One of the elders sang this song as the benediction at church tonight, and it has stayed with me. I’m struck by how rich in metaphor this simple lyric is.
We “go into the dark” not only at night, but every time we move forward into something new. Every morning. Each new person. Each new venture. But also with each loss, as we deal with a new “normal.” When we try to resolve an issue. When we make a change.
To move forward “not afraid” is not always easy. The world can be a dangerous place. To remind ourselves that we are “not alone” is also not easy. We often feel that way.
And just as Robert Frost did in “Stopping By Woods on a Snowy Evening,” Baker emphasizes his final metaphor with a simple repetition:
Let us hope by some good pleasure
Safely to arrive at home.
For the record, I want this song sung at my funeral. At the end.
Good evening! I’m Margaret Carnahan, and I teach math at Hamptonville High School.
Hamptonville High School
There are sounds we use to guide us through our days. The alarm clock says it’s time to get up. A car horn tells us to pay attention. A baby laughing says maybe there IS some hope for this world.
We have sounds like that school, too. Monday morning hellos. A baseball player comes back to school after breaking his collarbone sliding into third and everyone gathers ‘round to see the sling. A boy with wet sneakers gets maximum squeakage as he scoots down the hallway.
But there are silences, too, and they are just as helpful. There’s a silence that means they’re up to something – watch out. There’s a sudden silence in the hallway just before a fight breaks out. There’s that embarrassed silence that means the hip new slang term you just tried in front of a bunch of adolescents DOESN’T mean what you thought it means.
A teacher’s gotta know all of these, the sounds and the silences. Gotta be on your toes.
Like last week. We were short a substitute teacher on Tuesday, and the office asked me to cover a class during my prep time. All I had to do was walk them to the library media center, and they would take it from there. I said, sure, I could do that.
I got to the middle school part of the building just as the tardy bell rang. Two girls scooted in right behind me and sat down. I introduced myself and took attendance, and announced that we were going to the library media center. Most of the kids were happy about this. It meant they could pretend to look for books in the stacks while they were really talking about shoes and hairstyles and boys. Or girls.
And then I noticed Justin. Justin’s one of those kids – he’s OK, but he has to test every single limit. When he grows up, he’ll be the one who says, “Here, hold my beer” just before he does something that goes viral on the website “Rednecks at Play.” Justin wasn’t smiling at my announcement. He was thinking, and he was quiet.
So I wasn’t surprised that he was the last one out of the room. The rest of the class turned right and headed for the library media center. Justin turned left. “I’ll be right there,” he said. “I have to go to my locker.”
“Excuse me?” I asked.
“Yeah, I’ve got an overdue library book.”
There’s only one way to deal with the Justins of this world. I smiled sweetly and said, “I’ll go with you.”
We walked all the way down to the very end of the hall until he stopped at a locker and turned the knob a few times. Of course it wouldn’t open. He said, “I can never remember the combination.”
So we walked back down the hall. He stopped at a drinking fountain, got a nice, long drink. And then he noticed the men’s room. “I gotta go,” he said.
“Justin, we just had passing period. You don’t need to go,” I said.
He thought quickly: “I need to comb my hair.”
I said that it looked fine, but he was determined.
We were the only ones in the hall. And the silence in the restroom told me that it was empty, too. There was only thing to do. I thought to myself, “Hold my beer.”
He stepped in the doorway to the men’s room. So did I. He took a second step. So did I. He looked over his shoulder at me and took a third step. I was right there.
“Uh … it’s OK,” he said. He turned around and walked back out. We went straight to the library media center, where the rest of the class was “looking for books.”
The hinge squeaked when we opened the library door, and the class got quiet. When a teacher walks in with one student, someone’s usually in trouble. I turned Justin over to the library assistant. As I walked out the door, I heard him say the words that bring joy to a teacher’s heart: “I hope I never get HER for a teacher! She’s CRAZY!”
Hi, George! Oh, I’m fine, thanks. I’m a little sad today. I lost my dog over the weekend.
No, the dog’s fine. You see, I got him last summer when I saw an ad in the paper. “Friendly dog, well trained, free to good home,” it said. “New owner must promise to keep in touch and send pictures.” I’d been wanting a dog for a while since Euclid died. And Bob liked the idea, since he had to travel so often, and we’d had a couple of break-ins in the neighborhood. The ad gave a phone number, so I called and went over to visit.
