When Students Disappear

“Are we going to do something fun today?” He asked this for the first time on a bright end of summer day, the school year just beginning. He dragged the sunshine from outside into my classroom with him, greeting me every morning in the doorway of my classroom with this same refrain. His question was a constant and became a constant goal for my class. Would Caleb find this fun? I asked myself as I planned my lessons. He sat at his desk, curly hair falling in his eyes, and unflinchingly following directions. Despite his forward questioning with me, Caleb remained reserved in my classroom amongst peers. He was never the first to share, but when I did prod and he did give his short response, he almost always got a chorus of laughs from his classmates. No matter the topic or the day, Caleb found a way to cause bright smiles to erupt. Caleb was not an A+ student, he was not captain of the football team, he was just your average high school student trying to survive the chaos of hallways flooded with adversely smelling teenagers. 

The first time I suspected something was wrong was when Caleb returned to my class after summer break. I was lucky enough to teach English to the same group of kids two years in a row and Caleb returned as a 10th grader a foot taller and with a sadness a mile deep. No longer did he ask me, “Are we going to do something fun today?” His Pokemon sweatshirts turned into Cookies cannabis sweatshirts, the logo a jarring neon green against the pallor of his face. Instead of a  perpetual smirk extending past his freckles cheeks to his eyes, Caleb wore a frown that dragged his eyelids down with it. 

I have a vivid memory of Caleb in 9th grade at his desk, reading. There was this particular way he would sit at his desk: head propped up by his right arm, facing me, one ankle crossed over his knee, Converse clad foot always bouncing. Some kids start bouncing their knee or foot when frustrated or overwhelmed. Caleb was always bouncing, bounding through that first year we had together. Now, he sat frozen, staring straight ahead, feet planted firmly on the thin carpet. 

November came with cooler air, the trees outside my classroom window began to fall to earth, and Caleb stopped coming to class. Attendance seems to be a suggestion for most highschoolers these days, but Caleb wasn’t like other high schoolers for reasons I couldn’t quite explain. Maybe it was his ability to remain nonchalant at everything, a pillar for me in a chaotic year of teaching. Maybe it was his old soul personality, finding more delight in talking to adults than other kids his age. So when Caleb stopped showing up to class, I noticed. Weeks later, when frost covered the ground as I walked into school before the sun rose, Caleb returned. By this point, an email chain between Caleb’s teachers had begun expressing concern and challenge getting in contact with any adult in his life.

On this particularly rainy and chilly day in December, Caleb returned and now I was certain something was wrong. His attendance record for the day showed the only class he had attended was mine, the last class of the day. I asked him to step into the hall. I asked what was going on. He just stared at me, never breaking eye contact despite the tears that started welling up. I asked the question a few different ways, but Caleb merely shrugged, stuffing his hands in his sweatshirt pocket and looking away. Are you safe? Yes. Are you getting help? Yes. He stared into my eyes again as I looked up at him, by now he was a good foot and a half taller than me. Please tell me if you need something, I said. Ok, he said, sniffing hard. I opened my classroom door and Caleb returned  to his seat, head resting in hand, ankle across knee. 

In January, on an abnormally sunny day for winter in Washington, Caleb was the only student to stay after school to help move tables and chairs around for a class discussion the next day. He was quiet, focused on precisely placing the square desks where they needed to go. I don’t want you to miss your bus, I said. I walk home and no one cares if I’m late. When I was in high school, I would have gotten incessant calls from my parents if I was later than anticipated. I would have been questioned and scolded. And then I would have been asked about my day over dinner. And here was Caleb, perpetually sad, never asking about having fun anymore as if fun was a far away planet he can never visit. And even if he did visit it, no one would care when he returned home. 

There is an overwhelming grief that comes with teaching. Sure, I knew going into this profession the horrific realities some kids face. Kids who know war and death and hunger. Kids who dread days off from school. Kids who flinch when the front door opens. There are some kids who have walked into my classroom that is filled with brightly colored paper flowers and rows and rows of books and see it in joyous contrast to their life. And then there are kids who walk into my room and see it all as outlandish, unrealistic, loud, and fake. I wasn’t sure how Caleb saw my classroom. I wasn’t sure of all the details of Caleb’s life. But, I was certain I cared for this kid. And no one tells you as a teacher that you will watch kids you care about wither away before your eyes: color fading from their skin, their shoulders bending lower and lower, days in your room becoming fewer and farther between, with no explanation as to why. And it seemed I was the only one who cared, who felt something in all this. Yet the grief I felt observing this seismic shift in Caleb did not compare to the grief orbiting him. 

We finished the desk and chairs set up and I wished for ten more classrooms full of furniture that need moving to distract Caleb, to give me more time to talk with him, be with him. But, he walked out of my room saying, goodbye Ms. Adams and the faintest hint of a smile. 

Four weeks passed. There was a snow day with no school and Valentine's day and a holiday and I only saw Caleb for a day or two in a row. Then, after five consecutive days of his absence, Caleb emailed me for the first time. He said he was sorry for his absences, his sister had taken the family car and disappeared and he had been busy helping his mom put up missing person posters and wait for her call. Caleb wrote this like an email informing of an absence due to a dentist appointment, unemotive and factual. Some kids email all their teachers when they are absent, Caleb only emailed me. His mom had told the school of this, with no communication to teachers, and so I waited for his return. Caleb emailed me a week later saying his sister had been found. Another week later, Caleb walked into my classroom as if nothing happened. 

