I had to give an English presentation earlier this year about my life. We had to make a poster with a tree on it that explained what we thought, in our own words, were the most important experiences in our life that made us the people we are today, and then present it to the class. When I got up in front of the class to present my tree, my classmates all got strange looks on their faces. The middle of my tree said the words “my kiddos,” and my class had been confused because they all know that I am not a mother; well at least not technically speaking.

I have been an aid in my school’s special need’s classroom for six years now. The amount of lessons I have learned and what I have learned about myself in the process has been an invaluable experience. I have had some of my biggest heartbreak alongside my kiddos, and when I’ve thought that I could not possibly love teaching my kids more, they prove me wrong every time.

One of the things that I get told often by my peers is that I am a very hardworking individual. It is a trait that I pride myself in having, but not a trait that I acquired on my own. I had the best role models to look up to when it came to learn what hard work truly looks like, because no one works as hard as the kids I mentor every day. I often find myself thinking that I am trying my hardest, that I am putting all my effort into something, and then I look at them and realize that I really wasn’t. Not only do they work hard to overcome the mental setbacks that they face; not being able to communicate what they want, struggling to stay focused, or not having the freedom they may want, they also work hard to overcome some of the physical challenges they face; needing help to write, or even having serious medical problems. I am blown away every day how these kids can face everything they have to go through to just live their everyday life, but even more astonished with how they are able to just simply be happy individuals in the process.

I try to be the happiest and most positive version of myself every day, but it honestly takes a lot of work sometimes. Sometimes just finding happiness in a small thing that happens is a win for me that day. Most of the time that small thing happens with my kiddos. I find courage in their kind hearts and the love and acceptance that their personalities radiate. They change my chaotic and stressful life into a new respective for me. A perspective that lets me understand that how I treat, accept, and understand other people is what’s most important. They make me strive to be a better teacher, mentor, and friend, and they give me patience when I think I have none. They make me smile and laugh every day and have made me a better person just for knowing them.

Over three years ago I faced the hardest tragedy that I had ever known up to that point in my life. I was called out of fourth period by the assistant principle of the school and taken to a conference room in the office with a group of my crying peers. One of my kiddos I had been helping for three years had been in the hospital that week. Me and my sister had planned to go visit him in a couple of days to see how he was doing. What I could never have prepared for were hearing the words “he passed away last night we are so sorry.”

The next few weeks I really struggled to go to the special needs room. I wanted to be there for the rest of the kids I mentor, but I honestly didn’t know how to face them some days. They were a daily reminder of the friend I had lost, the friend they had lost too, until one day it wasn’t so hard anymore. I realized that helping his friends every day was reminding me of the beautiful life he lived, and even through the heartache, helping his friends was exactly where I was meant to be. Where I needed to be. I wrote the words “Rest easy until we meet again kid; your bff will miss you like crazy until then. Thanks for all the amazing memories, for being my role model and biggest supporter for the past three years, and for putting a smile on my face every single day since the day I met you,” on my Instagram.

Ever since then I have made it a goal of mine to be the kind of person who makes other people smile. Every. Single. Damn. Day. and I hope that by reading this you can take a page from my kiddos’s book and be the light in someone else’s life (get it… my blog is intothelight… see how that worked out). I was looking at pictures of me and my friend who passed away the other day, and immediately after, I stumbled upon a post that I believe to be the most perfect embodiment of the kids I mentor every day; my friends.
Bianca Sparacino wrote in The Strength in Our Scars,

“Be the person who cares. Be the person who makes the effort, the person who loves without hesitation. Be the person who bares it all, the person who never shies away from the depth of their feeling, or the intensity of their hope. Be the person who believes — in the softness of the world, in the goodness of other people, in the beauty of being open and untethered and trusting. Be the person who takes the chance, who refuses to hide. Be the person who makes people feel seen, the person who shows up. Trust me when I say — be the person who cares. Because the world doesn’t need any more carelessness, any more disregard; because there is nothing stronger than someone who continues to stay soft in a world that hasn’t always been kind to them.”

With all my love,

Nicky