Yearning | Previous Challenge Entry

how it works

TITLE: Yearning | Previous Challenge Entry
By Jennifer Percell
03/02/22
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Yearning

“Her family is in hiding, we haven't heard an update since Saturday night, we think their phone service has been cut”. Bill turned back to his sweeping, and I knew he was hiding his tears. Bill is one of several friends with family in the Ukraine who have monopolized my prayer list for the last six days. The exhaustion etched on his face is unfamiliar. I am often annoyed by his silly jokes but today I would welcome them gladly in place of the nightmare that is war.

“I hardly know what to say Bill, but we won't stop praying.” I feel so inadequate.

My student grabs the papers on my desk and begins to tear them. She gleefully smirks as she creates a snowdrift of tiny pieces. I try to redirect her attention, but I know we have lost our momentum. She curses and pulls off her shoes to throw at me. I go through the motions of requiring her to clean up. I know I cannot enforce the consequences she needs. I meet the tired eyes of the two aides in the room and see the same discouragement. The student grabs my shirt and scratches my neck deeply, frustration with her inability to communicate channeled, as usual, through her fists. She marches out the door, stopping only to 'moon' me and giggle. I end another resource lesson with 'this isn't supposed to be so hard' regret.

I have a ten-minute break to check my phone. Three messages from the nursing home.

“Your sister's refusing her medications again. We cannot allow her to stay without a TB test. Please call as soon as possible.”

Call and do what? Convince my sister, whose mind has betrayed her that the nurses are not really dangerous spies attempting to poison her? Please Lord, not this, not today.

Two other calls, the insurance company and my brother-in-law. Yesterday I spent an hour 'choosing one for English' and waiting for 'all other calls press 9' only to be disconnected just after 'please hold while I connect you to a service representative'. As for my brother-in-law, I know I must refill my cup before I have any hope to offer him. We both know my beautiful, creative, funny, stubborn sister is never coming back. Some days I run out of words to push his loneliness off center stage, and energy to offer the patient listening he craves.

I quickly call the nurse. Once again, she suggests that a less restrictive environment might benefit my sister. “We all think she's just so sweet, surely, she would be better off with you.”

Was she better off when we had to issue silver alerts because she had run away again? When she found a weapon in a neighbor's barn and believed she needed to attack imagined demons? My heart rebels against defending decisions that have robbed me of sleep for months and still fill me with irrational shame. I politely agree to review the ‘excellent brochure on senior citizens rights’ and find too much satisfaction 'accidentally' ending the call.

Each torn paper I pick up off the floor screams failure. We all know that the student should be doing this, but behavior modification theories only seem to require that I modify my expectations. If she never has to manage her own messes nothing will change and after twenty years in Special Education, I know how often nothing changes.

I begin my weary litany, 'it's worth it if only one life is changed', but instead turn my attention to my planner where I cross off one more square, leaving 56 futility-filled squares to wish away till that paradise of early retirement comes.

Finally, the dismissal bell! Road construction on the bridge means another twenty minutes between me and my respite.

I turn the doorknob with the two fingers not clutching my empty coffee thermos and school bag. I don’t even pause to check the mail; my only thought is to retreat. Downstairs in the sewing room, I open the closet door and my heart feels the familiar welcome joy of this space reserved for meeting my Savior. I kneel on the soft pillow and lean toward the bench where my tears have fallen so many times, where my stress can dissolve in mercy and trust.

“My soul yearns,
even faints,
for the courts of the Lord;
my heart and my flesh cry out
for the Living God.” Psalm 84:2*

*NIV
*Fiction

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