Mateo's Story

He didn't start out my favorite. I remember I even tried to keep him out of my classroom. But he knew he was supposed to be there. It was the first day of school, and I was greeting kids at my door. He came in, I asked him his name, and he said Mateo*. I said "I don't think I have that name on my list." But he knew. He came in and sat down down at the desk that was labeled something else. Mateo was his nickname.

He became my favorite after three weeks. He was an adorable brown-skinned boy with curly brown hair who always followed directions. He lined up quietly, worked as a team, and helped the boy next to him who was on an IEP. Mateo was brilliant. He wrote great stories, already knew his multiplication facts, and was in the highest reading group. When we started watching for TAG kids in October, I kept my eye on him.

One of my favorite things that he would do is whisper answers or revelations to me, like it should be kept a secret. I remember reading Matilda out loud to my class. Like the academically interested kid that he was, he checked out a copy from the library and would follow along with me while I read. One day he whispered to me "Ms. Grossen, I think Matilda is magic." He never got to hear the end of the story.

In January last year the school that I work at was put into Code 3 lock down, which is the most extreme case. Prior to this, Mateo was taken out of my classroom two different times by the office. The principal buzzed into my class to ask me if I had an emergency closure form for him. I didn't. I kept teaching, and then later that morning we were put into lock down. My kids were freaking out, but I told them we would be okay. We shut the doors and wouldn't let anybody out. By one o'clock we were cleared to move around inside the school, so kids could finally get lunch. All of the outside portable classes had been moved inside the building, so the library was a mad house with all the extra students eating on the floor. We had indoor recess.

All of this and no one told us what was happening. By 2:30 everything was clear, though Mateo was still in and out of my classroom, talking to people I had never seen before. At three I said good bye to my students, but Mateo was still at the office with his younger sister. His mom and baby brother had shown up. I stayed at school until 5, and the family left shortly before I did.

He didn't come to school the next day. I quizzed everybody I knew, and after some searching found out what had happened. Mateo and his siblings had been removed from their home because it was the location of drug and homicidal crimes. He, his siblings, and his mother had all been put into a protective shelter while his father was under investigation for murder.

According to the news articles I read, his father had murdered him at Mateo's home, and then had done gruesome things to try to get rid of the body. The police asked the school what the children's attendance was like, to determine if they had been home at the time of the murder. They hadn't missed any days for a week, but that does not mean all was well. My uncle does drug investigations in the area, and so I called him to see if he knew anything the news wasn't releasing. He was working directly with the case.

My heart started to break. Even though the children had not been home at the time of the murder, my uncle said there was no way they didn't see things. The body was there for at least one night, with blood on the floor of the house and terrible noises occurring at night.

This is the part where a teacher asks herself “how could I?” How could I not know that this child was living at a drug house? How could I not see any clues? How could I assume that just because he was brilliant, that meant he was living in a safe home? How could I think that just because he was polite and calm, that meant he had a good upbringing? I am a mandatory reporter and I had failed to see any clues. The fact that he was so protective over his little sister should have been a clue. The fact that he was trying so hard to please his teacher should have been a clue. I thought to myself, “how different would it have been for him if I had known? If I had done something to remove him from this before tragedy occurred?” But I had no idea. I had met his mother at fall conferences and she was super nice and interested in what he was doing at school. I had never met his father, and Mateo never really mentioned him, but I didn’t think that much of it. I hadn’t met a lot of my kids’ fathers.

And now he was gone. I prayed every day that he would come to school, though I couldn’t fathom how he could. How could you go to school when your house has been taped off as a crime scene? How could you show your face in school when your father has just been accused of murder? In fact, the morning after the incident, I went to the principal and the counselor and asked them “What am I supposed to tell my students when they ask about Mateo?” Because granted, kids don’t really watch the news that much, but some of their parents do, and parents talk. Their response? “It probably won’t come up. Students don’t usually know other kids’ last names or their parents’ names.” Awesome. So helpful.

I had really bad cold that week, and the next Monday I wanted to call in a sub. I couldn’t though, because I thought “What if Mateo comes to school today and I’m not there? I haven’t been absent all year, so how would it be for him to come to school after all this has happened to him, and his teacher who cares about him is not there?” So I went. Mateo wasn’t there. The kids asked me where he was, and I told them that he was moving to California, because that’s what the office had told me. The kids asked me if we should clean out his desk. I said no. I wouldn’t let them. They wanted to peel his name sticker off the check-in board, as we had done with previous students who had moved. I left it there. I didn’t want him to be gone.

Finally, about a week and a half later, the office e-mailed me to tell me that Mateo and his sister were coming after school the next day to say goodbye to their teachers and get their stuff. I put Mateo’s things in a plastic bag, and went to Border’s to go buy a book for him. Maniac Magee, by Jerry Spinelli. His reading group had started it without him, and it was one of my favorite books. The main character was brave. I put together a package for him with the book, a letter I wrote, and three addressed and stamped envelopes. I told him that if he could, I wanted him to write to me in a few months and let me know how things were going in California at his new school.

Mateo came the next day after school. I smiled so big when I saw him. There wasn’t much I could say. I gave him a hug and his stuff and explained that I had a present for him. He didn’t say much, and I could tell he was about to cry like I was. After he left, I did. I slumped down under my desk and bawled my eyes out, because there was nothing more I could do. I would have taken his mother and all his siblings home with me if I could have. I would have kept him forever.

I kept on teaching through the weeks, and never once did the principal or any one at school ask me how I was doing. I guess they didn’t think I could be affected. Kids move in and out of classrooms all the time. Nobody seemed to get that the suspected murderer on the news was the father of my student. My kid. He was partly my responsibility, and now he was gone. I missed the clues. I had assumed false things about his home life.

I kept on teaching. I had to remember what I had heard once. Teachers can’t give kids everything they need. But teachers give everything that they have to give. I might not have spared Mateo from tragedy, but I at least provided him with a safe place at school. He knew I cared about him. He knew he could trust me. I gave him everything I had to give.

I never received a letter from Mateo. But that doesn’t mean it’s not still coming. I haven’t given up hope on him. I pray nobody does.


*name has been changed.

For a related blog, read The Hardest Letter I Ever Had to Write