Stuff & Even More Stuff...

   

   Evan was headed to third grade, but his intensity and confidence made him seem much older. His Star Wars tennis shoes dangled from his seat, far from reaching the worn recreation center carpet.  Evan was finishing his first stop-motion film at my one-week after-school class and was giving his masterpiece a YouTube title. Call it, “from a guy named Dead Guts” he said. I put up a weak protest, but Evan’s eyes had it and I did not, so Dead Guts made it online.

      

   This group of loveable knuckleheads was reminding me why I loved teaching. They made me miss the classroom and wonder if retiring was a good idea. Evan’s second film was made with the same unstoppable focus and he called it “Stuff.” I didn’t bother trying to redirect him when he wanted to name his next two films, “More Stuff” and “Even More Stuff.” He seemed on a mission and impeding that seemed wrong and possibly futile.

    

    His dad dropped him off the first couple of days and I sensed the same strong drive in him, but with a bit of sadness. His teen sister also had a presence, although more subtle. There was no sibling teasing. She looked at her brother like with something I can only call motherly love. She cherished him. The sense of devotion was something no one would miss seeing.

      On the last day of class Evan arrived in his Batman shirt and made a crime-fighting film. I don’t recall what he named it. I was so taken by the fixation this little boy had on creating. He had no need for daydreaming, silliness, roughhousing or any of those wonderful job descriptions of a seven-year-old. He was very willing to take advice, but his eyes never left the scene he created from Legos and imagination. On the last day his Grandmother arrived to take him home and she opened the book on Evan for me. She said his mother died recently after being sick for several years.

        

  I miss teaching, because working with kids was a daily lesson for me that we just don’t know what is truly going on in people’s lives.  We create, we love and find so many other ways to cope with “stuff” and even more stuff that we all face.