I knew when I accepted a position at the Farm that saying goodbye to all the people I was leaving here would probably be the hardest thing i’d have to do, but I don’t think it occurred to me which people would shake me up the most. For the last year I’ve taught 2 year olds at a child development center, and a few particular children were very close to my heart, and very attached to me. One, who i’ll call T, was insanely difficult to teach and even just talk to when she started in my classroom nearly a year ago. We did not get along very well, and I remember days fairly frequently when she started where I would just pray she would finally fall asleep at nap time or stop tantruming at snack. I never imagined that the very same child would become the one that saying goodbye to was the hardest.
T has gone through a lot- she is a foster child, and just really needs a lot of love, attention, and consistency. Once we figured out how to talk to each other and what worked for her in my classroom, we bonded very quickly. She would see me walk into the building, yell “Dissa!” and either run down the hall to hug me or press her face against the window yelling my name until I walked in the room. I knew that she’d be fine once I left- there are plenty of good teachers there that she loves to be around, and she has a wonderful, permanent family now. She is thriving, and I am over joyed.
I knew, though, that I needed to at least say goodbye to her and tell her I was leaving for good. Each child deserves to know that you care about them, and that you are leaving. I couldn’t just leave these children i’d spent 40 hours a week with for the last year thinking I didn’t love them enough to tell them I was leaving and why. So today i went in and visited some of the children and teacher’s i’d spent the last year with, and when it came time to say bye to T I was confident that it’d go smoothly. I kneeled beside her and told her I was “moving far away because other kids needed me to be their teacher,” and that I wouldn’t be around here anymore. Her beautifully innocent almost-three response was “I’ll come with you!” It hit me like a ton of bricks- i’d actually had an effect on the life of maybe only this one child, but it was evident that it had happened. I think that is the desire of each teacher, on some level- you just want to change the life of at least one child, even if only in some small way.
I picked her up and told her she needed to stay here with mommy and daddy, and to be good for her new teachers. She said “okay. love you Dissa.” and gave me a huge hug. By this point it is all I can do not to cry right there. I am not sure why this shook me up so much, but it did. I think it was the first true goodbye of many many more to come in this next month.
I am so humbled, honored, and blessed to have had these children in my life, and to be moving on to such a wonderful experience. I pray that the things I am moving on to are so much better than the things I am leaving behind, but it does deserve to be said that the things and people i’m leaving here have seriously shaped and molded me into who I am today. I guess this post is my way of kind of taking a moment to honor that- nothing will do it justice, but I needed to try.
I am moving out of this house with these 8 incredible women in just a few short days, and though I know I will see them again before I leave, I also know nothing will be the same. It will be beautiful and so so worth it, but definitely not the same. Change is something I am never quite sure about, but this one though always returns to me. When I moved away to college, a friend told me “Sure, change is hard now, but everything that is in your life now was once change. If we want to grow, we cannot possibly remain the same.” and I think those are perfect words to carry in my heart through these next 4 weeks.
I know that saying goodbye to a bunch of toddlers and 3’s may seem insignificant, but these children changed me in more ways that I even know. The people i’ve met, the jobs i’ve worked, the events that have happened have helped to build me up into the strong, courageous woman I am now, and for that, I thank them.
Kiddissa at the Farm 