Dear 4th Graders

Dear 4^th Graders,

You just missed out on something. I wanted to let you know. While you were out running around on the playground, you missed out on something pretty great.

Curious what it might have been? To answer you, let me tell you what I observed, and maybe you’ll see for yourself.

Earlier, I watched as one of your own classmates approached first one small group of you, then another, then another, a smile on his face, laughter in his eyes. He jumped in with a few of you when it was time to take silly pictures for the little end-of-year event your teachers put together for you. You didn’t push him away, but you also didn’t look at him or laugh with him. He ran up to your game of tag and asked if he could play. You didn’t tell him he couldn’t, but you also didn’t run after him or try to tag him. You just allowed your group to drift away from him time and again until he gave up trying to participate. He joked with you about some of the class games your teachers set up. You didn’t say anything mean to him in return, but you also didn’t look him in the face or smile or do much of anything.

You didn’t actively push him away or aggressively exclude him. And at the same time, you didn’t include him. In fact, you didn’t react to him at all. It was as if he wasn’t there. You effectively turned him into a ghost. A non entity. A nothing.

I’m sure some of you are decent kids. Some of you may even be nice, under the right circumstances. But I have to wonder how so many “nice” kids can be so very hurtful.

If you think about it for a moment, you’ll know the boy I’m referring to. There’s no question. He’s the only classmate you so fully and assertively shunned. Are you fooled by the smile on his face as he gives up and walks away from you? Do you really allow yourself to believe that you don’t hurt him deeply every time you treat him like he’s nothing? You’re smarter than that. You’re better than that. At least, I like to believe that you are. Think about it:  how would you feel if you were in his place, if you were treated the way you treat him over and over? How would it feel to you if your classmates never acknowledged you, never listened to you, never included you? How would you feel if no one seemed to care about your very presence?

You’re probably wondering why I said you’re missing out. Allow me to enlighten you.

That boy you exclude so readily? He’s about the least competitive kid around, and because of that, he’s also pretty much the best cheerleader you could ever hope to have. He’s supportive and generous, and if you needed someone to call on for help of any kind, he would jump to help you in a heartbeat without a worry about himself. He even cheers on the competition when he plays games and sports, because he wants the best for everyone. How many friends do you have like that? How many friends do you have who are completely okay – even happy for you – if you win and they don’t? How many of your friends, if they win, want to teach you what they know so that you can possibly beat them next time? Or would they rather keep their skills to themselves because winning, even with you, is what matters most to them?

That boy you don’t acknowledge is crazy smart. He could help you with any school work you find challenging. He’d be a phenomenal partner on a class project because he picks up knowledge almost as easily as breathing or drinking water, but more than that, he understands how to use that knowledge, how to manipulate numbers and words, and he can help you learn how to do it, too. He loves sharing knowledge. He can make school easier for you. He’d like to.

That boy you ignore even when he’s right next to you saying hello and trying to joke with you? He has a heart larger than your entire school. We all go through fun times we want to share and tough times where we need someone to listen. He’d go to the ends of the earth for any friend, to make them smile and to make sure they’re okay.

That boy you look down on because maybe he’s awkward or small or a little different from you? He’s also far braver than you. Any of you. Think about how often he has approached you – in class or on the playground – and been shunned by you, ignored by you, not accepted by you. If you were in his shoes, how many times would it take before you just gave up? Think about that for a moment. Think about how much that would hurt and how quickly you would stop trying. But he doesn’t stop. He continues to try, over and over, a huge, friendly smile on his face, hope shining through that maybe this time will be different, maybe this time you’ll include him… maybe this time he will be visible to you. Imagine how much courage that takes. I’m not sure I’m that brave, and I’m fairly certain you are not.

Today, I saw you miss out, my dear 4^th graders. I saw you walk right by the chance to make not only a great friend with a true champion but also to get to know someone who’s more of a hero than you can imagine. Someone kind and brave. Someone with more of a heart than any of you have shown.

Better luck next time. 

A Cougar in Connecticut

A fascinating thing happened last week in Connecticut: people started reporting spotting a mountain lion – also known as a cougar – wandering the state’s southwestern towns. A couple of guys driving an ambulance saw him jump out in front of their vehicle. A homeowner called in a sighting. The cougar even made an appearance near a fancy schmancy private school in Greenwich, hearth and haven to the wealthy and fabulous who still sport cravats and speak in that oh-so-Mr.-Howell Connecticut Lockjaw accent.

