Somehow education misses out what’s most important.
The subject on which no book has been written and studied in no lessons,
cleverly omitted by a network of
excuses, like a spider web around the real answer. There is no comfort for the
pain some children bear, no solace for their pitied state. It makes us feel so
useless and so helpless. At such a loss, trusting all we have to life’s
destiny.
I will never forget that room, the artificial
light, darkness seeping through the window. His bed, no more than a careless
heap of bedclothes, appearing like a storm tossed sea, the way he felt inside.
His face was glowing and damp with tears which touched me somewhere deep
inside, somewhere painful. And I knew then that no power of mine, no knowledge
of conquerors and kings, no wisdom of animals and plants could help me now. He
trusted me, loved me, looked up to me and in his moment of pain and fear I
could not reach out my hand to save him from the force which pulled him under.
Something in the stillness of the night made the silence too loud for me to
bear. His hand still rested somewhere between his stomach and his heart.
‘She hurts’. The words still echo in my head like
the constant beat of time. I could not relieve that pain and being in that
situation I developed a pain of my own, something which hurt so deeply inside
me, in the depths of my mind which I had not known existed. It did not throb,
it did not ache, it was not unbearable, but reminded me of all that lay between
us and all that we had in common. It brought back haunting memories of my own
dark days at school. The rivalries, the bitterness which stood in the way of
friendship. And for a moment there I was taken back twenty odd years to
experience again the first effects of school. I could smell the polished
floorboards of the classrooms which creaked at every step, I could see the
white walls, hard and cold as blades of knives, the books with their time
stained pages and text that had dimmed from years of use, dull and depressing.
I have never needed to do algebra since, never needed to know the anatomy of
humans because the underlying things that go on inside of us cannot be taught.
So in the end no one wins or loses. We are all
equal in that respect. In all the years of my life no experience has been able
to put words to his lips, words to comfort my child in his years of pain.
