Goodbye babies

It was a long and difficult day, and it was also Leavers Day.

Out in the quad were strange young men and women, who only yesterday had been boys and girls in scruffy uniforms, arguing the toss with ‘Miss’ and ‘Sir.’ There were many over-large, or too long suits, and a goodly number of way-too-short dresses teamed with heels so killer high the effect was ruined by the bent-knee shuffle. Some, born beautiful, looked elegant and achingly promising. Others, passed over by the brush of physical perfection looked on with longing, not realising that their own individual sparks were just as bright.

It was endings. It was almost five years of knowing them, and some farewells were especially felt. The boy who came to us angry and neglected, who could barely write his name and whose only response was to throw chairs, punch desks and scour us with a foul mouth stood beside me and whispered ‘Sir… I’m worried that I might cry. I’m going to miss it here.’ ‘Funny isn’t it,’ I said, ‘How we think we know how we are going to feel at a certain time, on a particular day, and then we don’t.’ He nodded. ‘I never thought I’d miss it,’ he said.

He looked spruce, pink cheeked, and he came specially to certain people for autographs in his leavers book. Unspoken testimony to the knowledge of the journey we’d been on with him – through more tragedy than many people know in their whole lives. I like to think our care and affection for what was a pretty unlovable guy, who still shone with the wonderful, lovable personality he always was underneath, and is now, made a difference.

I like to think that once, when I begged him to come inside (after I’d followed him all round the outside of the school) because I was freezing and wouldn’t leave him alone, and he asked me ‘Why the fuck can’t you leave me? Just fuck off back inside.’ and I told him it was because I was worried about him and wouldn’t go inside without him, and that because no matter how many chairs he threw, and curses he flung, all we did was duck, and try to offer him a better way to respond (not for our, but for his benefit) that we made him realise that he was worth it. I like to think that.

I felt so bloody proud of him today. And certain others who’ve had it tougher than most, because although all of them are worth it, some of them you ache for, and really hope will fly straight where otherwise they might not have. And that makes it worth it.

Goodby babies. We’ll miss you too.