It was a March day, rich with pollen floating through the air and Spring Break on everyone's lips. Caleb sat, read his book, took notes, and turned in the work for the day. He came back and continued to return for the rest of the week. Each day at my classroom door, I looked into his eyes and asked if he was ok. He always responded, I’m ok. Our back and forth about the fun of my lesson had turned into what felt like a wellness check.Me, assessing for signs of life, immediate injuries needing attention, Caleb, not providing enough information to either assuage my fears or to warrant action. Then, he disappeared again. This time, it was for three weeks with no contact. At the start of every 6th period during those three weeks, I clicked on Caleb’s picture making the red A appear over his face. Absent. His peers didn’t notice. We changed seats and someone said looking at the seating chart, Who is Caleb? 

Who is Caleb? A ghost? An angel? A figment of my imagination? I read a book where a girl and her best friend travelled across the country, only to have it revealed at the end to be the girl was dead, guarding and guiding her friend from the afterlife. Was Caleb here or there? I wondered about this every day until his final email came. 

It was May. Flowers were springing to life, shorts were worn by many kids racing through the halls, and frantic requests for extensions on missing assignments were flooding teacher email inboxes. Caleb’s email had been sent a week before I found it, buried in meaningless inquiries about how to get an A instead of a B. 

My mom was found unresponsive in her car and they couldn’t bring her back, the email began. Caleb wrote, I won’t be here much longer, so thank you for checking in on me when no one else did. 

I read it twice. I ran to the office, looking for the social worker. She read it and said, forward it to me, I’ll look at it at the end of lunch, then returned to talking with another student. I went to Caleb’s counselor. Oh, I’m pretty sure he’s moving out of state, the counselor said. But is he ok? I asked. Well, he’s moving. Does this not sound like a suicide note to you? I asked. Well, he is moving. This child is not ok and he hasn’t been ok, I said. The counselor shifted uncomfortably on his feat, something reminding me of Caleb when I would ask him a straightforward question. I stood unmoving. I’ll call and check in, the counselor finally said. I emailed Caleb, I texted him from my school number. I called every familial contact number listed. I waited for a reply and no replies came. 

The counselor emailed me the next day that “the student” was fine and was moving to a different state. I didn’t know if “fine” was Caleb’s state two weeks ago, before he sent the email, or the day I found the email. The next day when I went to take attendance, instead of being able to put a red A on Caleb’s face a BE was already logged indicating Bereavement. All my fear and panic had resulted in Caleb’s attendance being changed from unexcused absences to excused. He was moving to who knows where at the end of 10th grade with a transcript indicating he was failing all his classes except mine. And that was that. 

No one said anything more about Caleb, no other teacher checked in about him, and no further contact with Caleb was had. Almost two years of worrying about Caleb, reading his writing, laughing with him then not laughing with him, ended with one short email entitled, “IDK.”

The teaching profession is very good at telling you to care and build relationships with students, but also, don’t do anything you would ever do to authentically care for a human being. Do not have contact with students outside of a school day for any reason. Once a kid graduates, they aren’t your problem. If a student has issues at home and it’s not Child Protective Services worthy, just send an email with details to the social worker or the counselors who have hundreds of other students to keep track of. Be sure students know when they talk to you that you are a mandated reporter so they don’t accidentally tell you something you have to report. If a kid doesn’t show up to school, they are absent--not grieving or lost or broken beyond repair. So where does that leave teachers? Where did that leave me? 

With each passing day as a teacher, I feel my version of a black list growing. Instead of a list of undesirable people preventing me from success, it is a list of names of kids who disrupt my peace--not due to their presence in my classroom but their absence. My list is a list of kids' names who cause me to walk through grocery stores scanning any youthful face for a sign of recognition. Is that Caleb? Or Evan who emancipated himself and moved away? Or Angelina who I found listed as a missing person? Or Emily who couldn’t go a week without crying at school from anxiety so she dropped out? My list is a list of names I enter into Google followed by “arrest” or “missing” or “death.”  

It was June, summer break was days away, yearbooks were being handed out in the cafeteria and I sat at my desk during lunch checking the obituaries for Caleb. I checked local Facebook groups. Nothing. I checked the missing persons page of our police department. Nothing. I searched his name followed by every state in the Northwest, Southwest, and Midwest. Again, nothing. Had I crossed the line of teacher to something strange, something socially unwelcomed by society? I didn’t know. 

We are teachers and caregivers and confidants and advocates. And daily we leave our classrooms with nothing more than this growing list of names, names of kids who will continue without us. Or, in some tragic cases, we will continue in this life far longer than those names, living through immense joys and immense challenges, but at least living. Caleb will not be in my class ever again, tapping his foot while he reads and I may never know the outcome of his life. But Caleb left me with something that I ask myself whenever I am planning a lesson or choosing a book for kids to read, and it reverberates in my ears at 1:40PM when Caleb should be walking into my room: Are we going to do something fun today?