Dear Alice,
1. I’ve started to write this letter at least 20 times in as many years. Just imagine me sitting alone in my office surrounded by crumpled pieces of paper. Since you’re a writer yourself, I know you understand the difficulty of saying it just right. I have spent way too much time trying, and I need to find a way to finally be done with this.
2. When I first walked into your high school English class in Chelsea, Michigan, I saw a light in you that I wanted for myself. Your chestnut eyes were always welcoming, your smile always subtle, yet warm. In person, you were impossible to hate.
3. “The center is a point,” you said to our class during the daily segment on commonly misused phrases. “One centers on a point, not around one.”
4. I had never given much thought to my teachers’ lives outside of school. I knew you within the context of your 11th and 12th grade classes. I rarely even saw you in the hallways of Chelsea High. You were a fixture in that corner classroom, a woman who seemed to exist wholly there. I knew you as humble and intelligent, absent of the complexities and fallibility of the literary characters we discussed in class.
I never would have imagined that you were married to a man who kept a gun beneath his pillow.
5. I took Chemistry I with your husband in 1992, when I was a sophomore. I remember that he played loud rock music on the stereo while we did experiments. He wore that plaid and wool hunting jacket and drank coffee out of that small, plastic cup that doubled as a lid to his tall vacuum thermos. His hands sometimes shook when he lifted the cup to his lips. He kept his haggard ponytail pulled back with a thin rubber band. I remember the fluorescent classroom lights shining on his balding head as he lectured. During class, he stroked each side of his wide mustache with his thumb and first finger, while he waited near a wooden podium for a student to answer a question. Sometimes he started class at his instructor’s desk with a lab sink and used test tubes and chemical reactions to create sudden, violent bursts of flames. That was his signature method of making chemistry seem cool.
Though I interpreted his personality as arrogant and strange, I didn’t dislike him as much as I quietly despised the subject of chemistry. You should know that I have always struggled with solving complicated formulas.
6. My dad never told me things that a teenager didn’t need to know, and I never thought to ask him. He mostly kept his work life separate from home life. I didn’t know what a school superintendent did all day, and I never thought to ask him.
One night, though, when I was standing in our kitchen by the sliding glass door, my dad walked up to me with his hands in the pockets of his faded weekend jeans and said, “Hey Nick? When you went in early for chemistry help, did Mr. Leith ever act weird around you?”
I looked at my dad for a few seconds and wrinkled my brow. “What are you talking about?” I replied.
My dad dropped the subject without explanation, and I quickly forgot about it.
Even when it was just the two of us—your husband and I—in his chemistry lab, he had never said anything inappropriate to me. He just buzzed around the room while I sat in the middle, an island among a sea of empty desks. He answered my questions about the homework and continued preparing for the school day.
I wasn’t a pretty girl. I was self-conscious and tomboyish. Acne spotted my jaw line and chin. My chest was as flat as a boy’s. And I was the boss’s daughter.
7. Earlier that year, the mother of a quiet, long-haired, senior girl called our home telephone at an unusually late hour. I answered the call in the kitchen. “Dad, it’s for you,” I said in the direction of the living room. He took the call in private.
8. One of my favorite photographs of my dad is the one where he’s sitting next to my hospital bed at St. Joe’s in Ypsilanti, right after my knee surgery during my senior year. He sat in that uncomfortable chair, staying day and night, as my left leg moved, bending and straightening in a Constant Passive Motion machine. In the photograph, he’s wearing jeans and a blue sweater with a tired, loyal smile on his face. He only stepped out of the room when the nurse arrived to help me use the bedpan. Back then I never saw his commitment to me as remarkable because it was all I had known.
9. Through high school it seemed that my teachers somehow belonged to me. “Mrs. Leith is my favorite teacher,” I often said, not even realizing the implication of the possessive determiner, the inherent egocentricity of the teenage mind that places everyone and everything in her life on a single orbit.
