Sometimes it feels like the weight of human suffering comes and sits on my shoulders. I know immediately how ridiculous that sounds. I live in the First World, full stop. I don't have to worry about clean water, electricity or food. I don't live in a place leveled by earthquakes and I haven't witnessed my friends and neighbors decimated by war. My son is healthy and goes to free public school (whether he likes it or not -- one can't have it all). Nevertheless, sometimes it sits on my shoulders.

Empathy in my opinion is a good quality. If you can understand how someone comes to be in the position they are in, it makes it easier to figure out what to do about it (if anything). Doesn't mean you condone the position -- just understand it better. When I look at my son, I can feel his frustration and fear about middle school. I might've come down hard on him, but I tried to also offer support where I thought he needed it. I think most parents who love their children feel deeply for them. For me, my heart sinks when his does, and I'm sure this is true for other parents.

I just wish I didn't feel this way about most people.

Maybe it's because I love writing about the human condition that makes me notice people more closely. But I just ... notice things; and those things pile up on top of me sometimes. We ran into a friend of El Hijo's in a store a few weeks back; the friend was with an older woman mentor/friend. It's the first time I'd seen either of them, and before I knew who they were, I made some comment about them being a couple. El Hijo laughed and explained otherwise. But a couple of weeks later he came home and told me the friend had just dropped the bomb that he had actually been seeing the older woman for a long time, and things had just gotten really complicated. It just seemed so obvious they were were in love at the time. That doesn't weigh on me, probably because I don't really know them.

Right now the Jr.-Me coworker is having some pretty substantial life stress. His wife is on the verge of emergency surgery -- they're in limbo waiting on a decision. I've covered five of his classes so far for emergency trips to the doctor. I know them well enough to feel how scared she is and how angry and frustrated and powerless he feels. But it's not just the negative emotions that work on me. She brought him some hot thermos of something last week, a few days after I'd covered a whole day's worth of his classes. He had been frustrated and slightly sick that morning, and he was still getting over having just driven eight hours one way to take her literally to the best doctor in the country. When she showed up in our office with that thermos, he was so touched and comforted -- it made me feel obscene to watch. For a moment, the whole world stopped for them. He loved her so much; she seemed so grateful to have him. I knew in an instant he would never cheat on her. I felt like an intruder, so I turned away. I have to cover his classes tomorrow, because she has another last minute appointment. Their worry and dread and comfort in each other has made me heartsick.

It's the same with some of my students. I remember their stories, their fears, the things that happen to them. It's because I remember, I think, that makes them so loyal to me. I remember their losses, I see the effects of neglectful mothers and drunks for fathers. I see the full hope and dreams an entire family has placed on the shoulders of one child whose body just crumples when she gets a really poor grade or realizes she has to tell her family that being a doctor is not really a choice because of the chemistry, which she just can't do, and that's all her family has ever thought college was about. Sometimes a C is more than just a grade. Sometimes I see the family just waiting to swoop in and ask for money from a boy who got to college in spite of their domestic abuse and drug addiction, but I know he sees them too. I've had them dissolve into tears because their best friend was killed, their brother was shot in Iraq and they have to drive to North Carolina to bring the body home, or they were raped in a home where they should've been safe.

I seem to specialize in motherless boys, and I have amassed nearly enough of them to start a baseball team. I can already start a basketball team's worth. They come by to introduce me to girlfriends for approval, or bring their creative projects for praise (I always find something to praise) or to ask me about money problems or drinking problems or anger problems. They tell me about their grand plans for themselves -- the houses they want to build, the books they are going to write, the work they are going to do. They tell me the secrets about themselves -- about the music they really like but won't share with their friends or their fear of becoming their fathers. Sometimes they come because they want to be teased, even though they pretend to be angry about it. I think mainly they drop in because they want to feel like they matter to somebody; and they do matter to me.

But sometimes the collective weight of all those motherless boys and the fear, the hope, the unknown, the small celebrations and the disappointments just gather right on top of my shoulders. And then I feel. And I feel and I feel and I feel, and I know I can do no more than I already have -- the kind word, the joke, the safe place to sit, the one who listens, the one who knows where things are, the small birthday present, the quiet question. But I still feel, until it has nowhere else to go, and it pours over.

And right now, I'm full-to-sloshing.

-- DV