Scars from the Tornado (3 page)

Teachers have
different ways of saying goodbye to their students. I always handed out
thank-you cards with handwritten messages, trying to tailor each message to
what that student had meant to the class and wishing him or her a good summer
and success in high school and beyond.

The envelope
always contained a nickel, as a remembrance of the Cup
O’Nickels
,
an old Associated Press mug I had from my days as a newspaper reporter. A few
years ago, I filled it up with nickels and began giving them away as joke
prizes in various classroom competitions. It was an instant hit and I have
never stopped doing it.

I had not even
begun writing the thank-you cards when the tornado hit.

I never had a chance
to deliver the corny, but heartfelt sentiment I expressed to them on the last
full day of class each year. I always told my students that I would be
available for them if they ever needed help with any writing assignments or
with any other problems they might encounter.

And then I
always let them know the most important part of my message. “You may not be in
my class any more after today, but you will always be my students.”

I never had a
chance to tell them this. For the first time in my 12 years as a classroom
teacher, I would not be able to tell my students what they meant to me.

I had run into
several of them at the grocery store or the mall or the public library in the
days following the tornado, but the talk never turned to that kind of thing.

Conversation
always started and ended with the tornado. “Did your house get hit?” If it did,
that question was invariably followed by “Where are you staying now?” and one
tornado story after another was shared.

There was no
time to talk about anything as mundane as an English class.

About two
weeks after the tornado, we received word from Principal Bud
Sexson
that the students would have a chance to collect
their belongings, receive grade cards, and have their yearbooks signed during
two get-togethers at Joplin bowling alleys.

The seventh
and eighth graders would meet at the Fourth Street Bowl, while the sixth
graders would have their final time as a class at the bowling alley on East
Range Line.

I pulled into
the bowling alley with a sense of anticipation, but also of dread. It would be
great to see the children who had brightened my life for the past nine months,
but I knew many of them had undoubtedly been traumatized by the events of May
22. Many of them had wondered if they would ever see those friends again. In
the days immediately following the tornado, many were not sure if their friends
had survived.

So the first
order of business, even before they picked up their belongings, which had been
removed from lockers and placed in black trash bags, was hugs and the
inevitable tornado story.

Some of the
students told harrowing tales of survival, while others almost apologized as
they revealed that they were not in the tornado's path.

One student,
seventh grader Zach Williams, did not survive the storm. Somehow, thank God,
the rest of them had made it through.

After the
hugging, the next stop was the table where eighth grade reading teacher Andrea
Thomas and seventh grade math teacher
Areke
Worku
were distributing yearbooks.

The books did
not contain the event that had come to symbolize the school year, but
they
were
a much-needed chronicle of
better days
.

One student
returned a book she had borrowed from me during our third quarter research
project, a biography of Martin Luther King.

I put the book
and other things I had been carrying on the table and snapped some photos of
students bowling, playing games, or just sitting at tables talking, a simple
activity they had always taken for granted, but one that meant so much to them
now.

The two hours
passed quickly and soon the goodbyes started. Though it seemed like I had seen
nearly all of my
students, that
was nowhere close to
the truth. A quick glance at the side room showed stacks and stacks of trash
bags, the belongings of students who were not able to make it, teenagers who
had literally scattered to the winds, books, clothes, pencils, photos,
mementoes that would most likely never be reclaimed.

I helped carry
the trash bags to a couple of trucks to take back to North Middle School, the
center of operations for East until we moved into our new building in August.

The event may
have served to bring some sort of closure to students, but it had the opposite
effect on me. It was great to see the students who had been able to make it,
but the overall atmosphere was depressing. When I reached my apartment, I put
the Martin Luther King biography on a table and for the next few weeks, it sat
there. Forty days after that last goodbye, I picked up the book to put with the
rest of my collection that I had salvaged from my classroom.

As I lifted
it, I saw what I thought was a bookmark, but upon closer examination, I
realized it was an envelope. I opened the letter and started reading.

One of my
eighth graders had written a goodbye message, one which mentioned many things
that happened in the class and even made mention of my status as one of those
privileged few who only has a birthday once every four years.
It ended this way:

I hope you
keep teaching until you're 25 (or 100, since you are really only 13 ¾). I'm so
glad I got to have a teacher like you! I hope you have had as good of a year as
I have. I will come back and visit someday to check in on my favorite writing
teacher.

It was just
one letter, but at that moment, it was the one letter I needed, closure on the
school year that never ended.

PLANNING
 
FOR
 
THE
 
NEW
 
SCHOOL
 
YEAR

After our
school year came to a horrifying, premature conclusion, I poured my time and
effort into the writing of 5:41: Stories from the Joplin Tornado, but thoughts
of school and what the next year would be like were never far from my mind.

Our first
glimpse of what the new “East Middle School” would be like came during what was
termed a “family” get-together in third floor rooms in the Billingsley Student
Center at Missouri Southern State University.

