Hope Wins, page 7
Yes, you most definitely are. But first, please allow me to reflect on these last three years . . .
I remember when you walked into your sixth-grade class. You were shorter than most of the other kids. There was a wide-eyed curiosity about everything that lay ahead. You were nervous, excited, hopeful. You had pigtail braids. You hadn’t yet gotten your braces—that would happen a few months later. I remember sitting in the orientation of your theater class and watching as you looked around trying to figure out who was going to be your friend.
You made a few friends in sixth and then some new ones in seventh and then some new ones in eighth. They were all different, and it showed me how you’re capable of having many different kinds of people in your life. You don’t follow a particular group; you just follow your heart and who makes you happy.
You’ve taken every challenge and processed it and broken it down and then gone for it. No matter the circumstances. And we can safely say there were some circumstances!
I mean, right when you were about to finish seventh grade, the whole world shut down. Suddenly, all these online classes popped up, and nobody had any idea how to navigate them. Not students. Not teachers. Not parents. Not even our government!
The way you adapted to online learning and how, in spite of not being given the accommodations you needed, you still managed to pull through and thrive in an environment nobody was prepared for—not even your parents.
Like math.
The way you patiently waited while I tried to explain geometry only to find out I was logged in to the wrong math class the entire time. The way you couldn’t get a decent math teacher to ever understand that math is difficult for you and it’s not that you’re being lazy! I get it. I wasn’t exactly in love with math at your age, either.
You took it all in stride. You continued to work hard and try to understand. You got frustrated when you saw me get frustrated, and then you softened up when you saw how stressful everything had become.
Our little house was suddenly flush with Momma at home, and your brother, and your baby sister, and your dad trying to navigate deadlines and math that he hadn’t done in over twenty years—and even when he did study it, he still wasn’t very good at it.
You understood that your frustration was not singular—that many people were struggling like you were. That the world was suffering.
The world had changed overnight, and you stood up and demanded something must be done. You grew into your social activism and were unafraid to show who you were and how the world needed a reckoning, and that you were there for the fight. I saw how you began to see the world through the eyes of others. Through the eyes of injustice and your increasing rage at intolerance.
I saw how in quarantine your little brother was crying in his room because not even Abuela could see him on his birthday, and you invited him for a “sleepover” and let him watch whatever movie he wanted.
I saw how you began to ask us questions about the world. Asking for answers and measuring our responses—almost like testing us to make sure we understood the position you took—on everything from social justice to human dignity to why we needed to watch My Hero Academia.
I saw how you rolled your eyes when we went hiking in the mountains to escape the brutal Miami summer (I have videos of that face). You standing on the ledge overlooking the beautiful landscape with a look that said—Why the heck did you make me go on this two-mile hike in the middle of these woods?
I also saw the face you gave when we reached our destination, and the humid air gave way to the cold as the mountain left remnants of winter at its base. Enough for a teenager to abate her frustrations and marvel at the beauty of nature.
You’ve never been afraid to apologize. That’s a gift. Believe me.
You’re a lightning bolt inside a peony. Everything about you is beautiful, powerful, electric. Your strength, your tenacity, your spirit always amaze me. The way you take care of your siblings and also demand respect from them, and from everyone who comes into your orbit. From the second you came into this world, you’ve proved time and time again that you are a force to be reckoned with.
I’ll never forget the moment you came into this world.
The emergency C-section. Watching Momma shaking on the cold hospital table. Wondering what was wrong. Then the doctor took you out—“right on time,” she said—and I nearly lost myself.
I looked on, a combination of fear and hope as they pulled your tiny purple body out. You dangled there for a moment. The doctor tapped you twice on the chest and after less than a second, you sprang to life and let out a cry that filled the cold room and warmed my worried heart. From that moment on, you would constantly prove to everyone that you are someone who not only survives under great pressure—you thrive.
You learned to love stories. Using your audiobook device and flipping the pages of the physical book at such a rate, I found it difficult to keep up with what book you were reading and when. The loud crying from your room when a favorite character died, or the sheer joy when two characters you totally “shipped” at the beginning of the novel miraculously got together in the end.
You spent the last three years in middle school figuring yourself out, and I want you to know how proud I am of everything you’ve had to overcome to get yourself into high school and ready for the next journey of your epic adventure.
Watching you go through the many ups and downs of a really tough time in your life and managing to get through with such triumph is inspiring. You are an inspiration. You. Give me my greatest hope.
I want you to know . . .
. . . sometimes we fall. Sometimes we feel like the world is caving in on us. Like it’s hard to breathe and there’s no place to get air into our lungs.
I want you to know . . .
. . . I’ve also felt like that before. I’ve also known what it’s like to finally catch that breath. To feel my lungs fill with oxygen.
I want you to know . . .
. . . sometimes all we need to do is breathe and recognize the air was there all along.
I want you to know . . .
