"Tomorrow Really Doesn't Always Come"

There are many times when I actually say out loud at work that I love my job. I work with special needs students, on the high school level. It gets difficult on many days, but I have never gone home wishing that I did another type of work.

The truth is, I just feel as if it's what I'm suppose to do. I have served many disabilities in the eleven years that I've been at the school where I am. As a matter of fact, I believe I have served just about every disability that the County I work in serves.

There is one downfall to the job I have, and that is that sometimes the students don't live very long lives. I have been to more than a couple of funerals for some very precious young people, who had fought the fight long enough.

I have had one of these students in particular on my mind this month. Not only because this will be the first Christmas that his parents have had to spend without him, but because his birthday was December 4Th.

He was in my class the entire time he was in high school and I grew to love him deeply. He was such a character. It never mattered what was going on, he always wanted to tell you how to do things, and on occasion with his advice came a little attitude.

When the attitude would present itself, he would be told by either myself, or the other woman that I worked with, to take himself outside the classroom into the hall. He would inevitably ask "how long do I have to stay outside?", at which point we would reply, "until your attitude gets better, or Jesus comes, that works for us either way".

He had a girlfriend that was in my class the entire time that he was. They had been friends since elementary school and he would break up with her on and off all the time, keeping her in tears. Their relationship came with all of the usual high school drama, and I believe they loved each other very much.

This young man went through so much while he was here. There was always one surgery after the other, for one thing or the other. The last surgery he had was to amputate both of his legs. His life was full of adversity to say the least.

He called me several times from the hospital and we would talk about any and everything he could think of, and I went to visit him there as well.

I always try to do all that I can for all of the students that I come in contact with, when I am given the chance. I have been known to follow them after graduation, just to make sure that they are doing okay. I have taken them to dinner, gone to graduations in other counties, mailed them gifts, made Easter baskets, delivered them to their homes, and checked on them with phone calls, just to list a few things.

One Saturday night last March, I was given the chance to do something really big for one of them. I got a call from the young man's mother that I have been telling you about. When I answered the phone, she said "Arlene, if you want to see him, you'd better come on over. I don't think he'll be here long." I told her that I would be there as soon as I could on Sunday, but that I couldn't come right then, because I was keeping my granddaughter.

Before I hung up the phone, I said to her, "please tell him that I love him, and I'll see you both tomorrow." Three short hours later that grieving mother took the time to pick the phone up and call me to say that her son was gone."

The gift that mother tried to give me was huge. The opportunity to be there with her that night as her son left this Earth to be with Jesus. My God, I don't think I would want to share that time with anyone, and yet she called me so that I wouldn't miss seeing him one last time.

I can't help but think, that for all of the little things that I've done for my students over the years, when given the opportunity to do something that really would've mattered, not only to me, but to him and his mother, I screwed it up.

As I stood by his family, at his graveside, the day of his funeral, my heart felt so heavy. Not only from the loss of this person that I loved, and the sadness that surrounded the entire day, but with the weight of the guilt that I was carrying, because I hadn't been smart enough to know, without such a lesson as this one, that tomorrow really doesn't always come.....