I hung around
the back of the room with my fellow faculty members as students and their
parents made their way through the refreshment line. Except for the handful who
had been in Quiz Bowl or Journalism Club, I did not know these students or
their
parents, but some of them had older brothers and
sisters who had been in their classes and were with them.

Though the
warehouse facility was originally designed as a spec building by the Joplin
Chamber of Commerce, our principal Bud
Sexson
stressed,
"This will not be a warehouse, this will be a school.” a statement that
was greeted by applause.

Mr.
Sexson
gave a brief overview of the facility, showing a
diagram of where classes would be held. Among the information presented at the
get-together:

-The classes
would be about 700 square feet, a couple of hundred feet less than at East, but
considerably more than in the old South Middle School.

-The building
would not have computer labs, but more mobile I-carts with classroom sets of
computers available.

-The
gym/physical education facility would be in a building outside of the school,
but with a canopy available to keep students from being exposed to the
elements.

-Basketball
and volleyball practices would be held at East, but basketball games will be
scheduled at the other middle schools. Mr.
Sexson
said he did not know yet whether volleyball matches would be held at East. As
it turned out, they would not be. Football games and practices would be held at
other Joplin middle schools.

-The district
would provide busing for students attending after-school activities. The
students would be dropped off at their elementary feeder schools. Adjustments
would likely be made for those who have had to move because of the tornado.

-Certified
FEMA safe rooms would be available in case of
tornadic
activity. When East is rebuilt or repaired, Mr.
Sexson
said, the facility
will
have a safe area. That
message, too, was greeted with applause.

-More
after-school activities would be added this year, depending on the students'
interest.

-The lockers
used at the destroyed East Middle School, all of which had survived the
tornado, would be removed and transplanted to the new facility.

Among other
items brought up at the meeting:

-Mr.
Sexson
introduced new Assistant Principal Jason Weaver. Mr.
Weaver has taught seventh grade history at South and East for the past decade.
He never imagined the challenges that would come with his first administrative
position.

When the
family get-together ended, I felt a little better about the school year, which
was less than a month away, but for the first time, I was not even the
slightest bit eager to return to school. I was dreading the first day of
school.

THE
 
EAST
 
FAMILY
 
PICNIC

I sat in a
darkened room 804, the room that was going to be mine for the next nine months
and absolutely nothing felt right about it.

It had taken
me nearly two years to get used to the first East Middle School and when I
finally did, it no longer existed. I looked at the bare walls of my classroom.
I had to admit it- I was in a deep state of depression. It had taken every
ounce of energy I had to get out of my apartment, climb into my car and come to
this building. At least I had one part of this “family picnic” that I was
eagerly anticipating.

I sing with a
band that does rock and country covers from the ‘50s, ‘60s, and ‘70s, and my
band was going to play during part of the picnic. Even that had its negative
side, though. How was the East community, after going through the worst tornado
the U. S. had seen in six decades, going to respond to a group with the
unfortunate name of “Natural Disaster?”
Since depression
doesn’t get the job done, I reached into a cardboard box and pulled out a stack
of old papers- some of the best written by my students over the years- the
papers that had hung proudly on my Writers’ Wall of Fame at East and at the old
South.

I had room to
put 20 papers on my bulletin board. These would be the papers that would set
the bar high for my new students when they entered my classroom Aug. 17.
Somehow these papers had survived the tornado, and continued to offer insights
into how these young people, some now in high school, some in college or
beyond, thought about life during their eighth grade year.

I reread them
before I put them on the wall- Amy’s modern-day short story, “Laptop Love,”
Dylan’s research paper on Emmett Till, Sarah’s poem that had appeared in a
national publication, Steve’s essay on child abuse,
Katey
exploring the horrors of
cyberbullying.

I grabbed the
tacks and placed Mary Jean’s short story about a “Jade Tiger,” and then
Jessica’s award-winning essay about the American flag on the bulletin board.

Each of these
papers brought back memories. With Jessica’s essay, I recalled how the first
draft of her paper was 750 words, 500 more than the contest in which the paper
was going to be entered. I absolutely detested the idea of that beautiful paper
being edited, but she went to work on it for the next few days and returned
with a 249-word masterpiece that captured first place in the annual Elks Lodge
Essay Contest.

Two of the
papers I put on the board were filled with unintentional irony.
Laela
criticized the antics of the
Westboro
Baptist Church. A little more than a year later, members of that church
protested at the Joplin Tornado Memorial Service, a service designed to bring
the community together…a service that meant a lot to
Laela
,
who lost her home, high school, and former middle school in the tornado.

Sabrina R.
wrote about the need for each student to have a laptop. Because of the tornado
and the generosity of a $1 million gift from the United Arab Emirates, Sabrina
and her fellow Joplin High School students all had laptops when they returned
to school for the 2011-2012 school year.

The last two
papers I put on the Writers’ Wall of Fame did not look like the others. While
the first 18 papers had been stored safely away in folders, the last two were
on the Wall of Fame when the tornado hit.

At first, I
thought they were too battered and dirt-covered to be on the wall, and then I
realized that was exactly why they had to be there.