And do you know – the owner turned out to be Chad Olivetti. You remember him, don’t you? Chad was president of the PTO when Chad Junior graduated from Hamptonville High School maybe 10 years ago? Yeah, I thought you’d remember him. Great guy. I guess he’s been sick for a while. He didn’t look good.
Boxer
The dog was a Doberman named Boxer. He and I played together a little bit, and we hit it off. He had the sweetest temperament. Chad said he was trained to respond to things like “Sit” and “Lie Down” – you know, the basic commands. He gave me the name of his vet and a list of all his shots and his water bowl and most of his chew toys. He kept one, a squeaky bone. He said he wanted something to remember his dog by. He also made sure I had his cell phone number and asked me to send a picture now and then.
Chad got choked up when he scratched Boxer’s ears to say good-bye. But he was so thin and frail, and he said, you know, things weren’t really going very well with his treatments. His wife had died, Chad Junior lived 2 states away, and he was trying to take care of things before he had to go to the hospital again. He shook his head and said he didn’t think he’d come home again if that happened. Cancer sucks.
Well, Boxer wasn’t happy to leave, but eventually he warmed up to me and things at my house, and we got along fine the rest of the summer. A couple of times when we were at the park I thought I saw Chad sitting in his car, watching. He never got out of the car, though, never wanted Boxer to know he was there. He always thanked me when I sent a photo. And I thought, “You know, I would want my dog to stay with me, even if I couldn’t take good care of him, just to have the company. But he is doing the right thing by his dog.”
And then it got too cold to go to the park; Boxer and I took short walks around the block and came right home. Over the winter I was thankful to have him. There were lots of nights just watching TV with Boxer stretched out on the couch between Bob and me.
And I know Chad said he was trained, but I could not get that dog to do anything. He sat IF he felt like it, not because I said so. Lie down? I don’t think so! He came when I called IF I had treats in my hand. And we won’t even talk about that time I tried to get him to wear an IU doggie sweater. He was not having it.
Then there was that one night Bob was gone and someone tried to break in the back door. Boxer barked that Doberman bark, and whoever it was, they ran away. I called 911. They caught the guy, too.
It got to be spring, and I noticed that Chad stopped saying “thanks” when I sent a photo. I kept sending them and hoping for the best. And then I thought, maybe I should check the obituaries. But I never saw his name.
And then Saturday morning Boxer started barking somethin’ fierce and jumped up at the window. He never did that before! But he barked and barked, and it didn’t matter how many times I said, “Down, boy!” I looked out the window, and there was Chad. He had put on weight, and he looked good. He heard Boxer barking and stood at the gate and looked surprised.
I opened the door and Boxer almost knocked me over racing out. He jumped up on the fence and barked and barked, and then Chad said something, and he sat! But he never took his eyes off Chad. He whined and yipped and was SO happy to see him. Chad reached over the gate and scratched his ears. By this time I had my shoes on and grabbed a jacket and went outside.
Chad said, “How’s Boxer doin’ for ya?” And Boxer started barking again.
I invited him in for coffee. He sat at the kitchen table and told Boxer, “Lie down,” and he did – go figure!
Chad said he got so sick that he qualified for a clinical trial of some new immunotherapy drug. It helps the body fight cancer like the cancer was a cold. It didn’t work for everyone, he said, but it sure was working for him. Trouble was, they didn’t know how long it would last. A lot of patients relapsed after 6 months. He was in his second month, and he was gaining weight and getting around OK and feeling better than he’d felt in a long time. It was a beautiful day and it was good to be alive, and he’d decided to go for a long walk. He didn’t realize this was Boxer’s street. Boxer’s tail thumped when Chad said his name.
So I told him how much I liked having Boxer and about the time he scared the burglar away. I told him about trying to get the IU doggie sweater on him, and we both laughed. I tried not to be jealous, but I did notice that Boxer’s tail didn’t wag a bit when *I* said his name, only when Chad did.
We finished our coffee, and there was a long, awkward pause. He wasn’t going to ask. But Boxer let out a long whine.
I kept one chew toy – a tennis ball – and the IU doggie sweater. The water bowl and the other toys fit into a plastic sack, and Chad took Boxer back home. If things don’t work out for him, he knows Boxer has another home.
None of us can know what will happen six months down the road. But this morning, George, I got a text before I came to school. Chad sent me a photo of Boxer in front of his fireplace – wearing a Purdue sweater.