10. Surely you know all about the giddiness that your high school students felt on the Thursday before Christmas break. My energy that day felt boundless. I practically bounced from seventh period, across the grass, and straight to the outer window of my dad’s office. I knocked on his window, and he tilted it open. He was eating an ice cream sundae from McDonald’s out of a small, clear, plastic cup. He smiled his full-faced smile when he saw me, and I returned a grin. He reached out and dropped the car keys into my hand so I could drive to physical therapy. My mom planned to pick him up later so they could finish the Christmas shopping. As I turned to walk toward the parking lot, my dad said, “Have fun. See you later,” and tipped the window to close it.
At physical therapy, my friend Carey and I both rode Stairmasters, and we listened to the Lemonheads album, It’s a Shame about Ray, on the stereo. We moved our arms like we were dancing. The snow fell quietly outside; the cold windows had white paper snowflakes taped to them.
Mid-workout we overheard someone say there had been a shooting at Chelsea High School. We stepped off of the Stairmasters and huddled around an AM/FM radio to try to learn more. Our first instincts developed concern for our friends who may have been attending a sporting event in the school gymnasium. We imagined that the shooter must have been a kid from another school.
It never crossed our minds that the shooter could have been your husband or that the victim could have been my dad.
Carey and I changed into our street clothes without finishing our workout. We quietly puzzled over all the possible scenarios that could have led to gunfire in our small hometown, but we couldn’t add it up.
11. When the details of that afternoon — the day your husband killed my dad — slowly leaked out from police reports and school employees, I learned that your husband had been reprimanded for sexually harassing female students in the school hallways. I learned that he was on the verge of losing his job. I learned that your husband had stormed out of the grievance meeting with administrators not long after the school day had ended. I learned that you and your husband carpooled home from school together that day. I learned that you were with him and his anger for the 20 minutes it took you to drive home.
I learned that when you arrived home, your husband disappeared upstairs. He returned with a 9mm, semi-automatic pistol in his hand. He asserted, “He is going to die.”
I learned that your husband got back into the car alone and sped toward the school administration building where my dad and two others continued the meeting.
Twenty minutes.
That’s how long it took your husband to drive back to the high school.
I learned that you didn’t call the police whose small-town headquarters were only blocks from the school. You didn’t call the administration building to warn the three men whose lives were at stake, sitting ducks. Instead, you called the teachers’ union office in Ann Arbor, 20 minutes in the opposite direction.
Since nobody had cell phones then, my dad and the others in the room received no proper warning that your husband was coming back to the meeting with a gun and intent to kill.
Your husband wore a long trench coat with pockets of ammunition. He squealed his tires in the school parking lot. He told someone who approached him that he had “unfinished business” to attend to.
He walked into the administration building. Turned the corner into the doorway of the small office. He lifted the gun and pointed it, first, at my dad (Daddy, Dada, Pops).
My 47-year-old dad’s last words were: “Steve, you don’t have to do this.”
Your husband fired round after round. He killed my dad. He injured two others.
You didn’t call the police.
12. Why Alice? Why the fuck didn’t you call the police? Why? Why? Why?
13. After your husband shot my dad, a pocket of time existed where my dad was not gone, and it was still just a Thursday in December. I was still just a teenager, happily riding the Stairmaster at MedSport looking through icy windows with paper snowflakes taped to them. My brother, Brian, was still just a fresh-faced Private First Class, wrenching bolts on the engines of fleet vehicles at the Marine base in Okinawa, Japan. My mom was still a wife of 26 years and a middle school special education teacher at a neighboring school district.
You were still just my favorite high school teacher—the one who made me love words.
14. I can’t remember if it was you or I who initiated the meeting two days after your husband murdered my dad at our school. I hadn’t slept since I found out. I had been desperately pulling his photographs from sticky plastic pages of family photo albums and taping them to the bathroom mirrors: Dad sitting on a chaise lounge chair on the beach in Cancun the previous December; Dad sitting on a tree stump by Higgins Lake smoking a corn-cob pipe and holding a cup of morning coffee in his relaxed hand; Dad with his arm around my brother Brian at the Marine boot camp graduation ceremony at Camp Lejeune less than four months prior.
Still, I was worried about how you might be feeling. I was eager to believe in you—to affirm that we were both unknowing victims of your husband’s violent actions, to tell you that I didn’t blame you.
