Losing A Job–another type of loss by Donna Cramer
- ann615
- Sep 17
- 2 min read
I lost my teaching career ten years ago. It was a job I loved and had no plans to leave. I was injured while working with my special needs students. I knew little (if anything) about TBI- traumatic brain injury until I was the unlucky recipient of one.
I advocated so long and so hard for the class configuration that would best serve my students. My class was new and growing. Our first year was successful. I had very needy students, but I also had three teaching assistants to help with the myriad needs my students possessed. There were feeding, toileting issues. Several of the students were nonverbal, and some had significant behavioral issues. In the second year, they cut funding, and I had fewer assistants. The second year began, and BAM! I got hurt and went down hard in the very first week of school.
I would never return to my teaching career, although I did not accept that at the time. I spent months, years, thinking that I would recover and return. And while I thought this and said it to others, I had a deep knowing within that no, never... I would not be going back. Even now, ten years out, I have a reminder attached to my mirror that says I will not return to teaching.
There was panic in my soul. What do I do now? Where do I go? What do I do?
It was so hard and I hurt in my body and in my mind, but a little voice inside said, faintly at first but growing stronger over time, ‘can’t give up, never give up!’
I struggled to speak without stuttering and to maintain coherent thoughts.
“You could try writing,” my speech therapist said.
Then a new seed began to grow, struggling to emerge through the earth, a seedling pushing up through the dirt, fragile and weak.
My writing began to grow after a harsh, abrupt ending.
I am ten years on from my injury and writing, writing, always writing.
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