To give you an idea of how unlikely this all was, consider for a moment that the eastern cougar was declared extinct earlier this year. And though officials remained skeptical even as the reports continued coming in, by Saturday all speculation had ceased. The poor cougar allegedly was hit by a car and killed, and the evidence of his presence in the Ralph Lauren State was finally there for all to see.

Observant reader, I expect that you noticed my use of the word “allegedly” in that last sentence. You see, I’m not so sure that this cougar lost his life because of a car accident. I’m from Connecticut, and while drivers there are as prone as other staters to hitting animals that jump in front of their vehicles unannounced, I suspect a more sinister plot at hand. I suspect… wait for it… that this poor cougar was shunned to death.

“What??” you say. “That’s impossible!” If you believe this, you have never lived in Connecticut. The official state motto is “He Who Transplanted Still Sustains,”* but the unofficial motto, passed down from generation to generation of Connecticutians and immortalized by The Far Side, is “Dress Nice.” And this, I believe, is what ultimately sealed the fate of our friend, Mr. Cougar.

Connecticut-folk can be real sticklers for standards of propriety and tradition; they would not appreciate me referring to them as “folk,” for one. They are a steely, assertively preppy bunch, ready to pit their plaid against your plaid and to give you a hefty once-over to see if maybe, just maybe, you purchased your Nieman Marcus off the sale rack (as if). And they know. Do not doubt it for a moment.

It is my theory that the fine citizens of the C and the T noticed that the poor cougar in their midst was not only not appropriately attired – not attired at all, if you can stand it, the nudist hippy – but also very likely had allowed his coif to become just a bit too ruffled and unkempt to be tolerated. It’s possible he didn’t even color his grays. He also had the audacity to wander hither and thither without any respect for boundaries or real estate investment tax shelters or ancestral property customs. Seriously. He was making a mockery of the state, throwing tradition to the wind. If he had been a descendant of one of the Founding Families, a bona fide member of the Mayflower Society, perhaps the good people of Connecticut could have overlooked his antics. But he was not. Thus, he needed to be stopped. Permanently. And oh, he was.

But Connecticutians have a special manner of doing away with those they deem unfit to stroll their neighborhoods. They shun you. They walk right by and don’t look at you. But it’s not that simple. They all learn at a wee young age how to erase your very presence with their non-acknowledgement. It’s awe-inspiring and frightening to behold. In other areas of the world, when you walk by someone who doesn’t notice you, it feels like walking by another human being who, well, doesn’t notice you. But when you walk by a Connecticut person who is actively not acknowledging you, actively shunning you… well… you know the Dementors in the Harry Potter series? It’s kind of like that. Or more specifically, it’s like they psychically tear off a piece of your soul and tap dance on it, all while never looking at you. That is what I think they did to the cougar. I think they collectively shunned it. Perhaps they found it in a field or by a little creek or perusing the window of a Gap store, and en masse, they began walking by it again and again, actively not acknowledging it until its little cougar soul was mush under their psychic feet. Then they made up the trite story about it being hit by a car, and the world fell for it.

If you are one of the Connecticut friends of my youth, you may outwardly scoff at this theory. You may shake your head and laugh and say to your non-Connecticut acquaintances in as non-lockjaw an accent as you can muster, “She’s insane to believe this. Who would kill a cougar intentionally over poor fashion sense? And with a Hyundai SUV? Who in Connecticut would want it in the news that they even set foot in one of those? Puh-lease.” But I know, people. I once lived among you, and I know.

* Other fun Connecticut facts (you seriously can’t make this stuff up):

·         State Song: Yankee Doodle

·         State Animal: Sperm Whale

·         State Folk Dance: Square Dance

·         State Fossil: Eubrontes Giganteus (yes, CT has a state fossil)

·         State Heroine: Prudence Crandall (the name is so apropos, but if you have a chance, read her Wikipedia entry… I think CT got it right officially naming her a heroine)

** For the record, let me state that I drive a Hyundai SUV and absolutely love it.

*** UPDATE: A friend of mine read this and emailed me that he agrees there is foul play afoot, though he credits the evildoings of "those 'professionals' who declared the beast extinct. 'You're extinct NOW motherfucker!!' I can hear them shouting at its carcass."