Today, I experienced my first fire drill of the school year.
It just so happened to also be the first fire drill of my students’ lives.
They are 2.
What do you expect?
And so, as the alarm blared across the halls and trilled in our little ears,
and I tried, frantically, to put little coats on little bodies,
and I grabbed little hands
and offered little words of encouragement and calm,
I couldn’t help but to remember my own very first fire drill.
It was September.
It was first grade.
My teacher told us that we would be having our first fire drill that afternoon.
She warned us that it would be loud and a little chaotic, but that we would be fine.
A pit formed in my stomach, immediately.
I was terrified.
I was scared of the impending loud noise.
I was afraid that I would be lost in the shuffle.
So, like every good, precocious 6 year old, I decided I only had one option;
I had to lie.
I gathered my classmates, and my teacher, around me, as I spun quite a yarn.
I told them that I was frightened of the upcoming fire drill because of a traumatic event in my recent past (I don’t think I used those words exactly, but I can’t be sure.)
I explained how at my old school,
in the previous year,
there had been a terrible fire.
I got stuck in the school building and had to jump out the window into the arms of a fire fighter.
I told my class that I was rescued from a burning building.
They believed me.
(Who knows; some of them may still think this is true! Oh, baby Rebecca.)
It was then that a little girl with blond hair and aqua eyes came over to me and grabbed my hand.
“It’s okay,” She said. “I’ll stay with you and make sure you are safe.”
That little girl grew to become one of my closest friends,
and someone who is still in my life today.
That little girl also grew up to become a Psychologist.
Go figure.
In any case, that first fire drill came and went, just as the drill did this morning,
and,
fortunately for me,
I have yet to jump out of any more buildings,
nor have I had to tell any more tall-tales.
But that doesn’t mean that I like the loud ringing or the tumult that comes along with such emergency drills or planned evacuations.
I don’t.
They still make me nervous.
But now, I have to be the one to remain calm and to tell my students that
“It will be OK. I will stay with you and make sure you are safe.”
And that makes me feel pretty good,
and maybe even taller than my tales.
But just a little.