Reach Out

Fifteen years ago V--- was a ninth grader in the inaugural class of a brand-new high school in the Bronx. With no older kids to teach them how to act, with too many rookie teachers, with a lack of preparation by the project director, I will charitably describe the environment as "challenging." But V--- stood out for her intellect, seriousness, and cooperation. Our most intellectual teacher, a career changer who picked and chose who he wanted to connect with, made her one of his group.

We sent four kids to a leadership retreat that year with students from the Connecticut suburbs and two other Bronx schools. I can't remember exactly why we identified V--- to be one of them, but I remember that we bypassed the obvious stars and selected boys and girls who we felt could step up and lead with just a little support. The idea is that we were not only investing in those individuals, but in all our kids by creating more leadership.

The retreat was facilitated by Project Adventure, Inc. and it was built around a ropes course with both group and individual challenges. By far the most dramatic of those individual challenges was a towering vertical obstacle course. It required the climber to switch from rope ladders to plastic handholds, etc. and to conquer their fear of height. Of course they were wearing a climbing harness and belayed by top rope, so the danger was all in the sensation. But that sensation is very strong. It's hard to imagine if you haven't done it yourself.

Few kids reached the top. Most of them turned back well before, after one or two obstacles, fifteen or thirty feet from the ground. Everybody received raucous cheers for whatever they accomplished and most of them responded with giddy enthusiasm.

Then there was V---. After some initial pride over getting up a third of the way she shifted into a determined, fearful, slow pace. She seemed deaf to the wildly positive support she was getting from the ground and simply struggled her way up. When she made it to the top, the applause went on and on.

But she would not come down.

Being lowered from a belay is an entirely different challenge. It requires you to surrender to the support of your partner on the ground. It requires trust: of the system and of that other person. You have to let go and drop into space and let the rope hold you. See would not do it.

No amount of explanation or coaxing or encouragement was enough to convince her to let go of the top of that tower. We were in the process of sending up a specialized rescue when we heard the thunder and heard the lightning in the distance. It was only an electric storm that convinced Vee to allow herself to be lowered from that tower.

Challenge rope courses provide living metaphors for the actual challenges we face in our real lives. I know that as well as anybody (a subject for another essay.) So over the next few years I referred often to that episode as I saw V--- insist on doing things herself. I pointed again and again to her refusal to accept an outreached hand from peers and from teachers. I kept reminding her how this insistent, stubborn self-reliance had almost got her electrocuted!

As a senior, V--- turned her ambition to the US Marine Corps. I had doubts about this, and they went beyond my concern about our already endless wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. They went beyond my concern that women in the Corps seemed to cook and clerk for the men or put on makeup and recruit them. I was concerned about the Marines' emphasis on teamwork, because it was something that V--- still resisted. She was insistent, though. Uncles, male cousins and friends were Marines. She wanted to be, too.

Except. Except that this always capable student, easily in our top five, suddenly stopped working and even attending. This is not uncommon. Countless good students have gone to pieces in the spring of their senior year. It goes way beyond a "senior slump." That is the stereotypical calculated drop-off in work of a high achiever who gets a college acceptance letter and feels that what they do no longer "counts." No, this is the complete disappearance of the successful student who seems suddenly fearful of what is next. They have high school wired; what if college or trade school or employment (or the Marines) is totally different?

V---'s recruiter came to speak to me. I contacted her repeatedly and brought up all these things. It didn't matter. She failed to graduate. Her recruitment date was postponed until after summer school. Her teachers felt that now she would "learn her lesson." She did not. She failed to complete her summer school assignments.

The recruitment date was pushed ahead again and the recruiter asked if V--- could complete her work (only two credits!) independently with me instead of holding her back an entire semester. I was definitely in favor of this because I saw nothing to gain by asking her to attend another five months with younger kids for two hours a day. And, despite the fact that my work was considerably harder than anything she was supposed to have done in class, V--- completed those assignments brilliantly by the end of September. By October, she was in Parris Island.

I will skip ahead here because - although I have seen a couple of written letters and a couple of Facebook private messages from her in the intervening years - I have not seen V---'s face or heard her voice. She fulfilled her commitment to the Marines. She was married and divorced. She has two young children. Sometimes I hear back from her when I message, sometimes not.

And then Hurricane Florence. V--- is still living with her boys right outside Camp Lejeune, directly in the path of the storm. On Facebook she expressed contempt for preemptive school closings and evacuation orders. Then she acknowledged an about face and a fear that she had made a wrong choice. Then she posted that her lights were out. And then she was absent for two-and-a-half days.

I was frightened for her. So were her friends. There were multiple postings on her Facebook page by people asking whether anybody had been able to reach her. Nobody had.

My nervous energy got me googling. It was not a good idea. I discovered that she had been cited five times for leaving her boys to take care of each other while she was at work. I discovered that she had been cited for driving with a suspended license. These are not the offenses of just any single mom. They are the offenses of a single mom who insists on doing everything herself, who will not reach out for a helping hand.

This is not just my projection. When she got back online (her cell tower had been out) she said the city is flooded but everything could be rebuilt, so I offered what I could and noted: "I really hope you have gotten better at letting people help you."

Her reply? "Nope. Still the same old me."

But it is not. She has two young children depending on her, and I said so. I can only hope she can hear.

Habits of heart are so hard to change. Even when we have a dramatic awakening, the habit is still there the next day. I know this. I have to receive the same epiphanies day in and day out. I think that's what they mean when they say "One day at a time" in the 12-step programs.  But I am haunted by this and all I know to do is to gather my thoughts here and communicate them to V---.

I only hope she can hear.