. . . I worry about you. I was scared when they called your mom and me from the school to say you needed to go to the hospital. It scared us, but I’m grateful you were okay.
I want you to know . . .
. . . I was not mad. Neither was Momma. We were just scared. Middle school sucks sometimes. I already told you this, but it bears repeating.
I want you to know . . .
. . . your resilience is what inspires me to be the best at my job and to be there when you need me. To be a champion of you and everything you do.
I know you’ve been bullied because you’re different.
Looked down on because you are trying to be you.
But I also know you erased those negative influences from your sphere and commanded they would never, ever have dominion over you again.
You are brave beyond measure.
You are caring and compassionate.
And I see in you everything I wish for this world.
I still have the poem you wrote just before you entered fifth grade. With your permission I’m going to repeat it here:
I see a smile in the sun
Sometimes the sun is talking to me
And it says. You’re a happy girl.
The sun makes me Love ideas.
Ideas like how to be kind.
When it rains.
Clouds cry.
So the Sun.
Tries to brighten them up.
With happiness!
Sometimes the sun’s talking to me.
And it says you’re a happy girl.
And do you remember this other poem? The one you wrote about your friend who was having a tough time in school.
Abby
I think clouds are shy
Why do I?
Well because
Sometimes I see clouds get pink
And I think.
Whenever you look at them.
They blush.
And so here I am, writing this on your last day of eighth grade, and all I can think is how lucky I am to be your dad. I want to tell you that you are, and have always given me, so much hope for the world. So much promise. My greatest joy is that I’ve gotten to witness the world next to your eyes, your voice, and through your stories.
As you head off into summer and prepare for high school, I want you to know how much hope I have for everything you are and will be.
I want you to know
I love you.
And I want to thank you for sharing the gift that is you.
Te quiero con todo mi corazón,
Papa
* * *
• • •
PABLO CARTAYA is an award-winning author, screenwriter, speaker, and occasional actor. He is the author of The Epic Fail of Arturo Zamora, Marcus Vega Doesn’t Speak Spanish, and Each Tiny Spark. His forthcoming titles include The Last Beekeeper, a middle grade novel that contemplates a future where bees are central to rebuilding the world, and ¡Leo! El Magnífico, an Apple+ Ghost Writer Series novel. His novels primarily focus on the themes of family, community, and culture. He lives in the hyphens between his Cuban and American identities and with his familia in Miami. Visit him at PabloCartaya.com.
HOPE IN THE HALLS OF CATHOLIC SCHOOL
by Karina Yan Glaser
Hope wasn’t something I spent a lot of time thinking about when I was growing up. If I had a word to describe childhood, it would be survival. I know a lot of people can relate to that. Growing up, I changed schools almost every year. Already a shy kid, I found changing schools every year to be pure torture. However, all that change taught me a very useful trick: invisibility. I spent a lot of time in school libraries, hidden in the stacks, content to spend recesses and lunchtimes with familiar books.
The year I entered sixth grade, I (surprise, surprise) entered a new school. It was a Catholic school, and I didn’t even know my mom had put in an application for me to attend until a couple of weeks before school started. I had taken a test to get into this school, but I remember thinking it was a test to get into our public school’s gifted program. My teachers tested me for gifted programs every year since I was a good student, but I never scored high enough to get in. I was not very good at standardized tests. All I can recall is one day in late August before sixth grade, my mom brought me to a building that had a gigantic cross in front of it. Our family wasn’t religious, so that was a surprise.
“We are buying uniforms,” Mom informed me. “This new school makes you wear uniforms.”
“A uniform?” I gaped.
I had gone only to public schools in the past, and at all of those schools I could wear whatever I wanted. Or, I wore whatever my mom made me wear. I distinctly remembered going to school in terry-cloth shorts when I was in first grade. When I entered the schoolyard where we gathered in class lines before school began, everyone pointed at me and yelled, “Short shorts! Short shorts!” When I came home and told my mom about it, she shrugged.
“Those are the style shorts I wore for school in Hong Kong,” Mom said.
I refused to wear those shorts again, even though they were comfortable. Instead, I wore jeans like everyone else and suffered through the California heat.
At least now, with the uniform, I wouldn’t have to worry about wearing the wrong thing to this new Catholic school. Mom led me past the cross and into the building. We entered an auditorium that was filled with tables. On top of the tables were rows of folded-up clothes. A woman whose blow-dried hair easily gave her an extra three inches of height welcomed us.
My mom pointed to me and said, “She is a new student here.”
The woman smiled, asked me what grade I was going into, and led me to one of the tables.
“There are three different color pinafores,” the woman explained, pointing to the light yellow, light blue, and light pink jumpers. “Underneath you have to wear a blouse.” She pointed to a blouse with an elaborate collar, what I imagined someone would wear in Victorian England. One side of the collar was embroidered with swirly script. The woman explained that the monogram was of the school’s initials.
