Something about this time of year always puts me in mind of my first semesters in graduate school. Maybe it's the cold, dark mornings. Although I'm living in south Texas now, and the mornings are far less bitter than those I endured for many years on the Great Plains, the darkness I travel through on my way to campus each morning is very much the same.
Even in this warm corner of the world, there's a point at which winter feels like it's never going to end.
In both semesters of my first year of graduate school, as one of the low people on our departmental totem pole, I was assigned a section of freshman composition that met at 7:30 a.m., three days a week. I remember giving up (more than once) on trying to get my car started at that early morning hour; I remember trudging through snowy, vacant streets on my way to the campus.
Most of all, I remember the dark winter morning when I picked up a copy of the student newspaper on my way to get a cup of coffee. My stomach sank as I scanned the lead story: A student from my fall-semester class had committed suicide the night before.
Actually, "David" had missed more of my classes than he had attended; I wasn't entirely sure whether I should consider him my student. And he was half asleep, or obviously hung over and openly hostile, when he did show up.
I was new to teaching, only three years older than most of my students. I had no idea how to deal with someone who behaved like David. So, mostly, I just didn't: I ignored his rude remarks, gave him the low grades he had earned on assignments, and looked forward to the end of the semester, when he would no longer be my problem.
But that morning, after reading the news of his death, I sat in my office, shaken. I hadn't seen David for months; I hadn't been hoping to see him again. Still, I'd known he was floundering. And I'd done nothing to help him.
What I should have done, exactly, I didn't know -- this was long before the general public had a vocabulary for discussing the symptoms of depression. Given the amount of time he'd actually spent in my classroom, I knew I'd been a minuscule part of David's life. More than likely, nothing I might have said or done would have made any difference.
A friend of mine who lost her husband to suicide many years ago told me how surprised she was by the number of people who contacted her after his death -- people who hadn't seen her husband for years, but who called to say, "I should have known. I should have done something to prevent this."
On some level, it seems, we all believe that one connection might be enough to keep us from stepping off the edge of this life, no matter how slight that connection might seem.
It's ironic that David, who spent so little time in my classroom, still comes to mind as often as he does, that he had such an important effect on my life as a teacher. But his death provides me with a regular reminder of the important jobs we do, both in the classroom and after class ends.
In those early days of my teaching career, I had no idea of what the job really entailed; it didn't occur to me that being a good professor would involve caring about my students both as learners and as people with lives much larger, and much more complex, than the classroom could reveal.
Of course, I know I can't be responsible for the mental health of my students. I can't assign grades based on the strength of someone's self-esteem, giving D's only to those students I've judged to be tough enough to handle the disappointment. But I can talk to those students and acknowledge that I see them struggling. I can let them know their problems aren't invisible, and neither are they -- not when they close their eyes and sleep through class, not even when they stop coming to class entirely.
After David's death, a newspaper interview with his family revealed that he had earned low grades in all of his first-semester courses, not just mine. He was deeply disappointed in himself. He had been planning on joining the military to finance his graduate education in a professional school. He feared that his poor grades would derail his plans.
The pain of any disappointment is real -- and when you're the sole cause of your own frustration, it's doubly hard to bear. David had no one to blame but his own poor judgment and immaturity. Still, he was only a freshman and obviously bright. He had plenty of time to turn things around.
Then, a few days before his death, David was cited for drunk driving and spent a night in jail. That was, apparently, the final straw. Later that week, he drove away from his dorm for the last time and parked his car on a quiet residential street near campus. He stuffed a hose into the exhaust pipe, threaded it through a crack in the window beside him, and went to sleep.
The graduate student who was teaching David's composition class that semester came to my desk the morning after his death and sat beside me, weeping quietly. He had been cracking down on David, he said; he could see that here was a student with the potential to do much more than he'd done so far, a student who should never have failed the course the first time around.
"It's not your fault," I said.
"I know," he said, wiping his eyes. "I just keep thinking about him sitting in that car, all alone."
It's been almost 20 years since David's death, and I have yet to make it through a semester without meeting a student just like him: one who frustrates, challenges, and even angers me on occasion. But I try to respond with concern rather than exasperation or apathy.
I'm not always successful. But I try to take a deep breath and soften the edge in my voice when that student makes yet another excuse for late or missing work. I say, "I'm sorry for your trouble. Is there anything I can do to help?" Then I point out the relevant policy on my syllabus, and I outline the consequences of the student's decision not to do the work.
I do that because the real tragedy of David's life rests in the fact that he felt he had nowhere to turn -- no one to help him deal with his shame and self-loathing, no one to point him toward someone who could help. Perhaps he felt as invisible as I pretended he was in my classroom. But I thought I was letting him off easy by ignoring him.
I don't do that anymore. When a student like David appears in my classroom, I ask him to visit me during my office hours or hang around for a few moments after class. I talk with him about taking the course in another semester, at a different time. I ask how his other classes are going. Sometimes I offer to make an appointment for him to talk with our campus counselor.
I know the student might say, "No thanks, I can handle it," as many students do. Then again, he might not. That simple question might help a student like David find a way to forgive himself for being young and irresponsible. And at least I'll know that I did what I could to keep another student from winding up where David did -- alone in the dark on a cold winter morning, waiting to fall asleep.
