BRATTLEBORO — My older sister is retired now after 36 years of teaching high-school English. When we were young, I looked up to her. I thought I might even become a teacher, but I realized my heart wan't in it.
After college, she went to Middlebury's Bread Loaf School of English, and she began teaching right away.
The students loved her. She let them read The Great Gatsby and do creative interpretations, like composing music, instead of writing in prose about the F. Scott Fitzgerald classic.
The other night we were having dinner. I told her about reading an article about one of the parents of a Parkland freshman. I told her I'd read how she was running down the hallway away from the shooter. How later, her father was driving to the school to find out about his daughter when a friend - a first responder - called him. How the father said “I know you know something. Tell me.”
I told her about how this man's wife was driving behind in her car because they had come from their jobs to try to find their children. How the first responder said he found the man's daughter lying dead in the hallway - the bullet had severed her spinal cord. How the girl's mother could tell from her husband's face in the rearview mirror that her daughter was dead.
I told her how their older son had phoned as he was running from school. How he said to his dad, “Should I go back for Jamie?”
How the father said, “No. Keep running.”
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When I told all of this to my sister, her eyes filled up. She told me she just can't imagine what it is like to be a parent and to find out such news. My older sister and I both almost lost our daughters when they were in a car accident two years ago. They are okay.
My sister said that being a teacher was the greatest thing she's done with her life. She said she doesn't know how other teachers can go back to the classroom now.
I've always been the outgoing one. I go to all the marches in Washington and Montpelier. I'm always telling her about climate change and women's empowerment.
She put down her fork and looked me right in the eye.
“We're going to the gun march on the 24th,” she said. “I'll meet you there.”
It's time for everyone to follow the lead of these courageous high school students.
They want answers, and so do we.