Natalie Babbitt, Tuck Everlasting
“Mr. O’Leary, can I talk to you for a moment?”
When I hear “Mr.” in front of my name, I usually glance around the room for my dad. Although I’m happily progressing into my forties, I much prefer to be called John.
In particular, I don’t like hearing the words “Mr. O’Leary, can I talk to you for a moment?” when I am picking up my kids from school. Especially when they come from Henry’s teacher.
Henry is number three in our family, the youngest of my boys. He is incredibly fun, funny, outgoing, athletic, and bright. He loves music, laughing, animals, roughhousing, and Fortnite. He is always moving, always dancing, and always smiling. He’s an amazing kid.
All this passionate exuberance for life means that in addition to bringing great joy to his friends and family, he can occasionally be a handful in class. In today’s season of politically correct jargon he might be considered a bit “spirited” or “active.”
I looked compassionately at this wonderful teacher, imagining the unique challenges of educating my son, as well as the children of two dozen other parents. So when she asked to talk, I was bracing for the worst.
“Henry was a little disruptive in class today. I warned him several times to stop talking. I tried several times to redirect him. And eventually I called him to my desk in order to give him one final warning.” Oh boy, here goes, I thought, bracing for the worst.
She put her right hand on my shoulder, squared me up as if to ensure I was still following along with her, and continued.
“I was getting impatient. I had already moved him to two different work groups and neither led to success. So I told him, ‘Take a good look around the room and find one group where you don’t have friends who will distract you from your work.’ ”
The teacher paused, seeming to be stifling a laugh.
“I watched as Henry stood and stared out at his classroom. Finally, he looked back at me, and said, ‘But it’s just so hard!’
“ ‘Why is it so hard, Henry?’ I asked with frustration.
“ ‘Because everywhere I look, all I see are friends.’ ”
The teacher wore a look of pride as she finished Henry’s sentence. She went on to tell me, “I think Henry already knows one of the most important lessons out there: that the world is filled with potential friends. When you chat with him on the way home, please tell him thanks for reminding his teacher today of that important lesson. I needed it.”
Everywhere I look, all I see are friends!
Wise words from a child. How many of us could say them?
Is that how you feel as you look around your classroom? Be honest.
How about when you walk into the office or grocery store?
Do you feel that way waiting at the train station, or going through TSA security lines, or gazing at fellow commuters on your drive home?
Sadly, we do not live in a society that sees friends everywhere. Indeed, as you may have already suspected, we’ve never felt more alone.
Cigna recently released research on what they call “the epidemic of loneliness” facing our society. Despite the “connectedness” of our generation and our ability to reach one another anywhere at any time via our devices, we aren’t truly connecting. Though we spend up to three hours on our phone each day, that isn’t the kind of connection we crave. Researchers have determined that people are happiest on the days when they socialize between five and six hours.
But we, on average, socialize just forty-one minutes a day.1
Only forty-one minutes a day spending time with friends, family, and loved ones?
No wonder we feel alone.
Even when we are with people, we sometimes fall into “phubbing,” or snubbing the person physically in front of us to tend to the urgency of our phones.
This loneliness, this isolation, this emptiness in our hearts is not only devastating to us, it is killing us.
Unfortunately, I’m not being overly dramatic.
It is one of the reasons more than 1.5 million people attempt suicide in the United States each year. Yes, 1.5 million people a year in America reach a point in their lives where they feel there is no room for hope, no reason to continue. It’s an epidemic that claimed the lives of more than fifty thousand people last year. Fifty thousand moms, dads, sisters, brothers, children, and friends. Gone forever.
My friend, there are plenty of good people trying to turn the tide. Trying to raise awareness of mental health issues and remove the stigma associated with them so more people can ask for help. Trying to create government programs so we can provide more resources to the populations that need them most.
I’m not a psychologist or a doctor or a community organizer. But I do know that there is one thing we could do to help address this pervasive loneliness.
We can put down our phones and reach out to someone.
We can let down our guard and share the problems that we are facing.
