The problem solver.

About once or twice a year, this happens.

The feeling of complete helplessness.

I can hardly bear it.

You see, in my student's young minds, I can fix anything. I have mended belt buckles, shoelaces and broken zippers. I have bandaged boo-boos and hugged away scraped knees. I have found proper fitting shoes and warmer coats. There is a stock-pile of mittens in my classroom, just in case.

There are times, it feels, that there is no problem I can't solve to make lives of these tiny people just a little more simple.

But today my heart was broken. Because I couldn't fix it.

As a looked at this little guy, so jammed up in communication because he is clearly developmentally delayed, I could see that he was simply miserable. His tooth was literally rotting out of his mouth. I examined it, to find half the tooth gone, and the rest graying and rotten.

There are a lot of things I don't have control over, but he doesn't know that. I can't control the long process it takes to get him into special ed. I can't control his family's choices on how to raise him. I can't control that he was born with a syndrome that will constantly complicate his life.

But these things, he can't grasp.

He can grasp that he is in pain. And I am telling him "no". I can't give him Tylenol. It's not legal. "no". I can't take him to the dentist myself, it's not within proper boundaries. "no." I can't make mom care that he is in pain.

But he doesn't even have the words to tell me. He just looks at me with eyes giant and welled up. Hand on his cheek. "I want it to go away."

I looked at him and said,

"I can give you a hug."

and he got up, and literally crawled into my lap. And I rocked him. I rocked him for a half hour, while his eyes drooped, and his heartbeat calmed. Knowing full well that nobody has ever given him a gentle, kind touch at home. No one has been patient with his obvious delays in communication.

As I walked him to his bus that afternoon, my throat jammed up. I wanted to promise him that somebody would take him to the dentist this weekend. I wanted to say, "Of course mama doesn't want you in pain." But I couldn't make that promise.

I was completely helpless.