I sensed some hesitation from my mom, but she took me to meet you anyway. The story was still developing. I couldn’t imagine any scenario wherein you were not the hero. She could.
We learned that you had been staying with your friend and colleague, Pam. When we arrived at her house, Pam took our damp jackets, and I saw you sitting alone in a wingback chair at the far corner of the large room. You didn’t rise to greet us when we entered the Christmas-ready living room. Your face displayed a low, distant gaze. Your fingertips fidgeted with a pinch of fabric on the bottom of your sweater. I don’t know what kind of welcome I had expected.
Finally, you approached me. You said something like, “This is for you,” and your tone was solemn. You reached out and handed me a hardcover book and hand-written letter. Did the book have a tree on the cover? Do you remember the title?
I never read the book. I meant to. My head was too clouded with grief in those days to concentrate for long. I stuffed the book into a drawer in my bedroom and never looked at it again.
I did read your short letter. Your words were scrolled diagonally across the yellow legal paper that you’d folded like a business letter. The one thing I’ve always remembered about the letter was the part I understood the least. “Maybe we can make a circle someday,” it said.
I’ve been wanting to ask you for years: What does that mean?
15. I returned to school only three weeks after my dad died, often arriving late and unprepared, driving up to the school in the used Chevy Corsica that was still registered in his name. My other teachers offered me unspoken allowances for my unimpressive academic performance during the second half of my senior year. My government teacher passed my late, biased research paper that took a stance against the death penalty. I called capital punishment “an option that doesn’t warrant enough suffering.”
I was scheduled to take your English class, but the counselor intervened. Instead, I met with your student teacher in the library. I don’t remember her name, only that her severe psoriasis frightened and distracted me. I was afraid it was contagious, and I couldn’t bear any other complications in my life. We read Hemingway’s The Old Man and the Sea as an independent study. I was just barely getting by. I remember how tired Santiago was while trying to reel that large Marlin into the boat. I supposed that I wouldn’t have had it in me to keep going like he did.
On the one-month anniversary of my dad’s death, I doodled “un mes” on the top of my worksheet in Spanish III, instead of listening to Señora’s lecture. I wanted someone to understand the dispassionate nature of time—that it kept moving forward, creating more and more space between my dad’s terminated life and my enduring one. It had been one month since your husband killed my father. But I couldn’t say it. I couldn’t scream or cry or even say that I was sinking, that I needed help. I couldn’t say that my 17 years of gentle experiences hadn’t come close to preparing me for this.
That final semester of high school, I don’t remember speaking to you. Surely I must have seen you in the hallways. Did you see me?
16. It was confusing to see you in the courtroom, on the opposing side, sitting next to your mother-in-law, then taking the stand, making a case for your husband’s insanity defense, trying to get the jury to say, not guilty. The defense attorney led you through a detailed account of your husband’s bizarre actions. I remember the story of your husband killing your pet bird, how he broke its neck with his bare hands. You recounted a Christmas when he curled himself beneath a piano and sobbed like a baby. You explained his obsessions with guns—how he usually kept one within reach.
An aisle in the courtroom divided my family from his, yours. You never once looked across.
I often wonder why I expected some sort of loyalty from you. I was one of thousands of students who had filtered through that corner classroom, but you had made me feel like an insider.
17. I know exactly where I was when I learned that you lost your battle with cancer. I stood courtside in the main gymnasium at Adrian College. I wore my baggy, white shorts, a bulky knee brace, and jersey #25, covered with a bright gold warm-up top. My blonde hair was pulled back into a ponytail, and it was wispy on top from my sweat. I was a sophomore at Adrian and had just finished playing an NCAA, Division III basketball game. My mom came to watch my game because it was the second anniversary of the day your husband killed my dad, and anniversaries held a weakening force for us. It seemed that we should be together.
“I have some news,” Mom said. She had done the right thing by waiting until after the game was over to tell me.
“Alice died.”
“When?” I asked.
“Her funeral was today.”
18. You taught me to love the nuances of words. You were the first to introduce me to Shakespeare, Hemingway, and Swift. If I could forget about Hamlet, the Lilliputians, stream-of-consciousness writing, and all the prefixes and suffixes in the English language, maybe nothing would remind me of you, except there will always be circles.
