This repost is a letter to those of us who have ever had to leave someone or something we loved. This is an unexpected love letter to my profession, past, and future. Remember to breathe if you’re saying goodbye to someone or something tonight. Remember to say the words you need to say. Remember to take care of yourself, and know that unexpected grace drifts into our lives when we least expect it. Finding my words took a major illness, so this is also a letter to myself.
I resigned from my teaching post this week. I told my kids on Friday. An ache comes when typing a resignation letter while the faces of kids who rely on you drift past your face. I share this blog post from two years ago that traces my resignation from a job, fresh-faced and idealistic in my first full-time teaching position after college, when I left after what I now know can be said was emotional abuse from a sadistic principal I never had the words to stand up to. I never knew how to say, “Stop. Your actions are cruel. They are unnecessary. They are inappropriate” to now. Instead, I swallowed my words and tears and chose to resign. I didn’t have the tools to defend myself.
My voice has arrived, and here we are, twenty years later, as I resign from a kinder, gentler principal because my body tells me it’s time to stop in order to live. Still, I breathe in unexpected grace. How ironic that it took nearly losing everything to finally say everything?
Calexa
Sep 16
Written By Jonathan Saucedo
After all these years, Echoes from the Past whisper hello.
An invisible thread begins to unravel.
The sound of a broken-down old heater bangs in my mind as I trace a crack in the floor. Don’t fall in, Jonathan. Weren’t skeletons and vampires hanging from the wall one October when my face was unlined?
The sound of a broken-down old heater bangs in my mind as I lie in bed, tracing the fine crack in my ceiling and hearing their little voices sing “O Holy Night” when the snow fell, clean and white.
The sound of a broken-down old heater bangs in my mind as I see the green polo shirts and plaid skirts holding the little voices that walk with me to church, reminding me to genuflect. I’m not Catholic. What’s genuflect? They are 11 years old, but they show me. I close my eyes. Don’t get sucked back into that void, Jonathan.
The sound of a broken-down old heater bangs in my mind as I press my letter of resignation on my warden’s desk, who watches my every move from across the hall. Her voice is both nothingness and the boom of a Godless flatland at the same time. Her hair was curly. Her eyes are not something I allow myself to be held captive by once more. Didn’t I smile once?
The sound of a broken-down old heater bangs in my mind as I place a letter in the top drawer of my desk, “To Whom It May Concern: You are getting a great group of kids.” I stare at the crack in the sidewalk as I walk through the park and hear children laughing on the swings. I hear crying as I say, “I won’t return after winter break. It has nothing to do with you. I promise.” I close my eyes and stop to steady the years.
My hair is now lined with gray, and my heart has opened again to a new group as I limp with age and illness into my new room to see a welcome message with a heart: “Mr. Saucedo” drawn on my SmartBoard. The message falls from my eyes as I smile.
The sound of a broken-down old heater bangs in my mind as I open my Instagram feed.
“Mr. Saucedo, you probably don’t remember me, but I was your student long ago.”
“I know your eyes. Tell me your name.”
“Calexa.”
I look into her wide eyes, now set in an adult face, as I look at a grid of her memories. She holds her dog, standing beside her boyfriend. She is hiking. Smiling. Crotcheting. Yoga poses practice peace, happiness, and self-love. Nature.
The broken-down old heater stops.
A rush of words pours from my eyes to the keyboard: “I meant it. I never wanted to leave any of you.
“We knew, Mr. S.”
I inhale, sharply.
“It wasn’t your fault. None of your guys’ fault. I always wondered how you all fared over the years. Tell me of your journey.”
It wasn’t my fault either. The words and actions of one cruel adult to whom I hope I can write a forgiveness letter that I’ll never send will find their way into my language. It’s time for grace, if only for my heart.
All these years.
They were okay.
I say goodbye to Calexa. To my pain. To my regret. To my past. All with one five-minute conversation on Instagram.
I genuflect as far as my head will allow as I hold my cane, still young, but old before I willed it. Just in time. I see the chalkboard: “Mr. S. We love you.”
Finally, I exhale. I never knew I was holding it in all these years.
An invisible thread; my noose releases me. Is this what grace feels like?
I don’t know if healing ever arrives in a straight line. But sometimes, it finds you in the voice of someone who remembers.
If this reflection resonated with you, I’d love to stay connected. The companion piece to “Unexpected Grace” is on my “All Good Things” blog. Who Will Take Care of Us? A Teacher's Goodbye
Read more essays and blog posts on my website: jonathanmichaelsaucedo.com
Follow my writing journey on Medium: medium.com/@jonathanmichaelsaucedo
For writing snippets and reflections, join me on Instagram: @unfoldingthegood