Make-up Work

"Feeling your feelings" is a term grief and recovery counselors use. In grade school I had the box of---it was no box, more like a sleeve, eight crayola crayons. A few kids had eight shades of blue. Most of us had regular blue. If emotions were made by Crayola, today I would say I have the fat box of 64.

Up to two years ago emotions to me were: Happy, sad, mad. I didn't know about their relative: Content, pleased, accepting to name a few on the bright side. And the many shades of blues such as angry, bitter, resentful, sorrow, horror, unrelenting-grief, violent, hurt, lost, disconnected, could-care-less, and deserving of fairness. The last one is an emotion you get when you mix all the blues together. Same as mixing red, brown, blue, purple or violet, yellow, and orange, deserving of fairness is sort of a muted shade of black.

I can't define the feeling I get when I see parents with their sons and daughters from the class of '05. Lost and disconnected captures some of the twinge. The closest feeling that I can recall from the archives of my memory is from about 1969-70. In grade school, about age 10 and 11 when everyone was a friend, if you missed a few days with a real illness everyone cared about you. Not when you were "sick" on a Friday and playing with friends on Saturday morning. The sick where friend's mom's called your mo to see how you were doing, and no one brought your home-work home. The kind when you were sick on Thursday, Friday, worse on Saturday and Sunday, getting better on Monday, still home on Tuesday and back to school on Wednesday afternoon with a note from the family doctor.

When you got back to school even Sister Francis Anne and the vicious Principal nun who's name but not her face I've forgotten, showed some concern. Even the cute girls rushed over to give some attention. Everyone helped you with the Make-up work. While everyone talked about the events of the school day, and moved chapters ahead in math, spelling, English, and reading, you were left with Make-up work. Stacks of it. You couldn't relate to the stories. You had nothing to add. Your classmates knew things you didn't know about or comprehend. You had to do the Make-up work and the new stuff. There was no catching up. Your class moved on without you. You didn't belong to the same grade. A kid without a home-room. The only place you felt normal was at home. If home-schooling was an option, you'd ask to transfer.

In childhood, you eventually caught up and someone else got the mumps. I wish there was a penicillin for this illness. I'd accept the shots that left you crippled in one rump. I'd gladly take the week worth of medicine in the giant spoons- full...pinkish, reddish pills all chopped up and mixed with water--the most bitter tasting stuff I ever experienced until two years ago.