safety

If you didn’t know, I have a broken hand. This summer I was in a really stupid accident on my bicycle. While I will not bore you with the details of this accident, I will say that it was 100% not my fault and 100% preventable. But when it happened, I was hurt. I knew immediately that I was hurt. Before I was able to get off the ground, I knew I was hurt. I was also scared. I wasn’t sure how hurt I really was. I knew that my hand hurt, I knew that my knee hurt, I knew that my shoulder hurt, and I knew I was also lucky.

I sat by my bike for a few minutes evaluating my injuries, crying that I was alone, and upset that it had happened. I immediately called my boys.  I needed help with my dog, getting my bike back to the truck, and taking care of myself. My knights in a white car came quickly. They shared concern for their beat up mom, and took care of the dog, my bike and me rather gentlemanly. I called a friend to lament my bad luck and she met me at urgent care-thankfully. She not only helped me physically, she helped me laugh through my pain- both physically and mental. Part of the pain was the pain of knowing that my husband would have known what to do and who to call and how to take care of me.

Once I left urgent care with a sling, a brace, a shot of pain meds, and a smaller wallet, I finally made it home where I sat in pain for some time. During my time of sitting, I thought about some of our kids. As stupid as my accident was, I was so very lucky that I was able to make one call and my boys were there. They handled clean up. I made another call and a friend was by my side at Urgent Care. I was able to give Urgent Care my insurance card. I was able, albeit unwilling so, pay my bill upon leaving.

As unlucky as I felt for this unfortunate accident, how lucky was I to have people to take care of me and the means to pay for my medical costs. So very many of our families don’t have that same fortune. Many of our students and their families don’t have others to turn to or someone to call. Many of our students don’t have insurance and don’t have the means to take care of any medical issues. And how lucky am I that I can.

But what I realized was not only do I have people and means, I have safety. I have the safety of knowing that I will be okay no matter what happens. This is not the fortune of all of our students. And when they don’t have safety, they worry, they fret, they have concerns that far outweigh the lessons we need to teach them.

So I charge to you this year to be that safe place for your students. You just never ever know how important it is until you haven’t felt safe.