CONVERSATE
A memoir of illness, teaching, and the conversations that heal.
This timely memoir details my unexpected battle with breast cancer at the start of the 2019–2020 school year. Terrified by the diagnosis, I find the courage and strength to face my illness from an unlikely source: the students and staff of a tough, gritty, underperforming school, John Glenn High School.
Devastated and exhausted, I begin my last year of teaching and meet Christian, a quiet, serious student who has recently lost his own mother to breast cancer. We form an unusual bond when he pulls a chair up to my desk and we talk much like a mother and son would. Slowly, over the course of the school year and countless conversations, we each help the other to process the grief we carry and to move towards healing.
August 2019. A new school year begins, a phone call brings devastating news.
John Glenn High School shows a broken teacher how to heal.
Years later, through conversation and connection, the healing cycle comes full circle as both teacher and student process grief and move towards deeper healing.
Let's conversate. I invite you to share your experience — respond to this month's CONVERSATE prompt.