19. Did you ever attend the National Council of Teachers of English convention? I have barely missed a year since I began my own career as an English teacher. You’re gone, so I don’t have to worry about running into you there, in an elevator going up or in the cafeteria at lunch. But I must admit that sometimes I still think I see you places. I see a modestly dressed woman with shoulder-length brown hair, and downward-pointing chestnut eyes, and my breath catches in my throat. Then I remember.
20. The last time I saw you in the flesh, I was a freshman at Adrian College and you were still an English teacher at Chelsea High School. In a moment of capriciousness, I drove the hour north on Michigan 52 and parked in a visitor space in front of the high school. The campus was quiet. All the students sat in class, which left me alone to walk the cement pathways.
I walked past the art building where I had taken half a dozen studio art classes in drawing, painting, pottery, and jewelry; past the science building where I had taken chemistry with your husband; past the building where I had taken Spanish every semester; past the administration building where I had spent so much time waiting for my dad so that we could ride home together, the same building where I saw him, an hour before he died, eating his ice cream sundae and smiling through the propped-open window.
It still seemed strange that life just continued on in that place. A different teacher stood in front of your husband’s old classroom, a new superintendent sat at a desk in my dad’s old office, new kids replaced those of us who had graduated.
I entered the English building and walked down the locker-encased hallway to your classroom.
I peeked into your classroom window, a thin, rectangular pane of glass. I saw you leaning on a desk just a few feet from the door, helping a small group of students. I stared through the window until you saw me. When you looked up, your body froze for a moment. I wonder what you were thinking then.
I hadn’t told anyone that I was coming, and still find it hard to explain my motivation to see you that day.
You looked weak, frail, and sick, a dimmer version of your former self. I remember that you stepped into the hallway and faced me. You looked me straight in the eyes. You wore an expression that I decoded as a combination of mercy and fear.
Even with your full attention, I couldn’t speak a single word. All I could do is stand in the hallway and look at you, standing three feet away.
I searched your face and eyes, and you searched mine, as if all the questions were written there. You never asked me why I had come. You seemed to understand, maybe more than I did.
How long did we stand there, saying nothing at all?
21. It never occurred to me that you would die from a cancer recurrence soon after that day we stood together in silence outside of your classroom door at Chelsea High School. I didn’t know our impromptu meeting would signify a final goodbye between teacher and student, woman and girl.
I always imagined that someday I would write you a letter, that someday you would hold it in your hands. That someday I would have the answers to all of the questions I never had the courage to ask.
Nicole holds an M.A. in English from the University of Colorado Denver, where she has taught composition and rhetoric for more than 11 years. She is an active member of the Lighthouse Writers Workshop community. Her work has appeared in Motherwell, Word Riot, Shadowbox, the CLAS Statement, and Gertrude Press.
Heartbreaking. Two people make a circle together when they embrace?
I stuffed the book into a drawer in my bedroom and never looked at it again.
‘I stuffed the book into a drawer in my bedroom and never looked at it again…’
Surely the book was the key to understanding the cryptic message? A book that as an English teacher she knew said more than she could in that moment?
As you say, easily (and understandably) interpreted as insensitive and unhelpful to a 17 year old, but maybe also a compliment to what she recognised was a depth and emerging love of literature in you.
Would love to know what the book was that she seemed appropriate at that moment.
“Did the book have a tree on the cover? Do you remember the title?”…
Something by t s eliot?
Nicole,
I heard this letter on TAL this morning. This is breathtaking writing. I am so deeply sorry that this piece needed to be written, but so profoundly grateful that writing gave you a space to turn this over in your hands and examine it from every aspect, and then gather all of the boulders and shards and hard to grasp wisps of the experience into this perfect essay. Your gifts are extraordinary and I will seek other pieces of your work. I have one observation for your fortunate students. You all are in the company of someone who is both flesh and bone grounded and deeply mystical. My advice? Listen, read, question, debate, receive feedback, listen some more. Your teacher is a wellspring. My deep thanks to you for this exquisite writing.
