The Story Behind My First Book

The Tuesday Table: The Story Behind My First Book

My therapist once explained what was happening to me in a way I will never forget.

“Kim, when a pot filled with water sits over a great amount of heat, it is going to begin to boil. And if you do not turn down the fire, eventually that water will spill over.”

That is the best way I can describe what happened to me.

Throughout my educational career, I experienced traumatic losses, both personally and professionally. Like many people, I just kept it moving. I showed up. I supported students. I did my job. I kept going.

But these last few years, the pot was boiling.

I lost colleagues. I lost five students, four to gun violence, and those losses came back to back. There was barely time to process one before the next one happened.

My sweetheart passed suddenly.

Life was lifing.

And yes, the pot boiled over and spilled.

I relocated back home to Michigan to be with my family and help care for my mother. It was not an easy decision. I was leaving behind staff and students I really loved.

We were a family.

That is one of the things that happens when you are an educator. You develop relationships with your students that do not just disappear because you leave a school or move to another state.

You carry those relationships with you.

I carry “my babies” in my heart.

I had literally been home only three weeks when my mother became ill and was hospitalized for five weeks.

Around that time, I received a call from the Dean of Students notifying me that a young lady I supported through one of the college and career technical programs I brought to the school had been shot and killed.

She lived a troubled life. Many people did not think she would graduate from high school. They surely did not think she would complete a college and career technical program.

But she did.

She earned her welding certification, and I was honored to attend her graduation. She presented me with her graduation project: a shoe rack.

That shoe rack sits in my mudroom.

Every time I walk through the door and see it, I smile because I think of her. I think about what she accomplished. I think about how she proved people wrong. I think about the future she should have had.

And I think about the fact that she is gone.

One day, I sat down at my computer. I was not thinking about writing a book. I was thinking about my last school, the staff and students I left behind, and how much I missed them.

I was thinking about my babies.

And I just started writing.

That is how When the Bell Rings But They’re Gone: Lessons They Didn’t Teach in Education 101 came to be.

Writing became therapeutic. It gave me a place to put the pain I had been carrying while continuing to show up for everyone else.

But life was not finished lifing.

After my mother came home from the hospital, my brother-in-love passed suddenly in May. His passing was such a blow to my sister, her children, and our entire family.

He was not just my brother-in-love. He was my brother.

I had already started writing, and now I was carrying yet another loss.

This book is about the joy and love educators have for what we do. But it is also about what they do not tell you—or what they should teach you.

There will be days of loss.

Not always the loss of life, but those happen too.

To the educator reading this: thank you. Thank you for showing up, even when nobody knows what it took for you to get there.

To those supporting educators: please continue doing that work. The people who support everyone else need support too.

This Week’s Takeaways

• You cannot keep pouring from a pot that is boiling over.

• Students are more than their struggles. Sometimes they just need someone who believes in them.

• The relationships we build with our students do not end when we leave the classroom.

• Grief does not disappear because we keep showing up.

• Writing can be a powerful step toward healing.

• The people who support everyone else deserve support too.

A Question to Carry With You: What have you been carrying that you need to stop carrying alone?

If my story speaks to you, get your copy of When the Bell Rings But They’re Gone today at morethanjustathought1.com.