Remember that section of Craigslist? Where you can… I don’t know, supposedly find someone who you felt connection to but never actually exchanged numbers with? I remember one night I idly scrolled through the posts, fascinated by the display of humanity.

It reminded me of my coming of age years before cell phones when things like that really happened. You could meet a friend or a crush, and then never have a way to find them again.

I was reminded of it again because of my oldest. Last year, his Spanish teacher was a dear Jamaican granny of a woman whose room was full of empowering posters. She clearly had a passion for teaching and the best interests of her students at heart. Then she abruptly left that November.

I had sent her a note at her school email address about something and it was unceremoniously returned. That was how I found out she was no longer at the school. It was never clear what happened. It took months of a substitute teacher before a permanent replacement was put in place, and my son lost a huge chunk of instruction his first year taking a second language.

In a similar way, his Honors Chemistry instructor abruptly left this month. She was a tough grader and was, I think, having trouble connecting with the students – my son felt she focused unfairly on small failures. He, on the other hand, handed in incomplete or blank homework more than once and would save his chemistry homework for late at night when no one was willing or able to help him with it.

I was impressed with the way his teacher cared for her students and wanted them to succeed. She was responsive when I emailed her with a tough question at the beginning of the school year. She was specific and engaged when I met her at parent-teacher conferences.

Instead of a long-term sub, a new permanent teacher was put in place immediately. The change seemed to be planned in advance.

So this kind woman, who had a thankless job with a bunch of ungrateful high school boys, is without a job at Christmas time. Maybe she feels relieved. Maybe it’s mixed with a pain and regret.

Both teachers I mention were accomplished ladies with PhDs. Was there something toxic about my son’s school that caused them to be pushed away? Did they just not mesh with the school culture?

Why is this getting under my skin?

When I was in high school, there was once a substitute in our science class. She was short, round, and homely, and my classmates scheduled book drops and pen drops, made noise and disrespected her until she cried.

I didn’t participate, but I sat there, full of shame, and didn’t speak up.

My son told me when the Chemistry teacher announced she was leaving, some of her students got up and left the room to cheer in the hallway.

What a horrible way to behave towards another human being.

I’m feeling pretty raw right now. I don’t know what I imagined when I came back from my trip, but I’ve felt vulnerable, isolated, unsure who I can talk to, and very, very alone.

I think those two things – my memory of the horrid treatment of my own high school sub, and my own feelings of isolation and vulnerability, are probably why hearing about my son’s teacher has me feeling so upset.

And to get back to the missed connections, what I would really like to do is send her an email to thank her for the time she spent teaching my son, and to tell her I was sorry to hear she was leaving.

I know if I did that, it would just come back Return To Sender.

I’ve been around long enough to know we don’t always get the closure we want. That doesn’t make me want it any less. I want to know that Chemistry teacher has a new, better job lined up, or was ready to retire, and has a supportive husband and family looking out for her this season. But maybe that’s just so I’ll feel better about how it ended.

I want some assurance, sometimes, that it matters what I write on this blog and that there are people who care enough to really read it, not just scan my posts for the pictures or just idly scroll through in case there’s something that interests them.

Maybe to you, psychedelics are unambiguously sinful, rather than plant medicine God has provided for our healing. I want people to keep reading after they see the word psychedelics, even if it makes their hair stand on end.

But none of that is in my control. So I’m learning a new version of dying to self. Because really, dying to self means you can’t have what you want.

I can’t have closure from my kid’s former teachers. I can’t make you like me.

There isn’t a section of Craigslist for that.

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Ms. Clairmont, lady scientist with a bold orange pantsuit and a passion for teaching unwilling boys science? I saw and respected your efforts, and I’m sorry it didn’t work out. When my kid does well on the unit conversions section of the Chem Regents at the end of the year, we’ll have you to thank.

Dr. Chang, passionate and kind, you had a special heart for my son. He told me you reminded him of his Tobago granny. I don’t know why you left his school, but I wanted to tell you that my girls enjoyed your Hispanic Night and I admired you for the way you got my son to participate, and for how you cared for him and wanted him to do well.