So glad that so many decided to search for you and find you here. I’m so moved by the honesty, the vulnerability, the way your pain feels both distant and still simmering. Sharing like this is an act of courage and kindness. Thank you for moving hearts in your steady and potent way. I envy the fortunate students under your care.
Nikki, I too heard this on TAL and was so moved I had to see the original written words. I shared it with my teen daughter who encouraged me to write the story of losing her own father to a fatal gun wound (in his case however it was self-inflicted). We are passionate advocates for sensible gun control so thank you for your courage in sharing your story.
really moving story reminded me of a tragedy from when i was in highschool. the note probably had something to do with the book she gave you.
What a stunning piece of writing Nicole. Listening first, then reading, your use of language was gripping in a way that it manages only in its highest realization of purpose, and reminded me so much of Norman Maclean writing about the death of his brother in A River Runs Through It. Both narratives have such a powerful mystical quality struggling to grasp, express and contain the incomprehensible. Every word has infinite depth in the same way the emotional wreckage exceeds the possibility of ameliorating understanding.
Maclean is “haunted by the waters” just as you are haunted by the “circle” as used by Alice in her diagonal note.
A great, introspective response. Such a profound story.
Wow, just wow. I tuned in to WAMU mid-story today and it stopped me in my tracks. I am so sorry for all that your family has been through. Unthinkable. But I also really hope I can find more that you’ve written. You are so incredibly talented.
Dear Nicole, like others I heard your letter on TAL today. I see this was published now more than 7 years ago and hope us commenting so late is not upsetting.
I cannot imagine the heartbreak you have been going through as a young adolescent and since and just want to share your writing is captivating even for such a horrible experience.
Your students are fortunate having you as teacher; sending you good vibes from afar.
Nicole, I just heard you on This American Life. As I often do, I didn’t pay close attention at first until about the middle, then it grabbed me and hard. I had to find your written piece in order to capture all the details I had missed in my inattention. It brought me to tears by making me experience your conflicting feelings and unanswered questions.
I am here for the same reason. I turned the radio on about halfway through, and had to find the rest. This was a beautiful letter, and I hope Nicole knows it helps others find some peace in grief.
Dear Nicole,
Me too; I heard the beginning of the story on This American Life but arrived home before it was finished. I’m so sorry this happened, and I hope “mom, sister, & brother” were (are) able to move on. I like the way the paragraphs are numbered. Thank you for sharing!
Shannon – Avon, IN
The same here, Mark. I turned on the car at 17. I had to look uo the essay as soon as I got home.
This is remarkable, Nicole, and I hope you know that your words have been heard and seen.
Same here, I listen to it on a bike ride. So profound. I shared it with inmates that I mentor here in KY.
Nicole–I stumbled upon your story just the other day. Captured by your words, I have read it three times and each time I’ve been taken back to an effervescent young girl in catcher’s gear. I think of you and your parents often first with a smile and then with a shake of my head. Wishing you well.
Terri,
Thank you for your response. It means a lot that you took the time to read and reach out.
Best,
Nicole Piasecki
Out on a bike ride yesterday, I listened to your detailed story of being a future writer via your heartbreaking story of loss. I was enthralled, saddened, and in awe of the picture you painted. This may sound strange, but
I will forward it to a couple inmates I mentor that are accomplished professional writers. I am so sorry that your family endured (endures) this pain. I am just amazed at how your story lead to something I never saw coming. (I mentor inmates through a group called The Prisoner’s Hope and my own Facebook group REimagine Justice). Peace.
Your father was a guiding light in my life. He made me believe in myself and gave me the push I needed to go to college. He made me see things in a new way. He took some of us seniors of the Breckenridge Class of 1985 to Washington DC. It was a new and exciting world but he made us look at the darker side, the homeless people on the streets. It was a look at a very different world than the one we were living in. I grieve for you and your brother still today and always will. I am so happy that you have found your way in life.
I have a couple of very old, very faded photos of that trip if you would like them. Just let me know and I will email them to you
Sue,
Thank you for sharing this! I think about stories from that D.C. trip regularly. My brother (age 9) went with you all and I stayed home. You guys told my brother you’d give him a penny for every truck he counted on the road between Breckenridge, MI and Washington D.C. Luckily, he didn’t collect. 🙂
I’d love to have any picture you are willing to share.
