Virtual Grief

When I was in high school, I had a teacher who betrayed everything it means to be a teacher.  Instead of building up, he destroyed.  Instead of protecting, he inflicted pain.  Instead of teaching, he brainwashed.  In of being a teacher, he was a monster.

The other teacher – the choral teacher – she was as betrayed by this monster as were the students.  She attempted to protect us, rebuild, re-teach.  She was an amazing woman not only for that, but for so much more.  She rose above all the mess and continued to be an amazing musician, teacher and female figure to students, even after we had graduated and moved away.

She passed away this morning, and I’m numb and stuck and nothing feels real.  Or important.  I can’t begin to explain the impact she had on me and every student she came in contact with.  I can’t begin to imagine my high school without her.  She’s as much a part of the school as are the bricks in the wall.  Take out one of those bricks and the building is less than what it was.

The hard part about being out here in Michigan is the distance from those who loved her as dearly as I did.  There’s nothing worse in suffering, than suffering alone.  I could tell a million stories to explain what she meant to me, but the people here will never truly understand.  I do not hold them at fault, but I still suffer alone.

My mother kept saying it felt surreal.  It really does.  Its not real yet, and I have no concept of how long it will take until it is real.  Until it is made clear to my heart and my head that she is gone.  I’ve lost loved ones before.  I’ve grieved over boyfriends and grandfathers.  The grief can be overwhelming, but it never felt as surreal as this does.  Facebook messages and texts are all virtual communications.  While they speed the news onto all those who care, somehow, it makes her death and my grief merely virtual.  It is not grounded in reality, not yet.  I fear the long the grief remains virtual, the stronger the hit when reality comes crashing in on me.