Good-Bye Dave
I had first met Dave when he was the Tech Guy at the Ephrata School District. I worked a year in Ephrata Middle School and High School. Really, the worst year of my life. I had never met so many negative people as who were on the staff of the middle school. Most of the teachers seemed like they hated kids, or resented them. Or were annoyed by them at the least. I was flabbergasted. I was discouraged.
I found out, after I was hired that the Principal and the Teachers were at war (the kids were collateral damage). He was not a particularly effective administrator at the time (his Assistant Principal was practically useless) and the teachers, for good reasons or not, resented the administration. I was young and unwise, struggling with many issues myself and not at all ready to navigate such treacherous shark-infested waters. I was caught in the crossfire and had little understanding and ability to figure out how to get out of the way.
Apparently the school had been out of control for several years before and the Superintendent brought in a law and order guy to restore order. In so doing, he had stepped on a lot of toes.
How bad was it? I resigned as one jumps from the fourth floor of a building on fire without a net below. The sidewalk summer after, after a relationship that I had placed an inordinate amount of hope on fizzled, I felt decimated. I had put a lot of wish in it like a homer to win the game. I figured that if it worked, even with everything else, the past year would be a win.
Instead I struck out. Game over. I was jobless, running out of money, felt like a loser. I daily held a razor blade to my wrist that summer and contemplated killing myself. I was a Christian but I just couldn't figure out how to extricate myself from the corner I had painted myself into. I kept holding on hoping that it would get better. It did. Barely. Not a pretty story but one where I outlasted my problems to get to a better place. Not perfect.
There was maybe three bright spots about my experience of that year in Ephrata:
- I knew that high school was the grade levels I needed to work with. I had already known that before being hired for the dual position at Ephrata (HS/MS). I was told at the interviews for the position that I would be able to choose either the HS or MS school counselor position at the end of the year. That was not true. The MS position was the position that I was going to inherit and the HS had decided previously that they needed another woman to balance out the crusty male Guidance Staff. They had a couple of older men who in my opinion, were old school Guidance Counselors. Not particularly empathetic or good counselors skill-wise for the era were were in. 1970's maybe. I had been misled and was not happy about the false pretense.
- I was able to address a lot of my own struggles that had arisen in my early adolescence that were quite traumatic and unresolved. I re-felt how I had felt then. And despite my struggles after the year that continued, the struggles were always more of a professional issue rather than unresolved personal issues coming from the abyss of my past. It really hurt to go back there but being in it for 180 days, gave me ample time to examine the difficulties I had experienced as a kid through the eyes of the kids that I worked with who were dealing with many of the same issues. I wasn't particularly effective, mind you, as a school counselor. My goal that year was to not just harm the kids more. Not exactly a high standard. I used to trigger migraines in the other middle school counselor by my paralysis and ineptitude.
- Meeting two men. A teacher name Merv who seemed to be a highly-talented teacher despite being surrounded by many who were not. He put a note in my mailbox at the end of the year when my resignation became public. The note said that he knew that I had tried and it had not worked out well. To not give up and to keep at it. And wishing me the best for the future. Never underestimate the power of kind words. What may be a little on your end could be a lot on the recipient's side.It was a class move at a place bereft of it.
Dave was the other blessing, and I stayed in touch with him after departing from Ephrata like a cat whose tail was on fire (second fire analogy in this blogpost. It was a fiery furnace of a year for sure). Many moons ago, I decided to attend Reformed Presbyterian in Ephrata as my home church. It was hard to return to Ephrata every week but I felt that God had brought me back to show how far I had come. There was no Singles Group so I didn't feel the pressure of needing to try and negotiate that dynamic of impressing women and getting dates (the religious version of the bar scene). For a decade I went there, and who did I find attended there? Dave!
We had many winsome conversations, with me typically being on the receiving end. Too many to remember the specifics, but still having an enormous impact and wisdom-generating. Dave was thoughtful, highly-intelligent, witty, and a strong Christian, who had struggled mightily as a young man trying to find a foundation for his life and the meaning that comes from it. He found his hope in Jesus. Over time, I drifted away from RPC and he and his wife decided to go to a Church that is more seeker-sensitive. Reformed churches typically are difficult to attend if one is a non-Christian or new Christian because of the studious theological orientation, stuffy and stodgy personalities, and the complex nomenclature which is like a foreign language. Almost as bad as the Latin Mass.
When Dave and I met for breakfast one of the last times I commented that I was surprised that he was attending what I perceived to be such a shallow church. He corrected me kindly. He note that the "shallow" I observed actually allowed non-Christians to wade in and get saved, rather than getting tossed into the deep and struggle to make sense of it all and drown. For Dave, it was all about Jesus. He was not a naive pie-in-the-sky person. His perspective was sound. And if people needed to be discipled into the deep, he swam with them.
I will share a brief story which shows how he approached life.
He would read both the New Republic (Left-leaning) and the National Review (Right-leaning), figuring the truth was somewhere in the middle. When we stop listening to each other, we stop learning. It doesn't mean that we will always agree, far from it. It does mean that we have a better chance at least understanding the issues and to attempt to find common ground if possible, something in the present-age is becoming less and less probable. Now it is a scorched earth policy fueled by social media. Dave modeled a wisdom and winsomeness that is rare and getting rarer. To our harm.
On Friday night I was sad at the Memorial Service at the Seeker-Sensitive church to have not continued in conversation with him until the end when he was no longer capable. It was not a lack of friendship or anything. Men are morons in this manner. Not see somebody for a decade but still consider each other buddies. Kind of bizarre.
Life, as usual, had gotten in the way. Days become months. Months became years. I never had a chance to say good-bye. Well, I do so now. I am sure you are at peace now my friend now that you have reached the top of the eternal mountain. I will see you there soon enough.
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