Best,
Nicole
email me at suetemplemomof4@gmail.com and I will send them to you
I remember so well the day this happened. I lived in Chelsea and my kids went to high school with Nicole.
Horrible incident. Mr. and Mrs. Leith were 2 of my kids favorite teachers. I’ll never forget it.
Karyn,
Thanks for reading and responding.
Nicole
Many thanks for posting this. Bizarrely (is it bizarre?) I still can’t bring myself to talk much about this subject. The human story is a tragedy.
I’ve been thinking about this comment for awhile now. We all talk when we are ready. It took me 20 years.
Thanks for reading and responding.
Nicole
I’m so shocked. Thank you so much for sharing this. <3
This is brilliant, shocking and heartbreaking.
Stunning. Heart wrenching. Beautiful. I’ve spent a lot of time sorting out painful, senseless stuff. And I cannot express how grateful I am that you didn’t tie this piece up in neat and phony bow. At the same time, I wish you peace and healing. You already know that that this is a process. Your students are so lucky to have you as a teacher.
Thanks, Jake! I appreciate your response.
Incredible
? no words. You are so strong.
This is so absolutely well written. One of the most difficult yet, deserving of all the years you have invested into writing. We who are writers discern, digest and write at our own pace. May your heart have found some peace.
The statement: Maybe We Can Make a Circle. That sticks out in my mind.
There is a pond and I stand at the edge. In my hand is a stone. My anger makes me throw that stone as far as I can. When the stone crashes through the thin skin of water, it creates a circle; which is joined by an overlapping circle and onward into infinity.
There comes a time for everyone when we must release our barrier (be it anger or something else) to the world around us. Doing so opens us to others and we become enriched.
Nicole, I think of this as a koan. You most definitely have reached out and touched my soul. May the chanting of my soul reach out and embrace you with peace.
Thank you for your incredibly thoughtful response, Nigai.
Kindly,
Nicole
my word – a breathtakingly articulate account of an imaginable horror. I am moved by your account as indeed I should be. this sentence struck me hard “Maybe we can make a circle someday,” it said.
I’ve been wanting to ask you for years: What does that mean?’
and I felt the inadequacy of the response to you. And it also made me recall these words from Rumi :
Be helpless, dumbfounded,
Unable to say yes or no.
Then a stretcher will come from grace
to gather us up.
We are too dull-eyed to see that beauty.
If we say we can, we’re lying.
If we say No, we don’t see it,
That No will behead us
And shut tight our window onto spirit.
So let us rather not be sure of anything,
Beside ourselves, and only that, so
Miraculous beings come running to help.
Crazed, lying in a zero circle, mute,
We shall be saying finally,
With tremendous eloquence, Lead us.
When we have totally surrendered to that beauty,
We shall be a mighty kindness.
(Rumi, 13th century Persian poet and mystic)
You were privileged to have a father of stature and love, and it is an immense loss to bear his sudden , grim departure so young. I send my truest good wishes to you. Writing has helped me to live well – other peoples writing I mean, in the shape of Shakespeare, W.B.Yeats, W. Golding, Montaigne, Atwood – countless others. They inform how to look at the world differently, and shape the people we ourselves become.
Thanks for reading and responding, Anne.
Nicole, Your writing style is intense and unique in its ability to stay in the present moment as you recount your personal feelings and reactions to such a profoundly painful loss without clouding your rendition of your experience with judgement or any wisdom you may have eventually found in the process of dealing with such a harsh and sudden catastrophic loss, which hopefully you have found. But you ability to take anyone reading your story into your consciousness at that moment is very powerful, emotionally compelling and totally captivating in my opinion because I get the feeling that I’m there with you as you are responding to the insanity of violence to someone you love with all your heart, you are sharing raw emotions, your confusion, your pain, minute to minute without a hint that you know where it will go – which of course you do now looking back – but you don’t telescope it in your rendition of those awful, painful times. Some of the most compelling writing I’ve ever read.
