I want to tell you about this little boy today.

He was trying to explain why he was going to throw away his art project,
how his picture had gotten ruined.
As he explained it to his teacher, his face got shakier, his eyes filled with tears.
He had accidentally pushed someone,
the crumpling of his paper was the retaliation.
He was convinced that there was
nothing
left
to do but
throw the paper away.

I tried to see what was wrong
with his picture,
but his face was more crumpled
than the page.

His teacher
listened
intently and then said,

“It sounds like this is really upsetting for you.
I can help you figure this out.
Why don’t you go put your stuff on your desk and then –

I can help you with this.
It will be okay.”

He gave his picture to his teacher
turned to walk back into his classroom, nodding and sniffing,
tried to pull himself together.

His teacher and I spun so kids couldn’t see our faces
Both pointing to our own eyes, filled with tears now
tried to pull ourselves together too.

“I don’t know if I can do this
teaching
thing afterall,” I said.

I mean, how will my heart take it?

She nodded her head and we looked at the
barely crumpled picture for a moment.

“The picture is fine though, right?” I asked

She gave it a once over,
nodded,
flattened the page a little extra,
took a deep breath and walked into her classroom
where I know she
helped
one
crumpled
boy