To Be or Not to Be

I'm just finishing up a unit on Hamlet with my seniors (tomorrow, in fact). I've been teaching this play for some 20 years, although I change up what I do each year to keep it fresh for myself. Some things don't change, though. For example, I always have the "to be or not to be" discussion at some point during the unit. I'm always prepared for the discussion because it usually happens when I decide it's going to happen (dictated, of course, by when we arrive at that particular scene in the play).

What I'm never prepared for is when I have that discussion with a student...for real. Three times this week, I've found myself on the listening end of students who wanted to kill themselves. It's not a new experience. It's been happening since my first year of teaching. But it does not get easier with each time like some things do. It is always shocking, always frightening, always unspeakably sad.

It doesn't happen often in the small Christian schools I've worked in. But it has happened in each of them, and somehow, for some reason, the question seems to come my way, more often than not. This week, three different times I was helping kids wrestle with the age-old question. What was new about the first two times is that it was a six year old posing the question. What do you tell a six year old who says he wants to kill himself, who says "I don't want to be in my life"?

Faced with that question first thing Monday morning somehow shifted my whole focus, not only of the day, but of the week. I've not been able to shrug off the unbearable sadness of that little voice saying to me that his life was miserable and he wanted out. At the time, I just put my arm around him and told him that I loved him, and so did Jesus, something that I couldn't do with the 17 year old boy twice in my office today with the same question, "what's the point of living"?

I have no handy philosophical conclusion to this entry any more than I've had one all week long. Except this one thing that I know for sure. Kids need someone to listen to them. They need to know there are adults who respect them and care about their present and their future. I don't always have answers, but I do have time. Time to let a kid know they matter to me...and to God. I can't take away the pain and misery from their lives, but I can give them a moment's respit. For the six year old, it was enough for that day. For the 17 year old, it was a start. For me, it was a reminder of why I am where I am, doing what I do.