Thank you, Richard!
I’m also a writer, didn’t write anything on net though as i never tried to, and i can say we writers feel it too much than others and i know it’s impossible to get a way out of it.You are a fabulous writer and I’ll love to learn something from you. and sorry for what happened with you.
Thank you, Shubham.
Such an incredible and heartbreaking story. It is fantastically written, powerful and emotive.
Thank you for taking the time to read and respond, Sarah.
Kindly,
Nicole
Wow. I’m so sorry about your dad, and I wish you could have had answers to all those questions you couldn’t quite ask. I hope writing this brings some sort of peace. I live in Michigan, and when I was a kid I lived 3 blocks from Adrian College. Coincidence I know, but it made me feel this piece was personal, to me, for some reason. Regardless, hugs. I know you’ll get (have gotten already) a ton of comments. Know that I won’t forget your story.
Thanks, Dawn, for your personal response. I have such great memories of my four years in Adrian. It was the best college experience I could have asked for.
Take Care,
Nicole
WordPress suggested this reading to me – and I loved it.
Not only is this a difficult personal story, it is an incredible illustration of the way complex experiences affect us. For years, for lifetimes, sometimes we need to turn the themes over and over and over again before we can process and understand what happened, or to discover whether there was something valuable locked inside the difficulty.
Thank you or sharing. Just beautiful writing.
Thanks, Andrea.
Very eloquent writing Nikki
Thanks for reading, Linda. It means a lot. I know you have your own stories to tell about this day.
Oh Nikki, I am still crying about that day. I was your Mom’s roommate at CMU and your Dad was at our duplex many hours. He was such a good man, and I have never forgotten his sense of humor, sly smile when he knew he had fooled us with his latest story, and the love he felt for his family. I was sitting in our family room that day and opening up our mail. The TV was on and I was reading the Christmas card from your family when it came on about the shooting at Chelsea High School. I had never felt such shock and sorrow then or since when I saw Joe’s picture on the TV screen. My heart aches so much for you, your Mom, and Brian. You are a wonderful writer and a wonderful daughter. No one at any age should have to go through what you and your family endured. Sending my love to you.
Thank you for reading and responding to my essay and sharing these memories, RuthAnn. It means a lot to me.
When I read this piece during the copy-edit process I GASPED out loud. I read so many works each month, and still this one stopped me cold. I still can’t find the words to adequately express how moved I was by your work. This is the kind of story that has created something seminal at such an agonizing price. Congratulations on your work, Nicole, and I’m so happy that it is in HM.
Pamela,
I really appreciate your comments here. Thanks for your encouragement and kindness. I love HM and am honored to be published here. It’s a relief to have this story out in the world after many years of writing and revising.
-N
Nicole, this is beautifully written and takes me back to that terrible December day. I taught first grade with your mom after this horrible event and watched her put her life back together. I never had the privilege of meeting your dad but heard wonderful stories about him and your family. He would be so proud of all of you!
Thank you, Dianne!
Nikki,
So powerful, I hope that finally writing this letter will bring you a bit more peace. What you and your family experienced was and is beyond our understanding. I often think of all of you. It is nice to hear you are teaching. I wish you well.
Hi Cathy,
Thanks for reading and responding! It’s nice to hear from you.
-N
Excellent job, Nikki. I loved working for your dad. He loved his family, his Polish Heritage, and the Chelsea community. He talked about how he had to “discipline” Madonna while both were at Rochester Adams. He drove to Hamtramck for every Fat Tuesday to buy Packzkis for the faculty. He is the only superintendent who would stop by the faculty dining room to eat with the teachers once in a while. We loved shooting the bull with him. A day doesn’t go by when I don’t think of that terrible afternoon.
Thanks for sharing these memories and taking the time to read and respond to my story, Lonnie. It means a lot to me.
-N
Hi Nikki. been a long time. Good to see you are teaching and doing something you love. Very powerful piece of work. Let me into some things I didn’t know about that day. I hope you are doing well
Thanks, Mike!
You are so welcome. You look about the same. I hope your mom and brother are doing well. I’ve only been back to Chelsea 2 or 3 times since Charlie passed.
