There s a family at our school from the Ukraine.

Each morning, the mom walks her f ive kids to our school, drops off the two oldest children at the flagpole and th en walks back home with the three youngest. But before she leaves, she swings pa st my classroom to check on Alex. She looks through the window, catches his eye, and smiles. Then she waves to me and repeats the same procedure outside her oth er son s room. She wants to make sure they made it safely into their classrooms. L ater, when school s over, she waits for her two oldest kids at the flagpole, and s he smiles at me when she sees Alex. And I smile back. The Ukrainian mom does not sign permission slips for her sons to go on field tri ps. She s not comfortable with the idea of letting them leave the school, so she u sually keeps them home on those days. Last week, while I was lex asked to spend the to stay home. I spoke lked briefly about the ve. collecting permission slips for an upcoming field trip, A day in his older brother s classroom so that he wouldn t have with the other teacher to make the arrangements and we ta family. We agreed that the Ukrainian mom was over-protecti

That s right. We derisively called this wonderful mom over-protective. This one got to me more than the others. Maybe it was the proximity to Christmas . Or maybe it was the age of the victims. Or maybe this time we have to face the fact that we re entirely unable to protect our most innocent and our most vulnerable from our most evil. And their weapons. Like you, I m supposed to go back to school tomorrow and talk to my students. I m su pposed to make them feel safe. I m sure I ll think of something. And we ll get through the day, and then the week and then the year. But I ll tell you this: I have no idea what to say to the over-protective Ukrainia n mom when I see her at the flagpole. I m not even sure I ll be able to look her in the eye.