then, does this translate to education and our work with children?

For this conversation, we need to go back to the title of this post. That slipper...those gardening gloves that sat dormant all winter just inviting a spider to nest, even the shirt you plan to don this morning after reading this post...they all have the potential to be harborers of critters that will scare the bejeebers out of you. But you will slide your foot in each morning hardly contemplating the possible inhabitants, pull on those gardening gloves without considering nesting spiders, and duck your head into that shirt as you get ready for your day, assuming it is only you inside the material. Why? What gave you the faith to not peek into your slipper, shake out that shirt or dump those gloves?

You're probably expecting me to give you an answer to this litany of questions, but I honestly don't have answers today. I too blindly throw on these items without a care in the world. And I approach each day as though it will be amazing for me and those with whom I share it. Am I just naïve? Perhaps that is it. I really don't care much about the answer as to how I have such faith. I just enjoy the freedom that comes with believing in the good and positive path of this journey called life.

I will answer my first question, however. And I challenge you to do the same.

What is something you have complete faith in?

I have faith in my fellow human beings. I believe that each human being has the capacity for kindness and love. As I sit with some children who are challenged to absorb or exude kindness, I hold such love for them and the potential they contain, that my faith in them as human beings is unwavering. Is it the challenge that I like? Probably. I mean, one does not need to light a candle whose flame burns bright...but the one that has yet to be lit. But both candles have potential to bring light to our world, and the same can be said for all children. Perhaps children who have yet to find their happiness enough to be kind to others are that dark slipper. Just as I blindly slide my foot in, I optimistically insert myself in those dark places where children hide their vulnerability and soft spots. I wiggle around and test it out, waiting to see that once again, the slipper is safe, the children actually want to be loved, happy, joyful and kind. They just need someone with faith in their goodness to come along and test it out, despite the likelihood of refusal, rejection and shattered attempts looming in the dark spaces.