Three Sad Stories

Probably everyone that reads my blog has heard me tell my three sad stories at some point. I am really proud of them. I am sure Soapy will be sick of them. I wish I had some deep reason to share them, but I really don't. They haven't changed my life, and I haven't learned anything from them. They are just sad. Ridiculously sad. Sad like you want to tell someone else so you can stare at each other and both be sad.
So here we go.


Story #1
The Ballad of Mr. Slade

Mr. Slade (his name might have been Mr. Slate, but I don't really remember. Let's call him Mr. S) was my seventh grade social studies teacher. He was a tall, slender, black man and took all his students seriously. He would talk to us about racial tension in America and tell us that we shouldn't ignore it or pretend that we don't see race; instead we should recognize that there are problems and face them pragmatically. I remember once Mr. S told us a story about a woman who had a very racially diverse class who was asked once in a meeting about how many children she had. She gave the number and then was asked how many latino/white/black students she had.
"Oh, I don't really know. I don't see color," she said, "they are all clear to me."
Mr. S said that this was ridiculous. He said you could blindfold him right then and he could tell you exactly how many latino/white/black students he had in his class.
"Race is important" he taught us.
I left Virginia and Langston Hughes Middle School at the end of that year.
My first year of college, I had a floormate that had gone to the same middle school as I (me? who knows?) He told me about the teachers and we talked about other students for a while, and then he told me about Mr. S.
Mr. S was leaving school one day and passed by a homeless man who asked for some money. Mr. S invited him over to get him some soup and make him some dinner. When they got inside his house, the homeless fellow stabbed Mr. S in the neck, pushed him down his basement stairs and robbed his house. He was at the bottom of his stairs for quite a while before he was found and taken to a hospital. He was in and out of a coma in the ICU for months until he miraculously pulled through and was able to recover and go back to teaching. Six months later, he was diagnosed with cancer and died.


Story #2
The Love Song of A. Elder blue frock? (I couldn't think of anything that sounded right)

When I was a missionary, I was told this story about another Elder in the field. He had had a rough life up to this point in the MTC. He had family problems and didn't get along well with any of his direct relatives other than his Grandparents, who he lived with for some time and loved very much. They lived far away in Oregon though, and he lived in Arizona. While he was in the MTC, his grandparents had sent him a letter saying that they would be coming down to visit the MTC and drop him off a package. They called the MTC and had gotten permission to see him before he left to start his proselytizing. He was excited all day to see them, but he wasn't expecting to see them until that evening. That afternoon, they called out his name over the speakers like they do when you get a package and told him to come up to the front desk. He went there and was told that while his Grandparents were driving down to see him they had lost control and drove off the side of a cliff and had both died. The only people he really loved. Who were bringing him a package before he left. What a horrible story.

Story #3
Spot

Much later on my mission I was standing at a bus stop with about 5 other elders and a senior elder. It was yellow, dusty, and February. I am pretty sure it was a Tuesday morning. We were going to go to a shopping area in northern Athens to set up a board with a picture on it and sing. But first we had to catch a bus, so we were standing on the sidewalk, looking down the street at the cars coming at us. I saw a puppy playing about 200 feet away in a driveway. It was hopping and running, and ran too far out into the road and got snagged by a taxicab. from where we were standing, you could see it bouncing up into the undercarriage and off the road. The taxi slowed down because I am sure the driver heard the dog get hit, and about four of us missionaries all went "OOOooooooohh" at the same time. Amazingly, the puppy hopped up and ran across the rest of the street to the island in between lanes. he was limping a bit, and probably had some bad scratches, but he was running and could still yelp.
I said outloud "Whoa! That's the coolest dog ever!" Or I would have said all that, but the dog was so shocked, he didn't look where he was running and ran all the way across the island into opposing traffic, right into a bright red dump truck. The dump truck driver probably didn't even notice. Of course, there were only like 7 cars on the entire road that morning, and this poor dog had to run into two of them. We ran across the street and pulled him off the road into the median. It was a pretty rotten street singing.
In all fairness, the dog probably would have died from shock after the first taxi, and the dump truck was likely the quickest way for him to go, but really? A bright red dump truck?

So there you go! My three saddest stories. They are just sad. I think I like them because they are all so absurd. Like, you can't even really stay sad because they are just so ridiculously tragic. Like when that one peace-loving planet gets blown up on Star Wars? It is just so mean, you don't even register it.
Whatevs.