Blog 7- Who Cares?!?

When discussing the topic about "care" the first thing that popped into my head brings me back to 2011. I was months away from ending my freshmen year of high school when I find out that my father had passed away. Growing up I didn't have my father too much in my life but when I first started high school and found out that he was starting to get sick I can happily say that within those few months we started to really connect and bond with each other. Those are moments that I will always cherish.

I'll never forget that day. I was sitting in my sixth period English class (not really paying attention, it was 20 minutes until the end of the day and I was really excited to get to softball practice). Suddenly the phone rings and my teacher answers the phone. She tells me that my mom is waiting for me in the main office and that I'm going home and immediately I had a gut feeling that something was wrong...and it was. My mom told me the news and the last thing I remember is that for the next seven days everything was sad and depressing.

I went back to school a week later and the school was very supporting. All of my teachers extended due dates for my assignments and my classmates from different class periods had written me handmade cards. The school had even arranged for me to go see a school counselor once a week to talk with her and connect with 5 other students in my school who have had losses in their immediate families just like had. We would be excused from one class period each week and go down to her office. There we'd take the time to talk and get different emotions out, do team building activities, and even come up with different coping methods and action steps that would help us get through our pain. This is when I began to cherish support groups and started pondering on the idea of counseling as a possible career for myself! 

Comments

  1. Victoria RestlerNovember 5, 2020 at 11:19 AM

    Thank you for sharing this story Tamera and I'm so sorry for your loss. Community can be such a vital piece of care and it's so powerful that your school helped to build that community for you and other young people who had similar experiences

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