Makyi’s funeral was today, and …
Nah, I can’t. Tomorrow, maybe, or maybe not at all.
Go hug somebody, y’all. I don’t even care who.
On hope, ctd.
You may– I suspect it’s unlikely, but you may– recall this August 2021 post about Makyi Toliver, a former student of mine and one I was quite fond of, who had been sentenced to 45 years in prison for felony murder. I don’t know if you know what felony murder is, but it’s a wildly unjust fucking crime. Makyi and a sixteen-year-old friend attempted to steal a gun from a third person, a bungled theft that led to the gun’s owner killing his friend and shooting Makyi at least eight times. This, somehow, led to Makyi being convicted of murder. 45 years. At 20.
I’ve corresponded with Makyi a couple of times– not enough, to tell the truth– since he’s been locked up. Yesterday morning I checked my messages and noticed that his account was marked as inactive. I didn’t initially think much of it; maybe he’d been transferred or the prison was changing providers or something.
At 8:00 yesterday evening I got a text message from another teacher who had also had him in her classes. Makyi was dead. As far as we know right now, he died from suicide. Why “as far as we know”? The jail and the coroner are refusing to give his mother any information, which means we’re relying on– wait for it– rumors and secondhand information from other former students at Parchman.
Makyi was a good kid. He was a good kid and he had an immense amount of potential and he didn’t fucking deserve any of this.
I hate it here, and I’m not okay.
Summertime has arrived
Okay, not really, there are still four days of school left— but the first Big Projekt of the summer has been accomplished. My wife decided that she hated how the porch looked (sadly, I lack a before picture at the moment, but I’ll see what I can find) so she spent the week stripping, etching, washing and repainting the floor out here, and I spent yesterday putting furniture together, and I’m pretty damn pleased with the results.
Four more days. Just four more. We can do this.
I slept for 20 hours yesterday
I have a cold, and I don’t like it one bit.
I’m back (also, I left)
I actually missed a day of iLEARN on Friday, as my wife’s aunt passed away; funerals are genuinely just about the only reason I can see myself taking a standardized testing day (especially a math standardized testing day) off, and, well, it happened. Yesterday and today I was in Chicago at my nephew’s birthday party. I have discovered something about my brother that has changed since he married his wife: if he describes something as a party, I am to take that shit seriously, and assume that it’s not going to be six family members I’ve already met. It’s gonna be twenty people and a bunch of kids and since I officiated his wedding they’re all gonna come up to me and go hey, nice to see you again, how have you been? and because I’m a social coward I’m not going to look any of these epos in the eye and dare them to produce my name.
(Everyone was perfectly nice, to be clear; her family is great, as far as I can tell; my brother married very well. That said I was not prepared for a ton of loud noise and adult mingling.)
Anyway, the point is my ass is tired, and on top of all this there’s some other shit going on where either I am a colossal idiot or my doctors have been seriously misleading me. All of this has eaten up all available headspace that I’ve got at the moment, and I still need to put lesson plans together for tomorrow, and after that I’m going to bed. My own bed. Granted, hearing the phrase “We’ve upgraded you to the presidential suite” Saturday night was pretty cool, but not cool enough that I took any pictures, and my bed is always better than a hotel bed.
So, yeah. I’m home. And I’m tired. How’re you? Anyone want to recommend any low-carb meals by any chance?
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