“I have some bad news for you,” my contact teacher, Elli, told me when I came into the office this morning.
Oh no, I thought, they cancelled the upcoming May holiday, or they are going to make me pay for the new propane tank they had to buy for my hot water, or maybe I have to teach more classes…
“You know Ms. Tan, the teacher that sits behind you, she is in the hospital. She has a brain tumor.”
I sit in stunned, ashamed silence at my own pettiness. “Is she ok?”
“Yesterday she was dangerous.” I take a minute to figure out what she means by this. First I think maybe her tumor caused a personality change, and she was actually violent. Then as Elli talked on I realized she meant “in danger.”
“She was so dangerous. I could not sleep all night. I cried just thinking about her. I found out this morning that she had surgery last night. She is ok now, but I heard from my doctor friend that usually only 1 in 8 survives this surgery. She is very lucky.”
“Did she know she had a tumor?”
“No. She just has had bad headaches for the last week. She seemed ok on Tuesday. We were laughing and joking.”
I nod my head in remembrance, and glance at Ms. Tan's empty desk with homework still piled high, half graded, and her tea cup sitting next to the computer with a few dregs still left.
“Life is so fragile. We must appreciate everyday,” Elli weakly smiled at me.
I stared out the window contemplating Elli’s words. It was not a profound statement that I had never heard before, just one that I often forget. I watched the kids run down the hallways laughing. I had been annoyed at them this morning when I woke up. I just wanted silence. Now the silence at the desk behind me made my eyes water with shame. Soon they began watering more as I thought of my own family. They watered with thankfulness that they were all ok, for now. They watered with worry that something could happen to them while I’m on the other side of the world.
They watered with compassion for this woman that I barely know because we cannot understand one another.Yet, I thought of all the moments we nodded hello in the morning, not a word spoken, but an understanding. We read so much into each other’s body language. She told me without words that she liked my outfit. I told her without words that I appreciated the fruit she was sharing with me. We laughed at the students who were being silly in the hallway, even if we never knew if we were laughing at the same thing. In the end it didn’t really matter that she was Chinese and I was American, that our cultures and languages were different, I understood human pain.
“Oh, don’t cry.” Elli’s comforting voice shook me from my tragic philosophical contemplations. “She will be ok.”
I dabbed my tear-filled eyes with a tissue wondering which thought actually triggered my tears, and who I was actually shedding those tears for—Ms. Tan, my family, myself?
I had to pull myself together. I was teaching in 15 minutes. It’s hard enough being energetic and peppy for primary kids everyday, but this day would be harder. I wonder if any of the kids know. My mind suddenly shot back to my elementary school. I remember a teacher there who had a sudden aneurism and died immediately. I don’t remember her name. I don’t remember how old I was, but I remember thinking that aneurisms were the scariest things in the world. How can a seemingly healthy person be alive one minute and dead the next?
Life is so fragile, Elli had said. Life is so fragile.