We can let people into our struggles and joys, our ups and our downs, while listening to and accepting them in theirs, and get back to the life-giving experience of living life together.
Amy Crawford is a fifth-grade teacher.
She has been serving children in Knoxville, Tennessee, for more than thirty years. Teaching is a demanding profession. Our teachers are underpaid, overworked, and far too often underappreciated. They instruct and elevate our children academically. The even more important work is instilling and fostering skills that will allow our children to be kind, resilient, respectful citizens of this world. It’s mission work. It shapes society. It changes the world, one lesson, one class, one life at a time.
Sometimes the work can be challenging and the rewards hard to see.
But early in Amy’s career, she saw firsthand how important her job was.
There was a boy in her class who was often disengaged. He was rude to others, and indifferent to her efforts to bring him out of his shell. He turned assignments in late. He was disrespectful. In short, he was the kind of kid who is easy to give up on. After all, if someone isn’t even willing to try, why should we put forth all the effort?
One day while Amy was cleaning up papers around his desk, she found a poem he’d written. Reading the poem changed her life.
And, in time, his.
Amy is a dear friend and shared this poem with me recently; the author has allowed it to be shared in this book. It is a powerful piece of writing that shows how deeply we can feel out of place, even at a very young age.
I AM THE PIECE THAT NEVER FITS
I am the piece that never fits
I wonder why people hate me for who I am
I hear the cry of loneliness that comes from me
I see my sad, strange, different self in the mirror
I want someone on my side
I am the piece that never fits.
I pretend that words can never hurt me
I feel the urge to run away from myself
I touch the wet tear from my eye rolling down my face
I worry my future will be me, myself, and I
I cry because I am the cheese; everyone is the mouse
I am the piece that never fits
I understand that no one likes me
I say that there is no place for people like me in the world
I dream of a place where I actually fit in
I try to make new friends,
And I hope to, but still
I am the piece that never fits.
As Amy held this piece of paper in her hands and read the heartfelt message it shared, she was overcome by emotion. She was not just struck by how sad and alone this child felt, but stunned that she had missed the depth of his suffering, despite the fact that he sat directly in front of her in her classroom. Not only that, but she hadn’t realized that in her midst was an incredibly gifted writer, a student with deep feelings and a precise way of putting them into words.
She walked into school the next day with a new passion to show this child that he had a place in her classroom. She spent every day of the rest of that school year seeking to become a friend to a young boy who felt he had no one. She encouraged the boy who felt he didn’t fit in to realize the beauty of all of our jagged edges.
In time, with love and with focus, by being surrounded by supportive students and introduced to new mentors, the author of the poem began to see that he did have friends, he was a gift, and he did fit in.
Today he’s a college graduate, gainfully employed, happily married, and passionate about life. He stays in touch with Amy, the teacher he credits with showing him that all was not lost.
Many times in my life I, too, have felt as if I am the piece that doesn’t fit.
The kid on the end of the bench, not able to participate in the game.
The adolescent without a date.
The man who puts himself out there publicly—and frequently deals with isolating stares that come with that exposure.
But of course, it’s not just me.
Many of us feel as if we do not fit in.
And when we feel like we don’t fit in, we feel alone.
Did you know that loneliness is as harmful to your well-being as smoking cigarettes?2 It’s as destructive as smoking fifteen cigarettes a day.
But we don’t see the surgeon general’s warnings on our loneliness, our isolation, and our sadness. We should.
Here’s the truth. We are not alone. In our enormous human family, there is no such thing as an individual who has no value. There is no such thing as a piece that doesn’t fit.
When we insist on standing off to the side, isolated, we may feel like a jagged piece, and it is hard to accept that we belong.
But when we are joined to the whole, we see that together, we create a beautiful masterpiece.
Our jagged pieces are perfect. They have purpose. They are our power.
We aren’t meant to go through life on our own.
Our edges may be rough and ragged and scarred. But we do fit. Perfectly imperfect into the massive mosaic of life.
Let me show you how.