My mom bought me one pinafore in each color and a few blouses. The woman with the hair led us to another table with navy-blue shorts and white shirts. These were the PE uniforms, and the shorts were very much like those unfortunate shorts that made everyone laugh at me back in first grade! Life had truly come around full circle.
Armed with cotton-candy-colored pinafores, Victorian blouses, and PE shorts like those my mom wore when she was a child, we headed home. Two weeks later, school began. I returned to the building with the huge cross, only this time I was wearing a yellow pinafore that went well past my knees. Since I was new, someone from the front office showed me where to wait. She led me to a group of girls who were also in sixth grade. And . . . none of them were wearing yellow pinafores. Some kids were wearing the pink ones, but most of them were wearing blue! I slowly turned around, taking a closer look at the rest of the school, where hundreds of kids were milling around the courtyard waiting for the school bell to ring.
Not one person was wearing a yellow pinafore.
“You must be new,” a girl with a white bow in her blond hair said to me.
I nodded, noticing that she was staring at my pinafore with sympathy. I looked back at her and noticed that her hemline was much, much shorter than mine. It was at least three inches above her knee! And her blouse didn’t have an elaborate collar. Hers was a crisp, white blouse with no school monogram.
I felt betrayed by the uniform lady, who had led me astray in every way. It was as if I was back in first grade, when everyone was pointing at my short shorts and laughing.
My transition to sixth grade was definitely the most difficult out of all my school transitions, and not just because of the uniform. Most of the students had been at the school since preschool, so there were friend dynamics that I didn’t understand and coursework I had never learned. I got a D- on my first science test because the majority of the questions were review from the previous year. On the first non-uniform day of the school year, everyone in my class wore a special brand of T-shirt that turned colors in the sun. I had never seen shirts like this before. There was obviously an unspoken code about clothes that I knew nothing about.
Furthermore, the class I entered was very heavily skewed toward boys. Two-thirds of the grade were boys. Maybe I, a non-Catholic, was accepted into the school in the first place only because they needed more girls! There were sixteen girls total, and they were split into two main cliques. One group liked sports and school, and the other group liked makeup and boys. I was in a third group, all by myself. I was the one who went to the library and read during recess and lunch.
One of the biggest changes was being at a Catholic school. I had never been exposed to religion, so seeing crosses and artwork of Jesus and Mary at every turn was a real eye-opener. There was mass every Friday, and everyone took communion. I had no idea what communion was, and when I asked the teacher, she said it was the body and blood of Christ. That made me incredibly uncomfortable. Thankfully, I wasn’t allowed to take communion, because to do that you had to have been baptized in second grade. Instead, I was told to cross my hands over my chest, and when I got to the priest, he thumbprinted a cross on my forehead. The only other kids in the school who had to cross their hands over their chest were the kids younger than second grade.
But hope comes in small and unexpected ways. A month after school began, a girl in the sports-and-school girl clique asked if I wanted to walk to class with her. The next thing I knew, I started hanging out with that group at lunch instead of hiding in the library. When they found out I was a gymnast, they begged me to show them what I could do during recess.
“But I’m wearing a dress,” I said, gesturing at my blue pinafore. (I never again wore the yellow one after the first day of school.)
“Don’t you wear shorts underneath?” one of the girls asked. She flipped up her skirt to reveal plaid boxer shorts, the kind that boys wear as underwear!
“I’ll wear something tomorrow,” I promised her.
When my mom picked me up later that day, I told her I needed boxer shorts.
“Why?” she said, horrified.
“Mo-om, please!” I begged. “I have to wear something under my dress so I can do sports with the other kids during recess.”
“Wear your PE shorts,” Mom told me, as she drove us home. She did not stop at the store to buy boxer shorts.
It turned out that no one cared that I wore PE shorts under my pinafore. What they did care about was the way I could flip and tumble on the grass. And slowly, I began to fit in more. I was invited to birthday sleepovers and introduced to rollerblading (I was terrible at it) and TP’ing the houses of boys in our class late at night (I never understood the point of that) and shaving my legs (my mom was not very happy to see all the cuts I came home with). For my birthday, even though I didn’t have a party or a sleepover, a few of my friends came to school with gifts. Inside one of the wrapped packages was that elusive T-shirt that changed colors in the sun.
I was shocked when I didn’t have to switch schools for seventh grade and even more shocked that I stayed at the same school in eighth grade. I had never stayed in the same school that long before. By then, I had gotten used to Catholic school and no longer shuddered at the images of Jesus nailed to the cross hanging in every hallway. I had joined the school sports teams and learned how to play volleyball, a sport I had never heard of before.
Eighth grade was the final year at that school; we would all be moving on to different high schools after graduation. One of the big events of the last year was the eighth-grade musical. It was a Big Deal, which I knew from watching the eighth graders perform it when I was in sixth and seventh grades.