This is an impressive piece of writing under any circumstance. Knowing that you truly lived it makes it immeasurably more touching and worthy of praise. I know your parents deserve the highest regard for the way they raised you. I hope to read you in the future.
Thank you, Rebecca.
All I can say is thank you for sharing and letting us see from your eyes i could never imagine what you went thru you are a strong and remarkable woman that your dad is truly proud of
Thanks, Rachel.
Nikki,
Truly amazing that you would write this letter now. Carey and you were awesome patients at MedSport. I remember your dad providing the support only a dad can provide after your surgery and during your rehabilitation. Thank you for sharing. I admire your strength.
Hi Shane-
Thanks so much for reading and responding. Your message was a very nice surprise. I would love to connect with you on social media.
-N
Nikki,
I am truly at a loss for words. Matt & I were both in tears tonight in memory of this horrific tragedy and your personal journey. Thank you for sharing, we are greatful. These memories take on a new meaning for us today as Matt is now a superintendent in a small town & our children walk in those shoes.
Hi Laura,
Thank you for taking the time to read and comment. I smiled when I read that Matt is a superintendent in a small district. I know how difficult that job must be, but also how rewarding. Best wishes to all of you!
-N
Nikki,
Thank you for sharing this intimate part of yourself as you help us all remember the personal tragedy of this awful day. My heart still aches for your family’s loss. Your dad was a kind, honest, and excellent leader, and I have always appreciated his support and care as my boss. His impact on all of us is still felt in the Chelsea School District!
Thanks for sharing this, Steve. It means a lot to me to hear from people who knew my dad in professional contexts and admired his leadership.
Thank you for having the courage to share this, Nicole. I walk the old CHS campus often, and I always say a prayer for your dad. There’s a reason this letter was so many years in the making.
Thanks, Stacey.
Thank you for sharing this piece of yourself, Nikki. I still think about the time that we crossed paths at the Auraria Campus and the pain that was still in your eyes.
Thanks for reading and responding, Scott.
Nikki,
I think we have all been waiting to hear this from you. In some ways, you’re asking & answering some of our questions as well. You’re an inspiration to be able to get this out so beautifully & strong. Thank you.
Hi Leslie–
Thank you for this comment. It helps me remember that this story belongs to all of us. I am glad to know that this telling of my experience has helped others. I needed to tell it, but I didn’t know how many people would read it. Thank you.
-N
Nikki,
I think we have all been waiting to hear this from you. In some ways, you’re asking & answering some of our questions as well. You’re an inspiration to be able to get this out so strong & beautifully. Thank you.
Powerful. I just can’t imagine the heart ache. Very well done, Nicole.
Thanks, Joe!
Wow. This is an amazing and heartbreakingly poetic piece of writing. I didn’t know you well, Nikki, I was a year behind you and we had mutual friends. But Alice was my favorite high school teacher too, and I was not doing well in Mr Leith’s chemistry class that year either. I had heard she called someone that day but I had no idea. I don’t know what to say.
Thank you for reaching out, Angela.
Beautifully written Nikki. It was such a horrific tragedy for you, your family and our community. My heart was so sad for you and Brian and your family. Thank you for sharing.
Thanks for reading and responding, Nona. It’s nice to hear from you.
Beautifully written. Thank you for sharing.
Thanks, Amy.
All I can say is WOW!!! This is so beautifully written and took me right back to the day it happened! I had just graduated 6 months before this. Your dad was an amazing man & I still think of him often. You are an inspiration to all of us Nikki and I know your dad is smiling down on you!!!! ❤️
Thank you, Kelly.
It is a day that none of us will ever forget. My heart still aches for you.
Thanks for reading and commenting, Don.
I remember that day, I was in middle school. I had Mr. Jones in high school who spoke about this to our class, he spoke very highly of your dad and had only kind things to say about him.
Thank for reading, Colette.
Nikki,
I, too, tracked this down after hearing it read on TAL. Thirty years later, and your story is still moving to read about, and beautifully written.
Oh my God. My heart is in my throat.
Thanks for reading, Sandy! Can’t wait to read more of your work this year!